5 Reasons Moving Sucks (And Costs) More Than You Expect
The odds are overwhelming that if you're reading this, you're going to be moving to a new home or apartment in the next few years. So let me just tell you this now: The next time you move, you are going to get fucked. In the wallet.
When I was a kid, we moved so often that my friends thought we were nomads. In fact, until I was in my late 20s, I never spent more than a year in the same place. I liked to tell people that my mother was a trained government assassin and we were constantly on the run, but the truth is that we were just poor and got evicted a lot. On top of her being a trained government assassin.
So I can say from experience that it doesn't matter how well you plan, moving is a swim through a creek infested with money leeches, ready to attach themselves to your balls.*
*In this metaphor, your balls are where you keep your money.
#5. You Have to Relearn Which Businesses Won't Screw You
This one is true unless you're literally moving from one side of a small town to the other. You really don't stop and appreciate the level of trust you build up with the places where you do business, and how long it took to build it. But in your old stomping grounds, you knew which mechanic would fix your car without fisting you with an inflated bill for replacing parts your car doesn't even have. If you decided to go out for dinner, you knew which restaurants made sure their cooks weren't resting their naked balls on each steak before sending it out.
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Fuck you, Pedro, I hope your daughter gets herpes.
Remember how long it took you to find the right doctor? Or hair stylist? Or the one bar that wouldn't kick you out when you shoved a kazoo in your ass and farted the theme to Battlestar Galactica? As you drunkenly demand everyone refer to it as Battlefart Galasstica.
Oh, and if you've got kids? How long did it take to find a freaking reliable babysitter?
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Sometimes it's perfectly fine to judge a book by its cover.
I remember spending months finding one, then one day we came by to pick up our boys, and the woman was nowhere to be found. She had left her 12-year-old son in charge of multiple toddlers and infants while she went to the bar. Our kids hadn't been fed or changed all day, and some pretty bad shit went down. For months after that, we didn't trust anyone at all with our kids, and it led to my then-wife becoming an at-home mother. Which meant that we were now a single income household. It took years before we finally found another sitter who was trustworthy enough for us to use. Moving to a new town resets that entire search, from scratch.
It's like that with every service you use. That trial and error process begins, where "error" means getting screwed.
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"I tried that hair stylist you suggested. Did I do something to make you mad?"
After all, you only knew your dentist was running a front for "unconscious patient rape" porn videos when you saw yourself appear in one. And no, you can't just "ask around" because every business has some customer going around telling a horror story about it.
#4. Forgetting to Update Your Address Will Cost You
Quick: make a list of every single business you have an account with. Also, every single person who needs your current address on file. I will bet everything I own, plus one nude massage, that you forgot at least five.
You'll find out when it comes time to notify absolutely everyone that your address has changed. In that first week, you find yourself calling businesses and filling out change of address forms at a dozen or more places. You cover family and friends, work, utility companies, the bank, the post office ... you remembered it all! You're the smartest man in the world!
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Don't you fucking patronize me, Jimmy.
Then three weeks down the line you receive a late notice for your last month's Internet at your old place. But wait, that was set up to auto-deduct from your bank account, wasn't it? Yep. And as it turns out, you forgot to notify them of your address change, because you figured that was your old service, and there was only one last bill to pay anyway. But you did notify your bank, which in turn changed your zip code. It turns out that part of the verification process for transferring funds is matching that information at both places to prevent fraud. So, when the address that your old Internet provider had on file didn't match the one at your bank, the transfer was denied, and now you're stuck with a late fee.
And trust me, this is the fucking gift that keeps on giving. Think about the bills you don't pay monthly. I pay my car insurance once every six months. Hell, I wouldn't even remember to renew it if it weren't for the reminder that comes in the mail every half a year that says, "Hey, dipshit ... pay your goddamn insurance. Because you never know what might happen to your car." Months after moving, I was cleaning out my truck when I stumbled across the expired proof of insurance card and realized that I never received the new one when I paid my last bill. So I called them up and told them about it. Of course, they had my old address.
