Pros and cons of asking friends to help you move

by Ethan Greenfieldon Apr 7, 2022.

Moving day is approaching fast and one of the most difficult dilemmas to solve is whether you should ask your friends to help you move.

It’s only normal that during one of life’s most stressful events, you should welcome all the help you can get. And what better assistance than having your good friends come over and give you a hand with packing your items and carrying boxes and furniture all the way to the moving vehicle.

Is it a good idea to ask your friends to help you move? Absolutely! Not only will you be around people you know well and can trust with your belongings, but you also won’t need to pay for professional moving services. In fact, getting your friends to help you move is a proven way to lower your moving costs since the friendly moving assistance won’t cost you any money.

However, there are a few drawbacks of asking your friends to help you move and you should definitely take those disadvantages into account before you decide to gather your friendly moving team. In other words, asking your pals to give you a hand on Moving day may not cost you any dollars (with some exceptions) but it does come with its own price tag too – only it’s a price of a different sort.

So, to make an informed decision that you won’t come to regret later on, here are the pros and cons of asking your friends to help you move.

Advantages of asking friends to help you move

Without a doubt, there are indisputable cons of asking friends to give you a hand on Moving day – from not having to pay for professional moving services to spending your move-out day in a pleasant atmosphere among good friends.

You will reduce your moving costs

The biggest bonus of having friends to help you move instead of hiring professional movers for the job is the price.

The average cost of movers ranges from $800 to $2,200 for a local move and from $2,200 to $5,700 for a long-distance move. And these costs do not include extra services such as packing, for example. The add-on service of packing will cost you roughly $60 per hour per move when moving locally and between $500 and $4,000 when moving across the country.

Of course, the money you will have to pay when using professional moving services will depend on a number of variables, but one thing is certain – it’s not going to be cheap.

Here’s the deal: your pals won’t charge you any money when they agree to come over to help you move out. They will do it because you’re their friend and you need help in that difficult moment. A friend in need is a friend indeed, right?

Thus said, you will still need to buy some tasty snacks and refreshing drinks to treat your helpers. And if you feel the need to do it, you may even choose to buy each helper a humble thank-you gift to show how much their timely help means to you.

You can get friendly help after working hours

The second advantage of having friends to help you out instead of movers comes down to sheer convenience.

When you know that you can rely on your buddies during the move, it’s quite possible to ask for their help after working hours. Of course, you should always be mindful of their time as well but if your helpers don’t really mind, then that’s definitely a big bonus that can’t be easily dismissed.

You may still be able to find after-hours assistance from professional movers, but you’ll have to pay a high premium for the service. Also, some moving companies don’t work on weekends, so you should feel very lucky for having such great friends by your side.

You can get somebody to keep an eye on kids and pets

There’s a huge difference between letting complete strangers into your place on Moving day and welcoming your best friends in your home.

Your friends are people you’ve known for years, so you can easily trust them during the most unpredictable and even dangerous day of a move. Your good friends will help you move but they can also help out with other things as long as you ask them nicely.

Another advantage of asking your friends to help with moving is that they can watch over your young children or pets, if applicable, so that you can concentrate fully on the tasks at hand such as last-minute packing or moving boxes and furniture pieces.

As you can easily guess, you could never ask professional movers to keep an eye on your loved ones.

You will spend Moving day in a pleasant company

As mentioned above, Moving day is a very stressful period and having strangers in your house could stress you out even more. After all, you don’t know those people and you can only hope they will do their job as true professionals.

The thing is that when you have your friends in your home, the entire atmosphere will be very informal and even the most stressful moments can pass in friendly chatter and even some occasional jokes. After all, you love spending time with your pals, so even a house move should be a somewhat pleasant experience for you.

Remember: many hands make light work.

Disadvantages of asking friends to help you move

Your decision to ask your friends to help you move will also have its share of disadvantages. Think about it – if it didn’t have any drawbacks, everybody would be doing it. Right?

Here are the major disadvantages of asking your friends to give you a hand on Moving day:

You might feel awkward asking your friends for a favor

Asking friends to help you move is never easy and there’s a good chance that you get to feel rather awkward while doing it.

While it’s true that your pals should be the closest people you have in the world, you know how each and every one of them has their own agenda to pursue and problems to worry about. You know that your plea for help will most likely disrupt their plans and that makes it even more difficult for you to ask them for a favor.

Ultimately, asking your friends to help you move is just that – a favor. And favors can be really tough to ask for, especially when it comes to big favors.

The move will take more time to finish

When you hire professional movers for the job, they will be used to working effectively. What that means is that they will finish the move both faster and safer thanks to their extensive experience and rigorous training.

When your friends come over to give you a hand, they are likely to do their best to help you out with whatever they can. But since your pals are not professional movers, every task will be completed much more slowly, often with frequent breaks that will only prolong unnecessarily the move time.

Even simple tasks can take forever, some of your pals may be late, others may have to leave early, so you should expect the entire house move to take much longer than it would if you hired experienced pros.

The risk of damaged items will be higher

The thing to remember when you gather up your buddies to help you move your belongings is that, just like you, they don’t have much move-related experience, if at all. What this means is that mistakes are likely to happen on the day of the move, most often judgment errors that could result in untimely property damage.

Be aware that one of the biggest disadvantages of asking friends to help you move is the higher probability of damage to your precious items. Property damage such as scratched floors or chipped walls is never out of the question either.

Hiring the best movers in your area gives you the peace of mind that your possessions will be as safe as they can be.

The danger of personal injuries will be real

Without a doubt, the greatest risk of asking friends to help you move instead of hiring professional movers is the possibility of personal injuries. Even the thought of somebody getting hurt during the process is scary, it’s a nightmare scenario that you do hope never happens to you or to your pals.

However, anything can happen during a house move and moving day injuries are real enough – a single misstep could quickly lead to a disaster and all your efforts to save money by not hiring the pros would be in vain.

If you plan to move multiple furniture items and your exit route includes flights of stairs, then do yourself a favor and call a professional moving company for everybody’s sake.

Must-read: How to prevent accidents and injuries when moving house

You will be indebted to your friends

Another drawback of asking your friends to help you move out is that since they will be doing you a favor (they won’t charge you for their labor), you will be obliged to return the favor when the right time comes.

Now, you probably won’t be bothered much by the mere fact that you will remain indebted to your pals until you yourself have the chance to go and help any of them move out.

However, if the idea of having the moral obligation to answer your friends’ plea for help is not very appealing to you, then the right thing to do is to leave your pals alone and just hire professional movers who will finish the job much faster and much safer.

Use our Moving Cost Calculator to learn how much professional movers will charge you for the job of protecting and transporting your belongings to the new place.