Tuesday, July 20, 2021

So long, box truck

During our Moving Adventures, you might remember the bad experience we had with U-Haul, which made us determined never to use their services again. However since we still had farm equipment and household goods to transport to our new home, we ended up purchasing a massive 26-foot box truck for an incredibly cheap price.

This truck has been wonderful. It runs like a champ (only a couple of trivial mechanical issues that didn't affect its on-the-road performance), it has all the room in the world, and it has a lift gate on the back for moving heavy things up and down.

I mean, look at that space! You could fit an RV in there!


We took several trips with it (here and here) to bring up the total of our household goods, farm equipment, and shop tools.

In every possible respect, buying this truck was one of the wiser moves we made over the last few months, with one exception: Don absolutely hated driving it.

He handled the monster superbly, but let me tell you it gave him instant respect for what professional truckers deal with when driving their big rigs. Navigating a truck of this size is no small feat. Frankly, he couldn't wait to get rid of it.

Now that everything we own is here in our new place, some dear friends from our old town expressed an interest in taking the truck. The husband is a brilliant mechanic (in fact, he's the one who gave the box truck its initial bumper-to-bumper checkup to let us know if it was worth the purchase price), so he'll be able to perform the one or two service things needed to make the engine purr like a kitten. He'll fix up the truck, sell it, and split the sales price with us.

On this excuse, these folks came up to see us on Monday, and it was great having them for a few hours of company. We were able to catch up on all the news, solve the problems of the world, and reaffirm why this wonderful couple are our friends.

Then the husband climbed into the cab of the box truck and pulled out of our driveway, closing another chapter of our Moving Adventure.

So long, box truck. May you bless someone else's Moving Adventures. Don't forget to give a middle finger to U-Haul on the way.

6 comments:

  1. That may be most frugal and best self-sufficiency story of all: Invest, deprive the Beast of funds, make use of a used item, enable someone else to follow their calling, connect with friends, and then sell it (hopefully for a profit!).

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  2. Dear Patrice and Don, Keeping an eye on these horrific wild fires near your area. Know that you are in my prayers for safety and better weather for all the western area. Hugs and prayers..

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  3. Patrice, my husband and I might be interested in the truck once the work is done. How would we contact your old neighbor? Thank you

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  4. I love the last line of this blog entry.

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  5. Perfect thumbing your nose at uwhore… couldn’t be more deserving! We purchased an enclosed trailer for that very reason, and now we have a way to move anything we want, and at any time we want…Win! Glad you don’t have to worry about the selling details, and have said goodbye to a giant yard ornament! Good job!

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  6. Did something similar. Uhaul was going to cost over $5000 to move everything the distance we were going. Bought a large cargo trailer for that $5000. Then sold a large cargo trailer for $5000. Take that, you bad guy!

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