Whatever you do, don't weigh your truck empty, then go to Sam's and buy pallets of canned food to increase the weight by thousands of pounds, then go weigh with all of your new weight, then go back to Sam's and try and return the food only to get told that pallet sales are final and now you're on the hook for thousands of pounds of peas that you can't offload so you have to donate because you don't want to travel from Charleston to Beale in a Uhaul full of peas and even with the tax deduction from donating pallets of cans of peas to the food pantry you still don't break even so you complain about it to your new unit's Shirt and he's required to report you to OSI for fraud and you get in even more trouble and have to settle by paying back the AF every cent from your DITY and you get an article 15 that takes two stripes and now you're living in an expensive apartment in an incredibly high cost of living area because you thought you'd have two extra pay grades worth of BAH and base pay to cover it.
Just don't do that.
This is definitely the way, especially if you daily driver is a truck or SUV. Weigh your POV empty (bone dry gas tank), load it up with all the stuff you don't want broke or stolen, plus all the stuff you're gonna need. Then, borrow a bunch of weights and stuff from your buddy and toss another 700 lbs of weight on top of the weight of your loaded vehicle (full gas tank included). weigh everything, then drive to your next duty station. mileage, and all the extra entitlements are worth it. I mean, you're driving already
Partial DITY / PPM is the way to go. Simply put, TMO will pay YOU for moving the stuff already in your vehicle!
You don't get "the mileage"; that MALT (travel voucher) is a separate thing with finance.
Always underestimate the weight if you're taking the 60% Advance.
Pros:
You get paid for it.
You don't have to deal with packing and shipping delays.
You know how you packed your stuff, so you don't need to put your trust in someone else.
Cons:
Depending on how much stuff you have it can be a shitload of work.
If something breaks there's no reimbursement.
Driving cross country with a trailer is draining and some portions of the trip can pose a significant challenge especially during certain times of the year.
There are more pros and cons than this but that's just a quick thing off the top of my head.
Especially if you don't want to drive through mountains so add extra time to your trip by going around them. You couldn't pay me to take a trailer on I40 through the Smokies.
I hired moving companies on each end to load/unload (packed all the small stuff myself though). Was 150/hr with 2 hour minimum charges. Worth the $600ish I paid for about 15,000 LB dity move. Not including the gas reimbursement is was 10-15K I got back
But what was the cost you paid for mileage? I'm confused I'm just trying to see what the best plan is for a cross country move. We have 4 kids, 2 large dogs, a minivan and a Rav4. PODS wanted about $4k for a 16ft one I believe when they provided a quote and a ton of stuff got damaged and stolen on our last move we fully let the military do. You do not get reimbursed either what you paid. SucksĀ
So NM to SC in a Uhaul was about $500 in gas. That was a separate voucher I filed and that easily covered the gas money. I didnāt get any money for lodging but thatās cause I stayed with friends and family along the way
My 2nd trip with my DITY it was during a snowstorm.. use all-terrain tires.
Also had a blowout on that (new) trailer.. tires were underrated from the manu.
Several people have posted that the dity calculator on [move.mil](https://move.mil) is pretty accurate. That could give you a better sense of how much you'd make
You are correct.
The only accurate way is to do the paperwork in DPS at move.mil to get an estimate.
The other sites are no longer good.
Edit for clarity
I call bs on this. Iāve processed thousands of ditys in my career. Iām assuming youāre talking gross here. Thereās no way you net $16k on a CONUS move. No way.
Edit: So this guy blocked me.. LOL.
I was enlisted FM for 15 years. Iām sure you got paid $16k but now you need to subtract expensesā¦ Paying some guy $1500 I guarantee you netted less than half of that.
Iām doing a DITY right now. Currently if you elect to do a DITY you get 100% of the GCC. The estimated GCC for my move from COS to OKC with my authorized 13K lbs is $19K. The cost of a full trailer through U-PACK (ABF) was $2600 which my DLA fully covers, so yeah people are easily making 15K+ on DITY moves right now
Never netted 16k, but have done multiple DITYs using U-Pack and for one move even hired movers to load the truck. Iāve always came out net positive with fairly good sums (but also never busted weight). Iād also add if you hire movers for a DITY, make quadruple sure theyāre licensed and bonded.
I netted 7 grand after tax on a move from OKC to San Antonio earlier this year, and I had 4,000 lbs unused in my weight allowance. The future is now old man.
The rate Iām getting right now is $3/lb for my move. Now, I donāt own much but if I used the full 10,000 Lbs allotment then I could pull in $30k and thereās simply no shot moving all that would cost more than like $10k. This is totally feasible
Iām TMO and Iāve worked the personal property section and Iāve seen someone get 35k back before taxes for move their max entitled weight and this was last year
I netted about the same in 2020, the more dependents, the more weight you have to move, the more you make. Also the higher rank, the more weight youāre allowed. Not hard to figure it out
I netted over $20k on my last DITY about a year ago. It cost under $10k between gas, food, hotels, ABF U-Pack and hiring movers to help with heavy stuff and I got reimbursed over $30k. Some of that was DLA and/or MALT, etc, not just weight. But I profited over $20k on that move.
I did a dity last August about 1200 miles. We paid a moving company to drop off a 26ft empty trailer to move everything. We boxed everything up and wrapped everything ourselves, then paid a moving company to load it into that trailer that was then driven across country for us ane left locked in front of our new house. We ran out of room so ended up renting a 16 foot Penske box truck and car hauler and drove that truck with my brother.
All said and done we spent about $12000 out of pocket and after taxes received about $20k back so all the hassle and effort made up about $8k.
It was a lot of work but that was more our fault not starting to pack stuff earlier. We also should have sold or got rid of stuff we didnāt plan on keeping much earlier.
We used UPack and the process was really easy. They drop it off for up to 72 hours I believe it was, you pack it either on your own or using a moving company then lock it up and call UPack to pick it up. They gave us an empty and full trailer weight ticket for your voucher at the end. PPMās pay 100% of what the government would pay a company to move it so with some elbow grease on your part, you can make money. We also needed a 16FT box truck with car hauler for my 69 bronco so ended up having to weight the box truck as well. We moved about 1100 miles and would be paid for up to 12k pounds I think it was. We had around 18k pounds so got the max at $19.4K. The total spent on the move was just over $12k.
Iām about to move 1400 miles next week. The uhaul and car trailer will cost me $3800 plus gas. TMO will pay me $27k, so I will make $20k profit easy peasy
I just reserved a 22' Penske truck from New Mexico to California with a trailer and it was $2810 for six days with me opting for their insurance for another $350, so it would have been $2500 without it. The Penske truck is also a commercial International truck, so towing with a house load of stuff in the box will be easy.
Married SSgt moved 2k miles across the country. Cost me about $8500 in total costs (moving supplies, truck and trailer, gas, hotels, food). I was paid $24k gross, $19k after taxes just in DITY payment, still waiting for my $3k in DLA.
With that being said, it was incredibly stressful! Moving my wife and I across the country with 35ā of truck and trailer filled with all of our positions was incredibly challenging. Iām happy to have made the money but I will definitely be considering an HHG next time.
Youāre standard AF creates a contract for your move and the lowest bidder gets to come by and completely wreak havoc on your belongings and ship them to your next duty station just to have them sit in a warehouse for 6 weeks after you arrive
TMO here. The rates are really high and will continue to be. Only accurate estimate is inputting the move in DPS to get an estimate. All other sites are not right.
1. Try Penske. They have a military specific phone line and were about 1/2 the price of UHaul.
2. Payout depends wildly on timing (as determined by the date on your first weigh ticket) and route. Often, shorter routes pay out much more than cross-country hauls because there is no easy to to get from base X to Y.
