Moving to college seemed very simple. Then every year another box was shipped and more stuff accumulated .
A truck rental is not an option. I’m thinking the two options are pod moving or donation to charity. The resale market is negligible in spring.
Help!
Are you moving kid back to your home, or to a new apartment?
Is your location nearby (driving distance) or far (flying distance)?
Is this just personal effects from a dorm room or does it include furniture and housewares from apartment living?
If you want concrete suggestions, you’ll have to answer those questions above; otherwise it’s just a rant.
I think that at D2’s college, there were designated areas for throwaways, recyclables, and giveaways during the senior move-out process. You could check to see if this system is in place at your child’s college.
My kid went to college on the opposite coast…3000 miles from home. At graduation, three of us flew southwest…we had six large suitcases. We were pretty clear…if it didn’t fit in the six suitcases, it had to be sold, given away or donated. We did ship a box of books home. But that was it.
My S’s school had donation bins by all the dorms which I thought was a great idea. We made great use of them. You can call ResLife to see if your child’s school does that. He also gave some things to friends who were underclassmen.
My daughters college had a huge tag sale with the stuff that was left behind…or donated. It was amazing…lots of new things, and almost new things. Amazing what kids just left behind. The money went to charity.
This is a national thing and happens at a number of colleges. My kid’s school actually raised the most money more than one year.
Check to see if your college has this.
Sorry…can’t remember the exact name.
The move may be apartment to apartment or apartment to home to apartment. We have room to store items short term.
Trunk rental is not an option. The move will not be within driving distance.
We did the Southwest thing on the way out. That’s great for clothing and bedding but we will also have household items. I can ship the household items home via FedEx Ground. The books always ship USPS flat rate boxes.
So that leaves the bike, bed, desk, desk chair, and lamps. The resale market is nil. There is no universal start/end date to rentals in the area. So giving to friends doesn’t work, as move in and out dates don’t coordinate well. If we donate it to charity I will just call for a home pickup.
Sorry PG I should have been more direct. Does anyone have experience with pod storage and moving? Or anything I haven’t thought of?
Here is what both of my kids did. Somehow they knew who was next renting their off campus apartments. They sold what they didn’t want to the next tenants…including a LOT of the furniture.
Shipping household items can be costly. We checked. It was going to cost us a LOT more to package (think about things that can break) than to buy again when we knew where our kids would be living next. And yes…some of the repurchases came from consignment and thrift stores. But it was a LOT easier than shipping.
I might consider shipping something like a nutribullet blender or All Clad cookware. But regular household stuff? Nope.
My kids lived in a house with a trash pick up date. For things they couldn’t give away…or sell…they put it out with a sign that said FREE. Nothing lasted more than a couple of hours on the curb.
RE pod storage. It’s not climate controlled where we are. I would not even consider this for summer months.
How expensive is the bike? I can’t see how you will be able to bring that- maybe you can sell that on craig’s list. For the furniture, donate, leave for next tenants (find out who is coming) or put on the curb.
Agree with most of the posters above. I can’t believe it would be cost effective to transport 4 or 5 furniture items/bike unless the bike was a very expensive one - any then you could partially disassemble and send via UPS Ground. Same for the shipping of household items - if they’re bulky and heavy UPS Ground will be $$, possibly better to just repurchase at new site. Have had excellent results with putting items at the curb with FREE sign if college doesn’t have a donation area.
Hello Craigslist for the furniture / bike.
You can get a box to take a bike on an airplane. Check with a bike store.
Worth it for a fancy, expensive bike; likely not worth it for an inexpensive, run-around- town bike. We bought an inexpensive bike for our D at her college location and she sold it when she left.
Sometimes things aren’t worth moving. My D did an internship in NYC. I bought her a microwave for her apartment. To ship it home wasn’t worthwhile; we just left it for the next person.
All I have to say (FROM EXPERIENCE) is to tell your child that you will not be leaving your home to pick them up until you see packed boxes.
Thanks for all the ideas. When I was in college almost all of the off campus apartment leases ended on the same day. This is not the case here. Most of student housing is on an 11 or an 11 and a half month lease so you can’t just leave things for the next resident. It’s also hard to give items to another student as their lease may start a week or more after your lease ends.
The best option is to donate to charity. I just don’t want perfectly good items to end up in a landfill knowing I will head off to IKEA on the other side of the country next August and buy the same things.
The bike can be sold to a third party which can resell it in autumn.
Actually shipping FexEd Ground is very reasonable. I filled a medium moving box with two floor lamps, dishes, pots and pans, miscellaneous kitchen items, a stick vacuum, throw rugs, a Leatherman tool and more and it was less than $50 to ship. The two floor lamps were $20 each when purchased new for another apartment.
My S is in a fellowship that lasts for a year, at which point he will either stay in that city, or move elsewhere (hoping the latter). Knowing that, we bought him all Goodwill-style furniture for this apartment. The only thing worth keeping is the mattress/ bed, which was ours; everything else is just personal effects and can fit in his car coming home. He will just leave the dresser, desk, coffee table, etc - either sell it to another resident in the apt complex, or just put it on the curb.
We loaded D’s Matrix and my H’s tiny Lexus and off we went.
I posses superior packing skills though, it has helped. I did not care to ask anybody, including my D. to pack. I knew that nobody could do it as good as we needed to have it done considering the size of our cars. Get rid of things that are not fitting into whatever cars you going to have. Most likely, they are not worth keeping.
The move will not be within driving distance, so loading up two cars, even well packed ones…is not an option!
If a station is within range, Amtrak can be reasonable. I remember something about 5 pieces of luggage total for not much money. D went to school via Amtrak a few times. Midwest to Pacific NW. We were fans of the train for a lot of college travel.