Al and Jacque

Hi , we thought we would make a start to-day and try to sort through our live long belongs, and rubbish I guess, trying to decide what to bring, dump or sell. So we started in the attic, never thought it would take all day, by the time you open the boxes sort through what's inside, reminisce, laugh and cry it took all day. We now have a quite a few boxes that we want to bring and that is only from the attic, we haven't started on the boys toys yet, clothes and other worldly items. We don't want to send a container as a lot of our furniture is not worth taking and for the price of the container it would replace a lot it with new furniture. We have advertised items on Gumtree which is brilliant as it is a free service, so anyone looking an accordion, keyboard or electric mandolin you know where to look, anyway don't think we'll ever get all sorted but guess we have to as we plan on going to Brisbane in August so eight months and counting YEE HAA! Any advice on what you all did would be of great help.

Thanks
Al & Jacque

ps- Forgot to mention we ordered two large suit cases to-day, chect out the TRIPP website, massive savings, retail price £140 got for £25

bluekipper

Alls I know is that we shipped everything, so lots of rubbish transferred from house in UK to shed in house in OZ & that was with a proper sort out!, I would advise to throw anything you havent used for 12 mths, you will prob never ever use it.

We`ve learnt our lesson 2 nd time around! Good luck as its extremely tiring

Bluekipper

Australia_bound?

Any antiques you've not touched for years I'll come and collect them , as long as they're in good nick and worth a few bob

Seabird

Don't know if this helps, but these were our thoughts.

We worked on the principle that when sending stuff by air its cost is determined by weight, when shipping by size. Weight does not matter for shipping only volume. Therefore anything new, valuable, small and heavy is worth taking. Your white goods come under this category, my Miele dishwasher came with me, whilst my older washing machine went to my daughter as it would cost more to ship than the machine was worth, and I didn't want to wait weeks for mine to arrive. If you ship white goods you need to either survive the first couple of months without them or be prepared to buy secondhand and resell when yours arrive. Books are a must, as they are very expensive here, and again small, heavy and valuable. If it doesn't take up much space, it won't cost much to ship.

Don't bother bringing anything old, large and relatively light. Beds, settees, tables and chairs etc. need careful evaluation.

You can get some great bargains secondhand, and remember that there is virtually no such thing as a furnished rental in Australia, so whatever you decide to ship you will have to wait several weeks for.

You can rent everything you need for your home from Radio Rentals, but their minimum rental period usually means that this is not always an option.

Good luck whatever you decide

Seabird

carolinephillips

We sold a lot of stuff at car boot sales following a sort out, but shipped our furniture. We had no white goods to bring, and they are very expensive here so if they are only a few years old get them shipped over. We also gave things to relatives and friends, but still ended up with a 30foot container. You have to calculate how much it will cost you to buy over here as against the cost of shipping. Our stuff was valued at £50k, and that was just a 3 bed house and garage. We couldn't afford to spend that to refurbish- mind you a lot of that was books and cd's etc, and musical instruments.
You can hire room packages whilst waiting for your stuff to arrive- we stayed in a furnished holiday flat for a month while we looked for a rental, and had the French not gone on strike our furniture would have arrived shortly after we had taken the rental. As it was we camped for 6 weeks, with new found friends lending us stuff!
Once our stuff came we discovered that it had shrunk! Aussie houses are large, so what was a big table in the UK looked like a bistro table here. Be warned!!!
Good luck with the sorting- we took about 3 months to do it.

bluekipper

I wish I did have some, I wouldnt be getting a loan to come back over then!

Bluekipper

ronnie98

Bring everything, Im glad we did.

hantsfamily1

Take the lot and throw stuff away over here when you are certain you dont want it anymore, good luck.

Mazza12

Excuse my ignorance but do all electrical goods ie white goods, TV, games consoles etc all work fine in Oz simply by using an adaptor plug? Do voltage differences not cause problems? Any advice is welcome as my dishwasher needs replacing and I was loathe to do this as I was planning to buy all electrical goods new/secondhand when I come to Oz.

Seabird

Yep, all washing gear works fine except when it comes to regional DVD players. A good idea to bring UK multi-adapters then you have less plugs to change. Personally I HATE Australian plugs... real pain in the posterior to change.. There are two different size plugs in the shops, make sure you get the right one though.

What you do need to investigate is what you are going to use whilst you're waiting for your stuff to arrive. A few people have suggested that you can get short-term rental. Also worth costing up secondhand machines with a 3-month warranty that you then sell back to the shop, or privately through something like Trading Post...

Just a couple of thoughts

Seabird.

Mazza12

Thanks Seabird - that's really helpful info. I was also holding off replacing my ancient TV but might just go ahead and replace it. I hadn't realised that furnished rentals are less common so your idea about possibly using secondhand whilst waiting for my stuff could be the solution.
Cheers

taylordebs

Be ruthless lol

taylordebs

be ruthless lol

taylordebs

I know its difficult but be ruthless

chris and tracy

Agree that furnished rentals are extremely hard to find

We've been here for about 10 weeks and our stuff has just arrived. The main thing we're finding is how much stuff we now have 2 of as we had to buy items to keep us going until the container arrived (e.g. ironing board, small hifi for music, frying pan, measuring jugs etc etc etc)

It makes sense to bring stuff as so much of it is expensive here (due to dreadful exchange rates which affect everything until you're earning dollars) but be aware that you may end up with duplicates.

Maybe we could set up some kind of 'for sale' board of second hand items for new arrivals - anyone for an ironing board in mint condition that's only been used about 4 times????