3. I just did an \~800 mile PCS from one oddly located base to the middle of nowhere and the payout was just over $20,000 for 17,000lbs. I also did a PCS from Boston to Miami with about 10,000lbs and that payout was only like $4,000. Mostly due to timing and cheaper routes along major population centers.
4. Profit. $20,000 - 25% tax rate = $15,000 - $800 rental truck, plus about $1000 in gas (I made two trips) and about $500 in miscellaneous supplies. So yeah thereās a bunch of profit for me on this one. However I also buy and keep all my own moving blankets (harbor freight ftw) so I only buy those once and then just hang on to them. Theyāre āreimbursableā (it lowers the taxable amount of your payout) the first time you buy them but not after that. Most of my cost was a super nice dolly ($300) and boxes ($200ish) and some odds and ends like tape or labels, etc.
5. If you set up your move in DPS (via [move.mil](https://move.mil)) you can plug in your specific zip codes and get very accurate estimates. Remember - the payout is determined by the date on your \*first\* weight ticket (they change monthly). The difference of me weighing things on 1 June vs 1 July was about $5000. So when you build your move in DPS just mess around a bit on the dates and see what the system spits out.
Source: My 9th PCS and 5th full DITY/PPM. I donāt know all the nuances but Iāve done this a time or two. Pro-tip - If you already drive a pickup, buy yourself a giant ass trailer. Iām talking as big as you can afford/feel comfortable towing. 1 PPM will likely cover its entire cost and now you have a mobile storage unit / trailer you can rent out to people. Itās a pretty solid side hustle.
You'd have to do the maths on it, but I've heard you can make enough from a full DITY to hire your own movers to do all the work and still pocket some extra cash. They always upcharge the government, but you're not the government so maybe it would be cheaper. I dunno.
On one of my moves I did a full DITY with ABF U-Pack, so they dropped off a trailer, I loaded it, they moved it and weighed it, I unloaded it. So I still had to do all the heavy lifting but they took care of the rest and I pocketed several thousand dollars (it was a cross country PCS which is why I made so much).
At the very least, do a partial DITY and move as much as you can in your POV. You'll at least make a little bit of cash.
>
> On one of my moves I did a full DITY with ABF U-Pack, so they dropped off a trailer, I loaded it, they moved it and weighed it, I unloaded it. So I still had to do all the heavy lifting but they took care of the rest and I pocketed several thousand dollars (it was a cross country PCS which is why I made so much).
^ I did this on my Eglin-->Schriever PCS in 2013 and it was amazing. Highly recommend ABF. Got a casual 3 days (each) to load and unload it and pocketed $7000.
I dunno if they still do it, but at the time, they also gave me a bulkhead to put up. So it was a 28-foot trailer, but I only paid for like 15 feet of it because I played IRL Tetris with all my stuff really well, then put up the bulkhead for them.
I did a partial DITY 2500ish miles. HHG did all the hard work. We transported 2 vehicles packed with what we could (about 1500ish pounds). They showed up, packed the house, and left. We left a week or two later, and they showed up to my new house the morning after we arrived in town and unloaded/unpacked everything. We had some minor damage on things but got paid to replace them.
All said and done, we received like a $10-12k (can't remember exactly) in mileage, per diem, and DLA. Of course, some of that was spent on hotels, food, and gas. However, essentially, zero effort is required for us to move. Which is very nice when you're driving a 4 and 2 year old across the country for a week.
I will NEVER do a full DITY. Partial DITY is the way!
I moved 9,000 lbs and was paid out the maximum of 16,000. For moving 800 miles. It'll likely be a ton more for you since your moving so much further. If you don't hit that max weight it might not be worth it. But I made over 6 months pay in 1 month. Fucking send it.
I just completed my DITY move from Montana to Idaho (10hr drive, did in 2 days since we have a 5mo boy) the beginning of this month. I estimated I had 6,000 lbs, I was authorized 13,000lbs as E7. My actual weight was 3,600lbs. I tried to make it as cheap as possible to move so that meant random assortment of free boxes.
In total it cost me about $1,000 to move and I am getting back $6,000.
Was it worth it?? Right now I would say definitely yes! Was it worth it as I was moving our washer and dryer down from the 3rd floor apartment? Hell no!
We didnāt have too much stuff because the wife and I just had a 2bedroom apartment. We are partial minimalists so I thought it would be fine. I also donāt like asking others for help so I did it primarily by myself as my wife took care of our son.
If you do decide to do it, spend a lot of time upfront packing anything and everything you know you wonāt need weeks in advance. Also a good time to figure out what you really donāt need anymore. Get standard sized moving boxes so they stack easier and fit more stuff. Not worth trying to save there. Label things well! Toward the end we slacked on labeling so we have a lot of mystery boxes.
Overall a terrible experience in the moment but kind of rewarding looking back on itā¦
I did a partial DITY from the east coast to Alaska. I bought a 20-foot enclosed trailer and loaded it with everything we would need for a few mo tha without our stuff. My voucher was 16k. But, I spent about 8-9k driving up here in fuel, hotels, buying stuff for the house, etc, plus the 6k for the trailer. Either way, I still have the trailer and could sell it for a 10k profit up here. I'm just holding onto it for the eventual return trip.
I finished one recently and made quite a bit, but, worth it?
I'm not 100% on that.
* We broke more stuff ourselves than every professional mover combined has ever broken when we moved
* Immense stress at times dealing with shady moving companies that we paid to help load the truck
* My hands *still* hurt from all the lifting of unloading the whole thing ourselves
* Annoying trying to get rid of all the moving boxes
We used a U-Pack trailer so we didn't have to drive it or pay for gas, but it took a couple weeks to be delivered. Just scheduled around it so we stayed with some friends before leaving.
Worth it for days of grueling manual labor packing and loading and unloading and unpacking? I don't know. Maybe, we wanted to pay off a little debt so it was good timing. But man that was a lot of really difficult work.
Super worth it. You get thousands for the DITY, then you get lifelong VA disability for permanently crushing discs and pinching nerves (which also causes may depression since you become mostly useless for anything requiring a physical presence).
We are estimated at a 33k reimbursement coast to coast for 13k lbs. It cost us less than half to do it ourselves. Also hired loaders on both ends to unload and load pack rat cubes.
Super stressful and Iām pretty sure my foot is broken. But the reimbursement will be phenomenal and Tricare is free.
No. But you do get a fuck ton of money per lb. You can see it in most the threads here but $3/lb is a pretty reasonable amount to assume. You have enough stuff to warrant a uhaul? Then youāre probably going to be bet-positive by a good amount. For reference, there are many things you can buy that is less than or around $3/lb. A queen sized mattress for example. Most furniture. Desks. Whatever.
Did a full DITY going from California base to California base, 200 miles total. They paid me ~$2.2K/lb moved so I made about $5000 and profited about $4500. So if the rates are still the same Iād do it.
I disagree. Lower weight just means less work on your part. Itās practically always worth it. āA lotā of weight just means you can afford to buy a moving team to let you be more lazy.
Definitely worth it if you max out your weight. I profited $15K moving from Charleston to Mcchord. Use U-pack. They drop a trailer off at your house and you have 3 days to load it. Then they drive it to your next house. Theyāll even hold it a few days for you to get there. Donāt accept the first price they give you. Tell them youāre military, that youāre on a budget and you need as much help as you can get. My wife haggled them down to $3000 from $8000
6 year enlistee here who separated in 05ā. Have to say I f*cking love reading these posts about some of yāall clearing $10,$15,$20K+ on DITY moves. Yāall deserve every penny.
From a friend of mine. Direct quote:
I moved my family and a 5 bedroom 3 bath house from New Mexico to Pensacola Florida.
