22 ms·

Americans are on the move, but their stuff doesn’t always follow

109 points by CaliforniaKarl 5y ago

ramraj07 5y ago
I just want to put out a viable option: ship your stuff via usps. You could probably hire help to pack stuff under your supervision, and get movers you can work with to take them to usps and ship. I’m darn sure it’ll cost less than moving. Also gives you a chance to consolidate!
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  IIRC, the USPS puts both size and weight limits on their deliveries. You'll do OK shipping trinkets and small electronics, but you'll have to do something about the furniture and appliances (if you are taking the last). You also have a list of things you might have issues shipping (chemicals, for example)
  - Eric_WVGG 5y ago
    They don’t like to advertise this, but (incredibly heavy) books, magazines, and a/v media can be shipped at absurdly cheap rates via as “media mail.” It is my understanding that every bookstore in America would instantly fold if this service were discontinued. If one were to go cross country and didn’t mind ditching their furniture, media mail plus a few suitcases full of clothes could make for a very cheap move.
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      I got rid of my huge bookcase of books I was carting around the country and just got them all for kindle. It was amazing how may boxes and how much weight it all was, and all to carry information, which weighs nothing. I take pictures of important documents before trashing them.
    - hanniabu 5y ago
      How do they know the contents follow their guidelines? For example how do they know you don't have kitchenware in there instead of "media"?
      - refurb 5y ago
        They reserve the right to inspect the contents. I sold a bunch of books to someone in Hawaii. It was a 40lb box and cost $10 to ship from the East Coast. Took 3-4 weeks to get there. Crazy cheap. Would have been >$100 if not media.
      - gen3 5y ago
        I wouldn't be surprised if they xray the package. They will still deliver your kitchenware, but will arrive "Postage Due", requiring you pay a fee.
        hanniabu 5y ago
        Sounds like a good gamble to take unless there's some additional fee beyond the fee of if you were paying the actual shipping cost.
    - syntheticnature 5y ago
      That said, I've had more issues with Media Mail than other services. The final straw was when they lost a large box of books I sent to my nephews, except they found all the box parts with the information to send back to me. I filled out a report with a list of the books (didn't have pictures, unfortunately) and they never found them. No refund, of course.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  UPS and other parcel carriers are overpriced for this quantity of stuff. Depending on volume you're better off doing pallets and LTL freight or buying a shipping container or end of life dry van and paying someone to pick it up and drop it off.
warent 5y ago
Is there a way to read the full article? It's particularly interesting because Ive been considering moving from LA to somewhere else, perhaps Flordia. Slightly off topic but while you're at it I'm curious if you have some advice. I'm a single guy in his mid 20s but dont really like the crazy party lifestyle or workaholic startup culture. Pretty downtempo, looking for a medium/large town or small city where I can have a sense of community and safety at night while still having decent restaurant, art, music options, thick forests nearby would be great too. Ideally somewhere that values charities / philanthropic work. Any suggestions?
- cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
  PNW
  - lioeters 5y ago
    I second this. I've lived off and on in Washington, Oregon, Northern California, and there are many medium to small towns that fit the description.
- foxyv 5y ago
  I've heard that the Denver CO area is pretty hot right now. Most of the stuff you mention is pretty good there. However I also saw an article about some of the less ethical companies not hiring people there because of salary disclosure regulations. Property values are nuts, but not California nuts... yet.
  - testesttest 5y ago
    Just left Denver. The job market is weak for software developers. The housing is not as expensive as California but the pay vs housing costs is probably worse. Remote gig is better than what is available locally. Expect some hostility if your moving in from CA. I will miss the sking and mountains though....
    - nickthemagicman 5y ago
coreyp_1 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27309329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27309329 ^ I just asked a question about moving across the country and the scam-like feeling I get from every moving company that I've talked to. I can't read the full WSJ article because of the paywall, but the opening paragraphs are exactly the thing that I'm afraid of.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  I’m driving 2000 miles to move across the country starting ... tomorrow morning. After my experience moving in the opposite direction four years ago i opted to not hire a moving company, i bought a used cargo van instead. (2006 Ford E250 with 150,000 miles) The moving service lost several of my boxes, for years i would occasionally look for something i knew i owned and come to the conclusion that it had been among the lost. The moving company was also hugely expensive. Lots of things were cheaper to throw away and buy new rather than pay to ship. I spent about $7000 on a moving company in 2017, I bought a van for $8000 and at the end of the week i’ll still have a van.
  - ramraj07 5y ago
    Wait, if you could fit all your stuff in that van, you could have just shipped it all via ups? I consolidated whatever I had to 8 boxes (which would have taken a fifth of the space in that van) and mailed it via usps from TX to NY for 400 bucks. It can’t get cheaper and reliable than that?
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      Oh the van is packed to the gills. USPS will be somewhat more expensive than a moving company.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      Could also rent a van. But it sounds like they want a van anyway, so a win all round.
calkuta 5y ago
I was thinking they intentionally left all their junk behind in their previous house. Material excess is the American plague.
Taniwha 5y ago
In 2004 we moved from California to New Zealand, since the kids' school years were 6 months out of sync we took a long 4-5 month road trip (or "geography lesson") .... meanwhile we shipped all our stuff .... We got there on time, found a place to put the stuff, a rental while we looked for a house to buy. It didn't show up on the nominated date .... eventually (maybe a month later) we discovered that the shipping company and the freight forwarding company (both US companies) were having some business spat and all our stuff was being held hostage. Eventually we had to pay up (effectively twice) and finally received our belongings, by that time we'd bought a house and were on the verge of moving in
- sethammons 5y ago
  Would love to here more. Aside from belongings, what was the process like to emigrate to New Zealand? What kind of work do you do? How did jobs work out?
  - Taniwha 5y ago
