Cheapest Move ?

[Scott Hinckley]

At 04:37 PM 4/22/2004, Kent McLean wrote:
 >drive - it's way cheaper than flying.

It's only cheaper if you have to ship your car rather than replace it.

Typical cross country move, say NY to Seattle is about 3000 miles. Figuring 
gas, wear& tear, insurance, etc at a VERY conservative $0.20/mi (IRS uses 
$0.35/mi) that would be $600 ($1050 at IRS rates). Now, even driving long 
hours it is likely to take you at least 4 days to get here, so 3 over-night 
stops. Assuming you can eat on only $20/day and stay for only $15/night 
(don't know where you will find a campground that cheap) that is an 
additional $125, so now we are up to $725, probably more realistically 
you'll end up at nearly $1000. If anything goes wrong on the way it will up 
that cost.
All that is without even counting any value in your time for the 4 days you 
spent driving.

A one-way advance-booked flight for that same trip (Just looked it up on 
Alaska Airline's site) can be had for $230.

All that said, I'll take the drive every time if I can afford to take 2+ 
weeks to do it.

Scott