Cheapest way to move out of state with a car
Moving both household items and a vehicle across the country quickly exhausts a standard $10,000 to $12,000 budget. Container services charge $9,000 or more just for the furniture, leaving the car completely unresolved. Because people want to avoid driving separately, paying for auto shipping on top of the move is what drains their savings.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
Cheapest way to move out of state with a car
- 1Driving the vehicle yourself instead of paying a shipping service.Did this help you?
- 2Using a small moving container like a ReloCube or shipping boxes via ground delivery.Did this help you?
- 3Buying a new mattress at the destination to avoid the cost of moving the old one.Did this help you?
- 4Treating the car shipping and apartment contents as two completely separate logistics tasks.Did this help you?
- 5Comparing the cost of moving large items against selling and replacing them.Did this help you?
- 6Shipping the car separately using a specialized auto transport companyDid this help you?
- 7Renting a 26' Penske truck with a tow hitch and trying to hire a driverDid this help you?
- 8Buying or leasing a 20' or 40' ocean shipping container and selling it at the destinationDid this help you?
- 9Using container services like PODS or U-Pack, or comparing rates with U-HaulDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Hi, we would appreciate some advice on what would be the best way to do a cross country move (2,700 mi). We need to pack a 3br. house with furniture, plants, washer and a small car and be within $10-12k budget.”source ↗
“A quote I got from PODS is $9k for one 16 ft pod or $18k for a 16 and 8 foot pods, and we would still need to figure out what to do with the car.”source ↗
“Driving the car ourselves separately is something we would like to avoid.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4Why is it so expensive to rent a van one way internationally?
- 4How do you plan a first-time long distance move?
- 2How to move out of state by the next business day
- 2How to store belongings between moves with no parking for a pod
- 3How do you stop losing things during a cross-country move?
- 5How to move long distance without a trailer or a month-long wait