With the average cost of a removals company now in excess of £1,100, you may well want to look at how you can save money when moving house. A higher price tag doesn’t necessarily mean a better service. You may be able to halve this figure for your house move by being smart and shopping around.

The temptation is to go with a brand name, a household name with a big advertising budget. You see them everywhere, showing that their marketing works. They are not necessarily the best value for money when it comes to house removals, however. With demand for their services high, they can charge a premium and, in addition, their availability is limited. So it’s time to look at your other choices.

No matter what your county or town, there will be several local removals companies and hauliers that can offer competitive rates. Start with the Yellow Pages, but broaden your search on the internet. It’s also definitely worth searching for removals firms local to your new home – not just your old one. They may be able to offer good rates as they’ll effectively be driving home. Smaller, local independents have two major advantages: 1) they have lower fixed costs and overheads, so can still make a profit with a cheaper price and 2) with a smaller company, you tend to get a more personalised quote and service. Rather than being one of thousands of customers and squeezed into a standard package, you’ll be treated as a valued individual.

Another great option is hiring a man with a van service. If you Google ‘man with a van’ in your town or city, you are almost certain to find a couple of options at least, and many more if in the main cities like London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. What a man with van does is move items big or small, from just a few parcels to a complete house clearance, from A to B.

The tag ‘man with van’ may be misleading. Quite often there are several men, and several vans … even lorries. Long wheel bases as well as transits may be available in their fleet. But this still means much lower overheads than those big removals companies with a whole contingent of articulated lorries and hundreds of staff. More than a courier, a man and van company can move all your household possessions. They tend to charge by the number of hours and number of men. Even with three men and a full eight-hour day, you’ll still pay less than you would to a national removals chain. Usually, hundreds of pounds less.

You’ll buy your packaging and do the packing. They simply come and collect the boxes and your big items, stow them in the vehicle and deliver them to your new home. Now packaging is cheaper than ever before, especially when you shop around on the internet. You can get individual boxes or whole house moving kits delivered next day, and often with no delivery charge.

The best man with a van services will also offer a disassembly and reassembly service for your furniture, especially those flat packed wardrobes and shelf units, desks and tables. This can be a real godsend: giving you the time to get all the boxes in the right rooms, and start your unpacking. None of it is astrophysics; not hard – just sheer physical work that requires no specialist training. In a way, it’s like hiring a few strong mates to help you out for the day.