The Best Way To Move - Compare Quotes From Top Rated Moving Companies

O.K. let's just come out and say it. Moving isn't cheap!  Nowadays every one of us is watching out for every cent and who doesn't want to save money when they can?  This is why moving companies offer the public all kinds of different moving services so that you can pick and choose the type of moving service that's right for you!   Almost all moving companies will help you to save a lot of money and allow you to pack your own moving boxes and prepare most of your belongings for your move.   When you are preparing your belongings for the move, you will need lots of packing materials and most important of all is moving boxes. Except for your major or large furniture and pieces, you will be packing all of your belongings into moving boxes. Buying brand new moving boxes is a huge expense and not necessary! There are plenty of sources for great, free moving boxes. Specialized moving boxes such as wardrobe boxes or china boxes (dish packs) really are a waste of money. Since most of our clothing is permanent press and wrinkle free, why not just fold it up and put it into regular boxes and save all that money? There are also lots of other options for you to pack your breakables and fragile belongings besides special china and dish boxes. They are expensive and after your have unpacked everything, there is nothing to do with them! I bet by now you're asking yourself where I can look for really good free boxes for my move. What should I be looking out for? How do I know if a box is a good box to use for my move? Let me give you some really good tips and advice about moving boxes. There are plenty of places where you can find good moving boxes for free. The first thing I always suggest is to start looking for boxes as early as you can so you can collect only the boxes that are in the best  condition. You want to be sure that the boxes are in mint condition, strong and clean. The boxes must have all four flaps on the top and on the bottom. Without all of the flaps you can't seal the box properly and it will not be strong. You want to be sure that they we folded along the seams and not crushed. A crushed box will not be strong. You want to be sure that the boxes are dry, since moving boxes that were wet will easily fall apart. I know that this will sound a little funny, but make sure the boxes don't have a bad smell! The best place to look for boxes is any of the big shopping centers in your area. Try to hit them a couple of times a week until you have enough used moving boxes (and believe me there is no such thing as enough boxes).  Go around the dumpsters and look for the boxes that are in the best condition. The best boxes for moving will not be in supermarkets or liquor stores. Most of the used boxes in supermarkets will be dirty and probably smell from whatever was in them and are almost always torn or cut. Liquor stores cut the tops of boxes so customers can easily pull out the bottles so you won't be able to seal them. I always recommend going to good book stores! Since you can't put dirty and torn books on the shelf in a book store, the boxes have to be strong and clean. Most of the time boxes in book stores are also laminated so when you seal the box, it's going to be waterproof and will protect you belongings and help keep them dry. Another great place to look for free moving boxes is at department stores. Since a department store can't sell damaged merchandise the boxes will be clean and strong. Take the boxes home and store them in a good dry place until you are ready to start packing. You will need a couple of different sized moving boxes for different items. The2 most used size of boxes is what I call small and medium. A small box is about the size of an average sized microwave oven and a medium sized box is about the size of a dormitory fridge like college kids have in their rooms. You want to use the small moving boxes for any of your breakables and dishes and medium size moving boxes for anything else. You might also want to have a few larger boxes around to cut up and use for packing some larger things you might have (like big pictures).  Also a lot of the other packing materials you need are things you already have around the house and are readily usable! One good example is old newspapers. Why spend money on special paper or stuffing for boxes when you already have old newspapers around that will do the job!  Newspaper can be used for wrapping and stuffing. Wrap it around anything. Stuff it into glasses and cups. Crumple it up and push it into the corners of the box. You can use old newspaper for anything. Another type of packing material you will have around the house is old blankets, sheets, linens and towels. Don't throw them out just yet! Save them as a packing material. Here is one example of how you can use them for packing your belongings. Let's say you want to pack a table lamp into a box, you can wrap it in a towel or blanket or old sheet before you box it, the lamp will be well protected inside the moving box for your move! Making use of free moving boxes and readily available packing materials you have around the house is the easiest way to keep a lot of money in your pocket and save you a fortune for you move. Everything we talked about here is relevant to both local moves and long distance moves. One other thing I wanted to mention. All of the materials we talked about are used and recyclable materials. By using environmentally friendly and recyclable materials for moving, you are helping to protect our environment. Packing your belongings into used moving boxes helps protect our forests and helps to control litter. By using newspaper and fabrics such as old blankets, linens, sheets and towels you are using biodegradable materials that are easily recycled later.

