Believe it or not, in many cases it is almost similar in price to rent totes, as it is to buy new cardboard boxes. However, there are a million positives to renting totes, and a million negatives to buying cardboard. Ok, maybe not a million – but we feel so strongly about it that we need to show you what we mean! Below is an example with Home Depot’s Medium Cardboard Boxes vs our totes.
Cardboard Expense
At Home Depot, you can buy medium boxes that are 18″x18″x16″ which is 5184 cubic inches if you really want to get technical. They have a Package where you can get 15 of these boxes for $35 (the last time we checked anyways). If you bought 6 of these packages, you would have 90 boxes to tape and assemble, which would give you enough packing for 466,560 cubic inches. This would cost you $210 plus you have to buy at a roll of tape and a dispenser plus 1 extra roll. In total, this will cost you about $230 when you buy 90 boxes, a dispenser, and 2 rolls of tape.
So go ahead… borrow or rent a large vehicle and drive to Home Depot to buy them all and then try to fit them all in your vehicle. Take them home, and now assemble them all with tape and this should take you a couple of hours and a few bottles of wine. Find some room to store 90 assembled boxes – we dare you! Stacking them inside the moving truck will be hard as you will have to put the heaviest stuff on the bottom and be careful not to pile too many on top of each other. Probably 3 boxes max. Then when you are done unpacking, you will need to unassemble them and discard of all that tape (which is terrible for the environment). Then either take the cardboard to a landfill, or recycle them. That is… IF the garbage collectors accept them. If there is tape on them, they will reject it.
Tote Expense
We rent totes that are 27″x17″x13″ which is 5967 cubic inches per tote. This is the most comparable size for this experiment. If you rented any Package with 80 Totes let say, they would come pre-assembled and ready to go. The cost of a 2 week Package for 80 totes is $257 and you would have 477,360 cubic inches to pack with. This is pretty much the same amount of space that 90 of those cardboard boxes would give you.
Our Totes will be delivered to your front door, ready to go. No assembly required! You can stack them as high as the truck ceiling is, and nothing will be damaged below. Put the heaviest ones on top if you want, it doesn’t matter. Then we will return to your new house and pick them up when you are done unpacking. With cardboard, you have to assemble and disassemble and hassle with that tape. So why go through the hassle of driving to a store to get sub par boxes with weight limits and that need taping to assemble, when you can get super durable pre-assembled totes that hold more stuff and more weight, for exactly the same price?