Doing your own move is a rite of passage that everyone should experience at least once in their life. It should be experienced when young and for the only reason that forever after you will know what effort and stress doing your own move entails. We discuss below five reasons why it’s better to hire a moving company than do your own move.
Motivation is in short supply leading up to your move
It’s well known that moving can be a stressful experience. After a long day of work, the last thing you feel like doing is packing boxes (where am I going to get boxes from anyway?) and wrapping items. For many, the mere prospect of organizing and packing up your things is physically and emotionally draining. The result is often procrastinating until the day before the move, when you throw things frantically in boxes in a stressful frenzy. A lot of this stress can be simply sidestepped by hiring a moving company to pack up your home for you. Two Men and a Truck can pack boxes, wrap items, and dismantle furniture for transport.
Hiring a moving company can be cheaper than doing it yourself
The costs of a move can quickly rack up. You’ve got to find affordable boxes, bubble wrap, packing tape, packing paper, labels and markers. Then there is the cost of hiring a trailer or vehicle, and fuel. Then there are the costs that aren’t usually factored in: thank you gifts or food for the people who help you move, the cost of repair/replacement for any items you damage during the move, the cost of damage to things like lifts, walls, motorized gates or other people's property. The biggest cost that concerns most of our customers is the cost of their time - the time it takes to pack up and prepare their belongings as well as the time it takes to transport their goods. When factoring in the time cost, for many of our customers, hiring Two Men and a Truck for their move actually works out cheaper than doing it themselves (of course depending on the move details).
Moving requires the right equipment
Trolleys and dollies, packing blankets and ropes, tools and couch/mattress protectors, a reliable and safe truck. These are just some of the things needed to complete a smooth and successful move. Like many things, it's often the quality of the tools and equipment that produces the right outcome. Moving companies invest in their equipment to ensure a safe and successful move. Most people who do their own move don't have access to quality equipment which means the quality of the move usually won't be as high as with a good moving company.
Moving can be dangerous
Spending many hours hunched over boxes packing items puts strain on your back, weakening and tightening the muscles of your lower back specifically. With your back in this susceptible condition, you then lift heavy items on move day. It’s a recipe for disaster. The truth is, unless you are used to lifting and carrying heavy items all day, moving your furniture yourself can be dangerous for your ankles, knees, hips, back and shoulders. In addition, when moving heavy items, you risk dropping it on your foot or crushing your hand against a wall or stair rail. A move-related injury can afflict you for the rest of your life and the risks should be considered seriously before you decide to move any item by yourself.
A moving company has some insurance
Moving furniture is a skill like any other. Except, while people who don’t play piano realise they can't play piano, most people believe, incorrectly, that they have the skill to move furniture. Even the experts can occasionally damage an item during a move. Unless you are a professional mover, the likelihood that you will damage some of your furniture when doing your own move is high. Whether the item can no longer be used as a result of the damage or it has unsightly scratches and dents, it’s a frustrating and miserable situation. What about the less likely possibility of fire or the truck overturning? If you did your own move you’d need to check if your household insurance provider covered such a thing. Often they don’t. Some moving companies offer insurance (you still need to check what is covered) . Two Men and a Truck has insurance for events of total loss. In addition, TMT is the only moving company in South Africa that has a guarantee for damaged goods - see this article and our T’s&C’s for more information.
The experience of moving is well known to be a difficult one. But it doesn't have to be that way. We’ve heard from countless customers how their move with TMT was actually fun. It’s certain that doing your own move is awful and we’re committed to transforming the move experience of our customers into one of delight.