Hi,

8 years, 3 kids, (6, 4 & 4mths) 1 house, buckets of "life" stuff, planning to move back to UK/Euroland this time next year and we have come up with a shipping plan, I wondered if anyone else has done similar (what I'm really asking is for you to pick holes in it).

No furniture, No Big stuff, all the sentimental furniture will go into storage, we'll sell the white goods and plasma/tv/electrics/Gym equip etc (except the Dyson).


We will only ship, kids stuff (i.e. books, minimum toy list, bedding), clothes, few books, some sentimental photos, a few external hard drives (no monitor).
oh, and my kitchen stuff

All of this can go on an airfreight ULD (universal load device) and would cost approx 2-3K oz, with customs pre-cleared etc etc .

we intend to "Ikea" the new house for at least a year, and then pick up some further furniture we could see us haning on to in the longer term, our experience thus far is that the little monsters generally kill any precious furniture so no point in having that then, ikea will do nicely.

Thats it!.

Is there any angst in dumping the lot as the case may be, we'll ship the kids stuff because we want them to have familiar items around them once we land, but other than that, we don't want to have a huge unpack task nor cost.

any drawbacks in this ?

cheers

deryans

Hi Deryans
We are planning on doing exactly the same thing, except we'll be shipping from South Africa to Uk. I can't see there being any drawbacks with that plan...good luck!
Audrey

great idea if you can be that ruthless I would love to do that but doubt we could manage clearing out so much stuff, we are aiming at going from a 40ft to 20ft container! wish I could be as brave as you.

This is pretty much what we've done....shipped (from Ontario, Canada) personal effects, books, CDs, clothes and Mr O's tool collection that he just cannot live without. We sold just about everything else, but ended up having to literally give away one or two pieces of furniture..........still, better than paying to ship it. I researched prices online at Argos and IKEA.....even sold the bedding and most kitchen stuff, keeping only well-loved cooking implements and really good set of pans.
What's left is due to arrive Southampton on Sunday......customs clearance and delivery all paid for up-front, although the agents on this side told me on Monday there may be a possibility of our shipment being x-rayed by customs, which will carry a fee.......she could not, or would not, tell me what additional cost this may entail!

having done the move a few times and thinking of it again....

I checked out http://www.argos.co.uk/ - example a nice set of cutlery for example is 3 quid. Beds with mattresses for 3 kids totals about 300 quid. Ikea is slightly more expensive.

We are taking our 5 PC's, Lego collection, basic good clothes(no play clothes), Cd's, game consoles and games, momentoes, clothes, one set of bed clothes for each person and special toys.

The first time around we ended up not using half the stuff i insisted on taking and the kids grew out of the toys they did take in a few months.

The only things shipping are Computers, cd's, lego, momnetoes, games and consoles. The rest is going in luggage. Pet will be rehomed, kids have lost interest in the cat anyways....(after months of wanting one >.<)

My husband said to me this morning.... hindsight is 20/20. I think of the money i would have saved on shipping, had i had more sense and less emotion last time.

I find myself picking up some thing to use and and thinking at the same time how much would this add to the shipping quote ....then nahhhh not worth it.
lol

sharma

Oh there always seems to be that extra of the customs X Ray whichever way across the Atlantic you are going!

We didn't ship that much to the US from the UK and what we have now probably wouldn't fit in a UK home anyhow!

haha, that's what I keep telling the OH- we aren't going to be able to afford much in the UK, and certainly not a spare room to store things that we don't use on a regular basis, and we most definitely won't be buying space in a lock-up to keep boxes of stuff, so chuck it all away- hurray!

cats, guitar, bag of clothes, a few cds unless we ever get round to burning them onto the computer and then onto a pocket-drive, maybe a couple of books, and thats all. Everything else is getting sold, given to friends, donated to charity or slung in the bin.

SOOOO looking forward to starting life completely afresh in the UK!

Although I think my dad still has my guitar amp and sony mini hifi from when I left knocking about, so that helps us out a bit