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That didn't pan out well for the guy who moved in after I left.
They took down my new information and asked me to verify my drivers license number. Oh shit. How often do I look at my license? Apparently not often enough, because I had completely spaced getting that changed as well. There was no bill attached to it, so there was nothing to remind me it needed done. That can earn you a fine. Luckily, the police still fear me after the "hundred man slap" incident of 1994.
If you have kids, the emergency contact information at their schools need to be changed. You may not remember that one until they're frantically trying to contact you at your old number.
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One little gas bomb, and they flip out.
It goes on and on. If you're a reference on someone's job application, they need to know. Hell, we had to even notify fucking World of Warcraft because when my son tried to sign on from the new house, it saw that he was playing from a new location and locked him out of his own account for "suspicious activity." I'm not kidding, shit will be coming up with this like five years later.
#3. Hidden Moving Costs Pile Up ...
Sit down and make a list of everything you think you have to pay to move to a new place. Deposit and first month's rent on the new apartment? Got it. Paying the movers? Sure. Buying a shitload of boxes? Please. Now add in some extra cash just in case.
Add all that together. Now triple it. That's what it'll actually cost you.
Sure, you budgeted for the deposit on the new place, but that was easy -- you can just pay with the deposit you get back on this one! That is, if you're lucky enough to have one of the few landlords in the world who are not either shady or outright thieves. I was lucky, but many find out that their $500 deposit has vanished because of the tack-holes they made in the wall hanging their Color Me Badd poster and a cigarette burn in the carpet that was made by a tenant who lived there in 1983.
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Which was incidentally Color Me Badd.
Getting water turned on at the new place? Yeah, they'll need a deposit and a connection fee. Same for the phone, and the electricity, and the gas, and the Internet.
But maybe you're smart, and you anticipated those, too. But then starts an endless stream of nickel and dime bullshit.
Like food. You make it to the new place and start unloading all of your swords and fuck tarps, and you get hungry so you stop by the fridge. Oh, wait, that shit is completely empty. What, you thought you were going to pack up your frozen pizzas, eggs and a pot of chili and tote it all across the state (or country)? Nope, when you packed, that shit went right in the trash. So you've got one massive fucking grocery shopping trip ahead of you.
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What? I was fresh out. Lay off, man.
But that has to wait until tomorrow -- no way there's time for that in the middle of move-in day. So you go out (or order a couple of pizzas, the quintessential first-night moving food). Is a friend helping you move? Human decency demands you feed his ass, and buy him beer if he's a beer drinker. Add that to your bill.
Speaking of that friend, that's all I had the last time I moved -- no movers, just our truck and the truck of the friend who offered to help. He absolutely refused any offer of compensation, knowing that some day I'd return the favor and bust him out of a Mexican jail (again). But, just before heading out, he told me he needed to stop for gas. Fuck. I hadn't thought of his gas. Obviously it's one thing to not pay him, but to give him an additional expense to take on? No way. If you let him buy his own gas, he's going to consider saving the trip and just simulating the event by strapping a dresser to his back, running on a treadmill for eight hours, and then setting a $50 bill on fire. Just like that, your gas budget doubled.
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"I was actually thinking about charging you for letting you help us."
And then there's the time. For me, this was the most expensive part. The time you took off work to move, plus the time you took off to hang around the house during the 18-hour window the cable company gave you (and repeat for Internet, gas, phone, whatever else requires you to be there). If you don't have one of those fancy jobs where they give you lots of vacation time, that's money lost.
Oh, and you think you can move every piece of furniture you own without breaking anything? Think again. Especially if you bought cheap bolt-together furniture from Wal-Mart that won't go through the door unless you disassemble it. Here's a tip: that shit is made to go together once. Be ready to replace at least one piece, if not more, due to a leg getting snapped off in a door frame.
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Not limited to furniture.
Your article and a lot of comments from readers are all great. If I may add my own:
ReplyYou will eventually be playing box Tetris.
