Moving to USA - what to take what to leave behind

[acapulco]

Hello lovelies!

So. Just that. I’m currently looking at blenders/nutribullets etc and lamps (around the house) but we won’t be bringing any big appliances. I’ve read slightly different things. Some say ditch all electricals and some say it’s could be worth shipping as they may work?

What would your advice be if you’ve done the move?

We won’t be bringing much furniture - tables and chairs and bits and pieces that should work.

I have the removal company coming to do a quote so want to have everything ready for next Tues.

Do you have any other tips for moving your stuff that you found useful particularly as travelling with a toddler (as well as teens)?

Thank you.

We took our smart TV and it works fine but we don't have cable so not sure if you'd be able to add that on.

My blender, hair straighteners, slow cooker, do not work at their full strength...so would advise to leave behind and buy new there.

Also bedding is different sizes so make sure you have plenty of spares.

Most cities now have an IKEA if you need cheapish furniture... also check out local FB groups for seconds.

You need far less stuff than you think we could definitely have left some stuff behind!

Skip all the electrics except dual voltage electronics. They sort of work. Badly. And require a transformer. It's not worth it as it's easy enough to get those things here (stalk secondhand pages).

Definitely spare bedding as it can be tricky to get things shipped from the UK. BTDT and now John Lewis won't ship here: we are finally giving in and buying an American sized bed.

Most random item I recommend: M&S slippers. I've never found an American equivalent for a good price.

Do not bring your bedding unless you're bringing your beds. US bed sizes are different.

If you're bringing your beds, bring spare bedding.

Bring duvets, regardless of size.

Leave all your electricals behind. They won't work/won't work properly. You can buy new items in the US.

Bring a good supply of your favourite British tea if you drink tea.

Make sure you have credit established before you get there. Use an Amex card.

Look for this label on the appliance. This one is my kettle it works at between 220-240V but the US is 110v so that wouldn’t work.

If it says eg 100-240v then it should work in the US.

Great thanks for all the tips. Yes I’ll def bring some Yorkshire Tea just to ease me in!

you can buy Yorkshire tea and Tetley in Walmart lol

Well we moved to Oz rather than US, but I would recommend only taking furniture that you can't bear to part with. The houses are just so much bigger, we found we needed more and bigger furniture as the few bits we did bring looked wrong and not in proportion, it all looked a bit lost!! This doesn't apply if you are moving from a big house I guess.

Don’t bring electrical items like lamps or hairdryers. Cheap enough to replace here and not even worth the time it takes to pack them into a box.

Is this a permanent move? I didn’t going any furniture. Just clothes, my baking things (I’d never be parted from them), 30 cartons of books, family photos, mementos, and plenty of Primark knickers. M&S ship here. The only thing I have sent over from the UK by my mum is bath sponges. I’ve never been one for paying $20 for a bottle of orange squash from Amazon or something like that. I just accept that some things are not available here.

If you don’t know how to bake bread, start learning and practicing. I’ve not found a single loaf here, and I include so-called artisan breads from independent bakeries, that doesn’t taste sweet. So I make all our bread from scratch.

GHD straighteners would be an exception to the “ditch all electronics” rule as they have a U.S plug hiding under their UK one and work just fine out there… I only say that as I accidentally discovered this feature on holiday.

A kettle with a plug adaptor.

Several friends have commented that you can't buy a kettle in the US!

@Twizbe

A kettle with a plug adaptor.

Several friends have commented that you can't buy a kettle in the US!

A UK electric kettle is unlikely to work in the US as the voltage would be wrong. A dual-voltage travel kettle would be ok (but very slow to come to the boil). Best bet would be one that you heat on the hob rather than plug in.

This is a great thread OP!

What shopping company did you use/ can you recommend? About 10 years ago my cousin had a horror story with stuff smelling, but she does tend to exaggerate

@Twizbe

A kettle with a plug adaptor.

Several friends have commented that you can't buy a kettle in the US!

Nope you can quite easily buy one nowadays in places like target so I wouldn’t bother.

Ditch electricals. Hot water kettles are hard to find but you should be able to get one in Williams Sonoma.

Cross post! That’s great if Target are now selling them.

If you are taking linens, soft furnishings and shipping clothing, vacuum bag it before the removers pack it. It will be much fresher at the other end.
If you are paying for the move yourselves, really edit down the furniture etc. It’s expensive to ship and store it and may not be worth it.
The houses are so very different and there’s so much choice, that I found I wished I hadn’t bothered shipping furniture .I also bought so much stuff that when we came back we were way over the company’s weight allowance for relocation . But a lot of that was shoes 😳

All super useful info thank you!

Good to know where I can buy Yorkshire tea! An essential. 😂 I’ll slowly wean the boys off their preferred sourdough bread then. Maybe we need to eat less of it anyway!!

Also a good tip about vacuum packing any clothes/linens I wouldn’t have thought of that. Someone suggested upthread to leave linens as everything is a different size?

We’ll ditch the electricals and lamps then if they won’t work.

We’re not bringing beds or wardrobes. We have some sofas and an armchairs we can bring over. Just thinking of bringing some things that might reduced the immediate cost of replacing everything. But may rethink this then if it’s not worth it. I need to decide this bit quite quickly as removal company coming to quote next week.

Any other tips or tricks you have to share will be greatly appreciated.

X

Your laptop chargers should work just fine over there with a simple plug converter: those are nearly always rated 100-240V. You can also buy American cords for the laptop chargers which should just plug straight into the adapter. Phone chargers, you can buy a new American plug from the Apple store or a Walmart / Target for the USB cable, and until then, whack a plug converter on the UK plug or charge through usb only.