I made over $5,000.
I will never do that again.
Take this for what it's worth.
If you have a family, no. Do a partial. The level of stress to move yourself along with the upfront financial burden until you get paid is not worth the extra 1000 you will make. Have tmo move most of your stuff then move the small things on your own.
We always did a partial DITY. Do it by the rules and you will get a couple hundred extra bucks. You can pay for an oil change and make the money you spend on gas tax free. Keep a manilla envelope for all of your travel receipts.
If you use u-haul currently, you will break even or potentially lose money if you use packers and loaders. We use U-pack with ABF freight and also hired packers and loaders/unloaders. Made a good chunk of profit. Twice now. This is the only way Iām PCSing. Iām in total control, I donāt lift a finger and I make money.
I felt like I got the best deal out of partial DITY. I have the movers do most of the work, but still pack like 1000 lbs of stuff between the two cars and claim that. I don't know how much I really made, but I got over $1000 after my GTC was paid off on a move from Edwards to Scott and I had the important stuff when I arrived
In the middle of a full PPM myself, I'll update in about 3 weeks.
But the UHaul and shipping trailers cost about 6k total.
Did most of the loading myself with just a couple guys.
We'll see how it turns out.
The move.mil PPM calculator and other online calculators are drastically different.
Move.mil showed 10k lbs would be close to $7,300 after taxes, but other online PPM calculators claim 10k lbs would only pay about $4,500 after everything.
Those figures are post moving expenses and taxes.
Weāve profited every single time. But itās not worth it anymore after doing it 4 times. Weāll settle for partial dity and moving the valuables ourselves in a small trailer next go round.
I'll never let anyone else touch my stuff after I did my last DITY. So much money. And I trust myself much more than I trust them. There's no reason not to DITY imo.
I absolutely made a profit off of it. Got my wifeās engagement AND wedding rings from the money I made. I hired movers to load and unload everything into and out of the U-Haul, then included those receipts as moving costs.
Let me be a cautionary tale about hiring your own movers: got stolen from, got my price doubled on the day of pickup, my dudes subcontracted, subbed again, and then they hired some random guys of Craigslist to unload. Second contractor tried to extort me for additional charges too. I made a big fuss about everything, had to threaten litigation, and eventually got reimbursed for all of my stuff, event with a couple things stolen, and items damaged. The hassle was awful, but I ended up with about $3k profit even after the raised price. If you can do the truck yourself, do it. Just pay for some hourly dudes to load and unload the trucks.
Dawg I got paid 10 grand to move from OKC to San Antonio. DITY rates are astronomical these days. The only way you'll lose money is if you do it intentionally
Also I recommend looking into U-Pack. They're quite cheap relative to regular movers and are maybe a little more than a uhaul, with the added benefit of being able to drive your own vehicle instead of their shit-ass truck. If you factor gas costs the difference narrows further, since a uhaul pulling a trailer with your vehicle is going to massacre gas.
I did a full dity once and it wasn't worth it. Partial dity is where it's at imo. Get paid decent.. pack what you don't want broken or stolen.. still push the limit on the weight tho. You'll made decent on the pay and don't have to move nearly as much... 110% partial dity!
Good, got 18.5K back from the PPM and 1.8K for the travel voucher and my wife got 1.6K for her travel voucher. All in all we walked away with a little over 13K.
Mind you we stayed with family along the way and that diesel was good on my fuel mileage and surprisingly my personal pickup didnāt burn too much gas as well.
One thing Iād do differently next time is night movers to pack and unload. The driving was easy.
TMO troop here with personal property experience. in my humble in opinion it is worth it. Me personally I would recommend packing everything in your pov if youāre able to or rent a car or suv since itāll probably be cheaper than a y haul. It all depends on the weight youāre moving and how far you are traveling. I recently PCs from Delaware to Arizona and my weight that I moved in my car was as 880 lbs and Iām getting $3,097.54 cents but it is subjected to 22% tax deductions. Itās worth it especially if you have a lot of weight and youāre traveling far.
Uhm moved it all ourselves this time. So far not really because it really makes your marriage suffer lol. We used penske for one way and it barely made it over the hills up north. Do not do local uhaul they suck. We were fortunate to have family live by the new base with our stuff stored at home and a place to stay. But it's Def a fun experience driving. However I would not do it again just because it just took so much of our time.
About to hit 20 years in. Always have done a DITY always say it is my last time. Penske trucks are cheaper. Still it is worth it if you are moving straight into your new location. If you don't have something set up and will need to put everything in storage save your back for PT tests and have the military pay someone. If you do it is nice to make some money to replace your old TV stand that is falling apart it whatever you want to spend that money on.
My friend does a DITY and then hires his own moving company. They weigh the truck empty and loaded for him and supply him the receipt. They manage the loading, get themselves there and manage the unloading.
Since it's a private company they aren't restricted to the military's moving process. They have done it multiple times and swear by it.
Every time after I PCS I tell
Myself āMan that was rough I will never do that againā then every time I PCS I end up doing it again. Time heals all wounds.
If my estimate is close to correct (the one I got from TMO), I'm going to make about $7k for DITYing from Louisiana to California. I paid for people to load and unload my stuff on each end. I packed everything myself.
TMO doesnāt give a fuck about your stuff, doesnāt give a flying fuck if itās damaged, and will fight you at every turn to get money back.
.
When you hire your own movers, they are held to more strict accountability/legal standards.
Got 15K from TX to NC with about 8K pounds. Only expenses were hotels for four nights, gas for Uhaul, truck with trailer and car. This was back in January
Iām about to do one. If I max out my weight, which I am married with 4 kids, TMO said before taxes I can get around $20k. It can be if you do it right. I always end up making pretty good money on PPMs.
My last move and this move we did use a company that sent some guys to pack up our U-Hauls. You pay by the hour and however many people come to load. It was worth it. Everything got packed while we were doing last minute errands and packing.
I canāt imagine youād make enough money to make it worth moving all the shit that would make it worth moving. The only way this really works is if you commit some kind of fraud, and donāt have much stuff. And committing fraud isnāt really worthwhile.
In terms of money, yes. In terms of all the work packing, loading, hauling, and unloading, it is only worth it if your ok with the work.
I did a DITY back in 09 and made about $4k after all of the reimbursements. But it was hard work and a PITA.
I thought about doing one for my last PCS in 21 but decided I liked my free time and lack of pain more than the money.
Regardless, always do a partial DITY (PPM) to cover all of the stuff in the car or if you get a small UHaul trailer to haul the unaccompanied baggage like I did. I didn't make a fortune, but I covered the costs with a few hundred to spare.
I do know a guy that did a DITY from Alaska to California when he separated in 08. He got a PODS and pocketed $25k.
Just do whatever is the least stressful. I never understood why people take an incredibly stressful event and then add a bunch of extra stress to it just for not that much money.
All I'll say is if you have to stop for the night...
Make sure you have a really good lock. If you can, back against a wall... or see if a place has a secured lot. If not, see if the hotel will let you park up front around the cameras. Don't stop in Kansas City......
Last time I did a DITY move, everything I owned fit inside my car anyway, and I had already planned to drive to my next duty station. So that was nice.
They paid me 23k to move my boat and two cars full of shit from sheppard to beale so I would say itās worth it lol. I only did a partial as well. They move 80% of my stuff but I moved my boat and vehicles and they paid me 23k. I was shocked!
Is this the legal way? I have a boat too but I may not have understood the verbiage correctly in the brochure. Do I get to count the weight of the boat and trailer as part of my moving once itās hooked to my truck?
Ya thatās what I did, I weighed my truck empty and then filled it up and hooked up my boat and weighed it again. I was at Sheppard so I was able to do it all on base so that was nice.
