05 Jul The Best $130 I Spent While Moving
Thank you Cake & Lilies!
Hello from my brand new apartment! J and I finally moved in on Friday and have been living in a sea of boxes. Not exaggerating…it’s great being able to start from scratch in a new home (especially having lived in my last place for three years) but let me tell you–having no space to walk around and taking a significant break from normal routine for the past ~2 weeks in preparation definitely takes its toll! Normalcy, I’m ready for ya.
I have a lot more to share about the move, including some general tips + tricks I picked up along the way, but wanted to highlight one specific part today that saved us a significant amount of time and hassle. You may have heard of companies that let you rent boxes for moving, and there’s one in the DC-area called Lend A Box. A couple friends had told me that they rented boxes for their last moves and it made things so much easier on multiple accounts. I didn’t really get why until part way through packing…trust me, you need to forego cardboard boxes and try this. Also, as an aside, this post isn’t sponsored in any way and no items were gifted…I just had a great experience and wanted to share!
Basically I ordered the Studio/1 Bedroom package + one wardrobe box for two weeks; the boxes would arrive and get picked up on a Saturday two weeks apart. The Thursday before delivery, I got a text (cool, right?) from them asking if the boxes could be delivered on Friday instead. We agreed on Friday evening, but when they called to confirm on Thursday, I asked if we could switch to Friday morning (because I was going to see Beauty and the Beast that night), so they happily delivered my order at 7:30am! There was no charge for starting the rental early since it was initially their request, and I got to start packing a full 24 hours earlier.
They provide a dolly that easily holds all the boxes, even when they aren’t in use. I will say the one downside was having the huge stack of empty boxes take up space (albeit just one box size-worth, since they stack) vs. building cardboard boxes as you go. However, the pros blew this one con out of the water. The boxes stacked and were so easy to load up when it was time to move, literally nothing broke (I even moved all my stuff twice–more on this later), and it was pouring on Friday but nothing got wet. I’ll seriously never move with cardboard boxes ever again. That’s what J used and I think even the movers had an easier time with my set 🙂
For pickup, they’ll confirm a time block and try to work around your schedule–I literally emailed them within 5 minutes of my pickup window on Saturday asking if they could come towards the end of the block, and the president of the company herself (I mean, amazing, right?) responded right away saying she’d ask the driver to come as late as he could without delaying his other pickups, and she offered kind words of encouragement cheering me on about the end of the move in sight. If that isn’t good customer service, I don’t know what is. I definitely cut it close getting the boxes picked up just one day after our move, but it was worth it to save a few bucks and get them out of the small space to make room for organizing.
So yeah, if you’re moving, I’d highly recommend going the plastic box route. Not only is it way less wasteful, but it just makes things feel more organized and manageable. It’s one of those things where if there’s an opportunity to significantly reduce stress during something like a move, why not just do it? Don’t quote me on this, but I really don’t think the rentals cost you much more than if you went out and bought cardboard boxes. Long story short: DC-area friends, Lend A Box is where it’s at! And if you don’t live in the DMV, definitely search for something similar in your area.
And that’s my little spiel about…boxes. Happy to answer any questions! Shoot me an email/comment/social message etc 🙂
P.S. Again, I wasn’t asked to write this–they’re just that good. Also I meant to get a photo of the boxes in action, but it was unsurprisingly chaotic so that didn’t happen. This picture is from my old mini-home tour!