what did you do with all your possessions when you moved abroad?

[countydurhamlass]

We are currently waiting for my dh's work permit to come through and then we are going to canada. if we like we will be applying for permanent residence (the company dh will work for has a sponsorship programme- not sure how it works, i leave that side to dh).

we own a house in the UK which my brother is moving into when we go. we have started selling some of our possessions, mostly on ebay and a couple of car boot sales (which werent very productive). Some of our furniture my brother wants but the majority he already owns.

sentimental things are being stored in my parents attic.

What did you do with your items? obviously there are quite a few things you cannot get rid of until closer to the time you left.

we dont want to put anything in storage

Some of our stuff we shipped, some of it we gave away. Some of it, goodness knows where it went.
This time, we had a very small shipping allowance. Since we rented our house out unfurnished, most of our belongings are scattered around the NW of England in peoples lofts and garages waiting for us to come back to the UK. If we ever do.
Since your move looks fairly permanent, I'd ship anything that has sentimental attachment and either free cycle or charity shop the rest.

We gave away baby stuff as ours were toddlers when we moved. Then, having made a definite decision to stay here we left our possessions in a vacant house for 5 years until OH felt comfortable with his decision to stay here, when we shipped everything. Not helpful, I know, but given the choice again I would keep/ship what is important to you, sell or donate things you won't miss.

Good luck with your move, have to say I'm rather

Canada is very expensive compared to UK, ship as much as you can is my advice as it will save you a fortune! I can recommend GB Liners, we used them twice to go to Vancouver and Toronto.

We were lucky in that DHs company paid for our stuff to be shipped ti Canada. None of your electrical goods will work.

We've kept a bank account in the UK. Now we have PR we've transferred our pensions over here. We're not intending to return to the UK.

The company paid to ship everything to Canada, I'd take some stuff with you, it's bloody expensive here

We had a small shipping allowance, and shipped alot of sentimental items. We were renting before we moved out here, so didn't have too much furniture, but we did put what we have in to storage.

I am in Texas, and cannot believe how expensive furniture is here (especially beds!), so you could always try and investigate if Canada is the same, and see if it is worth shipping more.

Apart from that this time last year was a flurry of eBaying and charity shop runs (and bining cr4p that we hadn't used for years!).

Good luck with the move. Hope everything works out well for you.

Shipped everything we wanted to keep and chucked the rest/ sent it to the charity shop. We had very little furniture as we were moving from furnished rental but a lot of crockery/kitchen stuff/ electronics/books etc. We left nothing in the UK as no idea when we'll be back, if ever, and my parents are sick of their house being cluttered up with our stuff

We rented our house furnished, shipped personal effects and rented a storage box for winter stuff, old paperwork etc. we weren't sure how long we would be away for but after 2 years we shipped the storage box so now have a sledge and skiwear in a cupboard in singapore

In my experience it pays to move as much stuff as you can, because you always end up binning most things left behind when you are reunited.....

We shipped everything after having done a really good clear out. Replacing things is surprisingly expensive we found and it is very nice having your own familiar things around you. We've not regretted bringing anything, but there are a fair few things we regret giving away!

We are in Canada and have really enjoyed living here. I hope that you do too :)

No house so a 40ft container has been following me around country to country like that damn suitcase on legs in the Terry Pratchett novels.

Canada sounds nice

We shipped some stuff but sold the rest on eBay. We made about £7k that way. We're pretty sure we won't return to the UK, certainly not for a very long time. We went from a fairly big house to a condo around half the size so we knew a lot of our furniture wouldn't fit/suit. None of it had any real value either, sentimental or financial. We kept our bed as all our family and friends bought it for us as a wedding gift. It's at my FILs with some winter clothes. Like you we didn't want to pay for storage, only to return in 5 years and find we didn't need anything any more. We paid for shipping ourselves, so we didn't want to ship loads of stuff.

Good luck!

thanks for all your messages

This is not entirely helpful: we shipped everything, but only because the employer footed the entire bill. Having said that, I did a massive chuck-out of clothes to charity.

We were amazed that you can get the contents of a 4-bedroom house AND the car, into a container. We didn't take the fridge because of convoluted Aussie rules about coolants, or the cooker because we rented our UK house out.

The cat went separately.

We used move cube, you can pack your stuff up a month before you leave and for three grand you can take the absolute lot. Throughly recommend the service.

Mosman how much stuff can you realistically get in a large Move Cube? We'll have a three seater and a two seater sofa, a six seat dinning table, a queen bed, two single beds and then a house load of sentimental stuff / toys.

Honestly, more than you'd expect. We had three large which came in at exactly £3000 and saved at least £1500 off the cheapest John mason quote but of course you are packing yourself. The thing is though you can stuff bin bags full of teddys, clothes etc in the gaps so the space is very well used.
Plus they take £150 deposit and then forgot to invoice us until it all arrived 8 weeks later which was brilliant for our cash flow, the girl who final took payment from us said it happened a lot. Plus they include a months free storeage in the price.
I would throughly recommend getting one see how you go and then ordering more if required.

We've just moved back from abroad and did it in stages in both directions. When we went out we took everything we thought we would use for everyday living and got rid of the rest. All our sentimental/loft stuff went in my M&D's loft for a few years.

When my Dad came to live with us the loft stuff came too!

Coming back was odd as we couldn't sell our place abroad so had to keep it furnished so we could use it for holidays/maintenance trips. Just sold it and brought back the last batch of stuff. Sold for peanuts /charity everything we no longer wanted.

Advice would be only to take stuff which would suit your new home or is more expensive to buy than ship. Sentimental stuff is the hardest thing as it's expensive to ship back & forth but I've had my school books/childhood dolls for 50 odd years so I'm not getting rid of them now