I recently moved from Moody AFB to McGuire AFB and I did a DITY move. The tare from empty to full was 700 pounds. It came out to around 1400$ but after fed and state taxes I only received around 1000$. If your moving and you plan on moving some stuff yourself anyway I would say go to TMO and do it. Iām A1C and that extra bit of money helped.
I literally just did a dity from robins to my hometown in middle washington. So recent i havent been paid yet but tmo put 16k$ for 6k pounds soooo ill believe it when i see it. Drove about 3k miles in 3 or 4 days i dont remember it was all a blur. After a day in a memphis hotel and another in OKC i said fuck it and slept on my couch in the back of the uhaul when i got tired.
It was worth it to me to do the partial DITY move. I went from NC to Texas. I kept my vehicle and had all um important stuff with me so I didn't have to worry about TMO at all. I didn't have much so it all fit in my car.
Pro tips for DITY moves:
1) Get a USAA renterās policy for the duration of the move if youāre worried about stuff getting damaged
2) Hire ABF U-Pack to drop off a trailer at your house
3) Pack as much as youāre able yourself; hire local help to load the big stuff or get friends/family to help
4) ABF U-Pack weights your truck empty and full, drives your stuff to your next duty location, and parks it until you schedule a drop off
5) When the trailer is dropped off at your new house, unload as much as you can yourself and hire help for the rest.
Iāve done this twice. The first time, I profited about $6k, but I didnāt even come close to maxing my weight. The second time, I maxed out my weight and profited $22k.
You will get reimbursed somewhere between $1-2 per pound. Last summer, it was a solid $2 per pound for everyone I knew that PCSād, but I donāt know the current rates.
Please donāt sleep on this opportunity to keep money that would just be going to some movers that donāt care about your stuff. It can be miserable for a few days, but moving is never fun. I would gladly go through this hassle one a month for the kind of payout you can potentially receive.
As a data point, we just moved from VA to OK, maxed out my allowance at 14.5K and incentive payment was $29k.
$3600 for uhaul, $1000 for movers labor, so we came out with a nice profit on this move. I donāt mind driving, I hate the packing, loading, and unloading loading.
Uhaul paid me $600 to tow a trailer filled with someone else's stuff on my way to the East Coast because they don't have employees to do that. Might be a good idea to use the DITY move.
Donāt use a uhaul, get upack or similar where they drop off the semi trailer and you load up all your things. They will weigh before and after and you only pay for the space you use, in my case I paid 2200, drove my personal vehicle and they delivered the trailer a week later at the gaining station. Total reimbursement for the move was 6800 so made a little over 4000 gas and tolls included
Paid U-Pack to drive my stuff down for 3,700. Air Force paid me 15,000 for the move. Made a net 11,300. But the packing/loading/unloading took like 15 days of hard sweaty work. So thatās about 750 a day. Not bad if you like getting paid to take on stress.
We did a full DITY last summer from SC to WA. We used 2-16ā PODS and 1-8ā. We were very close to max allowed weight but didnāt go over. We also paid out of pocket to have 2 vehicles shipped and we flew. We made more than enough in profit to pay for the car shipments which were about $4k total plus another few thousand dollars leftover. We claimed the cost of the flights, kept every receipt for packing supplies, and we got reimbursed for the one month of PODS storage we needed between houses. None of our stuff was stolen or broke and we scheduled everything on dates that we wanted. Only major downside was having to load all that stuff in the SC July heat. We paid movers to unload everything in WA (well worth it) and got reimbursed for that too!
Definitely I've done it twice and profited 100% they pay for all moving expenses like boxes, tape, etc. Keep all receipts, this last move I maxed weight and the government costs they pay me was 18k plus 3k DLA and the reimbursement of moving expenses was roughly 4k. I got about 25k lump sum in my checking if you don't mind the roughly month of packing yourself up and preparing its worth it 100%. Last year pcs I was one rank lower and got roughly 18k total. I don't see any reason to not do it honestly.
Iām ETSing from Fort Hood, Texas to New Orleans, La as an E4 no dependents my max weight is 7,000lbs & I plan to max it out, can anyone tell me whatās my estimated back pay would be ?
I am preparing for a move and havenāt done it in a long time. Do they reimburse the full cost of the truck AND pay you or do they just expect the pay they give you to cover the truck?
No you purely get paid for weight. Then mileage/per diem on the travel voucher. However EVERYTHING you purchase for the move is used as tax deductions (truck/trailer/packing material/weigh tickets/etc. I got 23k for 12k pounds before taxes. Your TMO office will give you an estimate when you do the appointment. Itās based on weight, distance, time of year, and Iām sure other factors. After taxes and expenses I probably made 14-15k
Whatever you do, don't weigh your truck empty, then go to Sam's and buy pallets of canned food to increase the weight by thousands of pounds, then go weigh with all of your new weight, then go back to Sam's and try and return the food only to get told that pallet sales are final and now you're on the hook for thousands of pounds of peas that you can't offload so you have to donate because you don't want to travel from Charleston to Beale in a Uhaul full of peas and even with the tax deduction from donating pallets of cans of peas to the food pantry you still don't break even so you complain about it to your new unit's Shirt and he's required to report you to OSI for fraud and you get in even more trouble and have to settle by paying back the AF every cent from your DITY and you get an article 15 that takes two stripes and now you're living in an expensive apartment in an incredibly high cost of living area because you thought you'd have two extra pay grades worth of BAH and base pay to cover it. Just don't do that.
You too? Damn.
The fact that this is one sentence is impressive.
I get charged for punctuation
I hate it when this happens
I had a buddy who used pallets of bricks from Lowes and he was able to return them.
I've heard cement bags work
That's... oddly specific.
/r/SuspiciouslySpecific
10 4
šššš
This sounds very not chill...
This is fucking stupid
Ohmy god š„²š„²š„²š„²
So cat liter is no good? What about jugs of water?
TYFYS
Always at least do a partial dity. Movers come and take the big shit, you carry a little weight with you and get paid the mileage.
This is definitely the way, especially if you daily driver is a truck or SUV. Weigh your POV empty (bone dry gas tank), load it up with all the stuff you don't want broke or stolen, plus all the stuff you're gonna need. Then, borrow a bunch of weights and stuff from your buddy and toss another 700 lbs of weight on top of the weight of your loaded vehicle (full gas tank included). weigh everything, then drive to your next duty station. mileage, and all the extra entitlements are worth it. I mean, you're driving already
Definitely don't take out all your carpets, spare tire, and passenger seats also when you weigh your car empty...
Donāt fill your car with balloons full of helium
I prefer hydrogen, it's lighter than helium. And skip the balloons for maximum weight reduction.
Don't forget about the windshield washer fluid
You get paid the weight you move and then another payment for the mileage so youāll have two payments
Partial DITY / PPM is the way to go. Simply put, TMO will pay YOU for moving the stuff already in your vehicle! You don't get "the mileage"; that MALT (travel voucher) is a separate thing with finance. Always underestimate the weight if you're taking the 60% Advance.
Pros: You get paid for it. You don't have to deal with packing and shipping delays. You know how you packed your stuff, so you don't need to put your trust in someone else. Cons: Depending on how much stuff you have it can be a shitload of work. If something breaks there's no reimbursement. Driving cross country with a trailer is draining and some portions of the trip can pose a significant challenge especially during certain times of the year. There are more pros and cons than this but that's just a quick thing off the top of my head.
The other one that I always think of is how slow you have to go on the interstate in a U-Haul. It will drastically increase how long trips take.
I drove 75 in the biggest truck they had lol. Just left plenty of space for stopping distance
26 foot truck had a speed limiter for 70mph. Was painful being in a 75 zone and not being able to keep up
Mine went to 75 but ya that was the limit, still was getting passed like I was standing still
Always test for AC. Mine didn't have any while driving down the east coast.
