San Anselmo woman tries out money-saving 'hybrid moving'

SAN ANSELMO, Calif. (KGO) -- Forget about hiring expensive movers or doing everything yourself. There's a new kind of move you may not know about.

Very few people like packing and moving, but there are now more choices that can save you money and time.

"I have to be honest. I will probably won't move again, so I'm not going to do this again," said San Anselmo resident Bonnie Houchin, nearing the end of packing up her house for a move to the Midwest.

Back in the day, she might have rented a trailer and loaded it up or hired a big moving company to do the entire job.

This time, Houchin coordinated what's called a hybrid move. First she went looking for a shipping container. You've seen them around your neighborhood - Uhaul, PODS.

She chose Packrat then started packing up her belongings. "We loaded the first container ourselves. It took several days and it was hard work," Houchin said.

One container down, now she goes online to Hire a Helper. They send out moving professionals to do the part you don't want to do, or know how to do.

"These guys have come up on the stage to do the finesse, I'll call it, of moving the furniture and the big items that I could not do easily myself," Houchin said.

They know what they're doing and they're doing it quickly.

"As you can see, they're putting down some nice wraps and ensuring things are safe to go and can take a little bouncing in the container," she explained.

Juan Amador contracts with Hire a Helper and runs a full service moving company, Bay Area Moving & Storage. He says there's an art and a science to this.

"You want to make sure things at the bottom are heavy, so furniture and stuff like that, then lighter stuff towards the middle and the light stuff on the top. You don't want to do that vice versa because things get crushed," he said.

Houchin likes the savings from coordinating and doing some of the work herself. "I am hoping I'm probably saving between $3,000 to $7,000, if not more."

Even the big full-service movers are getting into this, offering containers of their own as well as supplying professional movers if wanted.