Whats a good tip for a mover?r

I have a security door, an alarm, an eighty five pound dog and insurance.
The problem, as I see it, with pods is they don't ship direct. They get picked up at my house on LI and delivered to a place in NJ where they would sit until a westbound truck has room. That truck might be going to St Louis or LA, there it would sit around until a truck to Vegas has room. Might be four days, but it could be up to 28 days. The pod could sit for a week, in the rain or in 100 degree temp, and the only thing protecting our stuff is a $20 lock. My insurance agency is charging me $25 a week for an additional $50,000 coverage for the move. If I used a pod, it was about $10 a day, and if something happened and the pods sat somewhere for weeks, no coverage after 21 days.

One option may be U-haul. They rent "bodies" by the hour to help with the move - whether you rent a truck from them or not. If you are driving to Vegas and your car can accommodate a small trailer for a one-way rental and hire help by the hour from U-haul on both and save a bunch!

I have a sports car and the type of trailer it might haul would be far too small for my stuff.

I don't imagine that you know a business in Long Island with a dock and a business in Vegas with a dock? That's a long shot, but if you do you can do less than truckload shipments for pretty cheap. A 48X40 inch pallet with 500 pounds for about $280.

I looked into that, but it leaves as many problems as it creates.

Gratuity can be very subjective. Your location, the type of work even the people you hire can all make a difference.

Close to 10 years ago we moved a significant amount of household furnishings from SoCal to Cabo San Lucas. I hired a palletized trucking company so I needed loaders on each end. I hired 3 day laborers in CA and after paying them the agreed hourly rate I tipped them $20 each. They looked at me quite stunned, murmured among themselves and returned one of the $20s. They said it was too much. They did take an additional 12 pack of beer though.
On the Cabo end I hired 4 young men to unload. After paying them the slightly higher agreed hourly rate I gave each $20. They looked at me like I was the stingiest person they ever saw and walked off muttering "pinche carbon" and other slights.

Long story to make an obscure point.

That sucks. Never mind.

Never draw to an inside straight or 3-to-a-flush.


Ooops!. Misunderstood the topic!

Have you checked out upack.com or 1800packrat.com?
You can have upack (ABF Freight) only put your pods on the truck so there are no delays, but that does increase the cost quite a bit.

As far as tipping, on my prior move I gave each of the three guys a $50 tip for a full days work.
My last local move it was 10% total tip for the crew but it was also a hot day in July, I probably would have given more like 7.5% otherwise

Upack was about $800 more than my guys quote.