How much did it cost you to move to Australia?

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I was wondering if any of you could help???!

We are trying to work out budgets for our 'big move' to Melbourne next year. I don't want to get a removal company round yet but I wondered if any of you had recently moved to Oz with all your furniture etc and could give me ball park figures???? We have a big four bed house and loads of garage/outside stuff too.

Have a look on the britishexpats website, lots of people have put specifics on there. We only brought half a container of stuff with us so can't really help.

I was talking to people yesterday who arrived (in Sydney) a couple of weeks ago. Interestingly they said they were glad they shipped everything as furniture etc. was so expensive here. When we arrived three years ago we thought furniture was really cheap and were glad we hadn't brought much (most English furniture looks like dolls house furniture in Ozzie houses). The main difference though was the exchange rate - we were getting $2.4/2.5 dollars to our pound, it's about 1.6 at the moment.

We paid about 7K UKPounds to move our 2 bed house + car - basically a container load. That was with Allied Pickfords, who were ACE, but that was 4 yrs ago now.

It wass pretty spenny but they did all the packing etc and did make it relatively easy for us.

Last year we spent about £3.6K moving entire 3 bed house plus another £800 air-freighting last minute stuff.

The company we used was Wentworth International, also called Allfreight. THey were very good, supplied all the boxes and packaging, packed the house in 2 days (although it wasn't quite ready so I had to finish it off myself but that was entirely my fault, not theirs). They were very accommodating and polite. There was very little damage either; which considering how many boxes we had (c. 240)was pretty amazing.

Our stuff was about 65% of a container load and took 11 weeks to arrive in Sydney because it was only a part container. They say 7-9 weeks if you have a full container.

Everything is more expensive out here, especially if you observe the current exchange rate (it's more like £1 = $1.40 at the mo, dreadful!) so it's worth bringing it all with you if it's a permanent move.

Bear in mind that anything from outside that you choose to bring must be cleaned of all mud/earth/evidence of being used outdoors. Friend of mine brought a child's bike over - they found a small piece of mud inside the mudguard in Customs inspection --> $160 to clean it. So they said fine, we'll leave it here and were then told it would cost them £200 to dispose of it. They could have bought a better bike cheaper than that!

Brill that's really helpful. I hadn't realised the exchange rate had changed so dramatically. Do you think it will go back or stick there? Thanks thumbwitch for removal firm tip.

The exchange rate hasn't shifted in a good direction for months - when we got here last August it was around AU£1 = £0.55 now it's AU$1 = £0.60 so the £ is weakening rather than strengthening against the AU$ at the moment. Great for sending money back to the UK but shit the other way.

Don't know anything about the current financial markets to say whether or not it will change any time soon, but I wouldn't bank (ha! Sorry) on it.

Having watched the markets carefully recently, for euro through rather than sterling, I've been told the issue isn't the strength or weakness of the other currency, it's the absolute strength of the Australian dollar at the moment which isn't likely to change any time soon according to Ozforex!

We were around 4500 pounds for full use of a 20 ft container. Included in that was also a couple of boxes that we air-freighted to be there when we arrived plus around 20 boxes that didn't fit in the container - overspill if you like.

We used Anglo Pacific. Wouldn't use them again as we had a fair bit of damage to our property.

Make sure you are sufficiently insured as well.