Hi all,

Has anyone done this?????

I did hear that you can save money (dont know how much!!) by packing up your own stuff, although you have to leave the boxes open for the shipping company to check it over and agree that its all present and correct, and nothing dodgy in there!

Just a thought as I'm all for saving a bit, beings it costs soooo much to do anyway!


x

Hi,
We packed our own stuff - shipping company left us the boxes and packing material we packed them all - sealed them and wrote what was in them. They packaged up the sofas and bigger furniture. We saved money doing it this way, plus it was better for us as we had already moved over when the packers came!! We had no trouble with customs this side either!!

Sinead

Hi...Many thanks

Did you find it was worthwhile doing it, or did it just take you ages for the sake of fifty quid or something similar?....I suppose im being nosey and wanting to know how much you saved!

Jo

Hi Guys,

Just exactly the thread I was looking for!

Can anyone suggest a good moving company?

Thanks,

Jed

Hi,
I can't remember the exact figure as it was over a year ago BUT I am pretty sure we saved closer to 1000 if not more by doing it ourselves. I guess it really depends on how much time you have but we got the boxes about a month in advance and just started packing. We did get to the point where we were struggling to find room to put all the boxes and it was a mad panic at the end to get everything done but I wouldn't have a problem doing it myself again.
Sinead

Great, I think I will give this a go, or at least try to find out more about doing it myself..... got to really for £1000!

Many thanks Sinead,

Jo

Hi

We did all our own packing - we used a company called Maritime Cargo http://www.maritimecargo.com/default.asp?PageID=1 The contact person was Andy Booth and he was great.

It saved us £1500. He gaves a company name to get boxes and packing stuff etc ( A1 boxes I think it was) and went through how to label everything including giving us the packing sheet to fill out and an example of how to do it. We packed and labelled all the boxes and were going to load them to the contaciner ourselves - the container arrives and you have 3-4 hours to load it, bearing in mind it is a distance off the ground - so recruit all friends family and enemies lol.
We ened up storing our stuff for a month in the UK before it was shipped so what we did was find a local storage place, they collected our shipping which fit into the same size container ( so we knew it would be ok) then when we were ready for it, we contacted Andy and he contacted the storgare guys and they arranged to have it packed. The storage company did all our packing onto the shipping crate ( total cost for 1 month storage and packing of the crate etc was about £200) It was great that Andy did all the liaison with the storage comapny so we didnt have to worry about a thing.

We were told by all the "fully inclusive" services that if we self packed we were guaranteed to have our container opened as Immigration didnt trust us to do it ourselves and that they trusted companies more. I followed the instrutions on my packing list and immigration said it was one of the best they had seen lol ( probably wayyyy too much info) however we were never checked so it paid off.

Hope this helps, if nothing else its worth a look.

On thing to check is your cargo insurance as they may state that coverage is only applicable if the packing is done by the shipping company.

I used Pickfords and got sole use of a 20ft container from Surrey to Calgary with full packing and unpacking for 2500gbp

Maritime gave me the number of an insurance company that cover self packed - it didnt cost much, cant remember now exactly how much but i dont remember thinking " bloody hell" so thats a good sign

Guys - thanks for your replies, will be bearing all this in mind.

Im still about a year away from actually packing up and landing, but need to get these things in order I think!

We haven't gone yet, but i was quoted £380 for 3 cubic meters plus a double bed, by GBS, for self packing and loading in Liverpool. The insurers they gave me quoted £78 for up to £3000 worth (market value, not new value) - none of our stuff is that expensive, but it would cost loads more to replace than ship.

Like I said, we haven't packed yet, and I'm guessing this quote will have to go up a bit, but I'm hoping it will still be not much more than £500. Factor in about another £100 to £150 for packaging materials and van hire, it's still a lot less than the £1500 to £2500 other companies were quoting for door to door service.

Heading to Toronto in August. The visa's been approved, but we don't have jobs or anywhere to live yet. No worries then ...!

Remember moving costs are determined by a number of factors, a major one being labour costs. The less time the movers have to spend the cheaper the move should be. Packing takes a long time (and movers spin it out, believe me) so if, when they arrive, they just have to pick up boxes and take them to van/container imagine how much earlier they'll be on their way.

Something you may want to consider if trying to save a bob or two, we asked the shipper how many containers in their 25 year history had failed to get to their destination, or in otherwords how many insurance claims for total loss had they incurred. The answer quite surprisingly was one claim in 25 years.

Given this snippet we scanned all of our photos and put them on DVDs to go with us, then everything went into the 20' container and came accross to Canada Un insured (apart from the statutory shippers insurance which is included in the shipping cost). we saved about 600 quid, we figured the risk of losing it all was minimal, all of the furniture was used, and thus no individual piece was not replaceable for under 600 quid, so we took the risk.

The risk paid off, we had one item damaged during the move, and that was the fault of the unpacker this end nothing to do with shipping. The cost of repair was a tube of carpenters glue and a couple of sash clamps. Did the rest myself.

Now everyones possesions are of different value and sentiment, so the decision is yours, but may be its worth the risk.

Snort.... that was a brave thing to do, I dont know if I could do it,
Mine would be the one that sank, for sure!

Thanks anyway, always good to hear of other peoples decisions..

Jo