    I'm a kiwi, I'd lived in the US for 20 years, my kids have dual citizenship, my partner is a US citizen but grew up in NZ and so could claim residency easily. I've been working remotely from silicon valley for almost 20 years now
    - Taniwha 5y ago
      At the moment it's practically impossible to move to NZ, we're closed due to covid. When things open up again there's an online form you can fill out to see if you qualify (you can try it now but not actually apply)
- hereforphone 5y ago
  How much did it take to move your stuff? From what I've seen this takes 10+k for even a modest amount of belongings
  - Taniwha 5y ago
danhak 5y ago
It's not just shipping -- I am moving into a new apartment and every single furniture company is backed up like crazy. My sofa isn't expected until December! People are definitely on the move. That, plus supply chain issues and raw materials shortages is my guess.
heythere22 5y ago
https://archive.is/vMbpD https://archive.is/vMbpD
doggodaddo78 5y ago
Late 2020, my mom had 14 pods (the size of a medium-sized shed) completely full of stuff from the consolidation of her stuff, her late parents, her late ex-in-laws, and some of mine when moving from Paradise CA (where the cost of insurance more than tripled, taxes were on the rise, cost-of-living increased, area looked like an awful moonscape due to predatory resource extraction (trees) without homeowners' consent, and the numerous idiots, crazy people, angry/aggressive/antisocial Trump supporters, paucity of decent neighbors or any humans, power outages for a week or more, fires and smoke, uncertain future rainfall and drinking water supplies, and she was partially-disabled in basically the middle of nowhere with deer and bear) to near San Marcos TX (I'm in ATX). Since it was the pandemic, I took her on a roadtrip in a reasonably-priced rental SUV with unlimited mileage. California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and the Texas. Somehow, the movers managed to cram all of that into her new tract house. Over 600 boxes. If you have any money or credit, get something on the periphery of or in Austin. Traffic will increase and it might suck more as it grows-up like a big city over time, but such properties will only increase in value out of s&d. For example, ATX has plenty of water (it's been raining like crazy) while the West and Southwest are mostly in megadroughts. Houston gets leveled by hurricanes regularly, so that's not a good place to be. The sweet spots to live in the US are now from ATX northwest to just about the border of the middle of eastern New Mexico. It's also the area with the fewest disaster risks and higher solar insolation. If water could be made plentiful there, it would be an ideal area to start a new megacity metro.
Jcowell 5y ago
Try u t. I Ii
myself248 5y ago
The whole notion of hiring movers and consigning all your worldly possessions to some unseen third party just strikes me as utterly bizarre. Hiring a few extra helpers to load up the U-haul at one end, and then unload it at the other end, I can see! But I've never been more than the length of a van from my stuff during a move, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
- ehnto 5y ago
  The beauty of the mutually beneficial contract. If your stuff doesn't arrive they don't get paid, or perhaps even keep their job. That's their incentive to not steal your stuff.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  I understand feeling that way about some precious possessions, but you can’t trust a professional mover with _anything_ in your house? Sounds like you might be in a minority with possible trust issues.
- greesil 5y ago
  Do you have children?
- lnsru 5y ago
  My assumption is that people do not have many friends nowadays to ask for help with loading that furniture. I am moving 25 miles away and there is no way I hire unseen 3rd party for that. Rent smaller van 2-3 times and do it relaxed by myself with some buddies and beer.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    I have a van and not one friend has asked me to help them move. I am almost disappointed. I think people are too socially awkward to ask for help. We are all so independent for the majority of the time that we are out of practice of being neighbourly.
    - joshka 5y ago
djmips 5y ago
This is 10 years now and still will I start looking for something and then I remember, oh yeah, it never made it...
adreamingsoul 5y ago
My partner and I moved from the US to Scandinavia in 2019. We decided to sell everything (house, cars, items) and only take the most essential and sentimental items with us as checked luggage. We arrived to a new country with literally everything that we owned. That was a complex feeling that I hope to never forget. We could have shipped our belongings, or placed them long-term storage, but the cost and complexity didn’t seem advantageous. It was challenging and emotional to sell everything. But we did and I think we are better people for having chosen to go through that experience.
- joshka 5y ago
  Did the same sort of move in 2015 with a Suitcase, a backpack and a snowboard bag. Extremely liberating.
- stevekemp 5y ago
  I moved from Scotland to Finland, which involved a few suitcases on a plane, and a pallet of stuff going by sea. We sold almost everything we owned prior to the move. The things that were carried were things like personal possessions with significant history or memories. Sounds like we approached it in a very similar way to you. There are definitely moments where I think "I need to repair this pipe, I have a pipe-cutter in my toolbox", then I recall that the toolbox didn't get moved with us. But there aren't many things that I miss.
  - grumpy-de-sre 5y ago
    I made the move from Australia to Germany with little more than a small suitcase and a hiking pack. Looking back it's not something I would repeat. You've got to be absolutely ruthless about what you sell or dispose of but seriously consider getting a pallet. It took me a long time to replace the stuff I sold for pennies on the dollar. In the end I didn't find it particularly liberating. Though I think part of that is I went from living independently to relying on furnished apartments for a couple years. Living in a place that's not your own can eventually become grating.
    - 5y ago
Zaheer 5y ago
No Paywall: https://nyts.link/https:/www.wsj.com/articles/americans-are-on-the-move-their-stuff-doesnt-always-follow-11622050745 https://nyts.link/https:/www.wsj.com/articles/americans-are-...
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  Funded by Carlos Slim?
fergie 5y ago
Ironic that despite predictions from Elon, truck drivers are in fact more in demand than ever before.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  We live in a weird time though. I mean given how crazy production has ramped up, I never would have thought we'd end up in a chip shortage. I also would have thought that last year we'd end up in a financial crisis. I mean we are, but not the stock market. I'm sure we'll see a collapse / correction again in the near future though, especially housing prices on this side of the pond are insane.
- Taylor_OD 5y ago
  Part of the reason the demand is so high is that no one wants to get into a career that looks like it may get automated in the next 25 years. I know a lot of youngish drivers who got out after 5 years because they saw the writing on the wall.