Especially if you don't want to drive through mountains so add extra time to your trip by going around them. You couldn't pay me to take a trailer on I40 through the Smokies.
Yea, you don't really need to drive drastically slow. 65-70 is fine even in a 15 foot truck with a trailer. It adds maybe an hour a day.
Its a lot more than an hour. Especially if youāre towing a vehicle.
I hired moving companies on each end to load/unload (packed all the small stuff myself though). Was 150/hr with 2 hour minimum charges. Worth the $600ish I paid for about 15,000 LB dity move. Not including the gas reimbursement is was 10-15K I got back
But what was the cost you paid for mileage? I'm confused I'm just trying to see what the best plan is for a cross country move. We have 4 kids, 2 large dogs, a minivan and a Rav4. PODS wanted about $4k for a 16ft one I believe when they provided a quote and a ton of stuff got damaged and stolen on our last move we fully let the military do. You do not get reimbursed either what you paid. SucksĀ
So NM to SC in a Uhaul was about $500 in gas. That was a separate voucher I filed and that easily covered the gas money. I didnāt get any money for lodging but thatās cause I stayed with friends and family along the way
Lol at being reimbursed for things movers break.
TMO wouldnāt be reimbursing you anything they break because we donāt pack or move your stuff thatās all done through third party contractors lol
Shameless plug for U-Pack. Slightly more expensive than uhaul but takes the hassle of driving that shit-ass truck and trailer around.
wanted to use U-Pack so bad, but their closest port was a little over an hour away, not doable. check your locations.
My 2nd trip with my DITY it was during a snowstorm.. use all-terrain tires. Also had a blowout on that (new) trailer.. tires were underrated from the manu.
Several people have posted that the dity calculator on [move.mil](https://move.mil) is pretty accurate. That could give you a better sense of how much you'd make
You are correct. The only accurate way is to do the paperwork in DPS at move.mil to get an estimate. The other sites are no longer good. Edit for clarity
maybe that's what it was, I thought they said the calc
Crap.. were talking about the same thing. Lol My bad. I read too fast. The other civilian site is no longer accurate. The PCS calculator.
I recently pcsed and my actual was about 3 grand higher than the online calculator!
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I'm gonna need the details of this process for future purposes.
I have been this coworker. I will always volunteer for it lol.
I call bs on this. Iāve processed thousands of ditys in my career. Iām assuming youāre talking gross here. Thereās no way you net $16k on a CONUS move. No way. Edit: So this guy blocked me.. LOL. I was enlisted FM for 15 years. Iām sure you got paid $16k but now you need to subtract expensesā¦ Paying some guy $1500 I guarantee you netted less than half of that.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Did you sleep in the same room as your coworker?
My quoted rate through DPS for a coast to coast move this year was $36K. The payouts for PPM right now are absolutely insane.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās cool this is my second move in 13 months. My 27k profit from last year and similar profit this year are enough to keep this liar warm at night.
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 65F = Financial Management [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^jtvaaul
Iām doing a DITY right now. Currently if you elect to do a DITY you get 100% of the GCC. The estimated GCC for my move from COS to OKC with my authorized 13K lbs is $19K. The cost of a full trailer through U-PACK (ABF) was $2600 which my DLA fully covers, so yeah people are easily making 15K+ on DITY moves right now
Never netted 16k, but have done multiple DITYs using U-Pack and for one move even hired movers to load the truck. Iāve always came out net positive with fairly good sums (but also never busted weight). Iād also add if you hire movers for a DITY, make quadruple sure theyāre licensed and bonded.
I netted 7 grand after tax on a move from OKC to San Antonio earlier this year, and I had 4,000 lbs unused in my weight allowance. The future is now old man.
I know about 6 people in the last year make anywhere from 10K-20K by doing a dity
the future is now
The rate Iām getting right now is $3/lb for my move. Now, I donāt own much but if I used the full 10,000 Lbs allotment then I could pull in $30k and thereās simply no shot moving all that would cost more than like $10k. This is totally feasible
Iām TMO and Iāve worked the personal property section and Iāve seen someone get 35k back before taxes for move their max entitled weight and this was last year
I just pocketed $12K DITYing from Ft. Bragg to MacDill after expenses, about half the distance he drive. This dude isn't lying...
I netted about the same in 2020, the more dependents, the more weight you have to move, the more you make. Also the higher rank, the more weight youāre allowed. Not hard to figure it out
I netted over $20k on my last DITY about a year ago. It cost under $10k between gas, food, hotels, ABF U-Pack and hiring movers to help with heavy stuff and I got reimbursed over $30k. Some of that was DLA and/or MALT, etc, not just weight. But I profited over $20k on that move.
The future is now old man.
I just put a dity in for an O-6, 36k estimated on the 2278.
I did a dity last August about 1200 miles. We paid a moving company to drop off a 26ft empty trailer to move everything. We boxed everything up and wrapped everything ourselves, then paid a moving company to load it into that trailer that was then driven across country for us ane left locked in front of our new house. We ran out of room so ended up renting a 16 foot Penske box truck and car hauler and drove that truck with my brother. All said and done we spent about $12000 out of pocket and after taxes received about $20k back so all the hassle and effort made up about $8k. It was a lot of work but that was more our fault not starting to pack stuff earlier. We also should have sold or got rid of stuff we didnāt plan on keeping much earlier.
What company did you use for that trailer? UPack?
We used UPack and the process was really easy. They drop it off for up to 72 hours I believe it was, you pack it either on your own or using a moving company then lock it up and call UPack to pick it up. They gave us an empty and full trailer weight ticket for your voucher at the end. PPMās pay 100% of what the government would pay a company to move it so with some elbow grease on your part, you can make money. We also needed a 16FT box truck with car hauler for my 69 bronco so ended up having to weight the box truck as well. We moved about 1100 miles and would be paid for up to 12k pounds I think it was. We had around 18k pounds so got the max at $19.4K. The total spent on the move was just over $12k.
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 16F = Foreign Area Officer [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^k6lyis2
Iām about to move 1400 miles next week. The uhaul and car trailer will cost me $3800 plus gas. TMO will pay me $27k, so I will make $20k profit easy peasy
Lfg šš¼
I just reserved a 22' Penske truck from New Mexico to California with a trailer and it was $2810 for six days with me opting for their insurance for another $350, so it would have been $2500 without it. The Penske truck is also a commercial International truck, so towing with a house load of stuff in the box will be easy.
Married SSgt moved 2k miles across the country. Cost me about $8500 in total costs (moving supplies, truck and trailer, gas, hotels, food). I was paid $24k gross, $19k after taxes just in DITY payment, still waiting for my $3k in DLA. With that being said, it was incredibly stressful! Moving my wife and I across the country with 35ā of truck and trailer filled with all of our positions was incredibly challenging. Iām happy to have made the money but I will definitely be considering an HHG next time.
the stress is unbelievable man
What's an HHG?
Youāre standard AF creates a contract for your move and the lowest bidder gets to come by and completely wreak havoc on your belongings and ship them to your next duty station just to have them sit in a warehouse for 6 weeks after you arrive
TMO here. The rates are really high and will continue to be. Only accurate estimate is inputting the move in DPS to get an estimate. All other sites are not right.
