guitarmaan

Hi

I'll be emigrating sometime next year to Florida. But I'm wondering whether to ship over my belongings (PC, guitar etc) or sell them off here in the UK and buy these things all over again in the USA?

I'm not sure how expensive freight is, and I know things are cheaper to buy in the USA compared to the UK. So what do you think?

thanks

ian-mstm

If you aren't emotionally attached to them and/or they're not all that valuable, it's easier to buy again when you're in the US.

Ian

Bink

Depends on what you've got and how much you'll be able to sell it for.
I shipped over my guitar stuff (3 guitars, iMac, mixing desk, audio interface, mics, cables etc).

I would have lost money if I'd tried to sell then buy again. Some things are cheaper though out here. Who's paying for your shipping? If it's you then it's worth looking into the value and replacement costs, if a company is paying your shipping, it's a no brainer to bring out everything that works over here.

I shipped out all the above plus about another 7 boxes of personal items (clothes, cds, dvds etc) for about £800 I think it was.

clarissageo

I didn't ship anything... There were 5 of us travelling, so we had 2 suitcases each - 3 were full of clothes (my mom was only staying for 2 weeks) and the rest were full of personal stuff.

We bought everything else when we got here. We went to a couple of furniture stores with a list of what we needed and got them to price everything up, then we went to the one where we REALLY liked their stuff, gave them the lists from the other 2 and told them to beat the price....

They did, we saved about $5k, and the salesperson was a very very happy lady to make such a big sale

Weeze

[QUOTE=guitarmaan;8946443]I know things are cheaper to buy in the USA compared to the UKQUOTE]

I haven't found things much cheaper so far, but maybe I haven't found the right places yet. We have shipped most things over (we didn't pay) and have bought transformers to make the electricals work. We sold or gave away stuff that wouldn't work here.
Good luck with your move.

TimNiceBut

I've shipped some stuff over, partially because I had a container anyway for the classic bikes I took with me. I didn't bring some items simply because we ran out of time packing and you'll be surprised just how much you tend to spend on replacing all those little items you didn't bring.

That said, you have to factor in the cost of freight in order to figure out if this makes any financial sense whatsoever.

SnoopJohnnyJohn

I'm (hopefully) moving out to Reno just after xmas, and I have approximately 1,500 DVDs and about 300 CDs... If I were to bring these I'm aware that I'd need a multi-region player etc. but I was just wondering if it would be worth bringing them, as I've told the company I'll sort out bringing all my own stuff over (to make me less unattractive an option by reducing relocation costs).

BadgerNaboo

After the state our things arrived in from Robinsons I would choose to start over if I did it again.

callowman

Its absolutly worth bringing your DVDs etc
a multi region DVD player can be bought for under 100 bucks !

I got 2 of Em !

Duncan Roberts

I guess it would also depend on what sort of status you will be coming on. If it's some sort of work sponsorship you should have relocation expenses in the contract so you may as well ship them all. If it's family or student based and you are paying your way then as others have said, price it out and see if it's worth doing.

avanutria

I don't know how long you're moving for...if it's permanent, bring them. If you'll be returning to the UK at some point, bring the stuff you want to have with you. As mentioned it's easy to get a player that you can deregionalize. Don't bother bringing your UK DVD player - you'd need a power converter and you'd have to deregionalize it if you wanted to watch any US DVDs anyway.

Madelina

I'm moving in the later part of November, and i've investigated shipping companies. i'm not taking furniture, and their 6-8 week estimations and high quotes for boxes of belongings shocked the pants off me.,... so i went to a parcel shipping site, so far i had packed up 10 massive boxes of stuff (kids toys, bits and bobs, my electric keyboards, books etc) i just put in the dimensionsand weight, they gave me quotes for dhl, fedex, tnt... then i found another site that did the same, but a lil bit cheaper....

Yesterday i bookd a collection of my 10 boxes at 11:30am... DHL arrived less than 2 hours later to collect them, and TODAY they arrived in Georgia with my fiancé safe and sound! That was £680 door to door, about 160kg in total.

Course, i probably have that much again to send.... but since the shipping co. quoted me £1200 for a 6-8 week delivery AFTER theyd filled the container it would go in with other peoples stuff.... i'm well happy with the service and speed!!

As for electricals, my laptops and desktop, my keyboards, my camcorder, they all come with power adapters where the second cord is a kettle or tape player style power cord which you canreplace for a few dollars in the u.s, and my phone i just bought a cheap power cord for last time i was there. nothing else is worth taking.

anyway, thats my tuppence worth

Maddy
xx