  - flavius29663 5y ago
    It's not really such an investment in that career, though. The pay is insane for a few weeks of training. They could make money while it lasts, and then move to other low-qualified jobs. If you really make a career out of it, like transporting large loads or dangerous fluids, then it won't be automated in our lifetimes anyway
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      The pay is not insane compared to the costs (being away from home and missing time with friends/family, morbidity/mortality due to collisions and sitting all day, volatility of income).
jollybean 5y ago
There is a yc startup opportunity somewhere in there.
vishnugupta 5y ago
Ha, did it twice in three years. From India to Netherlands we shipped about 20% of our belongings. But from Netherlands back to India we just took 6 check in luggage with us in the airplane. We setup everything from ground up in India. It was much better than shipping, unpacking and setting it up.
- Ayesh 5y ago
  > just 6 check in luggage SIX is a lot!
JamesAdir 5y ago
As someone who is non-American, it seems much simpler in the US just to buy other stuff (new/used) than just cross country hauling of your entire furniture. I'm sure the essentials can be packed easily.
- bradlys 5y ago
  I think many people are very attached to their furniture. I know I am. It took me years of scouring Craigslist to get the deals I did on my Room & Board furniture. It’s such an expensive brand that I am much better off moving with it than selling it and trying to find the pieces again. (It’d take years, again...) I don’t presume everyone is this way but I do presume many people might have an attachment to their collection of furniture. If it’s all worn down IKEA handmedowns then it might make sense to not move with it. I certainly see that with college students but after that, many people like what they got and it’s a large cost to give it up and buy new. And many people don’t like to buy used furniture too - I am someone who is fine with it.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I mean international moving in Europe already costs a small fortune. With 'starter' furniture being as cheap as it is nowadays - thanks ikea - you can buy a whole set of furniture for the same amount as it would cost to move your existing stuff over. I mean long-term I hope to be able to replace pieces of furniture with non-Ikea stuff. I was really trying with my TV cabinet, tried to get a unit with plenty of storage, but it was all... flimsy-looking, small and inconvenient. Finally bit the bullet, sat at a PC at Ikea and designed a very nice cabinet around a 60 inch TV. I mean I only got the TV two years later, but it's the thought that counts.
  - widforss 5y ago
    I hope this isn't received the wrong way, but did you notice you started each paragraph with "I mean"? It is your choice of course, but in my opinion your text could live without those two words.
    - 5y ago
Genego 5y ago
The last time I moved into a new apartment, I arrived with nothing but a suitcase and a backpack; a mattress ordered from Amazon, with some blankets arrived that same day. Over the course of a year, every piece of furniture arrived by post and was unpacked in my living room (which was a lot). Four years later I moved, with nothing but a backpack and a suitcase again. Most of my belongings were packed into a shipping container and donated to family in Africa. Seeing pictures of their apartment is uncanny, it feels like my apartments 'soul' lives on.
- juskrey 5y ago
  How much did shipping to Africa cost?
  - Genego 5y ago
    Not entirely sure, since the shipping part was not organized by me. I did give relatives about 1000$ to cover any necessary expenses, which would have been 1/10~ the cost of stuff being shipped. In the end that worked out well, but it took about 7 months from packing to shipping for everything to arrive at their front door. Half of the time waiting was spend, wrapped in a warehouse prior to it being packed into a container.
  - ska 5y ago
    International shipping can be really, really cheap (not currently, but historically) if a) you aren't in a hurry and b) nothing is particularly temperature or climate sensitive.
- personlurking 5y ago
  This makes me think of the idea of losing one's phone or laptop and not worrying because the hardware was super cheap, and your data is completely safe and transferable. But for the idea to transfer over to personal belongings, there would have to be some sort of scanning of each personal item in one's home, to the point that AI and 3D printing could print off a perfect copy. Let's imagine a good friend dies and all you have to remember him is a handmade gift he gave you on your last b-day. Your home catches fire but you can print off a perfect copy. Do you care? And how much do you care?
matttproud 5y ago
One reality of moving abroad from the United States (emigrated in 2011): keeping an American phone number and mailing address (with a relative) for all of the antiquated business and government relations that cannot accept foreign equivalents. While you can technically forgo having this communications mooring, you’d be nuts. Try managing the credit reporting bureaus without this. Try keeping a driver license (in case the new domicile doesn’t provide reciprocity). It goes on, and it’ll bite you in weird ways when you can’t afford it to.
- eric-hu 5y ago
  May I ask what third party services you use? I’m in a similar situation. I use Google Voice for my number, but wouldn’t mind a better alternative.
  - culturestate 5y ago
    I’ve always used Twilio with a custom twiml app that redirects SMS and voice calls. It can be little fiddly to set up (and it costs money, obviously) but once it’s running it just works. For mail, I use https://www.virtualpostmail.com/ https://www.virtualpostmail.com/
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    I have been using Google Voice for years and it has been ideal for this. I have also heard of T-Mobile digits that does the same thing and since it's also a traditional phone number, it shouldn't have the SMS 2-factor verification issues Google Voice sometimes does. Google Fi might also be a good alternative, but I'm not sure how different it is from Google Voice in practice.
  - Ayesh 5y ago
    I don't know about US, but I use a KPN (biggest carrier in the Netherlands) prepaid SIM. Their credit don't expire, as long as I make a call/SMS every six months. If I lose the SIM, I can order one for €5 us shipping if I keep my PUK code. When KPN starts eSIM, that would solve that issue as well. Many countries have prepaid services with longer credit validity. Choose a bigger carrier because they have better roaming arrangements. Incoming SMS are free (boo SMS 2FA), and I spend ~€1 a year to keep the number alive.
pooingcode 5y ago
And yet taxes follow...
offtop5 5y ago
I've moved cross country a few times, and for the most part it always makes more economic sense to throw everything out and buy it again. Now I'm planning on traveling abroad and I'm realizing a lot of my junk is only holding me back. Seriously it's just stuff, you can go to a place called stuff Mart and buy more of it. But if you're thinking oh maybe I won't move after all because I'll have to buy more stuff you're cheating yourself
- Johnny555 5y ago
