moneypenny20

Brought my kettle over, 13amps. Still working brilliantly four years later with no issues at all. If you are bringing a container, shove it full of everything and work out if you need it once you're here. If after a year of not using it, have a garage sale.

ozhappy981

We didn't bring the washing-machine or fridge-freezer. Both old.

Nevertheless, we had a 20ft container crammed full of our stuff plus a bit extra in another container.

Not regretted that at all. Glad we brought everything. I reckon it's definitely cheaper to pay for the container than to buy everything new here.

slipshot

Fair point, in regards renting a house with dishwashers, but of the alternative is to sell it at a loss or give it away, why nit bring it as you never know when you will need it.

As for phones, our UK BT DECT phone is working fine and has done wince we got here so bring that too.

Basically, bring everything.

The only thing we did not bring was a Tassimo coffee machine - and now they have started to sell that over here.

The only thing we should have left was the digital radion (DAB) since Australia uses a different system so it will never work over here...

moneypenny20

Brought our dishwasher and moved into this house to find the previous owner was leaving her old one. That was fine, we used hers for a year or so and when it died just had to get ours out of the shed rather than go spend mega bucks on a new one. Mind you, we do have the space to store extra white goods so that was handy and lots of people won't, on the other hand, we didn't know that when we sent it out.

scrubbedexpat001

Bring everything you can - its amazing what you can get in a 20ft container.

Fridge/Freezers - if there new it's OK, if there old you need to know what gas is in them as certain types are banned and AQIS will charge you to dispose of it.

TV's - unless they are new (last few years) and accept UHF & VHF signals (Oz uses both) then I'd suggest selling them. We shipped 4 over TV's the only one that worked "out of the box" was an LCD, the three CRT's all needed set-top boxes. Don't bring any SKY TV stuff - it doesnt work, thought the remote control will probably work with Foxtel Kit. Forget any Freeview STB's as well (they probably wont work).

Car - Dont know if this was answered or not bt it depends on the age of the vehicle as you will be charged import duty. We looked at shiping our 05 plate Astra as we owned it outright BUT it was under a certain age and we would've paid import tax upto 50% of the value of the Vehicle in OZ. Cars keep their value in OZ so the value will be quite high. On top of that I also believe you have to get the speedo altered so that KMS are the major markers rather than MPH. It has to be checked once it gets here before it can be registered. Add this to the cost of preparing & shiping - unless it's something you cant live without sell it & put that towards a car here.

Wii/XBOX360/PS3 - these are fine, you can buy games here & they work without any modifications. PS3 games are region free anyway as are pretty much all XBOX360 games and you'll find most are the UK versions with OZ classification stickers stuck on them.

XMAS Decorations/Tree - they will check your xmas decs, and if your tree has fake pine cones (plastic) they will cut them off.

Gardening Equipment - AQIS will clean it if they find the slightest bit of soil/dirt on them, depends if you want the hassle or not.

scrubbedexpat001

Dont discount a container as shipping may be worth it. For example:

1 x Bed - $1000 ($500 for Frame, same again for matress) (£500)
1 x TV - $1200 (sony 32" LCD) - $800 (Hisense - Lower end of market) (£500)
1 x Bike - $500+ (£250)
1 x Washing Machine (Front Loader) - $800 (top loaders are slightly cheaper but use more water and make your clothes go all "bally") - £400

On those items alone you're already at £1600 (never mind things like DVD's/CD's/clothes/keepsakes/other furniture.

Sole use container is more expensive but quicker than groupage.

Sole use - only your items go in the container so you can fill the full 20ft, its sealed at your residence and not opened again until AQIS/Customs in OZ take a look.

Groupage - your stuff goes in a container with someone elses items. Takes longer as there has to be someone else going to the same destination. Risk of your items getting delivered to the other person & vice-versa (happened to us from Sydney back to UK and is quite a common occurance though shipping agents will tell you it's not).

