Should I ship my furniture to Australia

What to Bring to Australia

One of the questions we all ask ourselves is should we bring our furniture or not.

Personally we didn't we sold everything and arrived in the country with 5 suitcases.

Do I regret it, yes and no.

Leave Everything Behind

Pro

• You can sell your belongings and make some money for the move.
• Great excuse for a clean out
• You don't have the costs involved
• There is no waiting 12 weeks for your furniture to arrive
• No risk of items being damaged
• You can buy furniture to fit in to your new house
• You can start shopping immediately 

Cons

• We only tend to acknowledge our large items and forget all the small things
• It gets expensive buying all the little items like pans, bedding, towels, and coat hangers.
• You have to do numerous car boot sales
• Cost of buying new

Bring everything with you

Pro

• You have all your personal belongings around you
• You don't have to worry about buying new furniture
• It's cheaper in the long run

Cons 

• You have to wait around 12 weeks for items to arrive
• Cost
• Risk of loss or damage
• Items may not fit in to your new house
• You may not have enough furniture.

Out of all the pros and cons the main issue we see coming up from members who ship is members waiting for their furniture to arrive. 12 weeks is a long time to go at either end without your belongings. Below are some ideas of how our members have managed.

One month prior to your flight move in with relatives and send your good on their way. Once you arrive in Australia go in to a holiday rental while you start looking for a rental and then move in when your furniture arrives.

Send your good the day before your flight once you arrive in Australia book a holiday rental until you have a rental sorted.

Now with either of the above options you are going to be left without furniture at some point during the move.

You could look at purchasing garden furniture to use as a dining table and sofa. A BBQ to cook on, and air mattresses to sleep on. You could also purchase, bedding, pots and pans from the charity shops to put you on. 

Hiring furniture is another option, however, it is an expensive one. Here is a price list for hiring furniture for a 2 bed property. Please also note they usually charge a delivery and take away fee on top that can be around $250.

So the above would cost you approx $500 per week. They only do 4 weeks minimum so let's say we do it for 4 weeks that is $2,000 plus delivery and pickup approx $250 so to rent furniture for 4 weeks it would cost $2,250.

So if you left everything behind let's do a rough price up of what it would cost to buy new.

I will price up for a 2 bedroom, cheap package, obviously you can spend as much as you want but it will give you a rough guide. We will choose Fantastic Furniture for the package, now it isn't the best quality, we furnished one of our old rental properties with their furniture, the table bubbled because mats weren't used at meal times and some of the trim started to peel from the TV unit but it lasted 2 years and we may have got longer out of it but we sold up.

The cheapest package is for 2 people and costs $999 

It doesn't include a bed or the TV and lamp. To add a bedroom package on it would be an extra

$179 without a mattress but includes bedside cabinet, bed and 3 drawer chest. A cheap foam mattress (double) can be added on for $98.

Now if there are 4 of you then we may need to look at the other package, however this does include the bed and mattress (obviously not the TV). This is  $1,999

Ok so we have now got the bulk of our furniture so we need to look at white goods. Now if you are buying a couple of items together please do not be afraid to ask for a discount. This is usually where my husband disappears in to thin air whilst I talk the sales man further down than what the item cost trade. He does get embarrassed but I once saved us $1,000 on a bulk purchase so don't be afraid to ask. Also check the prices of the same product elsewhere, there can be a huge difference and most stores will price match.

I will price up on undiscounted costs but remember buy a couple of items together and knock them down. 

'Now I had a look at Good Guys and the cheapest front loader they had was a 5kg one for $450. A fridge freezer was $399 but only small at 222litre. A 42" full HD TV non branded for $298 If you have time to spare then I would highly recommend Appliances Online especially for branded goods, just watch when it says free delivery as that doesn't include all areas. https://www.appliancesonline.com.au/

So for the main items we are looking at 

Small package for 2 people $2423

Family package $3423 but that would include a spare double bed and mattress.

So as you can see it's nearly as cheap to buy items rather than rent furniture.

Now you can also look at buying second hand using gumtree, Facebook, or second hand stores.

In regards to accessories, pans, bedding (they call Manchester over here) plates, cutlery, microwave, kettle, toaster you can get them all cheap at

Target https://www.target.com.au/

Kmart http://www.kmart.com.au/

Big W https://www.bigw.com.au/