  I didn't move cross-country, but moved almost up the entire west coast, and hiring a moving company cost around 10% of what it would have cost to replace all of our furniture and other possessions. We came up with a pretty accurate replacement cost value to make sure we got the right amount of insurance coverage. Plus it's a extra hassle to get rid all your stuff -- you need to deal with flaky Craigslist people, or try to donate it and then hire someone to haul away what the charities won't accept. "What do you mean you won't take this couch because of that small tear you can't even see!? I was literally using it today!"
- droopyEyelids 5y ago
  This really depends on your lifestyle.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
When my parents emigrated from the UK to New Zealand (in the seventies) they took their car with them. We came back a year later but they did make a profit on the car.
collaborative 5y ago
I lost all my stuff I'd left in a US basement when I couldn't come back and my visa expired. The biggest loss were my college notebooks. It feels like I've lost part of my brain
- mavhc 5y ago
  Scan everything asap
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The problem with scanning is that many of us have a lot of paper most of which we will never look at again. It's probably different today when a lot of things are "born" digital. But for me to scan all the paper I have that I might want to glance at someday would be an enormous undertaking--yes, including school notebooks. In practice, you have to be very selective about what you scan.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      On the plus side every A4 page is 2.5g you don't have to move/store. Does help if you have a double sided sheet feeding scanner
      - ghaff 5y ago
        If the paper is all individual uniform sheets in good shape and you have access to a commercial feeding scanner, it's a lot easier. In my experience though, scanning old piles of paper is rarely like that.
  - benhurmarcel 5y ago
    I did. I never open the files again.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      But at least you can throw the paper in the recycling now, instead of never looking at the paper again. Then OCR it all and it'll appear in your local search results
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Moving is one of those things you need to do yourself if you want it done right. Sure you can outsource and get passable results but it's never gonna be as good as if you'd just done it. Edit: Based on the popularity of this comment and absence or replies I suspect I may have accidentally struck one of those nerves where people don't like what I'm saying but can't come up with a good argument why it's wrong. If people disagree with me I'd be interested as to why.
- vsskanth 5y ago
  I agree, if you live in an apartment and don't have much stuff. I can't imagine people moving stuff from an American style 4BR house when they have kids, all on their own.
- jayd16 5y ago
  You have no reason listed so there's nothing to talk about. Its just a opinion with no reasoning so you're getting down votes without replies.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  You might care more about your stuff but you also probably know less about how to do it well (like pretty much any other pro vs DIY decision). Plus it's a tremendous amount of work.
sjg007 5y ago
If I move long distance again I’ll sell everything. But we don’t have any heirlooms.
lizknope 5y ago
I think I am the exact opposite of these people. I've been working at home for the last 14 months and I realize that I love my home and reconnected with a lot of my stuff. I spent a few weeks cleaning out some closets and donated a lot of stuff to Goodwill. Then I got a lot of plastic storage crates and reorganized stuff. It was great looking through and playing with my old childhood toys. I found my report cards from middle school and all my awards. Someone else would say "Just get rid of it all!" but it really helped my mental health during the pandemic to be able to remember the great times before.
jsjohnst 5y ago
Based on the story title (but not the story itself exactly), I’m one of those Americans. Six months ago I packed up the essentials from my apartment and loaded them in an RV. I built out a great office space in the front (better than the average “home office”, aka a desk next to their bed, for someone where I’m from) and have been working from the road since Christmas. Traveled through 15 states so far and outside a few hiccups along the way, overall really loving it! AMA.
convexfunction 5y ago
A nice compromise between "pay a sketchy moving company thousands to haul your stuff to another city, eventually" and "get rid of everything you can't fit in checked baggage" is to ship your stuff to yourself (or someone you trust to hold onto it temporarily in your new city) via UPS. Even ignoring sentimentality, most smaller possessions will make economic sense to ship rather than replace, and they're far more reliable and far cheaper than moving companies.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  Or pay a non-sketchy moving company, perhaps?
NDizzle 5y ago
I did the exact opposite. I think I've told my story on here already. April 2020 I gave up on CA's leadership and bailed out of the state. Best decision ever. I bought a 16x7 trailer that's extra tall. Ramp door. $6200 brand new. Filled it with stuff, pulled it 2,000 miles and put everything in a storage unit. I looked at 16 houses in 2 days, made an offer, got an accepted offer and pulled the trailer back, empty. That house fell through in the home inspection. No vapor barrier behind the brick and manufactured stone. Whole east side of the house would have to come off to just inspect the extent of the damage. The owner gave me an attitude so I bailed. I kept my plans, however. Memorial day weekend, 2020, I had rented a 26' uhaul and a car hauler. $5,400 one way out of CA, and keep in mind I was ahead of virtually everyone else doing the same thing. I went to Tahoe (Incline Village, actually) to rent the uhaul on the Nevada side. Actual cost, $3,300. Look at my big brain. I loaded that uhaul, put my minivan on the car hauler, loaded the minivan, loaded my trailer, and hooked it up to my land cruiser. I then moved my family of 5 2,000 miles into a rental. Put most stuff in the storage unit / garage of the rental and started looking for houses. Found a great place, passed the home inspection, bought a great spot. Moved my stuff out of storage/the garage and into my new place in July and I've been here ever since! I've gotten rid of about 4 substantial items and added 3 new ones. Things like entertainment centers, kitchen table (have two dining rooms now, with a real formal, so I needed one of those) so it worked out. Fuel budget for a 6k+ lbs land cruiser pulling a 8,000 lbs trailer is something like $650, in 2020 gas prices, each way. Even pulling it back empty is almost the same due to the lack of aerodynamics on the trailer.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  > April 2020 I gave up on CA's leadership and bailed out of the state. Best decision ever. I think you mean you cashed out :-)
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Don't forget the negative externality. He's using those SV monopoly bucks to turn some other economy upside down. Like littering in the economic park.

