To ship or not to ship?
 

Trying to put a moving budget together. I have just been quoted £5,000 for shipping goods from Devon to Fredericton and am a bit shocked! The guy explained that because its Fredericton its more expensive and you can't get half a container.

I really don't think our stuff is worth £5k! We are fairly minimist and the kids have ruined most of our furniture so am not sure what to do. Also am I right in thinking its best not to bother with electrical items - if so will have even less stuff!

Does everyone generally ship their stuff? Anyone not and regretted it? I probably have about 2 teachests full of stuff that I really care about - is there anyway you can ship a couple of boxes?

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

You could find out how much it'd be to send via a postal service. Customs details on this are here: http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/po...erson-eng.html

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

If you've got the time to buy new stuff when you land then that is probably the best thing to do, just bring the essentials. Think about what you need in the first few weeks and buy the rest on landing.

My experience is that you bring all the things that you don't need and leave behind all the things that you do!

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We shipped 10 boxes of stuff that we couldn't leave behind at a cost of about 700 quid.

Don't really regret the decision. However, what I do regret is not being more savvy when setting up here and buying new things - basically spent like a drunken sailor and paid way more than we should have done for some things!

Moral of the story - set budgets for the items you'll need to replace and don't get carried away and go over them!

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We didn't have much in the way of stuff to ship.... certainly no furniture.
Electrical goods aren't compatible and so we sold / binned them before leaving. And so we were left with sporting goods, clothes and keep sakes.

For those things we felt we simply had to keep for a practical purpose, we probably with hindsight could've just thrown them away in the UK and saved the shipping fees they incurred.

Our shippers took so long to do what they said they would do (read: took over twice as long as quoted:ohmy:) that we were forced to either do without or buy duplicates.

Now we are left looking at either two lots of the same thing (winter sports clothes for example) or wondering why we bothered keeping it at all?

Be ruthless when deciding what to bring and remember that shopping can be fun.:thumbsup:

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We didn't bother with furniture (well apart from hubby's computer chair) we just shipped 42 boxes (we packed) for about £1500 and was from door to door in approx 6-7 weeks. No problems and the company was very quick to answer any questions

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Really? In their current condition, you possessions may not be worth 5k (if you were to try and sell privately or at car boot sales, etc), but how much will it cost you to replace everything new?

We paid about 4,300 GBP to ship all our stuff and my god, I'm glad I did. Just buying boring stuff like mops, hoovers or lamps adds and adds till you scare yourself at just how much it costs to start over.

If your furniture really is trashed and knackered, don't ship it. If it's just a bit worn or an unfashionable colour but still in good condition, bring it - use it for a while so you don't rush out and buy something you'll regret, and then consign it your basement at a later date. :thumbup:

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

we didn't ship electricals as they have 110v here. and furniturewise we just took some sentimentals, the rest was clothes and toys. we had a split container and paid £1450 incl.insurance, packing and door to door shipping from manchester to ottawa. took 10 weeks tho as it was a london company and they took it all down to london(their ditribution center in the uk), then back up to liverpool then halifax, montreal, toronto and back to ottawa. :D
the company was called evl (european van lines) and somebody on the BE forum recommended them to us and we were quite happy with them. even had a minor loss, some wooden beam got lost and their insurance paid without any trouble.
good luck with the move :thumbsup:

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

^^^exactly this!

There seems to be a general consensus (excluding those moving to an apartment or condo in downtown TO or Van) that your house here will be bigger than your house in the UK. You'll need to furnish it - furnished rentals are few and far between - and provide all the stuff that makes a house a home. Major expentitures when you get here will likely include a car and all the appliances it genuinely is not worth bringing: maybe including a TV, washer and dryer, vacuum, lamps, stereo... the list goes on. Add beds, linen, cutlery, crockery, to the tables & chairs, couch, etc etc, to the list, and you will very soon hit that 5k price.

If you bring everything you can fit in a container you won't have to spend your first few weeks buying everything new at full retail price. Even if you want a new sofa, you can wait for the sales.

When we moved over we were on the limit of capacity for a 20' container. To play safe, we opted for a 40' container and went to a bunch of salerooms in the UK to get extra furniture to fill it with. A set of 6 Edwardian dining chairs, fairly nondescript and in need of a bit of TLC, set us back less than a hundred quid and is far nicer than anything Leon's or The Brick could provide at five times the price, let alone trying to find anything decent in the second-hand market. A couple of chests of drawers, a bedside table or two... we knew we'd be furnishing two more bedrooms than we had in our London flat.

