For better or worse, relocation is an integral part of military family life. The characteristic frequent moves give service members great and unique opportunities to experience parts of the country or even the world they would not have seen or lived in otherwise. On the other hand, most military moves tend to bring about unhealthy levels of stress and increased military moving expenses.
Yet, having sufficient information about how military moving works will enable you to make the best decisions in any given situation and empower you to make future moves easier with time. The important thing to keep in mind here is that regardless of whether you’ve moved numerous times while serving the country or you’re new to this military moving concept, you will definitely find useful information in this brief military moving guide – practical advice on how to make your life easier as soon as you receive your next Permanent Change of Station (PCS) or Temporary Duty (TDY).
So, the military moving wheel starts turning as soon as you receive your orders.
How does military moving work?
A Permanent Change of Station move will come into force when your new duty station is situated more than 50 miles away from your current duty station. Now, before anything else, the moment you receive your PCS orders, you should get in touch with your servicing Transportation Office in order to schedule an appointment which will help you reach the best informed decision regarding your upcoming military move.
In reality, that Transportation Office will assist you greatly by providing prompt and accurate answers to any questions you may have about the future moving arrangements. Just keep in mind that the 4-month stretch from May through August is the peak of the relocation season, so you’d better make that appointment as soon as you possibly can.
The first major decision you will need to make during your counseling session at your local Transportation Office is how you will move your personal belongings from your current residence to the new destination point. Basically, you have two main relocation options to choose from – a government contract moveora personally procured move.
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The best thing about letting the army handle your PCS move is that you won’t have to worry about a thing.
The first thing to understand when you’ve been alerted of your PCS orders is that the government is required to cover your military moving expenses simply because you are not given an option to opt out of the relocation. So, if you choose to let your local Transportation Office handle all relocation aspects of the military move ahead of you, then
Step 1: Visit the office with a copy of your orders. You will be registered in their system and will then wait to get contacted by a military approved moving company.
Step 2: Expect to get a call from a licensed household goods carrier within 7-10 days of visiting your base Transportation Office. If you don’t receive such a call within that time frame, contact the office again to request more information about the delay.
Step 3: When you do get contacted by an approved carrier for military moves, that professional company will be your point of contact for the remainder of the household move.
Step 4: Set packing and pick-up dates with your professional relocation partner. Also, keep in mind that they will arrive in your house or apartment before the scheduled packing date to do a visual inspection of your home and inventory the household goods you have for transportation.
Step 5: Do not pack anything by yourself but wait for the government-contracted military movers and packers to arrive. This way, you won’t assume liability for possible broken or damaged items during the actual transportation. Be mindful that the professional packers will provide all the packing supplies required for a fast and safe packing.
Step 6: Separate the belongings you will travel with and label them appropriately to avoid moving mistakes. Also, set aside any valuables and either plan to take them with you or have the military movers note down their value.
Step 7: Be aware that you are required to identify and separate your professional equipment pieces from the rest of your items as those pieces do not count towards your weight allowance /read on for more details about the military moving weight limits/.
Step 8: When all your household items are safely packed in cardboard boxes and your furniture pieces are disassembled and packed for safe transportation, the cross country military movers will load your stuff into the moving truck and drive away towards the destination point.
Step 9: Now, it’s very important that you have negotiated a delivery date and time that is convenient for both parties. If the military household movers arrive in your new home and you’re not there to meet them, they are required to wait up to 45 minutes. Then, if you haven’t shown up for some reason or another, they will put your household items in storage near your new home.
Step 10: Regardless of whether your household goods have been delivered directly or have been stored for a while, ultimately they will find their way into your new residence. In which case, you should know that the military movers will be required to unpack the boxes, re-assemble any furniture pieces on their rightful places in the pre-determined rooms, and finally get rid of any used packaging materials before they say goodbye. Ideally, you will be there to supervise the unpacking process and register anything that might have been broken or damaged along the way.
Personally Procured Move (PPM)
The informed decision to perform a PPM can offer you a handful of good bonuses, including a chance to pocket some additional cash.
Another way to handle your PCS move is to choose to move by yourself, which basically means that you will have to go through the trouble of:
1) finding a reputable military moving company on your own, or finding a trustworthy truck rental company and subsequently renting a moving vehicle if you reach the conclusion that you can actually manage to load, drive and unload a rental truck on you own (not particularly recommended),
2) negotiating all move related details with your military movers,
3) organizing your pre-move time to finish the preparations on time,
4) packing all your household goods for safe transportation,
6) covering the immediate military moving expenses which will later be reimbursed by the government.
However, before you jump to the conclusion that a PPM move is more trouble than it’s worth, here’s why a Do-It-Yourself (DITY) military move can prove to have more clear advantages than a standard government contract move.
What are the advantages of using a personally procured move?
If you decide to perform a personally procured move, you will receive 95% of what it would cost the government to organize the relocation for you. In other words, if you do a bit of strategic planning, invest some efforts in the whole relocation project and spend less than that 95%, you get to keep the price difference.
The majority of the companies that offer military relocation services give military moving discounts and other bonuses to active service members, so you should definitely take advantage of such special offers.
When organizing your PCS move on your own, you will also receive travel allowances for your entire family as a bonus. Such allowances are set at their standard values.
If you opt to take care of your travel arrangements by yourself, another bonus is that you will be given additional time to organize all the little move related details. Therefore, if you already know some good advice on how to save time when moving house, then you can definitely use the extra time to just relax and take it easy for a little while.
