Bo-Jangles

It's a no brainer, even if you did the most basic tot up of cost to replace the big ticket items in your household, you would very quickly run out of money if relying on the 'saving' approximately NZ$8000 on shipping to replace the contents of a whole house.

Without even considering furniture $8000 would not even replace the most basic contents of my kitchen; from the roll of foil, lunchboxes, clingfilm, colander, scales, utensils, assorted baking tins, serving dishes, tupperware / storage containers, sieve, cheese grater, knives, cookery books, mixer, toaster, kettle, cutlery, tea-towels, mop, dinner service, saucepans, frying pans, coffee machine, washing machine, fridge / freezer etc. etc. etc.

The one shelf cookery books I keep in the kitchen would cost in excess of $1000 to replace.

Next stop the wardrobe; clothes, shoes, bags, coats, jackets, underwear: easily another $8,000 and that's just for me.

bartholemues

Yeah the thing I notice about NZ is that because the consumer market is so much smaller than the UK, they don't have companies like Amazon that rely on masses of transactions with tiny margins and drive prices down (for better or worse I guess with so many UK high street retailers going bankrupt as a result). Because the market is much smaller basic things are significantly more expensive and if you have spare container space they're well worth bringing over.

jmh

True

I remember the days before IKEA. It was hard to get cheap furniture that wasn't junk. IKEA changed the whole market in furniture. As well as high turnover they rely on a shorter supply chain.

ReturningKiwi14

Hey LisaMaree

Well we've had two duds (Moving Home Company, Eagle) and 3 possible (PSS, Bournes and Anglo Pacific).

We had really hoped a strong candidate would have emerged.

Bournes have a slick web site, slightly insipid salesmen and..scarily no reviews I can find
PSS were interesting but not entirely convincing,,,, positive web reviews
Anglo Pacfic man was nice, seem helpful and are competitive price wise... But the web reviews are scary

Uggh! Time to dissect each quote over the weekend....

Have you decided??

j19fmm

We used PSS and they were fantastic, this end it was NZ Van Lines and they were lovely, friendly and very efficient.

ReturningKiwi14

Thanks kindly! Nice to hear first hand experiences

We saw them (PSS) at an expat show and they were nicer and more helpful than Bonner who were also there. Bloke who visited was good and I've had a soft spot for NZ Van Lines since they moved me as a student....

So they were one of our top two before we saw anyone.

They do want to put a container 400 yards up the road from us...not overly keen on that as its a main(ish) road

Anglo Pacfic - who I frankly wrote off before seeing them - have surprised me. Bloke lovely. Women on phone really helpful.. And use NZ van lines. But my heavens the reviews are scathing!!!!

Lisa Maree

Not 100% decided but PSS is definitely the front runner, I like the free air freight box (to send kids scooters and some toys down) and im 99% sure their paperwork says they don't charge Insurance Premium Tax which is a small saving again. Also have option of 4 weeks free storage NZ side which might come in handy in our situation.

Anglo is next favorable I think, purely based on price. Pickfords and Excess are tied third 😁

We have piles of STUFF all over the house waiting to eBay / car boot, hopefully will squeeze it all into a 20ft container when we are done.

maquis

When are you moving over? Just wondering how late I can leave getting quotes from movers, as we haven't even started decluttering/throwing out crap yet. We still haven't decided definitely that we're moving back to NZ, but landlord is selling the house we're living in here, so we're definitely moving somewhere!

ReturningKiwi14

We have to sell our place here and get NZ renovations complete but aim end Nov/early Dec

They seem to reckon about 3 months is what most folk do.... And decluttering seems pretty endless ....

Lisa Maree

Most of the moving companies we had over in mid / end May for end Sept move said we were well in advance of the norm. About a months notice is good, they have moved people on a weeks notice in certain situations.

Our landlord is selling too, we were planning the move to NZ Sept 2017 but decided to go all in and bring plans forward. Tho now we are in holding pattern waiting for kids citizenship!

Hazelnut

We had them round last year as our move is quite complicated and we wanted some advice on what we definitely couldn't take, what might be questioned and what was OK. I was completely open about the fact we didn't have visas yet but that we expected to be away within a year if we got them. That timescale is now blown out the water but the companies were lovely and we did have a clear front runner.
It was definitely worth us having them round before we decluttered major items like furniture as their advice about what would fit in different containers helped drive the declutter.

maquis

We're looking at an end of Sept/early Oct move, so sounds like we still have a little time up our sleeves. Might think about making appointments with movers for July sometime. Decluttering is going to take a while! Can't believe how much stuff we have now, compared to the three suitcases we brought over 9 years ago.

Hazelnut

MrH and I still lugh about when we bought our first house together. We moved in with a couple of cardboard boxes of kitchen and general domestic stuff, two suitcases of clothes and three kittens

We've made the decision not to bring two massive, solid timber wardrobes and matching dressing table with us as they are all of an age that they've had woodworm sometime so stand a strong chance of being selected for fumigation. Our big settee is also staying here, mainly becase we had to take it apart and rebuild it to get it in the face and we don't find it comfotable enough to face reversing the process. I think an IKEA daybed/settee thing will be taking it's place.

Rethinking furniture has meant that, if we ddn't have the smallholding stuff, we'd now be in a 20' rather than a 40' container so it's definitely worth chatting wth the shippers.

Container jenga and decluttering also keeps me sane when I reach screaming point at how long everything is taking.

maquis

I'm rethinking furniture as well - there are several pieces that are on their last legs and we won't be taking them back. However, debating whether to buy here new or wait till we get to where we're going!

Lisa Maree

We have the same laugh, 14yrs ago we got off the plane in Heathrow with a backpack each... The return journey is a 20ft container, 23kgs x 4 oh and two more human beings!! Because our timeframe moved up we didn't have time to buy a car here / own it for 12 mths to avoid tax otherwise it would have been a 40ft container

We purchased a few new pieces of furniture to take back, might do an Ikea stock up too but all the shabby stuff is being sold. From what people say you are better to buy here, generally furniture seems to be regarded by expats in NZ as expensive but of poor quality... my kiwi friends seem to have plenty of nice things and are not super wealthy so I'm not sure really.