Mississippi moving cost calculator

What the estimate is made of

Five lines, and the one everybody plans for is not the biggest.

The move itself is a band, worked out from the number of bedrooms and the distance, at rates that differ by method: a rental truck you drive yourself, a portable container someone else hauls, or full-service movers. Supplies are boxes, tape and packing paper, at $60 a bedroom. The deposit and the first month rent on the new place are cash you have to have on the day. Paying for both places converts the weeks of overlap into a share of a month's rent.

Add them and you have the figure that matters, which is not what the move costs but what you need in the bank in the same fortnight.

The worked example at the default inputs

The calculator opens on a three-bedroom home moving 600 miles by portable container, with an $1,800 deposit, $1,800 of first month rent and two weeks of paying for both places.

The move is between $1,776 and $2,997 of a total that runs from $6,387 to $7,608. On the low end of the band it is 28% of the money. Everything else is the cost of taking on a new home, and it lands whether you hire movers, rent a truck or carry the boxes yourself.

Take the overlap out, by lining the two tenancies up exactly, and the total falls to $5,556 to $6,777. Two weeks of double rent is $831, which is roughly half the low estimate for the move.

Why is this a range rather than a quote?

Because a move is priced on things a calculator cannot know.

Movers quote on weight or volume, on the date, on how far the crew has to carry your possessions from the door to the truck, and on whether stairs, a lift or a long walk are involved. Two identical three-bedroom homes on the same street can be quoted hundreds of dollars apart on volume alone, and a move on the last weekend of the month in summer costs more than the same move on a Tuesday in February.

So the tool produces a band, from 20% below its central estimate to 35% above it, and treats that spread as honest rather than embarrassing. A single confident number would be less useful, because it would be wrong in a way you could not see.

The way to narrow it is not a better calculator. It is three written estimates from three companies for the same inventory, which is also how you find out whether the low quote is low because the company is efficient or because it has not surveyed your belongings.

The move itself is rarely the largest line

This is the point of the page.

Look at the ordering again: the deposit and the first month together are $3,600, and the move on its central estimate is around $2,200. The truck is not the problem. The problem is that a deposit, a first month and an overlap all fall due within days of each other, usually before the deposit on the old place has been returned, and often before the first pay cheque at a new job.

That is why people who budget carefully for a move still run short. They budgeted for the move.

If the cash is tight, the levers in order of size are the overlap, the method, and the supplies. Cutting the overlap from two weeks to none saves $831. Switching from a container to a rental truck you drive saves about $816 on the low end. Cutting the supplies budget saves $180 and costs you an afternoon of scrounging boxes. Nothing else on the page is negotiable.

A second example: movers, and doing it yourself

Keep the three bedrooms and 600 miles, and change only the method.

• Rental truck, you drive: the move is $960 to $1,620, and the cash needed is $5,571 to $6,231.
• Portable container: the move is $1,776 to $2,997, and the cash needed is $6,387 to $7,608.
• Full-service movers: the move is $3,408 to $5,751, and the cash needed is $8,019 to $10,362.

The spread between doing it yourself and paying a full-service crew is about $2,400 at the low end and $4,100 at the high end, on a total that never falls below about $5,500 either way. That is a real difference and a fair one: you are buying labour, and on a long move you are also buying somebody else's driving.

Scale matters more than method beyond a point. A four-bedroom home moved 2,500 miles by full-service movers comes to $12,751 to $18,306, because distance is charged per mile and the per-mile rate is highest for the method that includes a crew. At the other end, a one-bedroom moved 20 miles in a rental truck puts the move itself at $162 to $273, and the cash needed is still $4,653 to $4,764, almost all of it deposit and rent.

Checking a mover is real before you pay a deposit

Interstate household movers must be registered with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and carry a USDOT number. That registration is checkable, free, and takes two minutes.

The FMCSA runs a consumer programme, Protect Your Move, for exactly this, and its SAFER database lets you look up a company by name or USDOT number and see whether the registration is active. A company that will not give you its USDOT number is telling you something.

The pattern the agency warns about is consistent. A quote given over the phone or by email with no in-home or video survey, an unusually low estimate, a large deposit demanded up front, a company that answers the phone with a generic greeting rather than its name, and then a demand for far more money before the truck is unloaded. The leverage in that situation is that your possessions are already on the vehicle.

Two habits remove most of the risk: never accept an estimate given without a survey of what you actually own, and never pay a large deposit in cash before the move.

The mistakes that turn a cheap move expensive

• Budgeting for the move and not the month. The move is under a third of the cash needed at the default inputs. Deposit, first month and overlap are the rest.
• Assuming the old deposit comes back in time. It usually arrives weeks later, and sometimes not in full. Plan as though you will not have it.
• Booking on the last weekend of the month in summer. That is peak pricing for every method. Midweek and mid-month are cheaper.
• Accepting a quote given without a survey. It is the single most common feature of a move that goes wrong, and it is the thing the FMCSA warns about most clearly.
• Underestimating the volume. Movers price on what you own, not on the number of bedrooms. A garage and an attic can add more than a bedroom does.
• Forgetting the small cash items. Utility connection fees, a cleaning charge on the old place, a locksmith, a parking permit for the truck. Individually small, collectively several hundred dollars.

What this estimate does not include

• Utility connection and reconnection fees. Not counted, and they arrive in the same fortnight as everything else.
• A cleaning or repair charge on the old place. Deducted from the deposit you are hoping to get back.
• The deposit you may not recover. The tool counts the new deposit as cash out and does not credit the old one back.
• Insurance and valuation cover. Basic carrier liability is not full replacement cover, and buying full value protection is a real cost.
• Storage. If the dates do not line up, storage between the two homes is not modelled.
• Time off work, travel and overnight stops. A 600 mile move is at least one working day and often two, plus fuel and a hotel on the self-drive option.
• The cost difference between the two places. Rent, tax, insurance and everyday prices all change with the address. That is a separate question, and the cost of living pages and state pages are where it belongs.

What should you have in writing?

• Three estimates from three companies, each based on a survey of what you own
• The USDOT number of any interstate mover, checked against the FMCSA database
• Whether each estimate is binding, non-binding or binding not-to-exceed
• The valuation cover included, and the cost of upgrading it
• Any charge for stairs, long carries, a lift, or a shuttle vehicle
• The delivery window, not just the collection date
• The deposit required, and what happens to it if the date moves

Get those seven and the range on this page will narrow to something close to a real number. Until then, budget for the top of the band and be pleased if it comes in lower.

This page is an estimate, not a quote, and nothing here is advice about a particular company. See the disclaimer and our methodology.