DianeOZ

Just a note on washing machines. My personal experience has been that top loaders totally kill your clothes and they use more water. You will pay a wee bit more for a front loader but they are doing a $150 rebate cos it saves water.

Diane

By the way we took everything

flying dutchman

we plan to take very little - only sentimental/personal stuff. but everyone is in a different circumstance. we are pretty much starting out in life in the UK anyway and only have a one bed apartment here, so hardly worth taking the few bits and pieces of furniture we have. the decision has also been influenced by my experience as a child/teenager where my father always shipped everything when we moved (and we moved quite a bit) and once the sofa etc. had been to holland, then to canada, back to holland, then to portugal, he realised it had cost him a small fortune!
flying dutchman

welshpom

I brought 2 x 20kg bags of clothes/shoes, small electrical gadgets (portable dvd player, camcorder, cables and chargers), and half a dozen dvds.

On top of that, my hand luggage was host to a laptop.

My 43kg labrador traveled separately, as did my desktop computer (sans monitor).

Everything else I've either bought in the last 3 months or will buy in the future.

Can't think of anything I left behind that I should have brought, well apart from a cable I planned to pack but forgot to.

welshpom

My toploader came with the AAA rating for water usage. On a standard wash (I never pick 'whites', 'delicates', ...) it also finishes the wash in a fraction of the time my old UK front-loader did.

No damage to anything so far.

It's great to be able to lift the lid and chuck more stuff in when the wash has already started.

I'm not fussy when it comes to washing clothes. If it comes out wet and odour-free I'm happy

whisky

I think it all depends on the individual and what sort of state the furniture is in and what you think it is worth.
I am taking everything, as I have had to start from scratch before, and it is a very expensive game. Not necessarily the big things, but all the little things really add up.
I would love to go with nothing and start again, but feel that my money will be quite precious to us whilst we are starting out, and would rather have what we have got in the bank.

bussie

oh yes thats the first thing that is going to go to oz
my new golf clubs
and we arnt taking very much but the quote still came out at around £650 but that is mostly fishing equipment and computer stuff
we bought a new sofa as well and are going to have to sell it
so any one want one heheheeh

stotty

I'm planning to be in Adelaide next year (got visa - just need to dispose of house, car & job now!) and went on a holiday/fact-finding trip recently - part of which was checking out the price of new stuff.

Had a quote for £1700 (John Masons) to ship most of my worldly posessions (single guy but compulsive hoarder!) - mainly bed, futons, sofa, stereo stuff, kitchen stuff, computer, washing machine (front loader) and a few boxes of "essential" stuff (read sentimental!).

Having checked out the prices of comparable stuff in Adelaide I'm now pretty sure it'll be worth shipping my stuff over, as to replace it with comparable quality items would cost nearly double the shipping cost.

I guess it all depends on how much life there is left in your stuff and whether you're bothered about quality (I like my comfort!).

Jolyn

We're skint so don't want to spend money filling up a house again. We did it carefully and cheaply the first time.

Chucking out the IKEA klippan sofas though. The new price in Oz is not much more than the freight cost would be so we can get some without food stains from the toddler.

Big cheap items are the most obvious to get rid of since the sea freight is charged by volume.

If we had £4000 worth of sofas they'd be going on the ship for sure! Wouldn't be more than £150 each at the most to ship them.

flying dutchman - we have a fridge that's been round the world like your father's sofa. The total cost of the fridge does add up now but not to as much as a new or used fridge/sofa for each country would have been.

owieb

We came out with very little to start, had a small shipment of essential things like a bed, CDs, stereo, bikes, computers(?) and snowboards (don't ask!) and that was it.

We couldn't afford to do the main shipment of furniture at the time.And had sold a lot of the stuff back in the UK to pay for the flights.

Amazingly we've survived a whole year with just a couple of beanbags as our main furniture!

We rented things like a TV, fridge, washing machine and that is fairly cheap to do, costs about $50 a month.

Out here we've only bought a big outdoor table and chairs which is now indoors and doubling as a dining table, but come spring it will be back outside; which is where we spent most of our time last summer.

Our other stuff is at last on it's way after a year of sitting in storage.

If you can afford to ship stuff out, then is certainly worth it, otherwise start buying when you get here. It may not seem expensive when you first arrive, but when you start going round the shops, realising that you had a perfectly good stuff in the UK it does become a bit depressing.

Just for the record; we personally think toploaders are shite and can't wait for our front loader to arrive!

welshpom

I did that too.

I looked at a few dining tables and saw nothing that caught my eye. Then I saw a hardwood garden table that'll seat 6 with 6 folding chairs to match, and went for that instead.

It doesn't look too out of place in the open plan house. If I do get sick of it, it'll end up on the veranda.

HUP

Hi Cadman

Look in the archives theres loads of stuff on teles and how to get them to work. We are taking our tele as like yours ours was quite expensive and you won't be able to get that much for it.

PeteY

We are taking about 10 tea chests, 2 bikes and a rowing machine !!

Biggest things we are taking apart from the bikes etc, is a bread machine, and a few other kitchenie type bits we got as wedding presents a few years ago.

Jacqui

And you will be sick of shopping believe me! Forget the cost of things - think about how long it's taken you to build up your household inventory and when you have to replace it all, it takes ages. You can't possibly replace everything in one big shop. When you first arrive here, you will be unfamiliar with all the shops, so you won't even know where to head to buy the replacements. Do you want cheap and cheerful items, or quality expensive items? Which are the well-known brands, which are the equivalent well-known high street type stores? If you want a new microwave in the UK you might flick through the Argos catalogue or go into your local Currys Superstore or maybe they'll be on special offer in Tesco. Where the heck is a good place to buy a microwave over here? Or anything else? We spent weeks driving up and down the same stretch of roads, in and out of shops, comparing prices, looking at brand names we've never heard of, unable to buy anything on credit because it takes a few weeks for the cards to come through, paying with dollars which seemed unfamiliar, while trying hard not to convert everything back to pounds, when our old furniture wasn't really that bad after all, some of it only a few years old. And if it wasn't a difficult enough task already, we had three children under 12 traipsing around with us too moaning oh god not shopping again! Luckily we only had furniture to replace, thank god we didn't get rid of all the kitchenware as I would have surely gone mad by now, I have gone right off shopping sprees! And don't forget you have to restock the larder as well, you'll be surprised how many trolley loads that will take.........