American computer keyboards are aligned slightly differently: e.g. the " and the @ symbols are swapped around, and there's not usually a £ or € symbol on the keys. If you have any Bluetooth keyboards in your house, bring those with you. You can re-learn typing, but it's annoying and slows you down if you need to start work straight away.

Bring your favorite tea. I've heard Yorkshire Gold mentioned in an early episode of Homeland, but I don't know how available it is. If you're stuck, you can find Twinings English breakfast in the bigger supermarkets; that's what my husband has for his morning tea when he visits my family with me. Lipton is dire, and in the South, is really meant for brewing iced tea, not hot. You can find an electric kettle though; my parents have one. There are lots of herbal teas available in the stores.

Bring your favorite biscuits and chocolate: little comfort foods for when you feel homesick. Americans don't really do digestives unless they're in the import section of a store, and British chocolate is still a lot nicer than American (thinking Cadbury's and Galaxy, as opposed to Kit Kat's). Bring your favorite cereal for the first week. You can find porridge oats and shredded wheat easily enough, but I can't remember ever seeing Weetabix when I've visited back home.

My parents have moved around the USA a few times in their 50s. Clothes got pared down with each move. Furniture is easily replaced secondhand. They've gotten some really nice pieces through Goodwill and other thrift stores. There will be an online secondhand market too. Yard sales also used to be popular where I lived (Massachusetts); they're a bit like car boot sales, but done on someone's lawn.

American bed sizes are definitely different. A queen measures closet to a UK king, a King size is more like a UK superking, and then there's a "California king" I think. A "full" US bed is closest to a UK double (I think!). The advice about bringing duvets is good though: my family's and friends' bedding is more about layering fitted and flat sheets with blankets and a patchwork quilt or thin comforter. I like the duvet+fitted sheet version of bedding so much better!

Get your toddler fitted for a new pair of shoes just before going. The approach to children's feet isn't the same in the States. I can't remember ever seeing an equivalent of start rite or Clark's with specialist shoe fitting when I've been in America with my kids: just high street selection.

Oh, just remembered.

Definitely bring photos, photo albums. Photo frames can be replaced once you're there, but you'll want photos of your favorite memories and people around, especially when homesickness waves hit.

One of pals who moves from UK to Texas brought Calpol and baby Nurofen back with her after her first visit home. American approach to medicines for children is different (a lot more cautious these days), and I think the children's Tylenol may still have e-numbers?? Hopefully they've gotten rid of that by now... A lot of the US kids' medicine has either spoons or little plastic measuring cups in the box. It's not nearly as handy as a syringe when your kid is sick.

Grownup meds are mostly like for like. And you can get some antihistamines over the counter in the states that you can only get on prescription here.

Be ruthless with your favorite books. They take up a ton of weight, and while you can econo-ship a box of them, they won't arrive for months. Lived experience!

If you prefer to air dry / line dry clothes, that's not nearly as common in the States as it is here. My grandma has a small wooden concertina drying rack, and no clothesline. My parents have a rail and hangers for a few shirts above their tumble dryer, but no clothesline. If I was moving back to the States tomorrow, I'd be packing my tower airer for laundry, but buying an outdoor clothesline at Costco or Home Depot.

(Yes only bring sheets if you're also bringing beds--should have said that. If you're buying beds here you will need all new linens and duvets. Not everyone here uses duvets but they're easy enough to find, much more popular than a few decades ago. I recommend The Company Store for price/quality but there's plenty of stores selling them.)

I can get sourdough, baguettes, etc though I like to bake and it is cheaper. White sandwich bread here tends to be sweet.

There's been a billion threads on line drying but I will say that one reason I don't do it much is bugs, leaves, and pollen--you'll need to see your local conditions.

OTC meds for adults are largely the same and you can buy paracetamol (Tylenol) and Nurofen (ibuprofen/Advil) in larger quantities. You cannot buy anything with codeine OTC. You can get the syringes for infants here too; they just don't come in the package. The pharmacist will give you one if you have a prescription.

I'm not sure I can think of anything special for teens--they may want to buy more clothes here since they probably won't be wearing school uniform. For elementary schools there's typically a supply list sent out before the first day, but for middle/high school expect them to come home on the first day with a lengthy list including a Texas Instruments graphing calculator. (My oldest is going into 11th grade.) They may want to bring some favourite snacks, hair products, and the like to tide them over till they learn what they like here.

Hershey's chocolate is crap unless you grow up on it and they make US KitKats so they're not very nice, but you can buy other better chocolate. US cadburys is made under licence by Hersheys. Don't buy it. Hershey's had a big snit about grey market imports of UK Cadburys and so many places that used to have it, don't now :(

@Preech Weetabix are fairly easy to find now though some places sell them in the health food section.

Depending on where you are going, buy winter clothes there. US winters can be v v cold and your UK winter coat won't keep you warm enough. Totally irrelevant if you are going somewhere warm.

@knitnerd90 , ooh good to know about the Weetabix! Will keep an eye out for it the next time we're stateside visiting my parents. Might manage keep my kids off the Lucky Charms and Apple Jacks...

Another strange one, but one of the "bring from Britain" requests I get from American friends and family is jute grocery shopping bags. Depending on where you end up, you might find your shopping gets packed into a zillion old-school thin plastic grocery bags. If you'd rather use reusable shopping bags, it's usually fine, but the quality of the shopping bags is better over here. They're sturdier and hold more.