Probably more important than any of that, though, is the familiarity of your things and the help that will be to you and your kids in settling into your new home. Moving countries is a big upheaval - anything you can do to ease the emotional burden is money well invested, IMHO.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We wished we had shipped much more of our stuff. I never want to replay the weekends and nights on end trying to find furniture and household supplies - something we liked for good value - trying to figure o ut what was good value and wishing we had more time to choose and wondering how on earth we were going to afford to furnish a house that was 4 times the size of the one we had and if only we had kept our bed and sofa, it would have been great for the spare room and the basement blah blah blah:eek:

Five years on and I still remember the horror of shopping those first couple of months and the expense.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We shipped about 20 boxes of stuff for 1300 quid. Sold / gave away everything before we came. Cost an absolute fortune to replace everything, and of course, houses are MUCH larger here (uless you live in a mansion!). We moved from 730 sqft to 3100 sqft and half the rooms are still sparse!

We don't regret it, but it does get boring having to go start out all over again and shopping for the mundane stuff like teatowels, cutlery, etc.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

This is good topic for the search function

Its a regular discusion with many view points


Mine.. 1st trip over sold most things, bought new when arrived (Its really f*****g expensive when you add it up). When moving back to the UK took almost everything , and when we came back we brought everthing incluing the electricals (not fridge or washers etc) and then threw out what we didn't want or couldn't use this side

Also look at the Wiki so see if you can be bothered to bring things that may require effort to make them work

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

There are cheaper ways to do it, e.g. pick up your goods at the port rather than door-to-door. Rent a U-Haul truck and go to the port (I assume Halifax) and fetch them or get a local removals company to do it.

I did this once when I moved from the US to the UK, unfortunately my PC and stereo were stolen but that could have happened either way frankly. But I was shipping my car and I just got the general impression it was easier to deal with Customs myself at Felixstowe and I'm pretty certain I was right.

It is a bit disconcerting being in a freight yard moving all your stuff into a truck but I saved a lot of money.

In my case I have an enormous number of books that weigh a lot and take up huge amounts of space so just dumping it all isn't really an option.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

By the time our stuff was listed on the Goods to follow list the value of it was much more than we originally thought. It made shipping a much cheaper option (less than 10% of the total value of stuff) and one of the bests decisions we made.

As others have said - don't underestimate the expense and time required to start completely from scratch. You will already have more than enough to sort out when you land.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Hi

We wished we had brought more stuff...... we only shipped 4 boxes of clothes and personal stuff... I wish I had brought stuff like bedding and all of my kitchen equipment as these things are expensive in comparison.

We replaced our bedroom furniture, dining table/chairs and sofa, electricals and it does soon add up. We were fortunate as the lady who bought our house bought all of our stuff which gave us the budget to be able to do this.

Hope this helps:thumbsup:

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

In 2009 I shipped a 20 ft container full off all kinds of stuff, including a farm tractor and a mower, all the furniture we wanted to keep, books, and anything else we could fit in, I bought the container for £1000, shipped it to Halifax for £1500 and got it delivered to my place for $350. There are some on here that will say that is not possible now, but if you shop around you can still buy a 20ft SEAWORTHY containter for less than £1200.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Hi,
I would also recommend shipping everything you can over as we have found furniture here very expensive. If you want to price out some stuff go to the leon's website as they are one of the main furniture places here in Fredericton - there are others but most are more expensive. Things like bedding etc is also expensive - cheaper to drive down to the states and buy it there though.

We had a cheap argos king bed back in the UK and didn't ship it over as we thought it might fall apart but we wish we had taken the risk and shipped it as we ended up sleeping on our sofa bed for the first while when we got here until we could afford a bed :rofl:

We packed all our stuff back home ourselves and the shipping company just picked it up and shipped it to us, saved a couple of thousand packing it ourselves!!

Sinead

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

I'm glad I found this thread :) The in-laws were up a couple of weeks ago and we got onto the subject of shipping if our application was successful. The advice we had gotten from someone we met on our recce was to pay for a container and then fill with as much as we could bring. My FIL was in removals though and asked why we would do that since most of our furniture is quite old and we would be looking to replace it when we got there anyway. His advice was to sell the big things like sofa, TV, beds etc and bring only the little things like crockery, cutlery, toys etc and that we could perhaps use the postal service to bring those over.

Like I said though, most of our furniture is quite cheap/old and it was bought when we were poor students with very little money so it would suit us to sell what we could and buy nice matching furniture when we got there. It's a different story if you have nice, expensive furniture/items that you just couldn't part with. I suppose everyone's circumstances are different.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Thank you everyone for the really helpful replies. The majority of the advice does seem to be to ship which is interesting.