Obviously, when you pack you go backwards. "Will I need it between now and the time I arrive in the new place? No? Pack it." But the first stuff also seems to be square; books, movies, DVDs, voila! a full box top to bottom.
And then as it goes on, there is the stuff that doesn't fit in as well. "Hmm, this lamp takes up most of a box. But if I throw in this blanket and this other thing, I've got a few more things packed."
And then, day/night before/of moving comes the weird shit. "I have these decorations that can't fit into the box, along with this loose change/ can of pens/ other small item that won't fit into boxes." That is also frustrating.
*Just sits here nodding along with every single one of these things*
ReplyI get the feeling this author and I could get on quite well and swap a story or two.
A year an a half ago we moved from our old terrible apartment, to a nice two story place that cost almost the same in rent. We moved exactly four blocks north and three blocks west. I told the cable company, power company, and internet provider well in advance, even scheduling shutoff dates more then a month away.
ReplyThe power company shut off the old place two weeks early, after we had moved out but before the cleaners had finished. Qwest (now century-link) said it would take three weeks to turn on the internet, and tried to force me to buy a new DSL box because "Your new neighborhood doesn't use the same signal type."
The irony, only COX cable didn't screw us, they turned on the new apartment three days before we asked and even added in internet service within 14 hours of my ordering it from them (and canceling on those @$#%!# at Qwest.)
Hell the post office was faster at forwarding my mail.
Oh and you're right, I had forgotten to change my Netflix account to the new address of all things. Nearly two weeks of waiting for replacement disks that had been sent to the old place,
Yeah, the money thing sucks. I'm finally caught up from all the expenses when I moved this July, and I'll be moving again this summer when I transfer colleges... At least I work at WalMart so I'm basically guaranteed a position, and I'll have roommates this time.
ReplyWe have lived at this house for 6 or 7 years now and we are still getting letters and the occasional debt collector/police looking for the scumbags that skipped out of town who lived here before we did. I am getting ready to move to go to college. Thanks for reminding me of how long it took to find the one decent hair salon.
ReplyYour life is a goddamn rolling catastrophe.
ReplyIf there is one thing I dread doing when I move, it's talking to DirecTV. After a month, I'm waiting on him to come hook the DVR up to the internet today because he forgot when he was here the first time, and just didn't show up for the appointment two weeks ago. I friggin' hate DirecTV!
ReplyI still occasionally get mail at my mom's house (mostly junk mail at this point), even though I haven't lived there for over six years and only lived there about a third of the time for six years before that.
ReplyI've had service with all of the internet companies and they are all equally terrible. Same thing with all other companies too, no matter who you go with you are getting screwed so keep a large quantity of lube stocked up. I've found the best way to save money is do every god damn thing yourself...if you don't know how to do something, get a book and learn it. You'd be surprised how easy most of that s**t is and how much money you save doing it yourself. I can't replace a transmission in my car, but i've saved over $2000 in labor fixing other parts on it with hand tools; rebuilt my entire toilet since every part I replaced made something else leak but it cost me about $200 less than hiring a plumber.5 minutes of google searching how-to guides or just asking people who know that stuff is all it takes. There's really not that much stuff that requires years of college to do yourself.
ReplyAgreed. There are few things worse than paying someone hundreds of dollars to do a job, just to find out that they don't know any more about how to do it than you do.
I moved into my own apartment this year and I had no problems whatsoever.
Replyim 19 years old and i plan to move out to this new house, very big very spacious big backyard.... i been wanting to move out for so long... now i am a bit terrified
ReplyDon't know if you have it in the US, but here in Johannes burg we have the perfect way to negate #2: Post Office boxes. An off-site place your mail gets delivered to, regardless of how many times you move.
ReplyCaveat: it's a bastard when you have to provide physical proof of address, as all bills etc are addressed to teh off-site box. but still, worth the schlepp as opposed to changing every time you move.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this only useful if you're moving so close to home that your original post office is still convenient? Obviously moving to another city would make it impossible, but even within a city what once was a five minute walk can easily become an hour long bus ride. And once you change it you still need to contact all of those different people with your new box number.