I just want to put out a viable option: ship your stuff via usps. You could probably hire help to pack stuff under your supervision, and get movers you can work with to take them to usps and ship. I’m darn sure it’ll cost less than moving. Also gives you a chance to consolidate!

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
IIRC, the USPS puts both size and weight limits on their deliveries. You'll do OK shipping trinkets and small electronics, but you'll have to do something about the furniture and appliances (if you are taking the last). You also have a list of things you might have issues shipping (chemicals, for example)
- Eric_WVGG 5y ago
  They don’t like to advertise this, but (incredibly heavy) books, magazines, and a/v media can be shipped at absurdly cheap rates via as “media mail.” It is my understanding that every bookstore in America would instantly fold if this service were discontinued. If one were to go cross country and didn’t mind ditching their furniture, media mail plus a few suitcases full of clothes could make for a very cheap move.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    I got rid of my huge bookcase of books I was carting around the country and just got them all for kindle. It was amazing how may boxes and how much weight it all was, and all to carry information, which weighs nothing. I take pictures of important documents before trashing them.
  - hanniabu 5y ago
    How do they know the contents follow their guidelines? For example how do they know you don't have kitchenware in there instead of "media"?
    - refurb 5y ago
      They reserve the right to inspect the contents. I sold a bunch of books to someone in Hawaii. It was a 40lb box and cost $10 to ship from the East Coast. Took 3-4 weeks to get there. Crazy cheap. Would have been >$100 if not media.
    - gen3 5y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if they xray the package. They will still deliver your kitchenware, but will arrive "Postage Due", requiring you pay a fee.
      - hanniabu 5y ago
        Sounds like a good gamble to take unless there's some additional fee beyond the fee of if you were paying the actual shipping cost.
  - syntheticnature 5y ago
    That said, I've had more issues with Media Mail than other services. The final straw was when they lost a large box of books I sent to my nephews, except they found all the box parts with the information to send back to me. I filled out a report with a list of the books (didn't have pictures, unfortunately) and they never found them. No refund, of course.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
UPS and other parcel carriers are overpriced for this quantity of stuff. Depending on volume you're better off doing pallets and LTL freight or buying a shipping container or end of life dry van and paying someone to pick it up and drop it off.

warent 5y ago

Is there a way to read the full article? It's particularly interesting because Ive been considering moving from LA to somewhere else, perhaps Flordia. Slightly off topic but while you're at it I'm curious if you have some advice. I'm a single guy in his mid 20s but dont really like the crazy party lifestyle or workaholic startup culture. Pretty downtempo, looking for a medium/large town or small city where I can have a sense of community and safety at night while still having decent restaurant, art, music options, thick forests nearby would be great too. Ideally somewhere that values charities / philanthropic work. Any suggestions?

cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
PNW
- lioeters 5y ago
  I second this. I've lived off and on in Washington, Oregon, Northern California, and there are many medium to small towns that fit the description.
foxyv 5y ago
I've heard that the Denver CO area is pretty hot right now. Most of the stuff you mention is pretty good there. However I also saw an article about some of the less ethical companies not hiring people there because of salary disclosure regulations. Property values are nuts, but not California nuts... yet.
- testesttest 5y ago
  Just left Denver. The job market is weak for software developers. The housing is not as expensive as California but the pay vs housing costs is probably worse. Remote gig is better than what is available locally. Expect some hostility if your moving in from CA. I will miss the sking and mountains though....
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago

coreyp_1 5y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27309329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27309329 ^ I just asked a question about moving across the country and the scam-like feeling I get from every moving company that I've talked to. I can't read the full WSJ article because of the paywall, but the opening paragraphs are exactly the thing that I'm afraid of.

colechristensen 5y ago
I’m driving 2000 miles to move across the country starting ... tomorrow morning. After my experience moving in the opposite direction four years ago i opted to not hire a moving company, i bought a used cargo van instead. (2006 Ford E250 with 150,000 miles) The moving service lost several of my boxes, for years i would occasionally look for something i knew i owned and come to the conclusion that it had been among the lost. The moving company was also hugely expensive. Lots of things were cheaper to throw away and buy new rather than pay to ship. I spent about $7000 on a moving company in 2017, I bought a van for $8000 and at the end of the week i’ll still have a van.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  Wait, if you could fit all your stuff in that van, you could have just shipped it all via ups? I consolidated whatever I had to 8 boxes (which would have taken a fifth of the space in that van) and mailed it via usps from TX to NY for 400 bucks. It can’t get cheaper and reliable than that?
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Oh the van is packed to the gills. USPS will be somewhat more expensive than a moving company.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    Could also rent a van. But it sounds like they want a van anyway, so a win all round.

calkuta 5y ago

I was thinking they intentionally left all their junk behind in their previous house. Material excess is the American plague.

Taniwha 5y ago

In 2004 we moved from California to New Zealand, since the kids' school years were 6 months out of sync we took a long 4-5 month road trip (or "geography lesson") .... meanwhile we shipped all our stuff .... We got there on time, found a place to put the stuff, a rental while we looked for a house to buy. It didn't show up on the nominated date .... eventually (maybe a month later) we discovered that the shipping company and the freight forwarding company (both US companies) were having some business spat and all our stuff was being held hostage. Eventually we had to pay up (effectively twice) and finally received our belongings, by that time we'd bought a house and were on the verge of moving in

sethammons 5y ago
Would love to here more. Aside from belongings, what was the process like to emigrate to New Zealand? What kind of work do you do? How did jobs work out?
- Taniwha 5y ago
  I'm a kiwi, I'd lived in the US for 20 years, my kids have dual citizenship, my partner is a US citizen but grew up in NZ and so could claim residency easily. I've been working remotely from silicon valley for almost 20 years now
  - Taniwha 5y ago
    At the moment it's practically impossible to move to NZ, we're closed due to covid. When things open up again there's an online form you can fill out to see if you qualify (you can try it now but not actually apply)
hereforphone 5y ago
How much did it take to move your stuff? From what I've seen this takes 10+k for even a modest amount of belongings
- Taniwha 5y ago

danhak 5y ago

It's not just shipping -- I am moving into a new apartment and every single furniture company is backed up like crazy. My sofa isn't expected until December! People are definitely on the move. That, plus supply chain issues and raw materials shortages is my guess.

