Shipping belongings vs selling in RSA and buying in AU

[Rossen]

Hi all, we're still waiting for our 189 visas but have been thinking about shipping our belongings vs selling everything here and replacing in Australia. At  the end of the day shipping will take at least 3 months and will also cost quite a bit. Its obviously not possible to live without any belongings while waiting for your container so one will have to buy some things items while waiting for their belongings to arrive.

So the main points I'm interested in are as follows:

• Did you ship everything, some or none of your belongings?
• What did you choose to ship and what did you buy in AU?
• How did you survive while waiting for your belongings?
• What were the costs of shipping?
• Which moving company did you go with?

 

[Nev]

We sold everything and sent 3 cardboard boxes as unaccompanied baggage with the stuff we needed to hold onto.

 

The things i considered:

It is expensive, you have to figure out if your stuff is even worth that money without looking at the below

When we got here we could look for a place and buy stuff that fitted the place, we also got all new stuff

As a downside it took us a while to get everything as we didn't have the money to rush out and replace everything

You dont need to try and borrow stuff to use until your stuff arrives and there is currently someone on facebook who arrived, just moved into their new place and their container has been delayed, so they have no furniture and dont know when it will arrive, now they need to make a plan until their container arrives, then unmake it to get rid of their short term solution when the stuff arrives

The bed sizes dont match south african sizes, so replacing meant we could buy bedding here

Dont bring too much stuff, the houses are a lot smaller here, i know a few people who have garages full of stuff that doesnt fit

Lots more mess around on that side, we just had a fire-sale and it was all gone

 

If we did it again i still wouldnt bring a container

 

 

[ottg]

 

This question was asked many times. A quick search and here are some old threads and believe they are still valid:

http://www.saaustralia.org/topic/44240-should-we-ship-our-furniture/?do=findComment&comment=418239

http://www.saaustralia.org/topic/47067-catch-22/?do=findComment&comment=430833

 

 

 

 

[jiggy]

Hi,

 

we have been in Sydney for a month so recently had to answer the same questions. We had also moved back to SA for 18 months as a stopover on our way to Oz so learnt the hard way about what to ship and what not to. This also meant we were pretty lean already as we didn't have years worth of stuff accumulated in all of the dark corners of the house and garage!

 

Our container is still on the way so when it came to deciding what to bring we thought long and hard at what we actually wanted to bring:

- If it was old and/or we would realistically be getting something new had we stayed, then we left it, rather than paying to ship it to then just chuck it (couches, units etc;

- Some things we looked online for the Oz prices and did the cost calculation of buying new vs shipping cost ( we were quoted at roughly R2500 per cubic metre to ship so compared this cost per cubic meter of the items volume with the price of the item in Oz);

- sentimental items we kept, but nothing too crazy;

- clothes we also did a purge on as there were a number of items that were old, small, not being used (especially for our kids) and that we just didn't want. Marie Kondo's Spark Joy method is a good one to use to help you with the purge;

- our white goods were all under 18 months old so we shipped them as it was cheaper than selling them and losing money, AND it was cheaper to ship them than to buy new. We'll have to see if we actually need all of them but they are all good brands so hopefully we can flog them for more than we would have gotten in SA.

 

We have budgeted on 3 months for our stuff to arrive and clear. This was the pessimistic timeframe, and it looks like our stuff will be available 2 weeks earlier than that which is great so that we have time to find somewhere unfurnished safe in the knowledge we will have stuff to put in it! 

- we have booked 2 AirBnB's for the first 3 months to give us time to settle in and to look for areas to live in long term. We were lucky and found one in the price range of what we had budgeted in paying for rent and utilities anyway, but are staying further out so there are compromises. A benefit of this has been that we have seen areas that we may not otherwise have seen so its given us some great context on looking for a long term area. The AirBnB prices include all water, electricity, internet etc so its less to worry about setting up at the beginning when you have enough o worry about;

- we flew Qantas who have pretty good luggage allowances so had 120kg's combined luggage to work with, plus then prams and kids seats on top of that. Their excess baggage charges are extreme though to make absolutely certain you don't carry 1 kilo over your allowance or you will be stung.

 

We have used Advanced Transport and so far they have been excellent. Jeffrey was our contact (in Cape Town). We were in a bit of a rush so do shop around beyond this but for price, this will obviously differ depending on volume but we were quoted on R2500 for every cubic metre above what the volume quoted, so this would be a good benchmark to compare with other comments prices. Our quote included packing, packing materials, labour, transport, storage and then transport on this side.

 

Hope that helps

 

Edited April 30, 2018 by jiggy