How do I move my items across country?

May 10, 2012 10:06 PM

How do I move my items across country? About a dozen boxes plus a chest freezer.

A few years ago I moved from Portland, Oregon to New Hampshire, but left some of my items in storage in Portland while renting my house there. Now I'm putting my house on the market and want to move my stuff east. I had thought about paying my friend to drive the stuff but given the cost of gas and my small quantity of items it doesn't seem worth it. I have about 10 boxes of books and other stuff that could be shipped media mail, a chest freezer, a trombone, a computer which I am keeping for sentimental reasons, and 1-2 bicycles.

Someone suggested shipping it by train on a pallet. I was going to go with mail for sure until I remembered the chest freezer. What are my options?

Thanks!

posted by AdaJoy to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

It's hard to imagine a way to move the chest freezer that would be less expensive than just selling it in Oregon and buying one (used, if necessary, but new might even be feasible) in New Hampshire.

The other non-book items can probably be FedExed. Here is a page on shipping bikes, for example.
posted by kindall at 10:19 PM on May 10, 2012

Best answer: I had thought about paying my friend to drive the stuff but given the cost of gas and my small quantity of items it doesn't seem worth it

You've answered your question: it doesn't seem worth it.

There is a solution, however, and it uses the magic of teleportation as follows:

Sell items in Portland
Purchase items (used) in New Hampshire

especially for the chest freezer.
posted by zippy at 10:36 PM on May 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

For the items you do absolutely want to bring (and nthing the "sell anything you can easily/cheaply replace), you might look at Amtrak freight. It's an option I was looking at when I was considering a cross-country move, and it's pretty cheap.
posted by dotgirl at 11:00 PM on May 10, 2012

you can get a flat rate for boxes as long as they're specific dimensions and under a certain rate - call around. when i did this some years ago, fedex ended up being the best option.

sell the chest freezer, absolutely.
posted by nadawi at 11:13 PM on May 10, 2012

under a certain weight...
posted by nadawi at 11:13 PM on May 10, 2012

Greyhound freight is also an amazingly cheap option. The only challenge is that you must drop the stuff off at a Greyhound depot and pick it up at whatever depot is closest to you. Usually takes 1-3 weeks to get stuff across the country. I shipped a couch that way and it cost me $150 (no joke).
posted by arnicae at 4:43 AM on May 11, 2012

ABF is a good way to ship small to moderate amounts of stuff.

I n'th the chest freezer. Those things are dirt cheap and even if yours is only a couple of years old, a new one will be more energy efficient. Seriously, you can get a chest freezer for about $150. You can't ship one for that.

I'd pay a buddy with the chest freezer to ship the books for me.

Why would a computer have sentimental value?

I moved from California to Florida and kept all my shit in storage for about 2 years. By the time we decided to ship it east I got rid of all but 4 things. If I didn't use it in 2 years, I clearly didn't need it.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:19 AM on May 11, 2012

nthing sell the chest freezer. If it's a kegerator then strip it of the components that make it a kegerator before you sell it and install them into a newly bought, much more efficient, and surprisingly cheap now-a-days chest freezer.

The books could be shipped somehow, I'm no expert but I'd check to be sure that, barring special value/memories/attachment, they couldn't be bought off amazon or ebay for cheaper than they'd ship for. Kindles are a nice investment too, just sayin', I can't wait to get mine.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:01 AM on May 11, 2012

Response by poster: The books can be shipped very cheaply by Media Mail from the USPS (used to be called Library Rate). Also some of them do have special memories.

I took my Mac Classic to the party I threw when I graduated college and had the guests decorate the case with enamel paints.
posted by AdaJoy at 9:03 AM on May 11, 2012

As everyone has said, probably half of your stuff isn't worth moving. A chest freezer? And unless your bikes cost over $250-300 each if you were to rebuy them, then don't bother. Besides, bikes fetch a better price in the secondary market in Portland, OR than anywhere else. If one had the time/capitol, you could make a living buying a Ryder truck full of bikes in LA and reselling them in Portland.

If you can part ways with some of your books then you'll get more money selling them at Powell's in Portland than anywhere else.

Some other things from my experience of moving cross-country a few times in the past decade:

• I recently priced out a POD from Portland to Los Angeles, it'll run about $1100 total, so I imagine it will run even more to the east coast.
• In 2007 I moved from NYC to Portland with ~13 boxes (most were the medium U-Haul boxes), about 3 or 4 of them were Media Mail. I think that ran me $350 in all. The most expensive/heaviest Parcel Post ones were around $35-45.

posted by wcfields at 10:22 AM on May 11, 2012