BrockleyKipper

My family is moving to the US I have questions on what to take with us, what to ship and what to discard

We will be moving in September and we will be shipping a fair amount of possessions via surface shipping and taking the bare essentials to get us through the first 8 weeks or so.

I would welcome thoughts on what to take with us when we fly, the absolute must-haves.

All my visa & ID information is a given.
I am thinking of things like all my employment information scans of important documents, degree certificates etc These may well be needed for any employment related activities.

Where do people stand on things like bank statements? If I had to prove stable income history should I keep say three year's with me?

As I see this move as a permanent move I am planning on shredding all financial documents older than three years - would anyone advise against this?

Would anyone have any advise on things they needed in the first few months that they thought were invaluable or things they wished they had?

We are scanning other paperwork that is important but not worth taking when we are doing our big clear out across the next seven months. we have already come up against the fact that UK child seats are not certified/legal in the US so we are ditching that before we leave. Electrical items that can't handle the 110 voltage. Any other obscure gotchas? Should I take UK mobile phones or sell these on ebay before I go and buy over in the US?

Thanks
Jon

Pulaski

You have put more thought into the process than we did. ..... I don't see you mentioned furniture. I wish we'd brought less, and especially beds and bedding, the different sizes are a PITA, so IMO get rid of your beds. ...... Also a lot of other furniture made to fit in British houses appears twee (undersized) in an American home.

BrockleyKipper

Yes, having an American wife we are aware of that bedding size issue from when she brought some of her bedding to the UK six years ago.

Fortunately we are looking to ditch our furniture and start from fresh when we move, a minimalist approach :-)

celticgrid

Since you mention a child seat I presume there's a child. No idea just how old, but...

Figure out the child's comfort stuff. That's the toys, stuffed animals, etc. with which they are most attached or familiar. Fill a suitcase. Or ship a box by air to reduce the time they are unavailable. It will be a very strange time for them and the familiar stuff will help a lot.

Lucybell33

Don't forget to pack some of the kitchen basics, like a can opener. We didn't and I only realized in the middle of cooking dinner one evening!

Also, you will need a child seat from the moment you land. We didn't and our relocation agent went mad and insisted we immediately drove to Target to get one! Depending on your child's age, your UK one might be OK.

We had no problem with our phones (all iPhones). Just picked up a new SIM in the first week and we were good to go.

On the appliances - we did get rid of all ours, and subsequently discovered the house we rented had 240v in the garage, so we could have kept the garden equipment. Not the end of the world though.

We brought a copy of our UK Experian report, but no bank statements. I would indeed shred anything older than 3 tax years - we did.

Sally Redux

We have moved 3 times in the past year and have been constantly re buying basics. The point being it's really easy to get everything from Target, Dollar Tree or similar.

Register for online banking and scan documents.

username.exe

We moved over not long ago - similar predicament.

We scanned what we thought was important and semi important and shredded 90% of the rest. Our qualifications/certificates/immigration paperwork goes without saying we have saved.
We afforded ourselves a few sentimental items, and the kids favourite toys etc., and then we basically got rid of everything else. And I mean everything - we sold most of the contents of the house along with the house. Several runs to the dump to get rid of rubbish, charity shops, invited family members over to plunder trinkets and other items of interest.

We took our phones, laptops and a few gadgets and enough clothes to last for a couple of weeks for all of us. Clothing is quite cheap here so we were anticipating buying stuff as and when we needed it. We also stayed with family when we first got here so didn't need to worry about tin openers etc.

With the car seats my wife ordered those on Amazon and had them shipped to family before we arrived. She sent a link to a youtube instructional video for fitting the seats as well so when we were picked up from the airport after the long flight we were ready to go.

Some other random thoughts for things that cropped up:

• Ask colleagues/managers to write a recommendation for you on LinkedIn before you leave. It's way easier getting them to do it in person than nagging them by email from 6k miles away;
• Contact council tax/utilities/insurance/DVLA/TV License to cancel and find out whether you should be expecting a refund on your account. If so, make arrangements for this so the cheque doesn't get delivered to an empty house you don't live in;
• If you live in London find all of the Oyster cards in the house and get them refunded. (Found over 150 quid through the course of moving out );
• Cancel all direct debits to your UK bank account;
• Research cell phone plans so you know what you want as soon as you get here. We sorted our out on day 1 and that was a Godsend;
• For piece of mind buy get some $USD in cash before you leave the UK just in case you have any issues with cards etc.; and
• Sort out your US health insurance (good luck!!)

That's all I can think of.

Bob

The financial docs, find out how far back you can go with online banking, though chances are, it'll be a waste of time as you'll be fresh with no US credit history any way.

Sort out a proxy voter before you leave, makes it easier as a postal vote is a waste.

Basic utensils, might be handy if you're moving into somewhere self service, but it's cheap enough and easy enough to get some basics...bottle opener is handy though.

Ditch most kitchen/beauty appliances. Anything else with a brick, might be okay.

A handful of kids favourite books are handy to help them settle. The rest can be slow boated and you can use the library if you get bored of the handful you bring.

Also check the wiki, there's a fair bit of useful info on that on things to do.