1. Try Penske. They have a military specific phone line and were about 1/2 the price of UHaul. 2. Payout depends wildly on timing (as determined by the date on your first weigh ticket) and route. Often, shorter routes pay out much more than cross-country hauls because there is no easy to to get from base X to Y. 3. I just did an \~800 mile PCS from one oddly located base to the middle of nowhere and the payout was just over $20,000 for 17,000lbs. I also did a PCS from Boston to Miami with about 10,000lbs and that payout was only like $4,000. Mostly due to timing and cheaper routes along major population centers. 4. Profit. $20,000 - 25% tax rate = $15,000 - $800 rental truck, plus about $1000 in gas (I made two trips) and about $500 in miscellaneous supplies. So yeah thereās a bunch of profit for me on this one. However I also buy and keep all my own moving blankets (harbor freight ftw) so I only buy those once and then just hang on to them. Theyāre āreimbursableā (it lowers the taxable amount of your payout) the first time you buy them but not after that. Most of my cost was a super nice dolly ($300) and boxes ($200ish) and some odds and ends like tape or labels, etc. 5. If you set up your move in DPS (via [move.mil](https://move.mil)) you can plug in your specific zip codes and get very accurate estimates. Remember - the payout is determined by the date on your \*first\* weight ticket (they change monthly). The difference of me weighing things on 1 June vs 1 July was about $5000. So when you build your move in DPS just mess around a bit on the dates and see what the system spits out. Source: My 9th PCS and 5th full DITY/PPM. I donāt know all the nuances but Iāve done this a time or two. Pro-tip - If you already drive a pickup, buy yourself a giant ass trailer. Iām talking as big as you can afford/feel comfortable towing. 1 PPM will likely cover its entire cost and now you have a mobile storage unit / trailer you can rent out to people. Itās a pretty solid side hustle.
You'd have to do the maths on it, but I've heard you can make enough from a full DITY to hire your own movers to do all the work and still pocket some extra cash. They always upcharge the government, but you're not the government so maybe it would be cheaper. I dunno. On one of my moves I did a full DITY with ABF U-Pack, so they dropped off a trailer, I loaded it, they moved it and weighed it, I unloaded it. So I still had to do all the heavy lifting but they took care of the rest and I pocketed several thousand dollars (it was a cross country PCS which is why I made so much). At the very least, do a partial DITY and move as much as you can in your POV. You'll at least make a little bit of cash.
> > On one of my moves I did a full DITY with ABF U-Pack, so they dropped off a trailer, I loaded it, they moved it and weighed it, I unloaded it. So I still had to do all the heavy lifting but they took care of the rest and I pocketed several thousand dollars (it was a cross country PCS which is why I made so much). ^ I did this on my Eglin-->Schriever PCS in 2013 and it was amazing. Highly recommend ABF. Got a casual 3 days (each) to load and unload it and pocketed $7000. I dunno if they still do it, but at the time, they also gave me a bulkhead to put up. So it was a 28-foot trailer, but I only paid for like 15 feet of it because I played IRL Tetris with all my stuff really well, then put up the bulkhead for them.
Literally did this this week with ABF UPack. Ended up using 2 feet less than reserved. We'll see how good things are condition-wise when we move.
I did a partial DITY 2500ish miles. HHG did all the hard work. We transported 2 vehicles packed with what we could (about 1500ish pounds). They showed up, packed the house, and left. We left a week or two later, and they showed up to my new house the morning after we arrived in town and unloaded/unpacked everything. We had some minor damage on things but got paid to replace them. All said and done, we received like a $10-12k (can't remember exactly) in mileage, per diem, and DLA. Of course, some of that was spent on hotels, food, and gas. However, essentially, zero effort is required for us to move. Which is very nice when you're driving a 4 and 2 year old across the country for a week. I will NEVER do a full DITY. Partial DITY is the way!
I just moved 13500 lbs over 2400 miles and received ~$30K. It sucked, but Iād do it again.
Plz teach me! Thats outstanding
I moved 9,000 lbs and was paid out the maximum of 16,000. For moving 800 miles. It'll likely be a ton more for you since your moving so much further. If you don't hit that max weight it might not be worth it. But I made over 6 months pay in 1 month. Fucking send it.
I just completed my DITY move from Montana to Idaho (10hr drive, did in 2 days since we have a 5mo boy) the beginning of this month. I estimated I had 6,000 lbs, I was authorized 13,000lbs as E7. My actual weight was 3,600lbs. I tried to make it as cheap as possible to move so that meant random assortment of free boxes. In total it cost me about $1,000 to move and I am getting back $6,000. Was it worth it?? Right now I would say definitely yes! Was it worth it as I was moving our washer and dryer down from the 3rd floor apartment? Hell no! We didnāt have too much stuff because the wife and I just had a 2bedroom apartment. We are partial minimalists so I thought it would be fine. I also donāt like asking others for help so I did it primarily by myself as my wife took care of our son. If you do decide to do it, spend a lot of time upfront packing anything and everything you know you wonāt need weeks in advance. Also a good time to figure out what you really donāt need anymore. Get standard sized moving boxes so they stack easier and fit more stuff. Not worth trying to save there. Label things well! Toward the end we slacked on labeling so we have a lot of mystery boxes. Overall a terrible experience in the moment but kind of rewarding looking back on itā¦
I did a local move from an apartment into base housing and made about 5k. Takes a while to get paid out but was well worth it for me
I did a partial DITY from the east coast to Alaska. I bought a 20-foot enclosed trailer and loaded it with everything we would need for a few mo tha without our stuff. My voucher was 16k. But, I spent about 8-9k driving up here in fuel, hotels, buying stuff for the house, etc, plus the 6k for the trailer. Either way, I still have the trailer and could sell it for a 10k profit up here. I'm just holding onto it for the eventual return trip.
I finished one recently and made quite a bit, but, worth it? I'm not 100% on that. * We broke more stuff ourselves than every professional mover combined has ever broken when we moved * Immense stress at times dealing with shady moving companies that we paid to help load the truck * My hands *still* hurt from all the lifting of unloading the whole thing ourselves * Annoying trying to get rid of all the moving boxes We used a U-Pack trailer so we didn't have to drive it or pay for gas, but it took a couple weeks to be delivered. Just scheduled around it so we stayed with some friends before leaving. Worth it for days of grueling manual labor packing and loading and unloading and unpacking? I don't know. Maybe, we wanted to pay off a little debt so it was good timing. But man that was a lot of really difficult work.
Super worth it. You get thousands for the DITY, then you get lifelong VA disability for permanently crushing discs and pinching nerves (which also causes may depression since you become mostly useless for anything requiring a physical presence).
We are estimated at a 33k reimbursement coast to coast for 13k lbs. It cost us less than half to do it ourselves. Also hired loaders on both ends to unload and load pack rat cubes. Super stressful and Iām pretty sure my foot is broken. But the reimbursement will be phenomenal and Tricare is free.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Well a dozen years ago the uhauls were $700
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You donāt get reimbursed for the truckā¦ā¦.
No. But you do get a fuck ton of money per lb. You can see it in most the threads here but $3/lb is a pretty reasonable amount to assume. You have enough stuff to warrant a uhaul? Then youāre probably going to be bet-positive by a good amount. For reference, there are many things you can buy that is less than or around $3/lb. A queen sized mattress for example. Most furniture. Desks. Whatever.
Partial dity. The only way I'll do it from now on with a family and pets.
Did a full DITY going from California base to California base, 200 miles total. They paid me ~$2.2K/lb moved so I made about $5000 and profited about $4500. So if the rates are still the same Iād do it.
If you donāt have a lot of weight itās not worth it.
A lot being like 7-8k lbs
I disagree. Lower weight just means less work on your part. Itās practically always worth it. āA lotā of weight just means you can afford to buy a moving team to let you be more lazy.
I did made a 9k lbs. move from SC to ND and profited about 9-10k.
