Packing up and moving all of your belongings from one place to another can be extremely stressful, time-consuming, and not to mention backbreaking labor. Whether you are moving for a new job, for school, or just for a change of scenery, packing is typically the least fun part of the experience. You might be tempted to just find whatever cheap boxes you can and hope for the best – after all, nothing will happen to your belongings, right? This attitude might seem harmless, but there is actually a lot that can go wrong in the moving process, leaving you with broken, missing, or damaged items.
How you chose to pack your belongings and what kind of packing materials you use could be the difference between you arriving at your new destination with all of your possessions in good condition, and you opening a torn box to find Grandma Bessie’s precious antique collection shattered. What I want to impress to you is the importance of choosing quality packing materials to protect your stuff and ensure a happy, stress-free move. While you may be tempted to choose the cheapest materials you can get, please consider the following hidden costs of moving that may force you to pay more than you planned in the long run.
Wasted Time
If you are set on only finding the cheapest boxes available, you will likely end up running around town, trying to scrape together enough boxes to hold all of your stuff. Sure, grocery stores might have a few dirty boxes lying around, but chances are you will have to go to at least four or five other grocery stores day after day in order to get enough boxes to pack all of your belongings. Or maybe you decide to bravely look on Craigslist and find someone with some questionable free boxes that lives a half hour outside of town. You already have enough to do, why waste time driving around looking for boxes?
Gas and Transportation
Driving around town looking for free or cheap boxes is going to require a lot of gas. You will probably have to take multiple trips just to get the boxes back to your house, unless you drive a moving van. Moving already involves a lot of driving and gas, why add to the cost by burning through fuel just to get packing supplies? Even if you are purchasing cardboard boxes for cheap at a moving supply store or hardware store, you are still going to need to drive to the store and back, adding to the cost that you are already paying for the boxes themselves. And then once you add in the bubble wrap, tape, and everything else you will need, you are looking at a pretty hefty bill just for some packing supplies!
Lost Memories
If even a small amount of liquid happens to get on your flimsy cardboard box of photos, papers or books, the contents inside will be damaged very quickly. Many of your possessions are likely irreplaceable, such as photos and other mementos, and it would be such a shame to lose those just because you chose to be cheap and not invest in good quality packing supplies. This cost could be even more important to you than the monetary value of your stuff.
Fragile Items
This should be a no-brainer. Why bother packing your fragile items in an unreliable, easily crushed cardboard box, if they can easily be dropped and broken? No matter how careful you are or how meticulously you pack your items, accidents happen. You or the moving company could accidentally drop your box, or another heavy item could get placed on top of it. Worst-case scenario, you or the moving van gets into a car accident, and those flimsy cardboard boxes are going to be useless in protecting what is inside. Especially if you are using a free cardboard box or a used cardboard box, there could be dirt, spilled liquids, or other germs lingering in the box that could damage your items. Old boxes are the perfect hiding place for mice, spiders, and cockroaches, things you definitely do not want to find when you are trying to pack.
Cost to the Environment
A cardboard box can only be used a few times if you are lucky, before it simply falls apart. During the moving process, especially with used cardboard boxes, the boxes get taped up and broken down, cut through with knives, and otherwise destroyed, and typically end up in the garbage. Let us not forget that cardboard boxes are made from paper, requiring trees to be cut down and forests to be destroyed, not to mention the manufacturing processes that are necessary to make the boxes in the first place. Plus, cardboard boxes aren’t that big to begin with, and it takes a lot of them just to pack up one small room, not to mention an entire house.
An Inexpensive and Green Solution
To avoid the hassle and potential negative consequences of using cheap cardboard boxes or free cardboard boxes, we recommend renting ZippGo’s plastic moving boxes. We offer free next day delivery in the San Francisco Bay Area for homes and offices. Aside from conveniently delivering boxes right to your door, our plastic moving boxes are actually easier to use because they arrive ready to be packed, which means no building or taping boxes! 
They are also a zero waste solution, as each box can be reused over 1000 times, much more eco-friendly than wasteful cardboard boxes that can end up in the trash, generally unable to be used again. ZippGo is replacing the traditional cardboard moving box, which is really great news for our earth and for the environment. With the insane amount of work that is involved with moving, having us deliver boxes right to your door, ready to be used will help reduce your move-related stress. Let ZippGo focus on the packing supplies so you can put your energy towards all of the other moving details.