heythere22 5y ago

https://archive.is/vMbpD https://archive.is/vMbpD

doggodaddo78 5y ago

Late 2020, my mom had 14 pods (the size of a medium-sized shed) completely full of stuff from the consolidation of her stuff, her late parents, her late ex-in-laws, and some of mine when moving from Paradise CA (where the cost of insurance more than tripled, taxes were on the rise, cost-of-living increased, area looked like an awful moonscape due to predatory resource extraction (trees) without homeowners' consent, and the numerous idiots, crazy people, angry/aggressive/antisocial Trump supporters, paucity of decent neighbors or any humans, power outages for a week or more, fires and smoke, uncertain future rainfall and drinking water supplies, and she was partially-disabled in basically the middle of nowhere with deer and bear) to near San Marcos TX (I'm in ATX). Since it was the pandemic, I took her on a roadtrip in a reasonably-priced rental SUV with unlimited mileage. California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and the Texas. Somehow, the movers managed to cram all of that into her new tract house. Over 600 boxes. If you have any money or credit, get something on the periphery of or in Austin. Traffic will increase and it might suck more as it grows-up like a big city over time, but such properties will only increase in value out of s&d. For example, ATX has plenty of water (it's been raining like crazy) while the West and Southwest are mostly in megadroughts. Houston gets leveled by hurricanes regularly, so that's not a good place to be. The sweet spots to live in the US are now from ATX northwest to just about the border of the middle of eastern New Mexico. It's also the area with the fewest disaster risks and higher solar insolation. If water could be made plentiful there, it would be an ideal area to start a new megacity metro.

Jcowell 5y ago

Try u t. I Ii

myself248 5y ago

The whole notion of hiring movers and consigning all your worldly possessions to some unseen third party just strikes me as utterly bizarre. Hiring a few extra helpers to load up the U-haul at one end, and then unload it at the other end, I can see! But I've never been more than the length of a van from my stuff during a move, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

ehnto 5y ago
The beauty of the mutually beneficial contract. If your stuff doesn't arrive they don't get paid, or perhaps even keep their job. That's their incentive to not steal your stuff.
ramraj07 5y ago
I understand feeling that way about some precious possessions, but you can’t trust a professional mover with _anything_ in your house? Sounds like you might be in a minority with possible trust issues.
greesil 5y ago
Do you have children?
lnsru 5y ago
My assumption is that people do not have many friends nowadays to ask for help with loading that furniture. I am moving 25 miles away and there is no way I hire unseen 3rd party for that. Rent smaller van 2-3 times and do it relaxed by myself with some buddies and beer.
- ehnto 5y ago
  I have a van and not one friend has asked me to help them move. I am almost disappointed. I think people are too socially awkward to ask for help. We are all so independent for the majority of the time that we are out of practice of being neighbourly.
  - joshka 5y ago

djmips 5y ago

This is 10 years now and still will I start looking for something and then I remember, oh yeah, it never made it...

adreamingsoul 5y ago

My partner and I moved from the US to Scandinavia in 2019. We decided to sell everything (house, cars, items) and only take the most essential and sentimental items with us as checked luggage. We arrived to a new country with literally everything that we owned. That was a complex feeling that I hope to never forget. We could have shipped our belongings, or placed them long-term storage, but the cost and complexity didn’t seem advantageous. It was challenging and emotional to sell everything. But we did and I think we are better people for having chosen to go through that experience.

joshka 5y ago
Did the same sort of move in 2015 with a Suitcase, a backpack and a snowboard bag. Extremely liberating.
stevekemp 5y ago
I moved from Scotland to Finland, which involved a few suitcases on a plane, and a pallet of stuff going by sea. We sold almost everything we owned prior to the move. The things that were carried were things like personal possessions with significant history or memories. Sounds like we approached it in a very similar way to you. There are definitely moments where I think "I need to repair this pipe, I have a pipe-cutter in my toolbox", then I recall that the toolbox didn't get moved with us. But there aren't many things that I miss.
- grumpy-de-sre 5y ago
  I made the move from Australia to Germany with little more than a small suitcase and a hiking pack. Looking back it's not something I would repeat. You've got to be absolutely ruthless about what you sell or dispose of but seriously consider getting a pallet. It took me a long time to replace the stuff I sold for pennies on the dollar. In the end I didn't find it particularly liberating. Though I think part of that is I went from living independently to relying on furnished apartments for a couple years. Living in a place that's not your own can eventually become grating.
  - 5y ago

Zaheer 5y ago

No Paywall: https://nyts.link/https:/www.wsj.com/articles/americans-are-on-the-move-their-stuff-doesnt-always-follow-11622050745 https://nyts.link/https:/www.wsj.com/articles/americans-are-...

wintermutestwin 5y ago
Funded by Carlos Slim?

fergie 5y ago

Ironic that despite predictions from Elon, truck drivers are in fact more in demand than ever before.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
We live in a weird time though. I mean given how crazy production has ramped up, I never would have thought we'd end up in a chip shortage. I also would have thought that last year we'd end up in a financial crisis. I mean we are, but not the stock market. I'm sure we'll see a collapse / correction again in the near future though, especially housing prices on this side of the pond are insane.
Taylor_OD 5y ago
Part of the reason the demand is so high is that no one wants to get into a career that looks like it may get automated in the next 25 years. I know a lot of youngish drivers who got out after 5 years because they saw the writing on the wall.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  It's not really such an investment in that career, though. The pay is insane for a few weeks of training. They could make money while it lasts, and then move to other low-qualified jobs. If you really make a career out of it, like transporting large loads or dangerous fluids, then it won't be automated in our lifetimes anyway
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The pay is not insane compared to the costs (being away from home and missing time with friends/family, morbidity/mortality due to collisions and sitting all day, volatility of income).

jollybean 5y ago

There is a yc startup opportunity somewhere in there.

vishnugupta 5y ago

Ha, did it twice in three years. From India to Netherlands we shipped about 20% of our belongings. But from Netherlands back to India we just took 6 check in luggage with us in the airplane. We setup everything from ground up in India. It was much better than shipping, unpacking and setting it up.