Since the beginning of time, mankind has been on the move! The earliest known humans were really just a bunch of nomads going from place to place in search of food and shelter. It was a mindless sort of move because the early humans never thought of taking anything with them, just picked up and moved! Later on, humans became a little smarter and we would take something that we thought was important, BUT, we would only move what we were able to carry in our hands. Only later, we realized that we can also make a sling or a pack and carry things on our backs! I wouldn't exactly say humans were really very smart back then, but we did learn from our experiences and remembered what we learned. Little by little, mankind was learning about possessions and what kind of possessions we important to our lives. So when we moved around from place to place, we needed to decide what we were going to take with us. (Sounds sort of familiar, right?) As we progressed in history, we began to learn all about how to start a fire and other things that made life better, but it was only when humans learned how to tame animals (like dogs, camels and horses) to serve us and someone unknown till this day invented the wheel (I would have loved to know them) and then the wagon that life for us humans really started to change. Suddenly we could move long distance and not just local or close by. At some point mankind discovered the benefits in living in a community and we started to develop villages, towns and even cities. This was a whole new way of life for us and had new rules. Suddenly humans didn't have to keep moving and wander to find food! We didn't need to live in caves or just plain under the stars. We started to live in tents and even huts! Sometimes things might happen and we needed to move to a new location and start all over again, but now we could move with us all of those things we needed or wanted in our wagons, pulled by our animals! Think about how much stress this must have been back then. Yes, humans had already come a long way! We learned all about possessions and belongings. The things we owned were no longer something we needed right then, but things we wanted or needed with us always. When an entire community (or tribe) would move, everyone pitched in and shared the work. There was lots of packing to do and disassembling of large items like the tents and we would load everything onto our wagons and animals. When we would get to our new location, we needed to reassemble everything and put all of our things in the right places. Humans were learning to plan a move so there would be as little stress and pressure as possible. Later on in history, we discovered new ways and places and started to move farther and farther. Sometimes someone would go to a place that nobody had been to and bring back new and wonderful things. Now humans needed to know not only about moving, but also about how to store things not just for a short term storage, but even long term storage! When we learned about sailing the oceans in canoes and ships, we needed to figure out how to professionally pack these things and how to store them properly so they wouldn't get damaged!! Doesn't this all sound just like us nowadays? We sure don't need to move for the same reason a caveman did or other earlier humans did, but when you think about it they weren't so different from us! When we move locally, it's because we like our community, but we need more space or found a really nice house or apartment. We want our kids to stay in the same schools or we just plain like where we live, but wanted better conditions. There's nothing wrong with that, right? If we are moving a long distance, it's because we got this great new job or we like the weather in the new location. Maybe we are retiring, going away to college or just plain need a change of scenery to start over. See, the reason we move isn't very important, but in today's world we all have lots of belongings we want and need to move with us, so we rely on moving professionals to help us plan our moves from the start to the finish. We all want good, reliable and professional movers to handle our belongings. We want to know we are getting the most for our money when we move. (That's sure different from our ancestors. They didn't even invent money back then.) Most of all we want to know that our belongings will make it from our old location to our new one safely and without damage. We want to  be sure that everything will be handled by pros that have our best interests at heart and want to make our moves stress free. So if this is what you've been looking for your move, you came to the right place! At 5 Movers you will find America's largest and best network of movers just waiting to help you move. Every moving company is the 5 Movers network has been prescreened to meet our high standards. The moving services you will find in our website have the professional knowhow to turn your local move or long distance move a positive experience you won't regret. Every company is licensed, bonded and insured (there was no insurance for cave moves) and meet all local, state and federal regulations. Every company is staffed with highly trained and experienced moving professionals that will guide you through the moving process and make your move a great one!