Renting a truck or buying all new stuff

[Sconnie]

So I've begun to price the move to potential schools and renting a truck will run me around $1000.  So now I'm wondering if it would just be cheaper to sell my stuff here and buy all new stuff when I get to my final destination.  Neither option is desirable since I dont really have the funds to do either.  Any thoughts? 

[BytheHammerofThor]

I think it depends... Is your stuff valuable?  Personally, I've experienced a few "big moves" and because of the cost of my furniture relative to what it would've cost to rent a truck, I ended up just selling my stuff on craigslist and packing my car to the brim.  The total cost of replacing my furniture was about the same as renting the truck (I don't have a lot of stuff), and I made up some of that money anyway by selling my furniture, so I decided to just start over for logistical reasons.  It's worked out fairly well for me to do it this way, but again, I think it depends.  In my current place, I might be more inclined to rent a truck because I have nicer stuff, but will probably still end up selling it when I leave.

[Kadisha]

It really depends on the cost of living of the state you're moving to.

 

In my situation for example I have a good amount of furniture, and I'm moving from TN to NY City. In my case it would be silly for me to sell my already paid for furniture and buy furniture in a city that probably is twice, if not more, expensive than the current city I live in. 

[Ely]

I'll be moving half-way across the country for grad school, so I've been mulling this decision as well.  After pricing furniture in Baton Rouge, it just makes more sense to downsize what I have here and start over fresh down south.  It will take some effort, but I should be able to get things into two carloads.  I'll do one trip right after graduation to put a load of things into storage in BR. Then I'll do my summer program up here, load up the car one more time and head out for good.

 

I'll be doing a yard sale once the weather is nicer.  I have a few friends who have dibs on some of my bigger furniture.  Whatever I can't unload through those means or Craigslist will be donated.  It seems like a daunting amount of work right now, but I've really been thinking of grad school as a fresh start, so having new (to me) furniture will be one more way to emphasize that point.

[szero]

Remember that a full moving truck probably gets somewhere like 6-10 mpg, so there's that to calculate in as well as the crazy rental price.

[Sconnie]

Thanks for the input everyone.  I can fit most of my stuff in my car or cheaply ship what doesnt fit. Its the high ticket items like a bed and something to sit on that I am mainly concerned about.  Obviously there is some time to figure this all out considering I havent decided on a school yet but I like to plan ahead whenever possible.

[wildviolet]

Are you doing a PhD or MS program? I moved across the country and knew that I'd be spending five years in my new town. So, I crammed what I could into my minivan and bought mostly new and some used furniture. For things like beds, I follow conventional wisdom--buy the most expensive bed you can afford. Having a good bed and good sleep is important for life but especially for grad school.

[TakeruK]

For MSc to PhD, we moved a really long distance and from Canada to the US (the customs paperwork is a pain: we had to make a shipping list that is as detailed as e.g. "8 forks, 8 knives, etc."). If we had sold everything and bought new in the US, we estimated it would have been about $500 cheaper than trying to ship our most valuable stuff. We decided that it was worth paying the extra $500 to save the hassle of having to sell everything (after all if we didn't end up selling everything, we might not have saved any money!) and then buying everything all over again on the other side, without a vehicle!

 

Like wildviolet, we had got a nice bed when we first arrived for the MSc and the main motivation for using a shipping container was to keep that investment! Then, we just crammed the sofa and as many other things as we could in the remaining space (which was a lot!). The bed and something to sit on was our only real big ticket items. However, there were still a few pieces of IKEA furniture that we were unable to sell nor fit in the container, so we gave it to our friends who helped us move and/or donated to a charity garage sale.

Edited March 25, 2013 by TakeruK