U-Haul or PODs?

With every move comes challenges. For us, it was figuring out the logistics of moving from one state to another.

We had to figure out…..

What is the most cost effective way to load up all your items and ship them to another state?

Is renting a truck better?

Or does getting a POD make more sense?

We are currently the owners of four dogs, three tortoises, and multiple Koi fish – So how does one also take into consideration packing up the crew and relocating? (I will tackle that subject in a different post).

And – to add complication to the matter – how do you ship your husbands woodworking equipment when some of the machines weigh 600 lbs?

It is a problem we had to set out to solve and we did.

driving to virginia

The first thing we did was research Uhaul. How much would it cost to pack up the house and shove it in the back of a truck? We initially had some hope that this route would work. But realized that while that would work for a normal family, we have too much heavy equipment. You can’t load up multiple heavy pieces of equipment and pack up all the items in your house, and expect the truck to be ok. We would have to take 2 uhaul trucks up if we wanted to look into the truck moving option.

That led us down the path of researching PODs. What can you put in a pod? What is not allowed? Is there a weight limited? After speaking to a couple reps, we learned that you can put equipment in your pod. But you have to be selective about what goes in. The PODs do have a weight limited. And the weight in the POD has to be evenly distributed within the POD.

It was decided, we would proceed with PODs. So we ordered two large containers. They would arrive in a few weeks so my husband set off to clean out his shop and I neatly packed everything in our house into boxes.

In the photos below you can figure out which box my husband packed…….

(He put that box in my nicely organized pile just to torture me.)

Once the PODs arrived, we had a very smooth experience. They picked them up on the scheduled date, delivered on the agreed date, and picked them up for the final removal. Everything went surprising smooth! We were very happy with our POD experience.