Generally speaking, if you 1) have previous house moving experience, 2) have a somewhat limited number of household items, 3) are moving out of a relatively small apartment, 4) consider yourself a very organized person, 5) like to be in control of every step of your upcoming PCS move, then the PPM house move may just be the best (understand also profitable) option for you to reach your new duty station. Nevertheless, it’s fundamental that you are familiar with the following key military moving regulations before you make up your mind for good.
How to prepare for military movers
Regardless of whether you choose to have a government-assisted move or you prefer to relocate by yourself (DITY move), the important thing is to be lucky enough to find high quality military housing at your new duty station.
No matter how you look at it, valuable information is your best weapon for having a fast and problem-free PCS relocation. Here are the fundamentals of what you should know and what to do before military movers come.
1) For your information, there’s a third method of moving to your new duty station – a partial DITY move which is nothing more than a combination of a Personally Procured Move (PPM) and a Government Contract Move. With a partial Do-It-Yourself move, you get reimbursed for relocating some of your items by yourself while the military-hired movers take care of the rest. Contact your servicing Transportation Office to get more information about this type of military moving which could actually work great for you.
2) Remember to keep receipts for all military moving expenses you incur while preparing for and executing your PPM move. As you already know, the government will reimburse you for purchasing the packing supplies, renting trucks or hiring a military moving company, paying for tolls and charges, etc.
3) The standard practice is to receive your military moving reimbursement several weeks after you have presented all the relevant documents and receipts for the incurred expenses at the Transportation Office at your destination. This is why you may want to explore your options to request advanced payment.
4) Remember that a Personally Procured Move must be approved by your base Transportation Office. Without that official approval, the military may refuse to reimburse your military moving costs.
5) If you’ve decided to move on your own through a PPM move, don’t forget that moving expenses that go over the government cost will actually be at your expense. Also, request more information about certain costs that are not authorized for reimbursement (for example, insurance fees).
6) A very important thing to keep in mind from the very start is that the military authorizes a weight limit on the basis of your current rank and family status. So, what is the weight limit for military moving? In general, unaccompanied baggage is limited to 2,000 lbs., or lower in some cases such as moving overseas. To keep your relocation costs in check, you should not exceed your military moving weight allowance. Here you can find a very useful weight allowance table and a weight estimator to assist you in calculating the total weight of your shipment.
7) You may also be authorized to ship your privately owned vehicle (POV). Here you will find everything you need to know about how to ship your POV during a PCS move.
8) If you happen to have a dog or a cat as a pet, and you need more valuable information about how to relocate your dear animal friend, take a look at our complete guides about moving with dogs and moving with cats.
9) To maintain a high level of efficiency when planning and executing your PPM move, you will have to organize your time in the best possible way. Otherwise, you may find yourself slowed down and fairly confused by the large number of details to take care of. Stay in complete control of your military moving across the country or abroad with these printable PCS checklists.
How to find the best military moving companies
Find the best military movers to eliminate the proverbial relocation stress.
As described above, doing a PPM move will offer you significant advantages, including letting you be in full control of which military moving service you will use. It’s important to know that in order to guarantee the outright success of your PCS move, you should secure the high quality services of a great cross country moving company.
Now, that search-and-find task might seem overly complicated, but if you follow these 3 major principles, you’ll be just fine.
1) You need the outstanding military moving assistance but where do you initiate the search? A little research on your part is a must. Checkmilitary movers reviews to be able to single out the best military movers out there. Yes, it’s that simple.
2) Always be ready to ask your future relocation partner about moving company discounts. After all, great movers offer considerable price reductions for active service members, so you should definitely take advantage of that fact to lower your relocation costs even more. And if you’re wondering how much to tip military movers, take a quick look at the tipping etiquette in our guide about the best long distance movers.
3) How to prepare for military movers? In reality, how effectively you use the time you have before the hired professional helpers arrive will play a major role in determining how successful your Permanent Change of Station move will be. To achieve the perfect relocation organization you need and get the most out of your military move, follow our outstanding one sentence moving checklist that details more than 120 brief and straight-to-the-point moving tips.
Have you ever used the professional services of a great military moving company?
Thank you so much for mentioning that you should keep the receipts for all military moving expenses so that you can be reimbursed. My fiance is in the military, and I am trying to figure out what we will need to do when we get married. I think it is important that we look at real estate and what our options will be.
My husband and I are looking to move very soon for his next relocation and we need to figure out a way to do it the best. We love that you talked about how you will receive orders and what to do after. These tips will be useful as we search for a professional relocation specialist that can make it easier for us.
It really stood out to me when you explained that military families need to organize their time in the best way to have an efficient relocation. I would think that it would be a good idea for families in this situation to work with a real estate company that has experience finding homes for military relocations. This seems like a really good way to reduce a lot of stress that might be created in this situation.
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For better or worse, relocation is an integral part of military family life. The characteristic frequent moves give service members great and unique opportunities to experience parts of the country or even the world they would not have seen or lived in otherwise. On the other hand, most military moves tend to bring about unhealthy levels of stress and increased military moving expenses.
Thank you so much for mentioning that you should keep the receipts for all military moving expenses so that you can be reimbursed. My fiance is in the military, and I am trying to figure out what we will need to do when we get married. I think it is important that we look at real estate and what our options will be.
My husband and I are looking to move very soon for his next relocation and we need to figure out a way to do it the best. We love that you talked about how you will receive orders and what to do after. These tips will be useful as we search for a professional relocation specialist that can make it easier for us.
It really stood out to me when you explained that military families need to organize their time in the best way to have an efficient relocation. I would think that it would be a good idea for families in this situation to work with a real estate company that has experience finding homes for military relocations. This seems like a really good way to reduce a lot of stress that might be created in this situation.