Costs of moving interstate, is this to little or to much?

We are thinking of moving to melbourne from the NT in one to two years, and in order to know how much we need to save I have costed the expenses out (well the ones I can think of). I just want arough idea if these sound right to you and if I have missed anything out. I have costed both flying over and transporting the car and driving over in our car. Also which method have you done and what would you reccomend? TIA


To fly: Flights for 2 adults, one child, and one infant: $755.01
Car hire two weeks: $700
Up to 2 weeks accomodation in caravan park: $1500
Transporting car: $607
Total: $2647

To Drive: 2 tanks or petrol a day @$80 a tank for 5 days: $800
Accomodation @$120 a day for 5 days $600
food @$70 a day for 5 days $350
Contingency $400
Accomodation for 2 weeks in caravan park $1500
Total: $3650

The accomodation in caravan park is dependent on if we secure a rental prior to arriving in melbourne. We also think we can do the drive in 4 days but added an extra one just in case.

Removalists: up to $4000
New bond: $1600
2 weeks rent in advance: $800

We figure between $8000 to $10000 should do it. Am I being overly cautious or seriously underestimating? We will also be moving with 2 children under 3 as well.

Thankyou for wading through the figures!



To drive:

Is there a chance you could do a backload for your furniture?

Friends moved to QLD from Melb a few years ago and I think it was about $5k for the moving.

Oohh and where in Melb???

I'll have a look at backloading but most moves from here are done by container and trained over I think. Have no idea yet, if DP gets a job transfer he will be based in brunswick, but no way we can afford there. :)

When we moved from Darwin to Sydney 10 years ago it was over 6K for the removalist even then (and we got quotes) so I would add more to that part.

Geez this is expensive I wonder how much it is from Melb - Cairns

It just cost us $10 000 for our house stuff to be moved up from southern NSW to NT and $2000 for our car.

OMG thats so much

we did it packed a sea container with stuff that was 2500 across Australia and my car went by train that was 800, and we had the flights and 3 weeks accommodation at other end. IF i was you i would be prepared for having to stay longer in a caravan or holiday home as we ran out of time to find a rental it was harder than expected.

Yup moving is an expensive business Ahurani! Lol. MIL moved from Sydney to Mackay a couple of years ago. It cost probably around $3000, but she hired a small truck to move all her stuff and DF drove it up and back, so she really only had to pay for fuel for all the vehicles (they had a convoy..the truck, her car and another relative's car), accomodation for one night, and the truck hire.

I'd add on a bit more for car hire - I'd be inclined to double it to be honest. Car hire is always more than you expect, there are often 'hidden extras' plus you have fuel on top of the rental costs. We recently holidayed in QLD and VIC (a week in each) and our car cost us $700 for each week plus fuel and that was with one of the cheaper rental places.

Have you double checked the price to get your car sent via the train too? Your estimate seems a bit cheap. I had my car sent over from Melbourne to Perth 11 years ago and it cost me $900.

If you were to drive, you may need to increase your allowance for fuel too. You haven't specified what sort of car you have but I know our Mazda CX7 costs almost $80 to fill in Perth where the prices are quite competitive. I've been over the Nullarbor and back and fuel is not cheap at all.

I hope that helps! Good luck organising it all :)

Hey MuminAlice,

I have moved interstate three times in 4 years (NT --> SA (moved Adeliade to RUral there too with a 4 week old bub)-->WA
I am afraid to say the removalists are hugely expensive. In 2006 I moved Adelaide to Dawin with about 1/3 house full of stuff for $2000
I have blocked it from my memory how much it was to move to WA almost 2 years ago but LOTS. And we sold most of what we had before we moved, because it was cheaper that way. They really sting for NT too, less trucks
I imagine that you might find those costs more, especially if you have a whole house. If we had time we were looking at driving a rental truck ourselves, or a furniture tralier.

The gOod news, I drove from Melbourne to Alice in 2 days so 4 will be fine! ANd I don't thinik you'll use that much fuel. We probably filled up 4 times.

A cheaper option might be to do a relocation. They often have them at backpackers around ALice where you get a limited time to relocate a hire car or campervan in a few days adn they pay for fuel.
Good luck

I'd add more to the rent as well. Normally it's a month in advance down here plus 1 month for bond.

i cant really say how much to move a whole house worth of stuff but we have had a few things brought up from where DP used to live in sydney to qld and it always costs a few hundred to backload a few items so i can only imagine a house worth of stuff would be stacks. sorry
we just moved half an hour away and it cost us $550!
good luck

HI muminalice, If your DH's company transfers him, most company's offer 'relocation assistance' to help with the cost of moving. Some companies will pay for all moving expenses. Have you looked into what your DH's company offers?

Just to be pedantic... you will need to eat regardless of whether you drive or fly, so that $350 is kinda neither here nor there!!

Thanks everyone for replying. All costs for removalists, car moving are actual quotes, though like you say they will probably go up on actual booking. Believe me closer to the time I will be double checking all prices!

Taurean: We drive a ford falcon wagon, and I was basing the cost on a tank of petrol here at around $1.46 a litre. I don't know how much I would get to a tank as we don't do any highway drving here

Tashybabe: Thanks for that, that kind of info is good to know.

Squidipa: We did the sea container thing over to here as well. Might do that again again as it is about $1000 cheaper, but they charge ten times more for storage.

Nickle: DP's company only transfers when they absolutely have to, like a depot losing bus runs (he works for greyhound buses and they just transferred some drivers from perth to darwin for example), so by transferring I meant applying for a position available in melbourne so unfortunately no relocation assistance to be had. At least if we do drive we have one person who is used to long distance driving. :)

storage was real cheap for us:) done the container twice now first time it was stored for about 5 weeks

Yeah think we will do the container route again, might get DP's dad over to help us pack it.

we found containers to be the most affordable option. although removalists are great in that they can do all the packing/unpacking etc.

renting here is madness in terms of availability; so pays to be super prepared and start compiling a list of properties before you leave so that the moment you arrive you can start the trekking. when we moved here I went down with DD and started the search while DH organised the move and drove the car and the animals down. it took us roughly 3.5 weeks to find a place and like tashybaby mentioned they want one months rent in advance (usually).

goodluck with it all and you guys will find a way...and then we can hang out with our bubbas!! :)

Luckily I have a sister in Melbourne so I hope that she will have the time (she is an exceptionally busy person, runs 2 businesses, 3 kids, you know the usual), to look at any properties for us so we can put applications in before we leave. I'm used to no availablity, the vacancy rate here is less then 1% I think.

Oh we will get there by hook or by crook.

Another vote for containers. My parents used a container to move their gear over to Perth from Vic 2 years ago as that was the cheaper option by a long shot.

As for fuel, we used to have a Commodore wagon that would get about 500km to a tank on a good run. Your car would be very similar I'd say. The price/ltr you've based it on is very reasonable too. Fuel is expensive in the Alice, hey! You probably won't need it but there's a good website which shows fuel prices around Australia - motormouth . com . au

Exciting times for you and your family!! :)

It is really exciting. Really looking forward to it. Going to try and save all the baby bonus plus scrimp a bit and see what we can do.