After a successful two-stage interview, I managed to secure a job down South. So i needed to move all my stuffs before i started work and therefore started contacting all sorts of removal companies. What i found out was the larger the removal company, the more they charge you. Now i do not have many things – i’d say about 25 boxes which can be easily carried by a teenager, a TV set, a washing machine, two chairs and a few other little things. Therefore it was pretty basic stuffs – no furniture etc. I was quoted £975 to move these things from Manchester to London by a large removal company. I tried a few others and the least they quoted me was £700. I thought this must be a joke – c’mon it cant be that much for a small transit van and a driver! I looked for some smaller removal companies on the Internet and Yellow Pages and rang them. The cheapest quote that i got then was £375. This was getting better but is still a lot of money. After convincing one guy that me, my family and friends will also help to load/unload the van, i managed to get a quote for £325.
I was going to go with the last quote but i thought that if i could save more money with an alternative way, it will be better for me because i am going to need all the money that i can get when i start over in London. So i decided to enquire about Van Hire. I contacted Salford Van Hire and they said it was about £42 to rent a transit van for 24 hrs but i will then need to fill back the fuel tank when i returned the van. That seemed very appealing because the journey from Manchester to London is roughly 5 hrs, which there’s ample time to go and come back. Unfortunately i was not confident enough to drive the van and asked somebody else to drive it for me. It was the brother of my colleague/friend bash. I paid him £100 for driving down and returning the van, £73 for diesel (to fill back the fuel tank), £52 van hire and extra insurance. In total i paid £225! Therefore i made a massive saving of £100 and would have been able to made a further £100 saving if i drove the van myself.
I’m happy things went fine for me. But what i would like to say is that removal companies are expensive and should only be used if you dont have time to drive a van yourself or you are not confident enough to drive or want the reassurance for all your possessions. It is always easier to get a friend do it for you – after all that’s what friends are here for – to look out for each other 🙂