What do you actually ship when emigrating?

[DessertOrDesert]

OK, so DH is part way being offered a job in the middle east - subject to visas and background checks etc, it looks like were going.

We have been told we can ship 5000kg, and fly 200kg each.
Thats me, DH, 6yr old and 4 yr old.

We will have the possibility of a furnished house when we get there.

Realistically, how much is 6te of stuff?

I guess what you actually take is also affected by the price of things when you get to the destination.

So, clothes, toys, books (kids, I have a kindle which I assume I'll be able to top up?), kids bikes, DVD's in second language (country will be third language), laptop / tablet etc. That doesn't seem like its "enough" weight.

Do people take furniture? plates? electronics - TV??!! Sheets? towels????

And what do you do with stuff left behind - we WILL be coming back to the UK in about 5 yrs. I would want to keep the dining room basically - table chairs and side board were wedding gifts from the family, and the plates/cutlery were wedding gifts from friends. The rest of the actually furniture was pretty much bought when we first got a house - so 12 yrs ago.

Thank-you - I haven't moved house in 8 yrs, and have never moved county. This is very scary, and I think I'll be coming back to pick brains quite frequently if everything keeps going the way it is atm.

Find out where you will be living when you get there and what it contains. Furnished may or may not include bedding, towels, cutlery, kitchen electricals etc. For me I would include my coffee machine, desktop computer and printer, some personal knick knacks, paintings, anything that makes my house feel like home. Middle eastern interior design can be fairly alien to westerners..... Also find out what UK expats already living there miss from the UK. If you are likely to miss it too, make sure you pack it.

Hi, I was thinking abt this, as we are maybe off to pastures new later this year.
The last time I went off to live abroad I turned up with 2 suitcases and that was it. We now have ds in tow.
I will be taking duvet covers especially for ds. To give him some familiarity In a new bedroom. Some fave pics, maybe a fave mug or two. Kids toys, a few. Ipad. Nintendo.

Like you, we have been in our house for years, so have accumulated way too much stuff. And I don't really fancy coming back to the uk, with another house Worth of clutter!
I am seeing it was a great opportunity to have a massive clear out.
Luckily my parents live on a farm so we can store anything else there.
I intend to hit ikea if we do go, grab the basics and take it from there. Will you have an Ikea close by? Will you get an allowance to buy some basics?
Things for home - yes, m&s undies can often be much more expensive abroad, so stock up on those before you go.
Good luck with your move. Even if I we don't go, I am still having a massive spring clean. ??

Oo. I thought I was going to be able to help but no, I can't much! We took everything bar white goods but it was a "forever" move and going to an unfurnished house in Australia.

No idea what that weight would comprise - my whole house contents took up about 65-70% of a container, that's how it was measured - and how it was charged for. Weight played no part in shipping until it came to air-freighting the remnants that we'd kept back to live with before we flew over ourselves.

I agree that you should take as much of the child stuff as you can to make their transition as easy as possible.

Leave most of what is precious to you and you wouldn't want to be broken behind. Our shipping went very well and we lost almost nothing, but some of the furniture was a little damaged, scratches, bashes on the corners, that kind of thing. The barometers both suffered though, both glass covers were broken. :(

Things I need and stock up with from the UK:
dry stick deodorant - they're not big on it in Australia, although the Dove one has just appeared - Rexona (Sure) don't do it here.
M&S underwear - yes. But they deliver to Australia for a very reasonable amount (used to be £10, might have gone up to £12 or so) - I expect it would be similar to ME? So not entirely necessary to take shedloads with you.

Perhaps starting another thread about cost of living in your destination ME country would benefit you, so you could see what would make economic sense to take, and what to buy when you get there.

THANK YOU

We have an Ikea, BHS, Next, maybe M&S all mentioned.

Knickers for certain - although I assume Chocolate isn't big out there, some hoping I'll slim down!

Ikea seems to be equivalent or cheaper - bedding similar, cutlery cheaper, toys similar.

I know containers come in 20 foot or 40 foot varieties. But one of those full of cottenwool will weight much less than one full of gold ingots!

Think Shampoo will be going with me - thats what I'm fussy about :) but great idea to ask about - think expat woman might be better than here for the exact country were heading to!

My parents have just down sized, so not sure what to do with "not to be binned but not to be taken" - storage, I guess. Are they dry? ie would my wedding dress survive?

When we went overseas for a year we put all our furniture and belongings into storage and paid a monthly fee based on the amount of space we used. We went with 3 suitcases for 2 adults and 2 children. Like you, we lived in furnished property. I took lots of the kids things such as bedding, favourite toys etc but wish I'd taken things for me as well. Think of things that you use daily, it's these things that help you feel settled.

No chocolate? They must have some in m&s over there? That's going to be a tough one!
Re storage, if you get all precious clothing vac packed, it should be fine.
I used storage for years, and all clothing I stored was absolutely fine. A good dry cleaners should be able to advise on that.
Storage facilities - big yellow and others are secure and water tight. You can pay extra insurance. I was very happy with it. Negotiate a good deal tho. Remember small units might be high, so you can stack upwards and not outwards. Price check all local storage places and compare with each other. Town centre ones are pricey, if u don't need regular access, try further out of your town.

Hth.

I'm telling myself the chocolate will be the horrible powdery stuff I got in Malaysia, and so I WON'T like it, and will cut down my sugar consumption :) Loosing a stone would do me no harm!

Its all "out of town" here. There are a couple of big industrial estates which have storage availabe. Will give them a call / google.

