An old truism about moving says that when you move out, so does your money. But even in spite of the expense and extreme hassle, sometimes it just has to be done, for good or ill. And whatever the cause or motives behind the decision, moving is nothing if not an exciting time or at least a logical constituent of exciting times. New jobs, a desire for a fresh start, adventure, new levels of personal growth and awareness, and most likely, combinations of some or all of these aspects culminate into a big moving event.
Typically, you can expect a first month’s rent to be due at lease signing, and lease signing obviously needs to happen before the big move. You may get lucky enough to time things just so that you’re leaving just as new occupants are moving in. In that case, you may avoid dealing with overlapping rent payments. If you do manage to pull that off, you can probably plan on getting your security deposit back in time to help carry you through the lapse in income and dwindling savings account that often comes with a change of jobs and/or change of living arrangement. If you’re not so lucky as that, maybe the timing just didn’t work out in your favor, and you may be dealing with overlapping rent payments on top of moving expenses.
Is money the appeal of the new job? If so, is the cost of living in the new area lower, higher or comparable to where you’re currently living? There are all kinds of cost-of-living calculators online, including our rent calculator and some of them are pretty exhaustive in the range of goods and services they account for. If you have already landed a new job in a new town, then you probably know what your salary will be, so you’ll be able to plug those figures into the calculator and determine if your money will be as green in the new place as it is in the old one. The better cost of living calculators are remarkably comprehensive. Pretty much every imaginable staple can be factored into calculating new monthly expenses, such as the average price of homes, the average monthly cost of rental properties, fuel costs, groceries, and even articles of clothing.
Will the new employer be helping you cover relocation costs? Taking into account truck rental, fuel costs, total weight of the cargo, wages for professional movers, a professional truck driver, boxes, tape, dollies, and other miscellaneous moving accoutrements, the article cites an average cost of intrastate moves at $1,170, where interstate moves average $5,630, according to the American Moving & Storage Association. Worldwide ERC, however, says those numbers are considerably lower than the $12,459 they typically pay for an average employee transfer brokered by them. The $7,000 discrepancy between those two estimates is quite a large margin. And even if your costs fall on the low end of that spectrum, that’s still a pretty hefty sum to absorb on your own. Of course, you can recruit friends and family members to help offset all those labor expenses, but you may be calling in every saved favor in memory. On the upside, it’s not totally unheard of for employers to simply cut new or transferring employees generous lump sum checks to cover moving costs. If you’re in that situation, you may have the opportunity to handle the logistics of moving all on your own, call in friends and family to help, and end up pocketing a good portion of the employer’s moving stipend to help smooth out the post-moving transition.
So yes, it may be an expensive headache, but it is so in the best sense of the word, most of the time. Operating from a positive perspective makes it easy to understand why people go to the trouble of moving in the first place. It’s a great experience provided you remember that there are a few factors that ought to be considered to determine if that change of scenery, change of venue, or change of occupation is going to prove worthwhile. No matter the circumstances or emotional context, moving requires a great deal of planning, forethought, and personal involvement. After all, your belongings aren’t going to move themselves. And the last thing anybody wants is a series of bumps blocking their new horizons.