When do you ship belongings?

Hi all.

We are talking about what to take with us, and I realised that I have no idea when people ship their belongings over.

Can anyone let me know?

How does it work if you ship items such as washing machines? You are going to end up without it for some time at one end aren't you? We will have at least 30 days short term accommodation, but how long is it until containers arrive? Is it more like 3 months?

Many thanks

You'll get lots of differing opinions but I think a lot depends on your particular situation. We only shipped a few boxes of essentials as we decided what furniture we had wasn't worth sending over. So hopefully this is an unbiased view!

If you're able to stay with friends or family for a bit before you leave, or perhaps borrow a few bits and pieces to get you through then you'll probably want to send things a little while before you leave. The length of your short term accommodation in Australia is also a determining factor.

It can also partly depend on what you're doing with your house in the UK. If you're renting you need to leave a few days to clean it and hand back to the landlord. If you own and are going to rent out you'll also need to leave a bit of time to get it ready for renting. If you're trying to sell it's a bit more uncertain.

Some people also have friends in Australia they are able to stay with or borrow from. Another option for some people is to buy a few cheap or second hand items or things that can be used for more than one purpose when they arrive in Australia. For example, buy a good outdoor setting and use it as a dining table until your shipping arrives, then stick it outside. Buy a cheap bed to sleep on initially that can become the guest bed. Or alternatively you could buy an inflatable mattress, which is what we did until our new bed was delivered.

As for washing machines in particular, you can always use a laundromat for a few weeks. We had to when the machine in our rented property in the UK broke down and the landlord was slow to sort it out. It really wasn't too bad.

Whichever way you do it you'll be without most of your belongings for roughly 2 months. You need to decide which is the least inconvenient for your own situation.

Hi all.

 

We are talking about what to take with us, and I realised that I have no idea when people ship their belongings over.

Can anyone let me know?

 

How does it work if you ship items such as washing machines? You are going to end up without it for some time at one end aren't you? We will have at least 30 days short term accommodation, but how long is it until containers arrive? Is it more like 3 months?

 

Many thanks

:daydreaming:Hi Alaska

we have booked John Masons to come a week before we fly out to Queensland......so we will be going out for meals and going to friends houses !!! lol

As with deciding on what to take.........that is a difficult one....we are taking our sons bed and some bedside drawers out of each room( just ikea ones in white) so will be ok in OZ and our dining table and chairs....and some quilts and towels and bedding and kitchen plates etc......we have a short term rental for a month which is fully furnished and then during that time we will buy cheap 2nd hand stuff to keep us going until our stuff arrives.....

We are renting out our house over here in the UK and if the tenant doesnt want any of the furniture we are going to leave we will sell it prior to going to OZ as i dont think i will want a leather suite when its 36 degrees!! Hope this helps....

Thanks to you both.

I hadn't thought about the leather thing. We are heading to Brisbane too (assuming the 457 goes through).

BacktoAdelaide - it's a good idea about buying things in Oz for another purpose.

So many decisions to make that I am just not capable of at the moment!

Hi we got crown coming a week tomorrow and are flying out 30th Jan..moving in with the inlaws for 3 weeks..

We buying new over in oz although we have shipped some furniture eg,bed,cot,couches etc.

My youngest will be in travel cot till his cot arrives and have decided to buy second hand till our stuff arrives.

Homes in oz seem much bigger than ours here so will need to buy more furniture anyway lol

Thanks to you both.

I hadn't thought about the leather thing. We are heading to Brisbane too (assuming the 457 goes through).

 

BacktoAdelaide - it's a good idea about buying things in Oz for another purpose.

 

So many decisions to make that I am just not capable of at the moment!

Many people have leather suites in Oz, not a problem at all with aircon! I will be taking mine.

We plan to ship a fair bit in advance of when we leave. We are not shipping everything so things like our fridge freezer, old bed, crappy table and chairs and a few other things will still be in the house for us to use till we leave. Will also manage with some old plates, a few pans and so on. And if we need anything else we'll borrow it from friends or family. We'll put the stuff we didn't ship on Gumtree a week before we leave and if they don't go within the week it'll be off to the dump or asking one of the local charities if they want the stuff.

Then we plan to go on a 2 week holiday to Cornwall or someplace, with a few days afterwards to visit with a few friends on the way back up to London. We will take all our luggage with us (clothes etc we are taking to Aus), wash whatever we need to while on holiday and then fly out after that. So all being well we'll only have about 4-6 weeks without the bulk of our stuff and won't need to buy new things to tide us over as we can use a laundrette or borrow stuff off family or friends.

We've got Crown coming 2 days before we fly. We will be staying with the inlaws in Melbourne so we have no immediate need for our worldly belongings. It's supposed to take 3 months for our stuff to reach Melbourne so we figured that gives us 3 months to find jobs and find a place to live for when it all arrives.

Hi Millers,

Am interested in the process you went through and the things you had to sort out for renting out your house in the UK. We are going to rent ours out and have a tenant (friend) whose going to rent it, worried about tax etc paperwork. Any help much appreciated.

Sam