How to Move on a Budget: Save Money Without Cutting Corners

Every year we do a few free quotes for people who are white-knuckling their moving budget. Sometimes it's a young couple buying their first house. Sometimes it's a family that just took a pay cut, or a retiree on a fixed income. What we've learned in three decades is that moving cheaply and moving well aren't opposites — but pursuing 'cheap' as the only goal leads to genuinely expensive mistakes.

This is our unfiltered guide to saving real money on your move. Some of these tips will cost us business. We're okay with that. If you can save $400 by packing smarter, save it and spend it on a couch you actually like.

1. Move less stuff

The single largest lever on your moving cost is the amount of stuff you're moving. Everything else — labor, truck size, packing materials — is downstream of volume. The mover's rule of thumb is that decluttering aggressively before a move saves 15–25% off the total bill on a typical household. On a $2,000 move that's up to $500 back in your pocket for a weekend of sorting.

The math is brutal but clarifying: if you're paying someone to move a $30 particleboard bookshelf, you'll spend more moving it than replacing it. Same for old mattresses, half-used cleaning supplies, mystery boxes from your last move, kids' toys they aged out of, and the six-year-old exercise bike. Sell what you can on Facebook Marketplace, donate the rest to a place that will pick up (in Sioux Falls, that's a few reliable options), and haul what's left to the dump before move day.

The one caveat: sentimental items that are cheap to move but expensive to replace emotionally — photo albums, kids' art, keepsakes — those come with you regardless of dollar cost. Cut ruthlessly on the stuff that only has replacement value.

2. Move at the right time

Movers charge more when they're busy. In Sioux Falls, peak season is May through mid-September, and within that window the busiest days are the last weekend of the month (leases turn over) and the first weekend after school lets out. A move booked for a Tuesday in October will cost meaningfully less than an identical move on the last Saturday in June — same crew, same truck, same stuff. It's just supply and demand.

If your schedule allows any flexibility, ask for an off-peak rate. Most reputable movers will offer one. Mid-week moves, mid-month moves, and moves outside peak season are consistently cheaper. Even shifting from Saturday to Monday for the same week can knock 10–15% off.

3. Do your own packing — but not all of it

Packing labor is a real chunk of the bill on a full-service move. If you're on a tight budget, packing your own non-fragile items is the highest-ROI DIY move you can make. Books, clothing, linens, toys, garage items, and pantry goods are all things you can pack over the course of a couple weeks in the evening. It's slow but easy work.

Where we'd push back: don't pack your own kitchen dishes, glassware, artwork, TVs, or lamps unless you know what you're doing. The savings on packing labor for those items is small compared to the cost of a broken 60-inch TV or a shattered set of wedding china. The pros use dish-pack boxes, custom crating for TVs, and specific wrapping techniques that a first-timer usually doesn't get right on the first try. Pack the easy stuff yourself and let us handle the fragile categories. It's the best of both worlds.

4. Source boxes cheaply — or free

New boxes from a box store add up faster than people expect. A modest 2-bedroom household typically needs 40–60 boxes of various sizes. At retail prices that's $150–250 in cardboard alone.

Sources for free or cheap boxes: liquor stores get sturdy boxes daily and will usually give them away if you ask nicely; grocery stores are hit or miss; Facebook Marketplace and Buy Nothing groups almost always have someone giving away their post-move boxes for free within a week. Just be sure the boxes are structurally intact — no soft corners, no water damage, no bug evidence.

The one place we'd spring for new boxes is dish-packs and wardrobe boxes. Dish-packs are double-walled and specifically built for fragile stuff; a saved liquor-store box will not perform the same. Wardrobe boxes (with the hanging bar inside) save an enormous amount of packing/unpacking labor for closet clothes and are worth every penny.

5. Get three real quotes

This is basic and everyone knows they should do it, but very few actually do. Getting three quotes forces you to think about your move in specifics — inventory, dates, distances — and reveals which movers are actually paying attention. A quote you got over text without anyone asking you a single question about your home is not a real quote. It's a placeholder that will be revised (upward) on move day.

What a real quote looks like: someone asks about your home size, the number of large or specialty items (piano, gun safe, pool table, oversized furniture), stairs and elevator situations at both ends, packing needs, and desired dates. They give you a written estimate with an hourly rate or a flat rate, an itemized list of what's included, and a clear statement of what would cause the price to go up. If any of that is missing, keep shopping.

A word on lowball quotes. If one quote is dramatically lower than the other two, that's not a bargain — that's a warning sign. In moving, dramatically-lower quotes almost always mean one of three things: the mover is uninsured (a huge risk), the mover plans to add fees on move day (also huge), or the mover is a broker who will hand you off to a random crew you never met (worst). The middle quote is usually the honest one.

6. Skip the extras that don't matter, keep the ones that do

Real value add: full-service packing of fragile items, proper wrapping and blanket protection of furniture, and basic liability coverage. These prevent the expensive kinds of failure.

Often skippable: bumper-to-bumper packing when you have time to do it yourself, custom crating for anything that isn't a fine-art piece, unpacking labor at the destination (most people find it easier to unpack at their own pace).

One extra that's often undervalued: paying for the crew to load the truck for you even on a self-move. If you're renting a U-Haul and driving yourself but hiring labor-only movers to load the truck (usually 2–3 hours of labor), you get most of the professional benefit at a fraction of the cost. This is one of the most underrated moves in the moving playbook and it can cut your budget by 40–60% versus a full-service move.

7. Time the transition to save on temporary storage

Storage between the old place and the new place is where budget moves quietly become expensive moves. Even a month of temporary storage adds hundreds to your bill by the time you factor in the storage fee, a second truckload, and additional labor.

If you can possibly close on the new place before you have to be out of the old one — even by a single day — you avoid all of that. Talk to your realtor about back-to-back closings, or negotiate a rent-back at the current property to give yourself an overlap window. A couple of extra days of overlap is almost always cheaper than a month of storage.

If storage is unavoidable, ask your mover if they offer it in-house. A mover with their own storage facility can usually consolidate the transfer into a single labor charge instead of two.

8. Don't cheap out on insurance

This is the one place we get preachy. Basic liability coverage from a mover typically pays out at $0.60 per pound per item — meaning if we damage your 200-pound couch, you get $120. That's not a serious protection for a $2,000 couch. Full-value protection costs more up front but pays out repair or replacement value.

For most moves, either buying full-value protection from the mover or confirming with your homeowners/renters insurance that your policy covers items in transit is worth the small cost. This is one of the few places where saving $50 can cost you $2,000.

The honest bottom line

The cheapest move is not always the best move, but there are absolutely ways to save real money without ending up with broken furniture or a nightmare crew. Move less, move off-peak, pack your own easy stuff, source boxes free, get three real quotes, and pay for the extras that protect you against catastrophic loss. Do those six things and you'll save 20–30% on a typical move without noticing a single downside.

When you're ready for that third quote, we'd be happy to give you an honest one. If we're not the right fit for your budget, we'll tell you — and often we can suggest which category of mover would be.