Ayesh 5y ago
> just 6 check in luggage SIX is a lot!

JamesAdir 5y ago

As someone who is non-American, it seems much simpler in the US just to buy other stuff (new/used) than just cross country hauling of your entire furniture. I'm sure the essentials can be packed easily.

bradlys 5y ago
I think many people are very attached to their furniture. I know I am. It took me years of scouring Craigslist to get the deals I did on my Room & Board furniture. It’s such an expensive brand that I am much better off moving with it than selling it and trying to find the pieces again. (It’d take years, again...) I don’t presume everyone is this way but I do presume many people might have an attachment to their collection of furniture. If it’s all worn down IKEA handmedowns then it might make sense to not move with it. I certainly see that with college students but after that, many people like what they got and it’s a large cost to give it up and buy new. And many people don’t like to buy used furniture too - I am someone who is fine with it.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
I mean international moving in Europe already costs a small fortune. With 'starter' furniture being as cheap as it is nowadays - thanks ikea - you can buy a whole set of furniture for the same amount as it would cost to move your existing stuff over. I mean long-term I hope to be able to replace pieces of furniture with non-Ikea stuff. I was really trying with my TV cabinet, tried to get a unit with plenty of storage, but it was all... flimsy-looking, small and inconvenient. Finally bit the bullet, sat at a PC at Ikea and designed a very nice cabinet around a 60 inch TV. I mean I only got the TV two years later, but it's the thought that counts.
- widforss 5y ago
  I hope this isn't received the wrong way, but did you notice you started each paragraph with "I mean"? It is your choice of course, but in my opinion your text could live without those two words.
  - 5y ago

Genego 5y ago

The last time I moved into a new apartment, I arrived with nothing but a suitcase and a backpack; a mattress ordered from Amazon, with some blankets arrived that same day. Over the course of a year, every piece of furniture arrived by post and was unpacked in my living room (which was a lot). Four years later I moved, with nothing but a backpack and a suitcase again. Most of my belongings were packed into a shipping container and donated to family in Africa. Seeing pictures of their apartment is uncanny, it feels like my apartments 'soul' lives on.

juskrey 5y ago
How much did shipping to Africa cost?
- Genego 5y ago
  Not entirely sure, since the shipping part was not organized by me. I did give relatives about 1000$ to cover any necessary expenses, which would have been 1/10~ the cost of stuff being shipped. In the end that worked out well, but it took about 7 months from packing to shipping for everything to arrive at their front door. Half of the time waiting was spend, wrapped in a warehouse prior to it being packed into a container.
- ska 5y ago
  International shipping can be really, really cheap (not currently, but historically) if a) you aren't in a hurry and b) nothing is particularly temperature or climate sensitive.
personlurking 5y ago
This makes me think of the idea of losing one's phone or laptop and not worrying because the hardware was super cheap, and your data is completely safe and transferable. But for the idea to transfer over to personal belongings, there would have to be some sort of scanning of each personal item in one's home, to the point that AI and 3D printing could print off a perfect copy. Let's imagine a good friend dies and all you have to remember him is a handmade gift he gave you on your last b-day. Your home catches fire but you can print off a perfect copy. Do you care? And how much do you care?

matttproud 5y ago

One reality of moving abroad from the United States (emigrated in 2011): keeping an American phone number and mailing address (with a relative) for all of the antiquated business and government relations that cannot accept foreign equivalents. While you can technically forgo having this communications mooring, you’d be nuts. Try managing the credit reporting bureaus without this. Try keeping a driver license (in case the new domicile doesn’t provide reciprocity). It goes on, and it’ll bite you in weird ways when you can’t afford it to.

eric-hu 5y ago
May I ask what third party services you use? I’m in a similar situation. I use Google Voice for my number, but wouldn’t mind a better alternative.
- culturestate 5y ago
  I’ve always used Twilio with a custom twiml app that redirects SMS and voice calls. It can be little fiddly to set up (and it costs money, obviously) but once it’s running it just works. For mail, I use https://www.virtualpostmail.com/ https://www.virtualpostmail.com/
- dougmwne 5y ago
  I have been using Google Voice for years and it has been ideal for this. I have also heard of T-Mobile digits that does the same thing and since it's also a traditional phone number, it shouldn't have the SMS 2-factor verification issues Google Voice sometimes does. Google Fi might also be a good alternative, but I'm not sure how different it is from Google Voice in practice.
- Ayesh 5y ago
  I don't know about US, but I use a KPN (biggest carrier in the Netherlands) prepaid SIM. Their credit don't expire, as long as I make a call/SMS every six months. If I lose the SIM, I can order one for €5 us shipping if I keep my PUK code. When KPN starts eSIM, that would solve that issue as well. Many countries have prepaid services with longer credit validity. Choose a bigger carrier because they have better roaming arrangements. Incoming SMS are free (boo SMS 2FA), and I spend ~€1 a year to keep the number alive.

pooingcode 5y ago

And yet taxes follow...

offtop5 5y ago

I've moved cross country a few times, and for the most part it always makes more economic sense to throw everything out and buy it again. Now I'm planning on traveling abroad and I'm realizing a lot of my junk is only holding me back. Seriously it's just stuff, you can go to a place called stuff Mart and buy more of it. But if you're thinking oh maybe I won't move after all because I'll have to buy more stuff you're cheating yourself