I can imagine that it might be a bit stressful having to go out and spend a lot as soon as we arrive and to find the time to furniture shop. I think I was just rather shocked by the 5k quote. I had thought it might be around 2k which I was comfortable with - our stuff is definitely more IKEA/Argos than Habitat!

Thanks Sinurt - I think I will go back to the company and ask for a quote if we were to pack our own stuff - I am far too much of a control freak to let someone else pack my stuff anyway :lol: The guy I spoke to said it would cost more because its New Brunswick/far from the port so good to know you managed it on a price you were happy with.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Have you purchased a home already? If you have then you will know how many rooms you will need to furnish and their sizes. 3-4 bedrooms means 3-4 beds, chests of drawers, bedside tables, possibly extra wardrobes if you don't have built in closets.

Living room, family room, den/office,rec room/basement, dining room, eat-in kitchen? It soon adds up.

Linen and towels?

Don't underestimate the cost of just kitting out a kitchen with cooking implements,knives, crockery, silverware, glassware, serving dishes, baking tins, pots and pans etc, etc. Few of us go out and completely furnish a kitchen in one go. Most is accumulated over many years.

Also there is lots of very helpful advice already on the forum about shipping costs and self shipping, just search the forum under shipping costs, containers etc.

If you know that Fredericton (lovely place) is your destination, google furniture stores check their 'flyers' for prices or give them a ring, and also check kijiji.ca for second hand goods and furniture.

Good luck! :fingerscrossed:

Second hand stuff does not come cheap in Canada, nothing like what you can pick stuff up for at boot fairs, auction houses and ebay in the UK.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Having just arrived here, I am so glad we made the decision to ship our things! We had probably 3 really nice pieces of furniture that we wanted to keep, and once you decide you want to ship, as others have said, you might as well ship the lot. For example, we don't particularly like our sofa and would happily replace it - but at the same time, we are going to be likely renting for a year or so before we buy somewhere so it will do until we know where we are buying and what the space looks like - and when we do replace it, it's a small 2-seater so will work in an office space or a basement.

My experience of selling the bits that we did sell in the UK - it was a lot of hassle, we didn't always get as much as we wanted for them, and a few things ended up going to the charity shop.

My experience of buying in Canada, is that we've so far spent about $2000 on just replacing the electric items (okay, that does include a big screen TV!!), another couple hundred on all the basics for groceries, plus things like first & last month rents, and all the other misc expenses associated with starting up. And don't get me started on the amount of money spent on small things like surge protectors and tv cables! It's insane!

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Also, don`t forget that very few stores deliver for free. Imagine tacking $50 to each purchase (unless you find everything you want in a single store - very unlikely). It all adds up.

I would ship the lot and I would go out and buy additional stuff that is much, much cheaper in the UK to fill it up.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We shipped everything over in 20ft container inc. wardrobes, beds, sofas. We where able to arrange moving into our house and the arrival of our things via container. We moved in on 30th April Container arrived on 3rd May. It was fun for the boys to sleep on the floor for three nights. The container was shipped to Montreal then to Torronto and then transported to local Customs office. We have still purchased items of furniture here aswell. Things we like rather than what we need. Our container was unpacked on our driveway.
Most of our stuff in a two bedroom bungalow was wrapped and packed in a day and un loaded from ther container in two hours. We told the men organised to unload our container we wanted to unpack our stuff ourselves, they justy moved the large items of furniture where we wanted it.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We have been asking ourselves the same questions, and are currently looking at not shipping stuff. I don't think it is worth the money, when you consider what it would cost to ship the stuff I think you would be better of buying new in Canada.

We aren't planning on taking any "big" electricals such as TVs and if you don't have really expensive furniture (ours is mostly IKEA) then it hardly seems worth it. And when it comes to clothes we could either pay for additonal baggage with our flights, or get the stuff sent by post.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Depends what you are shipping. The cost of shipping translated into $ doesn`t buy much in Canada. I very much doubt you will be able to furnish a house in Canada for $5000 to $7000 depending on the exchange rate.

$7000 will likely get you a sofa, love seat and two beds, new from a store

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

in my experience I am glad we shipped, its scary how much it costs to replace everything from scratch, even after we shipped a 20ft container we still spent a huge amount just replacing the electricals, additional garden equip etc.

