Auto Transport Tips: Tips for Budgeting Your Shipment
We’ve discussed budgeting for your shipment before. how it’s not easy and how if you do you’ll end up having a better shipping experience as a result. But those are some of the positive results of budgeting your shipment; they don’t actually help you do it, and that’s a problem. Some people don’t need help budgeting; they know all there is to know about how to handle money and make sure that everything is taken care of, monetarily, before they book an order or start waiting on the truck to come pick their vehicle up. But then again, others don’t know the first thing about budgeting, which can cause major problems with your shipment and leave you in the lurch.
Auto transport is expensive, and the further you’re shipping the more it’s going to be. Cross-country shipments can easily cost a thousand dollars or more, depending on the route, so the most crucial step is getting quotes to compare prices. This, then, results in a quasi-Catch-22 – in order to set a budget you need to get quotes, but the quotes you get are unreliable after a certain amount of time, since they only last so long before prices in the industry shift, which means that any quotes you get are going to be essentially null and void after a couple of weeks. That’s okay – when you first plan on shipping a car, get quotes a month or two out – sometimes more, depending on how easy it is for you to budget money. If you can save up a thousand dollars in two months, great, but not everyone can, so how effectively you budget is up to you.
As mentioned, you should start gathering quotes at least a month before you plan to ship. Prices may change in the meantime, so budget anywhere from 25-50% more than your quotes say. This is also why multiple quotes are important – get 8-10 free quotes and rank them in terms of cheapest to most expensive. Once you do, you’ll have yourself a nice range – one that you can then use to budget your shipment more efficiently. So if your lowest quote is $400, and the highest is $750, you should try budgeting $500-$1000, give or take. Another great way to see the breakdown is to see the total price per mile – just Google your pickup and delivery locations, figure out the distance, divide it by your highest price and that gives you a distance per mile figure that you can also use to budget more effectively.
Ultimately, how you budget is up to you, but it’s something that is crucial when planning to ship a vehicle. If you’re interested in a quote to ship your vehicle, even if you’re just wondering how much it might cost, fill out our free quote form! We work with only the best auto shippers in the industry and our special auto transport quote calculator is designed to give an accurate quote all the time. You can also contact us over the phone, toll-free, at 800-930-7417 to speak to a real person. They can answer questions, give quotes, book an order, and more. So no matter what you’re looking for, make sure to see what we can do for you.
Since 2007 Dave has written all the content and blogs for American Auto Shipping and during this time added the duties of customer support and transport logistics.
He currently resides in Washington with his three kids and their mom and cat. A fan of Marvel movies and good stories, when not shipping cars Dave can be found working on his novel, enjoying a good book or playing some tournament HALO.
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