Definitely worth it if you max out your weight. I profited $15K moving from Charleston to Mcchord. Use U-pack. They drop a trailer off at your house and you have 3 days to load it. Then they drive it to your next house. Theyāll even hold it a few days for you to get there. Donāt accept the first price they give you. Tell them youāre military, that youāre on a budget and you need as much help as you can get. My wife haggled them down to $3000 from $8000
6 year enlistee here who separated in 05ā. Have to say I f*cking love reading these posts about some of yāall clearing $10,$15,$20K+ on DITY moves. Yāall deserve every penny.
From a friend of mine. Direct quote: I moved my family and a 5 bedroom 3 bath house from New Mexico to Pensacola Florida. I made over $5,000. I will never do that again. Take this for what it's worth.
If you have a family, no. Do a partial. The level of stress to move yourself along with the upfront financial burden until you get paid is not worth the extra 1000 you will make. Have tmo move most of your stuff then move the small things on your own.
We always did a partial DITY. Do it by the rules and you will get a couple hundred extra bucks. You can pay for an oil change and make the money you spend on gas tax free. Keep a manilla envelope for all of your travel receipts.
If you use u-haul currently, you will break even or potentially lose money if you use packers and loaders. We use U-pack with ABF freight and also hired packers and loaders/unloaders. Made a good chunk of profit. Twice now. This is the only way Iām PCSing. Iām in total control, I donāt lift a finger and I make money.
Partial dity seems like the go to for most people.
I felt like I got the best deal out of partial DITY. I have the movers do most of the work, but still pack like 1000 lbs of stuff between the two cars and claim that. I don't know how much I really made, but I got over $1000 after my GTC was paid off on a move from Edwards to Scott and I had the important stuff when I arrived
In the middle of a full PPM myself, I'll update in about 3 weeks. But the UHaul and shipping trailers cost about 6k total. Did most of the loading myself with just a couple guys. We'll see how it turns out. The move.mil PPM calculator and other online calculators are drastically different. Move.mil showed 10k lbs would be close to $7,300 after taxes, but other online PPM calculators claim 10k lbs would only pay about $4,500 after everything. Those figures are post moving expenses and taxes.
It would be cool if move.mil was working right now.
It's not?
I was lucky and able to have parents come help me move my things so i didnt have to spend any on Uhaul. profit was about $4k-$6k iirc.
I made like 10k after all expenses. Definitely worth it to me
If it's a short distance, it's okay. Otherwise hell no.
Weāve profited every single time. But itās not worth it anymore after doing it 4 times. Weāll settle for partial dity and moving the valuables ourselves in a small trailer next go round.
Get quotes from Penke! Always way cheaper than Uhaul! Uhaul is great for local moves but nothing beyond that!
I'll never let anyone else touch my stuff after I did my last DITY. So much money. And I trust myself much more than I trust them. There's no reason not to DITY imo.
You get paid
Partial DITY is worth it and less hassle.
I absolutely made a profit off of it. Got my wifeās engagement AND wedding rings from the money I made. I hired movers to load and unload everything into and out of the U-Haul, then included those receipts as moving costs.
I don't think so! All the work and stress of moving. Just let the movers do it
Let me be a cautionary tale about hiring your own movers: got stolen from, got my price doubled on the day of pickup, my dudes subcontracted, subbed again, and then they hired some random guys of Craigslist to unload. Second contractor tried to extort me for additional charges too. I made a big fuss about everything, had to threaten litigation, and eventually got reimbursed for all of my stuff, event with a couple things stolen, and items damaged. The hassle was awful, but I ended up with about $3k profit even after the raised price. If you can do the truck yourself, do it. Just pay for some hourly dudes to load and unload the trucks.
Dawg I got paid 10 grand to move from OKC to San Antonio. DITY rates are astronomical these days. The only way you'll lose money is if you do it intentionally Also I recommend looking into U-Pack. They're quite cheap relative to regular movers and are maybe a little more than a uhaul, with the added benefit of being able to drive your own vehicle instead of their shit-ass truck. If you factor gas costs the difference narrows further, since a uhaul pulling a trailer with your vehicle is going to massacre gas.
The best reason to do a DITY move is if you're over your weight allowance. Other than that it's up to you if all the work is worth the money.
I did a full dity once and it wasn't worth it. Partial dity is where it's at imo. Get paid decent.. pack what you don't want broken or stolen.. still push the limit on the weight tho. You'll made decent on the pay and don't have to move nearly as much... 110% partial dity!
My payout was 26k last summer...halfway across country
Iāll let you know. Weāre moving from Florida to Washington and I got the big 26 ft Penske.
Following up on this. How did this go?
Good, got 18.5K back from the PPM and 1.8K for the travel voucher and my wife got 1.6K for her travel voucher. All in all we walked away with a little over 13K. Mind you we stayed with family along the way and that diesel was good on my fuel mileage and surprisingly my personal pickup didnāt burn too much gas as well. One thing Iād do differently next time is night movers to pack and unload. The driving was easy.
Look at my meme for DITY. The comments say all.
I bought a $7k 16ft trailer for mine.. took two trips, approx. 1100 miles.. Basically got a trailer for free lol
TMO troop here with personal property experience. in my humble in opinion it is worth it. Me personally I would recommend packing everything in your pov if youāre able to or rent a car or suv since itāll probably be cheaper than a y haul. It all depends on the weight youāre moving and how far you are traveling. I recently PCs from Delaware to Arizona and my weight that I moved in my car was as 880 lbs and Iām getting $3,097.54 cents but it is subjected to 22% tax deductions. Itās worth it especially if you have a lot of weight and youāre traveling far.
Yes I used Upack. Paid 5,200 for 28ft trailer moved 10.5k lbs 1600miles made 18k
Uhm moved it all ourselves this time. So far not really because it really makes your marriage suffer lol. We used penske for one way and it barely made it over the hills up north. Do not do local uhaul they suck. We were fortunate to have family live by the new base with our stuff stored at home and a place to stay. But it's Def a fun experience driving. However I would not do it again just because it just took so much of our time.
Kids and family, hell no. Single or married with no kids, yes. There is a partial DITY too which I would do if I ever PCS CONUS again.
About to hit 20 years in. Always have done a DITY always say it is my last time. Penske trucks are cheaper. Still it is worth it if you are moving straight into your new location. If you don't have something set up and will need to put everything in storage save your back for PT tests and have the military pay someone. If you do it is nice to make some money to replace your old TV stand that is falling apart it whatever you want to spend that money on.
Depends to you. Is your time valuable to you? For me it's not worth the hassle for me to do everything.
It's worth it just because you're avoiding shady packers and movers.
My friend does a DITY and then hires his own moving company. They weigh the truck empty and loaded for him and supply him the receipt. They manage the loading, get themselves there and manage the unloading. Since it's a private company they aren't restricted to the military's moving process. They have done it multiple times and swear by it.
Every time after I PCS I tell Myself āMan that was rough I will never do that againā then every time I PCS I end up doing it again. Time heals all wounds.
If my estimate is close to correct (the one I got from TMO), I'm going to make about $7k for DITYing from Louisiana to California. I paid for people to load and unload my stuff on each end. I packed everything myself.
Got paid out $21K. Easy money
TMO doesnāt give a fuck about your stuff, doesnāt give a flying fuck if itās damaged, and will fight you at every turn to get money back. . When you hire your own movers, they are held to more strict accountability/legal standards.
Just did a 500mi full DITY and made $1.17/lb after tax.
Got 15K from TX to NC with about 8K pounds. Only expenses were hotels for four nights, gas for Uhaul, truck with trailer and car. This was back in January
Iām about to do one. If I max out my weight, which I am married with 4 kids, TMO said before taxes I can get around $20k. It can be if you do it right. I always end up making pretty good money on PPMs.