Also, unless you are going near an Ikea there is no cheap solution here

We also have kids, so the familiairity of getting your own stuff I think helped in the overall feeling of establishing ourselves here

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

also, dont forget to haggle we only paid £3000 approx for shipping a sole use 20ft container, you are not that far from Halifax.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Cheap new bed in UK, 100 quid from Argos.
Cheap new bed in Canada, $1000 for the box and mattress only from somewhere like the Brick or Leons.
Stuff isn't as cheap as you might think. Ship as much as you can.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Ikea is expensive in Canada. Everything is expensive here really. What seems cheap will fall apart very soon. You soon get tired of shopping and folding all the cardboard packaging.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Another vote for shipping. Otherwise you will be tired, in a hurry and will end up buying everything at IKEA. After tax it won't be as cheap as you thought, you won't really like it, but you wont be able to justify replacing it for years as you just bought it. I've done it both ways a number of times and have learned to bring everything. You can then replace what you don't like at leisure and get things you really want.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

If money is no object then don't bother sending anything...but if it is then bring as much as you can cram into a container!! Especially as the exchange rate is disappointing at the moment...

It is the little things that start putting the cost on things. It has been said before things are not as cheap as you think.......$35 for lunch in McDonald's or KFC is the norm for the wife, me and the 3 kids...(all under 8 so have smaller tummies)..not suggesting you fill the container with fast food but if you want to have a small section filled with Galaxy choc the wife would be happy!:D

We were only going to send a few items but the quote for sending a few things wasn't far of sending a 20ft container.

Do you want to spend more money buying stuff the kids will ruin again? It was nice when our things turned up to have that feeling of my pillow and bed i hadn't seen for a number of weeks....

Really pleased with the guys we used F+N in UK and Thomsons handled it in Nova Scotia. Packed in UK in 2 days....unloaded and put in rooms 2hrs Canada (with a break)

Good luck

John

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

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Default Re: Shipping costs for 40' container
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcdavis View Post
It seems that most people get a 20' container, however it looks like we'll need a 40' container (too much stuff). Initial quote is £10k , and that's without insurance.
Just wondered if anyone else had used a 40' container, and how much it cost please?
Have a search on this forum for shipping. I found through other posters had found a DIY firm which I had thought must be possible into but someone had helpfully found. I had spent ages looking into buying a container but had not come across this firm

Maritime Cargo Services

www.maritimecargo.com

Andy Booth 01449 616 100

Mention BritishExpats and you may well get a groan or a discount!

It is a freight forwarding company and you do have to pack, load and unload yourself as well as the paperwork for customs.

It may not be everyones cup of tea but we are certainly going to use it!

Most people accumulate furniture over a lifetime, and if you have antiques or quality stuff, the cost of total replacment is eyewatering. I am of course not talking about electrical appliances or large 'white goods' but the savings from self freighting could buy you top of the line, energy efficient appliances and one of those all important large screen TV's! (tongue firmly in cheek)

I am of course not talking about somewhere like IKEA. I have looked into this and as we know where we want to go ( Nova Scotia) the cost of new and very samey (as far as I am concerned) is big bucks. Also no IKEA in the Maritimes.

Do some Googling and find furniture retailers in the area you are proposing to settle, we have an all-inclusive phone package here in the UK ( unlimited International calls any time 24/7) so I just phone up and ask the prices!

As to the cost of shipping we were quoted in December 2008

from Windsor Berks to the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

£2,100.00 for a twenty footer

£2,695.00 for a forty footer

You arrange your own insurance, but they can reccommend someone I believe.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Again thanks all. We are thinking the plan would be to move into a rented appartment while we settle into the area and decide where we want to live/what mortgage we could/want to afford so I guess if we were buying new out there it would be to furnish an appartment which might not necessarily be the stuff you would choose if you were furnishing a bigger house - so thats a plus for shipping.

I think from what you guys are saying that it does make sense to ship but I am just worrying about the cost as the more its costs the more delayed the move becomes while we save up - I am happy with 2/3k for shipping but 5k is just so much money to us.

I have contacted a couple of companies and asked about packing our own stuff and was told that because its Canada thats now allowed and they have to pack it for us - is this true or is do you think it is just that companies policy? This would definitely be our preference if it were possible.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

We bought our container, packed it ourselves, shipped it, and arranged pick up from port to our house, so they are BSing you, you can of course pack your own container, perhaps it is just company policy? If that is the case I would look elsewhere.

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Really getting nowhere with the reduced price for self packing option - I just called back the company that gave me the £5k quote and asked how much it would be if we packed ourselves. They were a bit funny about it and said it would only be about £100 or £200 cheaper and we would have to sort out our own insurance.

Do you think its just the companies I am trying (just gone for the big name co's that come out top of a google search so far).

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Have you got room where you are now to place a container?

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Yes we have (just about!).

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

do the whole thing yourself then!, benefits are, time to pack, price, and if you want one you end up with a container!

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

Its definitely a good idea and we will look into it. Not sure what we would do with the container at the other end though - especially as moving into a rented apartment to start off with so don't know where we would put it!

Re: To ship or not to ship?
 

mmm that might be a problem!