Johnny555 5y ago
I didn't move cross-country, but moved almost up the entire west coast, and hiring a moving company cost around 10% of what it would have cost to replace all of our furniture and other possessions. We came up with a pretty accurate replacement cost value to make sure we got the right amount of insurance coverage. Plus it's a extra hassle to get rid all your stuff -- you need to deal with flaky Craigslist people, or try to donate it and then hire someone to haul away what the charities won't accept. "What do you mean you won't take this couch because of that small tear you can't even see!? I was literally using it today!"
droopyEyelids 5y ago
This really depends on your lifestyle.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

When my parents emigrated from the UK to New Zealand (in the seventies) they took their car with them. We came back a year later but they did make a profit on the car.

collaborative 5y ago

I lost all my stuff I'd left in a US basement when I couldn't come back and my visa expired. The biggest loss were my college notebooks. It feels like I've lost part of my brain

mavhc 5y ago
Scan everything asap
- ghaff 5y ago
  The problem with scanning is that many of us have a lot of paper most of which we will never look at again. It's probably different today when a lot of things are "born" digital. But for me to scan all the paper I have that I might want to glance at someday would be an enormous undertaking--yes, including school notebooks. In practice, you have to be very selective about what you scan.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    On the plus side every A4 page is 2.5g you don't have to move/store. Does help if you have a double sided sheet feeding scanner
    - ghaff 5y ago
      If the paper is all individual uniform sheets in good shape and you have access to a commercial feeding scanner, it's a lot easier. In my experience though, scanning old piles of paper is rarely like that.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  I did. I never open the files again.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    But at least you can throw the paper in the recycling now, instead of never looking at the paper again. Then OCR it all and it'll appear in your local search results

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

Moving is one of those things you need to do yourself if you want it done right. Sure you can outsource and get passable results but it's never gonna be as good as if you'd just done it. Edit: Based on the popularity of this comment and absence or replies I suspect I may have accidentally struck one of those nerves where people don't like what I'm saying but can't come up with a good argument why it's wrong. If people disagree with me I'd be interested as to why.

vsskanth 5y ago
I agree, if you live in an apartment and don't have much stuff. I can't imagine people moving stuff from an American style 4BR house when they have kids, all on their own.
jayd16 5y ago
You have no reason listed so there's nothing to talk about. Its just a opinion with no reasoning so you're getting down votes without replies.
emodendroket 5y ago
You might care more about your stuff but you also probably know less about how to do it well (like pretty much any other pro vs DIY decision). Plus it's a tremendous amount of work.

sjg007 5y ago

If I move long distance again I’ll sell everything. But we don’t have any heirlooms.

lizknope 5y ago

I think I am the exact opposite of these people. I've been working at home for the last 14 months and I realize that I love my home and reconnected with a lot of my stuff. I spent a few weeks cleaning out some closets and donated a lot of stuff to Goodwill. Then I got a lot of plastic storage crates and reorganized stuff. It was great looking through and playing with my old childhood toys. I found my report cards from middle school and all my awards. Someone else would say "Just get rid of it all!" but it really helped my mental health during the pandemic to be able to remember the great times before.

jsjohnst 5y ago

Based on the story title (but not the story itself exactly), I’m one of those Americans. Six months ago I packed up the essentials from my apartment and loaded them in an RV. I built out a great office space in the front (better than the average “home office”, aka a desk next to their bed, for someone where I’m from) and have been working from the road since Christmas. Traveled through 15 states so far and outside a few hiccups along the way, overall really loving it! AMA.

convexfunction 5y ago

A nice compromise between "pay a sketchy moving company thousands to haul your stuff to another city, eventually" and "get rid of everything you can't fit in checked baggage" is to ship your stuff to yourself (or someone you trust to hold onto it temporarily in your new city) via UPS. Even ignoring sentimentality, most smaller possessions will make economic sense to ship rather than replace, and they're far more reliable and far cheaper than moving companies.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
Or pay a non-sketchy moving company, perhaps?

NDizzle 5y ago

I did the exact opposite. I think I've told my story on here already. April 2020 I gave up on CA's leadership and bailed out of the state. Best decision ever. I bought a 16x7 trailer that's extra tall. Ramp door. $6200 brand new. Filled it with stuff, pulled it 2,000 miles and put everything in a storage unit. I looked at 16 houses in 2 days, made an offer, got an accepted offer and pulled the trailer back, empty. That house fell through in the home inspection. No vapor barrier behind the brick and manufactured stone. Whole east side of the house would have to come off to just inspect the extent of the damage. The owner gave me an attitude so I bailed. I kept my plans, however. Memorial day weekend, 2020, I had rented a 26' uhaul and a car hauler. $5,400 one way out of CA, and keep in mind I was ahead of virtually everyone else doing the same thing. I went to Tahoe (Incline Village, actually) to rent the uhaul on the Nevada side. Actual cost, $3,300. Look at my big brain. I loaded that uhaul, put my minivan on the car hauler, loaded the minivan, loaded my trailer, and hooked it up to my land cruiser. I then moved my family of 5 2,000 miles into a rental. Put most stuff in the storage unit / garage of the rental and started looking for houses. Found a great place, passed the home inspection, bought a great spot. Moved my stuff out of storage/the garage and into my new place in July and I've been here ever since! I've gotten rid of about 4 substantial items and added 3 new ones. Things like entertainment centers, kitchen table (have two dining rooms now, with a real formal, so I needed one of those) so it worked out. Fuel budget for a 6k+ lbs land cruiser pulling a 8,000 lbs trailer is something like $650, in 2020 gas prices, each way. Even pulling it back empty is almost the same due to the lack of aerodynamics on the trailer.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago
> April 2020 I gave up on CA's leadership and bailed out of the state. Best decision ever. I think you mean you cashed out :-)
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Don't forget the negative externality. He's using those SV monopoly bucks to turn some other economy upside down. Like littering in the economic park.