As a rough guide a 20ft sole use container from Scotland (last place we left) to Perth was around £3300, we shipped a 3 bed house, some items we should've bought but they didnt take up much room in the grand scheme of things.

xzibit

Thanks for that information. I will really have to look into shipping after xmas when I decide exactly what I'm going to take. I wouldn't even fill half a 20ft container with my stuff. Maybe I can tag along with someone elses not quite full container, we shall see.

Pollyana

The shippers will just give you a quote for the part of the container you use, and fill the rest with someone else's stuff.

mabozar

If you have not worn the clothes for the last 2 years then charity them!
I have 12 bags filled ready to go to charity, can't believe we have 13 years worth of crap! Where does it all come from?
I have cleared out in between but the clothes monster appears again, probably the sales that do it. I get a bit fed up with them now!
Carol

4500 Times

Would agree with this comment...we brought loads of clothes with us and worn very few since we arrived.
I have about 10 pairs of long trousers (inc Jeans) that have never been out of the wrapping.......

But if in doubt bring it with ya...you can always move it on....

Safin

well i thought i wouldn't need any jumpers, coats, thicker duvets, warm pj's etc and left them all behind when we moved to qld but I was wrong (well don't need the coat)

In winter it can get blooming cold at night and houses tend not to be well insulted or heated. Never spent a winters night so cold since a little child. Often warmer outside the house!

Brought the tumble dryer jsut because it was new and there was a tiny corner left in the container. Glad we did - on humid days stuff can take a good while to dry.

spartacus

Bikinis . . . we have lots here already

Your OH . . . possibly

slipshot

Whilst a fair point, a decent CRT is just as good as a decent LCD or plasma and with the addition of either a set top box or Foxtel (the latter being something most people will go for and thus the age of the TV is irrelevant), it's far far cheaper to bring it and use it than leave it and have to buy something brand new. Hence I would always say, as others do, to bring all your TV's. Selling them will get hardly anything for them, if you even can sell them.

Sky TV will not work to record BUT if you have loads of stuff recorded, bring the boxes and plug them in - you can then watch everything without any issue UNLESS it is box office stuff. But free TV etc is all fine.

Freeview STB boxes CAN work - all depends on the manufacturer but not really worth it.

ukmouse

Okay... we give up! Why on earth would they cut the cones off?????

...not that we have cones on our Christmas tree, but after 15 minutes of coming up with ludicrous reasons as to why they would, we are still stumped (excuse the pun!!) LOL

Thanks for all your replies everyone... much appreciated.

bigAPE

You might want to read of the article I wrote about the true end-to-end costs on shipping your vehicle from the UK.

This includes an Excel spreadsheet which you can use to calculate out the costs of shipping. Please note that of the 1st Jan 2010 Import Duty is being cut to 5% of the As landed Value. You should make that change to the spreadsheet when you download it as I have not had a chance yet.

Duty is 10% of the "As Landed" dock value of the vehicle (which is about 60% of the current on road second hand value in Australia) plus GST at 10% of the sum of As Landed Value, Total Shipping Costs and Duty. As you can imagine this makes the GST almost as expensive as the Duty, but not near 50%.

The final cost of getting the car to Australia, paying the fees and duty and getting it on the road might cost nearer 40%-50% of the value of the vehicle which is why I wrote the article to hopefully explain this to people who were only hearing how cheap it all is from the specialist vehicle shipping companies.

Also worth nothing that Luxury Car Tax (LCT) of 25% is also applied on all vehicles with an Australian value over A$57,180.

Yes there are differences in the analog PAL standard here then in the UK, the audio is at a different frequency which confuses some people when talking about some TV's working and some not. Some simply have the ability to auto-detect these changes.

However, I would strongly suggest not even letting the analog reception enter the equation. It's almost 2010 and everyone here (that we know at least) uses a digital set-top box. These will work happily on any UK bought television with the exception of ones with only a SCART socket (but that it rare). If it has an Composite RCA (Red, White & Yellow) socket then it will work in Australia with a £25 digital box.

Things to consider though, LCD's & Plasma monitors are coming down in price radically and I older CRTs are frequently found in front of peopls houses on trash day. They are bulky, take up lots of room in the shipping crates and frankly could easily be replaced with a new one when you get here.

Hope this helps

Al