We're now about 10 days away from The Move, and things are getting a lot busier. We got several big things done this past week. I'm probably happiest about two furniture-related events.
First, we gave away our futon (in recent years, Leo's futon) on Craigslist. I didn't realize how many people closely watch those free listings - Robert got a ton of emails almost immediately and the first-responder guy showed up right away at the storage unit to take the thing away. I'm glad we didn't try selling it. I mean, a new one like ours you can buy at Wal-Mart for about $150, and ours is pretty scratched up after moving (I think we calculated) four times. It was great to have somebody take it away so we didn't have to deal with it. The difference between "FREE" and even "$25" is huge, and the monetary difference didn't seem worth screwing around with given that we would have to meet the buyer at the storage unit (and a buyer is more likely to flake out / change his mind).
Second, we sold our washer and dryer, also on Craiglist. I'm going to miss our awesome front-loader, but the apartment in Snow City comes with a washer and dryer, which has two major benefits: we don't have to move or install our own machines and if the machines break, the apartment people will fix or replace them. Robert did an analysis of our estimated costs per load using the washer and dryer (including the costs of the machines, the water, and the electricity). We spent about 78 cents per load to wash and 72 cents per load to dry. (And those costs have not been offset at all by the couple hundred bucks we got when we sold the machines - again, we sold at a price to sell right away, not to maximize our price.) Given that it costs about $1.25 - $1.50 to wash a load of laundry at a laundromat, 78 cents is a good deal, and that does not even account for the tremendous added convenience and eliminated risk of laundry theft that comes with doing laundry in your own house. And these costs are based on our keeping the machines for only 6 years, not for their entire life (which I really do hope last for several more years for the nice people who bought them and took them away). So...yeah, investing in your own machines really is a money-saver long-term. It's always interesting to see these basic economic truths work themselves out.
Getting the washer and dryer out of here means that we have an empty laundry area that we can start moving boxes into, which we desperately need. We've got a good amount of stuff packed already (including all that wall art that took four people a day to pack in Austin), and packing is going into overdrive this week. Some things I haven't packed not because I still need access to the stuff but because there wasn't any room for the boxes.
Things are also heating up for Robert on the job interview front. He has two phone interviews today and is flying out for an interview in Snow City next week (for a job he's already done two phone interviews for, so *knock wood*).
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At lower rent levels, there is another major factor in the washer/dryer cost calculation - rent. If it costs even $100 more per month (as it often seems to) for a place with w/d hookups then all savings vanish. (Of course, this assumes everything besides the hookups is the same in the apartments, which isn't usually quite true, but still.)
Yeah, that's a great point. In my (limited) experience, there is a price point after which W/D hook-ups (or W/D machines) become common, but I haven't really seen rental properties that are at all equivalent except for the W/D.
In our search for apartments in Snow City, we found that places without W/D were cheaper, smaller (even for the same # of bedrooms), and generally not as "nice" or as well-maintained.
But I will definitely qualify my earlier statement to say that if you have W/D hook-ups, it is cost effective to buy the machines and use them. (There are people who live in apartments that have W/D but do not have the machines. This is true in our current complex, for example.)
We don't have hookups in the apartment but are really enjoying the small portable washer we bought. Unfortunately we don't have a dryer, but I'm getting used to just hanging stuff up... means more frequent smaller loads since it takes longer to dry that way, and slightly crunchy towels, but still worth not paying for and dealing with laundry services.
And good luck with the move. Thank goodness we are done with ours. Except we still need to now hang up all our wall art.... My biggest lesson was to wear gloves and a nose mask. I'm allergic to dust and by the end of packing, I was a total wreck.
Jen, great advice on the mask and gloves! I'm allergic to dust, too, and so is Robert, so of course this means that we let the place get too dusty. I'm going to put my mask and gloves aside right now.
When we were looking for apartments around here, we weren't able to find anything in our price range within walking distance of campus with hookups. Several of my friends here have them, though (one in a rental house, one in a slightly fancier-pants apartment complex a shuttle ride from campus).
I was really dreading losing them, because I hadn't had them most of my life and then it was so great being able to do laundry inside the apartment. But it hasn't been very inconvenient - the laundry room here is very close to us and fairly cheap ($2 per load).
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