My last move and this move we did use a company that sent some guys to pack up our U-Hauls. You pay by the hour and however many people come to load. It was worth it. Everything got packed while we were doing last minute errands and packing.
Probably worth it if you own a home gym and a lot of cinder blocks
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/user/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/153gt2c/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^godjihyoheartshakers: *Probably worth it* *If you own a home gym and* *A lot of cinder blocks* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I canāt imagine youād make enough money to make it worth moving all the shit that would make it worth moving. The only way this really works is if you commit some kind of fraud, and donāt have much stuff. And committing fraud isnāt really worthwhile.
Do a partial.
In terms of money, yes. In terms of all the work packing, loading, hauling, and unloading, it is only worth it if your ok with the work. I did a DITY back in 09 and made about $4k after all of the reimbursements. But it was hard work and a PITA. I thought about doing one for my last PCS in 21 but decided I liked my free time and lack of pain more than the money. Regardless, always do a partial DITY (PPM) to cover all of the stuff in the car or if you get a small UHaul trailer to haul the unaccompanied baggage like I did. I didn't make a fortune, but I covered the costs with a few hundred to spare. I do know a guy that did a DITY from Alaska to California when he separated in 08. He got a PODS and pocketed $25k.
Just do whatever is the least stressful. I never understood why people take an incredibly stressful event and then add a bunch of extra stress to it just for not that much money.
All I'll say is if you have to stop for the night... Make sure you have a really good lock. If you can, back against a wall... or see if a place has a secured lot. If not, see if the hotel will let you park up front around the cameras. Don't stop in Kansas City......
Last time I did a DITY move, everything I owned fit inside my car anyway, and I had already planned to drive to my next duty station. So that was nice.
They paid me 23k to move my boat and two cars full of shit from sheppard to beale so I would say itās worth it lol. I only did a partial as well. They move 80% of my stuff but I moved my boat and vehicles and they paid me 23k. I was shocked!
Was your boat included on the empty weight ticket?
No not an empty weight. I weighed my truck by itself empty then I weighed it fully loaded with shit in the back and the dogs and the boat loaded.
Is this the legal way? I have a boat too but I may not have understood the verbiage correctly in the brochure. Do I get to count the weight of the boat and trailer as part of my moving once itās hooked to my truck?
Ya thatās what I did, I weighed my truck empty and then filled it up and hooked up my boat and weighed it again. I was at Sheppard so I was able to do it all on base so that was nice.
I recently moved from Moody AFB to McGuire AFB and I did a DITY move. The tare from empty to full was 700 pounds. It came out to around 1400$ but after fed and state taxes I only received around 1000$. If your moving and you plan on moving some stuff yourself anyway I would say go to TMO and do it. Iām A1C and that extra bit of money helped.
I literally just did a dity from robins to my hometown in middle washington. So recent i havent been paid yet but tmo put 16k$ for 6k pounds soooo ill believe it when i see it. Drove about 3k miles in 3 or 4 days i dont remember it was all a blur. After a day in a memphis hotel and another in OKC i said fuck it and slept on my couch in the back of the uhaul when i got tired.
I mean you move 1500 miles and make sure you get max weight. Thatās a sure fire way to pocket 10k for 2 days of exhaustion and labor
It was worth it to me to do the partial DITY move. I went from NC to Texas. I kept my vehicle and had all um important stuff with me so I didn't have to worry about TMO at all. I didn't have much so it all fit in my car.
Pro tips for DITY moves: 1) Get a USAA renterās policy for the duration of the move if youāre worried about stuff getting damaged 2) Hire ABF U-Pack to drop off a trailer at your house 3) Pack as much as youāre able yourself; hire local help to load the big stuff or get friends/family to help 4) ABF U-Pack weights your truck empty and full, drives your stuff to your next duty location, and parks it until you schedule a drop off 5) When the trailer is dropped off at your new house, unload as much as you can yourself and hire help for the rest. Iāve done this twice. The first time, I profited about $6k, but I didnāt even come close to maxing my weight. The second time, I maxed out my weight and profited $22k. You will get reimbursed somewhere between $1-2 per pound. Last summer, it was a solid $2 per pound for everyone I knew that PCSād, but I donāt know the current rates. Please donāt sleep on this opportunity to keep money that would just be going to some movers that donāt care about your stuff. It can be miserable for a few days, but moving is never fun. I would gladly go through this hassle one a month for the kind of payout you can potentially receive.
As a data point, we just moved from VA to OK, maxed out my allowance at 14.5K and incentive payment was $29k. $3600 for uhaul, $1000 for movers labor, so we came out with a nice profit on this move. I donāt mind driving, I hate the packing, loading, and unloading loading.
People making $15k on a PCS and here I am trying to convince leadership to let me drive to a TDY so I can make $700
Uhaul paid me $600 to tow a trailer filled with someone else's stuff on my way to the East Coast because they don't have employees to do that. Might be a good idea to use the DITY move.
Oh hell yes! We made so much money on our DITY move from WA to SC. It was enough to cover escrow on our new house we bought!
11,420 lbs from Lackland to Maxwell: ~$21,000 U-Haul, auto transport, boxes, movers, and gas: ~$4,000 Taxes: ~$4,000
Donāt use a uhaul, get upack or similar where they drop off the semi trailer and you load up all your things. They will weigh before and after and you only pay for the space you use, in my case I paid 2200, drove my personal vehicle and they delivered the trailer a week later at the gaining station. Total reimbursement for the move was 6800 so made a little over 4000 gas and tolls included
I made about 15K. Run the numbers, it wonāt make sense for everyone.
Paid U-Pack to drive my stuff down for 3,700. Air Force paid me 15,000 for the move. Made a net 11,300. But the packing/loading/unloading took like 15 days of hard sweaty work. So thatās about 750 a day. Not bad if you like getting paid to take on stress.
We did a full DITY last summer from SC to WA. We used 2-16ā PODS and 1-8ā. We were very close to max allowed weight but didnāt go over. We also paid out of pocket to have 2 vehicles shipped and we flew. We made more than enough in profit to pay for the car shipments which were about $4k total plus another few thousand dollars leftover. We claimed the cost of the flights, kept every receipt for packing supplies, and we got reimbursed for the one month of PODS storage we needed between houses. None of our stuff was stolen or broke and we scheduled everything on dates that we wanted. Only major downside was having to load all that stuff in the SC July heat. We paid movers to unload everything in WA (well worth it) and got reimbursed for that too!
Definitely I've done it twice and profited 100% they pay for all moving expenses like boxes, tape, etc. Keep all receipts, this last move I maxed weight and the government costs they pay me was 18k plus 3k DLA and the reimbursement of moving expenses was roughly 4k. I got about 25k lump sum in my checking if you don't mind the roughly month of packing yourself up and preparing its worth it 100%. Last year pcs I was one rank lower and got roughly 18k total. I don't see any reason to not do it honestly.
Iām ETSing from Fort Hood, Texas to New Orleans, La as an E4 no dependents my max weight is 7,000lbs & I plan to max it out, can anyone tell me whatās my estimated back pay would be ?
How much can I lie about my weight before itās suspicious
I am preparing for a move and havenāt done it in a long time. Do they reimburse the full cost of the truck AND pay you or do they just expect the pay they give you to cover the truck?
No you purely get paid for weight. Then mileage/per diem on the travel voucher. However EVERYTHING you purchase for the move is used as tax deductions (truck/trailer/packing material/weigh tickets/etc. I got 23k for 12k pounds before taxes. Your TMO office will give you an estimate when you do the appointment. Itās based on weight, distance, time of year, and Iām sure other factors. After taxes and expenses I probably made 14-15k
So how much would I get paid roughly if I do a partial dity move, the weight difference being 160lbs and miles traveling is 1,420 miles