Oh god the internet not being available . . . We've been waiting five freaking years *the neighborhood has been here for seven* to get wired internet for the neighborhood, and not just the three half million dollar houses that are already wired up . . . even though the rest of the neighborhood was built with the proper wiring to get the services.
ReplySeriously, f**k you comcast and qwest/century link, regular people deserve internet too.
I have to rely on HughesNet on account of living in the effing boonies. There was an option about ten years back for my husband's great uncle to allow towers on his land (and he would get paid for the space, too) but he said f**k that shit, ya'll should be farmers. Or something like that. It's not like he owns approximately 70% of the land in this place, either... oh, wait. FML
Myabe the people in the "three half million dollars" houses have internet via satellite. You're f*****g retarded if you think that a company is going to supply internet to 3 f*****g houses in a neighborhood and not the rest, no matter how much those houses cost. How the f**k are they going to make money by having 3 subscribers?
Hint: $500K is not much for a house in lots of places.
Your articles make me scared of doing anything in my life ever.
ReplyYeah, I'm wondering if I should stop reading them, myself.
It's not to make you afraid, it's to make you aware of what's in the cesspool when you fall in it, and you will fall in it regardless if Cheese writes these articles or not.
I have helped several friends move in the last several years. Most fun was one friend who was moving from her two-story house into a second-floor apartment. Her brother was supposed to come help with all of the heavy stuff (like the BRICK BOOKCASE her grandfather had made for her before he died) but he ended up getting high instead, leaving my two friends and I to do it on our own. Every time I hang out at that friend's apartment, to this day I can't help but contemplate various ways of destroying that damn bookcase.
ReplyI'm pretty much a nomad myself (for Soviet espionage-related reasons... the Kremlin pays like shit), so I've become a veteran at moving house. I have never once gotten a damage deposit back, but the $350 is never worth going to court over, and landlords know it. Besides furniture, I find clothes/blankets are the biggest f*****g pain in the ass to move. You don't really think about how much valuable moving truck space is to be wasted on a stack of blankets, shirts, towels and other bullshit.
ReplyP.S. I will claim my nude massage tomorrow evening, but I first need to iron my f**k tarp.
Most of this is pretty true. Moving is just horrible and expensive no matter what most of the time. The mailing address thing though isn't as bad. As someone else pointed out, the USPS does mail forwarding. I'm still getting s**t for the previous tenant in the mail box of my new apartment 2+ months after moving in because those idiots didn't forward their mail. I'm not talking about junk mail either, but medical bills and stuff. Sometimes mail forwarding doesn't work 100% (like it takes stuff an extra week or two to get to your place), but it's mostly good.
ReplyI agree, the USPS is awesome with forwarding if your postal carrier is on the ball. We too get junk mail for the previous tenant, but not anything important. I guess she was smarter than your average bear.
I live in an apartment at a university, and I bought some amazing but cheap curtains for under $20, and I do use thumbtacks. It sounds terrible, but I found pretty ones and it actually looks great
ReplyThe change of address section is the furthest depths of human stupidity I have ever heard of. The US Postal service will forward all of you mail for 12 months FOR ONE DOLLAR. Go to the post office or go online when you move it seriously only costs $1. Also if you pay your bills online like most people you don't have to worry about most of them anyways, updating you bank is really the only one that has any urgency.
ReplyAlso, you can make curtains or go to good will.
Actually, mail forwarding is free if you file in the post office. The one dollar fee is only charged online. Also, they don't forward everything. Treasury checks, for example, will not be forwarded.
Damn it, how can you be so terrible at f*****g EVERYTHING. Every time I accidentally read one of your articles because I forgot to check the author I am shocked anew at just how terrible you are at everything. I get that you were a drunk for 15 years or whatever so when most of us were learning how to adapt to modern life you were blitzed but seriously...how can you be this f*****g stupid?
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