Self pack of full pack?

[Vishenka69]

DH strongly advocates for full pack, I'm leaning toward self pack (being OCD and all). I'm not concerned about the cost (which we'll be reimbursed for) or charging on our cards. I'm wondering how many of you would do the full/self pack again. We're definitely getting professional movers to cart stuff out of here, this is just about who packs the boxes. I'll be taking the cat, alcohol, valuables and documents out of the apt prior to the move (storing at my parents').

I don't know why this is such a hard decision to make since most of our stuff isn't all that expensive. May be because DH has this brilliant plan of going to hang out in Central Park while everything is being packed and then showing up a few days later in the new place.

I fully intended to self-pack but reality is a bitch and at the last minute I had to pay for full pack. They also loaded the ABF trailer we rented.

We wouldn't have gotten out of the house on-time otherwise.

The problem I had was that the movers didn't do a great job packing the truck. It was the end of the day and they got tired/lazy. I should have been more assertive. Also, a pair of earrings disappeared in the move. Whether they were responsible or I misplaced them I will never know. That was my fault too. I should have had that packed up in my personal stuff sooner (which I thought for sure that I did and is what makes me think something else happened. :huh: ).

[samssugarmomma]

My first thought is that I hate moving and if I had the choice, I would gladly pay to have someone box up, move, and unpack my stuff. But, being that I am a total control freak, over the years, I have developed a system of packing our stuff, numbering the boxes, and having a master list that lists all of the items in each box. Not too detailed, but more detailed than "kitchen stuff" or "bedroom stuff".

The inventory list has proved invaluable as we always seem to be in a hurry to unpack and get settled because we start work in 2 days or something...

[SuzySunshine]

If you self pack and then something is broken YOU are stuck replacing it or your homeowners insurance is. If they pack and they break it - THEY replace it.

We lived in a one bedroom, one bathroom + office house in CA and we had a lot of crap including china, crystal, etc. They packed our entire place in about 3 hours, nothing was broken when we opened boxes - I think they're more careful when they pack.


As far as valuables (jewelry) you could always pack those in your luggage that you're taking with you and then you know where they're at and there isn't a chance that they'll walk away. I recommend grouping things you want packed together as well. I don't know how, but a pair of my good sewing scizzors was missing for months - I finally found them in a totally unrelated area. I have no idea why they got packed there instead of with my other sewing stuff.

Good luck!

ITA Cheri. And we did end up getting some money (not much) for the scratches caused by poorly packing the truck. (my advice, avoid that in the first place! Hence the movingscam.com recommendation).

And I agree about the jewelry. I wish I had done that a day or two sooner because I would have remembered better where I put it.

We still did a number the boxes sort of thing with them packing. I was there the whole time and wrote what went into the boxes.

[Vanquisher]

We packed and moved ourselves (with us in our car) everything highly valuable. We packed Chad's diploma and other important documents with us, for example.

I will never pack myself again. SUre they packed crap in weird places, and not everything made sense, but they did it in a half a day. It would have taken me WEEKS!

[Auspicious]

We did self pack and it was some work, but it went fine. I was excited to move and kind of glad to do it. I started packing up books etc. weeks ahead of time.

Our deal was that if the box was mashed or damaged and contents were broken, then that was their responsibility for mishandling the box, but if the box was intact and the interior contents were broken, then that was insufficient stuffing and was our responsibility. Nothing was damaged except a couple of jewel cases for CDs that were clearly my fault.

I would consider full pack if we had a lot of money, maybe if we had little kids underfoot, if we had insufficient time to prepare to move . . . stuff like that. There's definitely times I'd consider full-pack, but I think we definitely made the right choice with self-pack for our last move.

ETA: I just reread your original post and saw you're being reimbursed for the cost. I'd probably do the full pack.

[houseelf]

I don't know, I think that you should do it all yourselves, the packing, the loading, the driving, the unloading, etc. You know, just for a fun way to end residency.

Oh wait, I'm the only moron who would try to save a buck doing this.

Kelly

If it's being paid for, have them pack. You can't just wander off to Central Park though. Someone has to be around. It took our movers 2 days to pack up all of our stuff.

If I had to pay for it (and I hope I never do), I would do the self-pack. I found the "organization" of items / combination of stuff to be frustrating, and would have been steaming if I'd paid for that.