If you like to cook then include quality knives in the shipping container. Most furnished apartments we have been given have had rubbish knives. And it isn't something you can slip in your suitcase at a later date.

I always bring my favourite household products like Zoflora, colour catchers, stain removers as they can be hard or not possible to find in your host country.

Canvas prints are light to ship and can be hung up with blutac. Some apartments will have bare walls and a no-hooks-in-walls policy. Staring at blank walls can be depressing so i had some canvasses made up and brought them with us.

Side lamps and reading lights can be sparse in some furnished apartments so they might be good to include but make sure you bring spare bulbs, we have a box full of bayonet fittings lamps and can't use them as we can only buy screw bulbs here.

TAKE EVERYTHING.

I relocated to New Zealand with my husband in 2011. We filled a twenty foot container with the contents of our 3 bedroom house.

Take all your possessions with you. You might not think much of some of your possessions but at least they are yours and you know what they are like.

When you are settled and feel comfortable, you will probably get rid of things that would have been replaced anyway. Just take them with you so everything that is new in the ME does not seem so jarring.

took everything in a 40ft container and very glad of it.
Usually furnished housing is bland or very arabic so your own decorative things can make a big difference.

Chocolate is available everywhere , racks of the stuff in every cold store and aisles of supermarkets dedicated to the brown .
When back in the Uk I always stock pile kids gifts , boots BOGOF , dry shampoo , AVEDA stuff , bed linen, strong painkillers , Primark basics , kids shoes and undies for me.

I always take one suitcase inside another and without fail exceed my 40kg weight limit .
I'm in Qatar now and although there are lots of `UK ' stores - they are often double the price and limited in stock . I spent hours this week in several malls and a total of 17 sports/shoe shops looking for new trainers for my son- not a single pair in his size . We get lots of things shipped in - but again its at a price.

Okay! So... give you a rough idea of what a shipping container fits, here's a little guide.

A 20ft shipping container is pretty much adequate if you're not planning on taking vehicles with you. It can hold around 16 boxes, large kitchen appliances like a fridge, freezer, cooker microwave, washing machine, as well as bedroom furniture like a double bed and a single bed, a wardrobe, dining table and chairs (although you want to leave yours in the UK), sofas and TV as well as a motorbike and cycle bikes.

It may be a good idea to take your old furniture out there with you if the place you end up in isn't furnished, and buying new stuff when you get back.

A 40ft container can house all of the above but instead of 16 boxes, 28 boxes and a car alongside the other bikes. Really, a 20ft container is probably enough if you're not planning on taking everything. However, you're going to be there for five years and it may make the settling in process easier if you take your creature comforts, it would also save you from paying for storage in the UK while you're away!

Hope this helps give you an idea, good luck!

Whatever you store for 5 years, if you are paying for storage, it will be cheaper to ship it. We did an assignment in Asia for a start up company, we weren't sure whether the company would fly or flop (we might have been back after 6 months) so we stored some non essentials (ski stuff, sledges, art work etc) and paid GBP 50 a month for 2 years for a small container. Such a waste of money. Cost us GBP 1200 and then we ended up shipping it anyway as we were there 5 years in the end, would have cost GBP 3k. If you are packing precious items (wedding dress etc) make sure you have suitable storage and pack with silica sachets, dehumidifiers etc.

If there's an M&S, you'll get M&S chocolate

Different with a perm move. We took only dd's room contents. Our clothes, then regretted that as uk vs Aus weather .. Garden furniture. Tbh a pig like if stuff we now don't use.
We bought new electrical stuff as its all on warranty. New furniture. Only brought a few bits over as we had a container. We arrived nov1st container just after Christmas.. By which time we didn't need any of it!

I have no problem buying undies, deodorants, even rexona stick? Chemist warehouse or Priceline both stock it. I guess again I must be in a parallel universe! Kids clothes and adult ones can be as cheap as you like, I'm sure any developed country is the same, primary or target essentials. Or raid the sale rails.
Hey ho.
I'd just pack whats sentimental to you.
What you love.
What you can't live without.

We came over with 8 suitcases (4 years ago) and left boxes / furniture at both mine and dh's parents houses. Now every time we go home, we clear things out. We have one suitcase of children's books at my moms left and I think in the summer we will tackle the rest of the art, books and dishes at pils.

My point is, we have no intention of going home and I realised that if we want our belongings, we should keep with us, and if we don't want them, we need to get rid of them.

But, for our original move, most of the suitcases were toys / books / sheets / pictures towels for dds room, we wanted to totally recreate what she had at home. It was a bit much, and now it's hard to get rid of those things as dd2 wants them.

We take everything with us from country to country. We figure there is no point it sitting in storage and us buying a cheaper duplicate just to tide us over. It's good I think for our DC to have continuity in that although we are in a different house, it looks the same IYSWIM. But we don't have a 'base' back in our home country, so extra important for us.

storage in the UK is not worth it for more than a year, you could buy new again. Storage is now subject to VAT, and items must be in a 'proper' warehouse, not containers.

sweet-talk a relative with attic space for the plates and cutlery. Unless someone has space to house the big items (acknowledges the people who housed an item of furniture for us for 8 years, we love you) then you'll have to sell.

We took everything we own in a 20' container. I am so glad we did as it really helped it to feel like home.

We shipped the entire contents of a 4 bed house plus shed in a 20ft container plus a third of a shared container. We left the white goods behind. We also ruthlessly ditched anything we hadn't used in 12 months. I did look at storage but it was ridiculously expensive, and now we're here, I,m glad we've got all our things with us.