janetg

Hello,

I don't think I've posted on this forum before, but I certainly frequented it a lot when we were planning to move to New Zealand and I got lots of good advice from here.

Today is my hubby and I's one year anniversary of landing in New Zealand and moving to Auckland. It has been a fantastic year and I love living here. In many ways it doesn't feel like it's been a year since I last saw my family and friends (I think that because skype and facebook keep me up-to-date), and at the same time I feel like I have done so much that there must be a few years worth of stuff in there!!

One piece of advice that stuck in my head was to bring as much of your stuff with you as you can because it's strange enough being in a new house in a new city and a new country - having those familiar things about you will make you feel at home. My hubby and I arrived with 4 medium suitcases and had to wait a couple of months before our container arrived and when it arrived we set up our sitting room area like it's always been and it instantly felt like home. I've had that ikea sofa for many years and its needed to be replaced for years, but I'm glad I brought it with me. I will replace it eventually though!!

Its hard to find secondhand furniture of decent quality in places like the Salvation Army store, people tend to sell on trademe and at garage sales. I never found anything to my likeing on trademe so I bought bedroom furniture from the Bed Post, it's expensive but then it's better quality than the mdf veneer stuff that I used to buy from ikea and it's going to last me a lifetime so I look on it as an investment - by-the-way ikea double quilts fit well on an NZ queen size bed, which seems to be the norm here.

For some reason chopping boards, even the plastic ones seem to be really expensive here bring one in your suitcase if you can. And it took me ages to find a basin for the sink but maybe I was looking in the wrong places!

I wish I had brought my car with me, I'm not sure what all the costs involved with that would have been but I sold it for next to nothing in the UK and cars hold up there value very well here. I thought I could get a 4 year old car for a good price but I was very wrong, in the end I bought the cheapest brand new car I could find (mostly for the safety features and reliability). I'll be less fussy if I get a second car. I really liked my old car and not bringing it with me is the only thing I regret.

I wish I had known about fly buys. I had to buy a fridge, washing machine and TV fairly soon after arriving and if I had known about fly buys I'd have heaps of points! Oh and never pay full price for anything, as soon as one sale finishes there will be another one.

Mostly, I think I have recreated the best parts of my old life here and made some good new parts. I still have my bad habits and instead of watching too many movies from LoveFilm, I watch too many movies from Fatso!! (I sometimes forget I moved out here to be more active!)

I'm still learning too, and a few weeks ago when I asked at the petrol station for screen wash for my car they looked at me like I was crazy. I eventually found some in the Warehouse but I also saw it on Repco's (like Halfords) website but for a few days there it was quite confusing!

I'm lucky that I got a job really quickly and can ask questions to my work colleagues and I met people through the MeetUp website too.

I hope my little rambling might be of use to someone, best of luck to those planning the move.

Janet

Tray

Yes,I must admit i'm really glad we bought our car over...hunting for the screen wash was fun thanks for your update

jmh

LOL, as a kiwi I could never understand the bowl in the sink thing in England. When I married a Brit we went through six months of me putting it away, and him putting it back until he gave up.

Glad you are settled in. I squeezed all sorts of weird things in my cases and am glad I have my fav mug, a couple of books I use a lot, and other bits and pieces.

welshrgeordie

Glad U have found it ok to settle in to ur new life :-) what are fly buys ????? I have heard of drive bys ....lol

MrsFychan

I was wondering about fly buys as well

glad you are enjoying your new life

cappuccino

www.flybuys.co.nz

It's a loyalty scheme but takes forever to get enough points for anything useful!

welshrgeordie

ha ha I know the plastic dish in the sink ..that u can't fit anything in ....cracks me up ....do people still do that ??? lol

scrubbedexpat094

I do & I fit plenty into it thanks

wendy_woo

Can someone help me on what I should do with my HUGE collection of books, I know books are really expensive in NZ but we have read them all, we have hardbacks of very popular authors, Clive Cussler, John Paterson, jeffrey Archer, Patricia Cornwall, Kathy Reichs, list is endless, should I bring them over to loan out/give/sell to people who would be pleased to get their hands on them, or do you think with Kindle and other e-readers, books are just out of fashion, I hate to throw them out/give them to charity in the UK if they will have some value down there?

Bo-Jangles

I don't think we're anywhere near as much into the Kindle / e-reader things as the UK and I don't know anyone that has one. If you brought them to sell on Trademe you only $5 to $6 each for a paperback or $10 to $12 for hardbacks. It's such a lot of hassle for little return and hard blooming slog listing and dealing with all the numpty questions and posting etc

People do sell them in bulk lots, keep an eye on the closing of this auction for 300 books for an idea of what they go for.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/books/bulk/...-421908734.htm

I would say it's probably not worth your while carting them all the way here, unless you're likely to read them again yourself.

wendy_woo

Thank you so much, that is really helpful, as you say its an awful long way to bring them! The trademe site was helpful but I cannot log on to it as I do not have an NZ address yet I think they are getting around 40 cents a book so maybe I could use a similar calculation to sell them all in my local paper? thanks again!

Tray

I'd give them to friends & sell the rest at a boot-sale or from your garage?

Bo-Jangles

That auction closed at $240 for 300 books, sure you would get more selling them individually and I expect that's what the winner will do.


You could do a car boot fair and see if you can shift some for a few quid, at least that way they would go pretty quickly rather than in dribs and drabs and you don't have to spend ages taking photos, writing blurb and wrapping parcels. You could look at the second hand prices on Amazon to get an idea of what you could reasonably charge per book.

wendy_woo

Thanks for all the tips, I have sold at car boot sales, problem here is most attendees are Eastern Europeans looking for cheap curtains and bedding, or traders looking for computer games and mobile phones!! Not sure they would want to buy a book!! I think maybe the idea of a job lot that someone would buy and then sell on could be the solution, I may list them on e-bay on auction to start with, will let you know the result!

luvwelly

I bought one in NZ. Methinks it is to stop you chipping crockery on the hard sink surface. Don't use it for pans though as they won't chip.