[Deebs]

We've done it both ways. When DH had a "real" job, they paid for a full relocation. Things did get broken (and somehow, a bed got lost), but we got a nice sized check to replace it all. Most of it was cheapo Ikea-type furniture that we fully expected would break, and it was nice to get money to replace it. The bed was replaced with an even nicer bed, and we argued with the company so that we would be put up in a hotel until the new bed arrived.

Between med school and residency, we were broke (sound familiar?). Also, while I worked up until the day we moved, DH had almost 3 weeks off between graduation and our move, and should have had plenty of time to pack. It was a nightmare. DH played his videogames for those couple of weeks, so we spent hours packing on the day of our move, ended up needing an extra truck (just a small inconvenience ), and generally had a terrible move.

For this move, we made sure moving expenses were part of DH's contract. Just got an estimate today from the moving company, and it will be for less than our reimbursement limit. So, it will be a full service move.

So, I guess this is all a long way of saying, it definitely depends on your personality and finances. It's a great option to have all of your stuff insured because it's been professionally packed - much easier to deal with than homeowner's insurance. But, even as bad as our move after med school was, there was no way we could have afforded professional movers.

[DCJenn]

OK- as you all know, the military packs us. and as you all know, being a packer isn't the worlds most difficult job so you don't need to be the sharpest tack in the box.

I would still have the packers pack- but I would definitely keep an eye on them (except that this last time I was dealing with the DC Flood of '06). A piece of marble was broken because of the guys who packed the storage unit- they didn't wrap it very well and it smashed.

It's certainly annoying to unpack the box with the coffee maker bottom but not find the carafe for a six months. (we bought a new one)

I'd still do it though.

Jenn

PS- good plan about removing the cat...

[Vishenka69]

I don't know, I think that you should do it all yourselves, the packing, the loading, the driving, the unloading, etc. You know, just for a fun way to end residency.

Oh wait, I'm the only moron who would try to save a buck doing this.

Kelly

And

PS- good plan about removing the cat...

had me I think the cat story is what still terrifies me of the full pack. If we didn't get reimbursed, this wouldn't be a question. I definitely have my own system for packing at this point and really don't mind doing it. I'm also planning on taking all the valuable and the cat to my parents the day before just in case. The estimate we got for full pack is way under the amount we can get back (and I made sure all estimates included insurance, plus we have renter's).

You guys are very convincing.

[Flynn]

When we accepted our "first real job" they took care of everything with regard to moving -- including moving our cars and paying for plane tickets.

It worked out really well actually -- and we didn't have a "stipend" to deal with like some of our friends got stuck with (with new jobs). That gets messy for tax time and if they don't give you enough it's a BEAR usually to get more.

I agree with Jenn though -- the movers are NOT the brightest bulbs on the tree. I checked in frequently to make sure things were going okay.

[ides]

If it's being paid for, I'd do the full pack. We have never done full pack due to the expense. I have mastered the self pack however. Before moving for residency I began packing two months in advance. By the time moving came around I had everything packed, labeled and moved into one room. Having someone else pack and be liable for the contents sounds like a dream though. I agree that you should pack anything of real value including your cat (in their carrier not a box) and take them with you in your car.

I never thought twice about it: we did self pack. I would never want to do full pack. True, it took us a month to pack, and we were pulling all-nighters at the end, but that's because we didn't really have a good system down and also b/c we had four years of stuff to go through in terms of keeping stuff and tossing stuff. It took a lot of time, yes, but I don't think it will be as bad next time because now I know to start packing about 6 weeks ahead all the least used items first, and then pack the most used items.

We did have the movers pack two glass tabletops, because they said that the way we packed it (just wrapped in special moving paper and blankets) wasn't good enough and that if they broke it wasn't their problem. So we had them pack the two glass tabletops--they put them in boxes with lots of newspaper. I think they charged something like $60 bucks for each table!!!!!

Only 3 things got broken in the entire half cross-country move: two vases (which we improperly packed) and a shelf in a bookcase.

One thing which really helped us was buying a bunch of proper moving supplies at a local U-Haul facility. We got tons of boxes, special moving tape, special moving blankets and wraps, etc. So I would definitely recommend that.

Everything important came in the car, and the car was filled to the brim. We got a huge cat carrier for the cats, b/c they'd be in the car for 15 hours, so that took up all the seat room in the back seat, giving me half a back seat to sit in for those 15 hours. The computer came with us, as did extremely breakable things and sentimental things, like photo albums and wedding stuff.