Moving out can be one of the most stressful experiences of your adult life. There’s just so much that needs to be taken care of, from packing all your goods to making sure it arrives at your new home safely, especially if it is exceedingly large or fragile. For many this raises the question: is it worth hiring professional movers, or move by yourself for free? Certainly there are advantages to both, in particular, moving by yourself can save you a pretty sum in moving fees. It also offers you the freedom to move at your pace to your designs.

However, there is a catch to all that. Let’s count the ways professional movers can make a move less stressful versus doing it all solo.

Experience

The first and foremost advantage that you’ll have when hiring a professional company is experience. Unless you are a family that’s had to move around a lot, you’ll probably have only moved once or twice within the last decade or so. This means that you’ll often have to learn tricks and tips about moving all over again, most likely during the actual move. However, where you’ll probably only have moved once within the past few years, movers do it every other week if they do not do it more frequently.

This means that professional movers are more likely to know how everything works than you’ll do, allowing them to get most of the logistics done within less time. Quite simply, they’ve had more practise and more opportunities to keep that practice from going rusty. They have to, after all, as those skills and experience form their livelihood. We’ll go into more detail of the sorts of things that professional movers will offer more assistance with below.

Packing

Packing is probably one of the most stressful parts of moving out. In particular, it also helps reveal just how much junk you’ve managed to collect over the years you’ve been living at your current address. Working out how to safely transport all this accumulated clutter will likely take up the most of your planning and resources, and chances are you’ll end up using far more boxes and cartons than you’ll actually need, driving up costs.

Hiring a professional moving company cuts this out immediately. They are more likely to know just how to pack things efficiently. This saves on space, which in turn saves on the amount of boxes and containers will be needed to move. They are also going to know how things should be transported, taking special measures to protect items during transit.

Equipment

When moving yourself, the amount of equipment you have on hand to pack and transport your things are limited. You may be moving most of your stuff in the family car and a borrowed trailer, for example, which doesn’t offer either the room or the protection necessary to keep it safe. This may result in numerous trips to transport goods, which hikes up costs, or else results in damage to your things. In worst case scenarios, lacking proper equipment for a move may even result in personal injury, which would somewhat mar the excitement of moving into a new home.

Miami movers know what they are up against, they also know how to deal with the problems they are likely to face during a move. They can provide a vehicle that’s not only large enough to transport all your possessions, that vehicle is designed to transport them too. Along with the protective wrapping and straps the company can provide, this means greater protection for your belongings. They are also able to provide safety equipment such as protective gloves and steel-capped boots, so they can move this stuff without hurting themselves.

Economics

Say you have a load of boxes and containers you used for moving, bought some safety gloves and a lot of other equipment especially for your move. How likely is it that you’ll need those supplies again soon? Unless you expect to be moving again very shortly, it is probably not worth the investment. Even hiring the equipment, and the trailer to boot, will likely put a very big dent in your wallet. While many people try moving themselves to avoid the expense of hiring a professional moving company, the fact is they’ll often spend even more just to get the equipment they need. Then there are the hidden costs of hours of work lost, potential injury and damages, and favours called in from friends and family.

Hiring a professional company eliminates all that. They provide the equipment, they deal with the stress, and in many cases you do not even need to be present at all. As long as the company has the keys to your new house, they can handle all the moving in for you while you are busy at work. That said, it is often helpful to have someone on hand to help direct things, and see that the movers know what is what. Every household is different!

Storage Facilities

Say you arrive at your new home later than planned, due to some delay. In the event that you cannot move into the house immediately, most moving companies provide storage facilities for your things as part of the service. This will incur an additional cost, of course, but your goods are safe from damage and theft. That is not possible when moving independently.

As you can see, the costs of hiring professional movers are far outweighed by the benefits. Moving solo is stressful, expensive, time-consuming, and leaves you ill-prepared for unforeseen accidents or delays. A professional company provides for all that, and makes your move that little bit easier. This in turn makes enjoying your new home that little bit easier, too.

The writer, Christian Mills, is a freelance writer who himself recently moved, and has lately been writing about some of the problems that resulted, and some of his successes. One of his successes was hiring a professional moving company like Movin’ On Movers. You can learn more about Christian on Google+.