All systems go in the boybiskit household. So I walked back into our home in the uk last week, job offer in hand and thought... Aargh! We have so much stuff!

We plan to rent the house out so it needs to be empty, expecting to go in August. Most of our big furniture is hand me downs and charity shop specials. We have 2 kids (3, 5) who have a lot of junk.

This is what i think will work - but would be interested to hear how other people have done it.

1. Limit ourselves to 1 20 foot container to ship. Create a pile to go in that
2. Create another pile of stuff that is valuable / has sentimental value. Sell / give to loved ones
3. Let a house clearance co go crazy on what's left
4. When the house is empty, paint it and run.

I'm not entirely convinced we will fill a container, but suspect its one of those thing s that fills quickly. Bearing in mind there'll be no rush for it to arrive, how much should we expect to pay Manchester to Vancouver?

What do you think? Advice?

I know from our quotes for groupage Manchester to Vancouver we got quotes from £1500-£1700 without insurance. So with insurance I think we will be looking at £1700-2000. Would assume a 20ft would be at least double that.

We have tried selling without any joy so we are now looking to rent our house.

Maybe we could go halfs on a container

Are you serious? How much stuff are you shipping? (ie roughly how much of a 20ft container will you take up?)

It was tongue in cheek hence the smiley, we have about 250 to 320 cuft.

Most of the stuff we will sell or leave to part furnish our house to make it rent out swiftly

I did 40ft square, and dont regret a moment!

Congratulations on the job offer, must be great to be at this stage?

Sounds like a good plan for de-cluttering, here are some tips which follow a similar idea! http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=791781 also make sure to consider what you actually can and can't take with you (customs wise) and what will and wont work. Here's a guide: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=782507.

Ballpark to Vancouver from the UK for a 20ft is going to be around £3500-£5000 - but everyone's individual move requirements are different (here's a thread on how the costs are made up), so the only way really to get an accurate idea for your own move is to get 3 no obligation quotes.

I remember having loads of baby/kids stuff to get rid of before we left so did an NCT sale, followed by a car boot sale, followed by donations to charity shops. A few things were taken away at our leaving party too!
After that we were lucky enough to not be paying the shipping so packers came in, packed up everything that was left and we shipped in a 20' container.

Thinking ahead to moving back now........ paying for it ourselves not sure how much to ship/how much to dump and replace in UK.

Congrats. on the job!

There are several wiki articles you may be interested in

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Catego...gistics-Canada

Can't comment on the cost as ours was a few years back now, but we completely filled a 20 foot container. We moved from a small three bed-semi. We didn't bring any electrical stuff or our sofas (sofas were past it anyway). Much of our bigger furniture items (three beds and dining room table) were taken apart and basically flat packed and the only other proper furniture items were three chest of drawers, dining room chairs, coffee table, bedside tables and a couple of small shelving units and a dresser. Its all the other bits that you accumulate that take up the space. Our kids were 3 and 7 at the time so we too had loads of kids stuff. Also, its surprising how many boxes it takes to pack all your kitchen stuff! Its the packing material that takes up a lot of room too. The movers were very thorough and wrapped every plate, cup and glass etc individually. Oh, we did also bring over some garden furniture and our bikes too.

When we got quotes, regarding bigger items we just told them what we would and would not be taking.

As far as getting rid of a lot of stuff, we were quite ruthless. We did give a lot of stuff away to family and friends, did a couple of car boot sales and a lot of stuff we sold on Ebay (we became quite good friends with the guy at the Post Office! LOL )

Thanks for all this. The more I think about it the more ruthless I think we should be! Partly because I don't want to blow all our moving expenses allowance on a container. Will read up on links and get some quotes in. So long as kids have some of the stuff they really care about we can survive with not much stuff. I think that's what Ikea / West van garage sales were invented for!

A manic couple of months coming of finishing diy, figuring what paperwork needs doing and trying to see all the important people!

Be cautious though, it costs a lot to replace furniture here. I would bring as much as you can, we did and we fit a three bed house into a 20ft container with some room to spare. we didnt bring electricals or wardrobes as there are built in closets here but we had three sofas.

Obviously it depends on where you plan to be (furnished/unfurnished), how long you wish to be here and if you like the furniture you have now....