Nunu10

Thanks all, I did as suggested and as you said it was a really good exercise to see what it's all worth - so glad we are shipping it!! Submitted the ToR yesterday and it was approved in 4 hours!!!! So that's one less thing to sorry about

Thank you! I just posted a new topic about shipping insurance, and I see you'd done a few on that earlier! So I might be PMing you soon We are moving to Devon (where I grew up) to be nearer to family, but hoping to carve out our own little niche somewhere - ie. not right on my parent's doorstep

Hi everyone, I know this question is a bit "how long is a piece of string" but I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. We are shipping a 40ft container from Aus to UK with Chess (was going to be smaller but DH decided he wanted to take his boat!). I've read some of the insurance threads and looking to go with Letton Percivil for independent insurance, but how do you go about calculating he value of all your stuff?!?! Obviously the bigger items that's easy, and as we are now having a 40ft container we will pretty much take the entire contents of our 4x2. I reckon the kids must have about $10k worth of Lego (well it feels like it!!) Can anyone give me some ball park figures for general house contents? I guess I am imagining a total loss scenario! I have no idea where to start!! thank you edit - also just to add. Chess said that for the TOR form just estimate value of what you'd sell it all at a garage sale. Whereas insurance says cost of replace from new at destination. Does it matter if those two figures are different??

Thanks again everyone for all your advice! Thought it was time to update after this original post I made in July. Well we made the decision to go back to the UK and now it's all happening!! Hubby flies our TODAY ..... after following advice on here and putting some feelers out for jobs in the UK, we were surprised how receptive employers were to considering a candidate who wasn't even in the UK. He was offered a job after 3 skype Interviews with one company and he starts next week!!!!!!! We still can't quite believe it The kids and I will be in Perth for another 80 days and are busy packing and selling and sorting..... but we will be home in time for Christmas and cannot wait. It's a rollercoaster isn't it just! But so far, so good!!!

Thanks again everyone for your replies. A few things have happened in the last fortnight and to us it feels like it's all falling into place and now is a good time to make the move. Now the decision is made and flights are booked for December for me and the kids, and the husband will be going back Sept/October to get some things set up ahead of us. I feel excited at the next chapter but also sad to be saying bye to our Australian friends of which we have been lucky enough to make many. Although funnily we released that ALL of our Ozzie friends here, without exception, are either very well travelled or have lived in the UK at some point in their lives. So they understand our decision and I am confident that we will see some of them again in the future. We have been very very fortunate in that we have both our own house and an investment property in Australia, so Estate Agent is coming this weekend to get our house on the market, and we will just leave the investment ticking over by itself either to sell at a later date or if we end up ping-ponging, we have a house. Who knows if our UK return will be forever,....... but it feels like the time is now. Our kids are still very young and we are in a good position to give it a shot. And if it doesn't work out, well we will have given our kids and the grandparents some precious time and memories together. Que sera, sera...

Hi Pome Sammy, I just looked at some of your previous posts and see you are making the jump from Perth back to UK, same as us. We are looking at leaving in the next 4 months if possible so are in a similar "AGGGH" phase with the whole planning at this point! What we are planning to try, is for hubby to try to secure something in the UK job wise and go on ahead and start setting up there. I will stay here with the kids a bit longer to get the house sold, container shipped and all the bits tidied up. If you haven't already, get a spreadsheet or even a pad of paper and start dumping all your thoughts down on what needs to be sorted and potentially when, helps see the wood for the trees (yes that is a saying hehe)...:)

Thank you everyone so much for your comments. I can't tell you how lovely it is to be able to discuss this with people who know EXACTLY what I'm talking about, and aren't just offering a random opinion (all be it well intentioned). A lot of you have mentioned the not 'belonging' part, and I think that's huge for us. Something just doesn't fit and it's a niggling which never goes away and sometimes is unbearable. LKC - Sorry to hear about your dad, that's really tough. I agree with you entirely and that has been one of the major driving forces for me wanting to go home, life is too short and you never know what's round the corner. We have lost several close relatives while we have been here and I can't live with that anymore, I want to be able to see them at the drop of a hat if needs be and not once every two years (if lucky!). Phil&Vicki - thank you for your detailed post, some great perspective there. I never thought about the kids using the house in Perth later if they want to (probably as they are only 4 & 5 so I can't imagine them as adults! But that's a great point. I had to laugh at your comments about the heat, all my rellies tell me how lucky we are living somewhere so hot and sunny, and since the UK has had a heatwave lately they have done nothing but moan about not being able to settle in the blistering heat! Martinbjulieb - Congrats on your move and that's great to hear, thank you! And exactly as you said, it's the deciding that is the hardest part and constantly weighing up the pros and cons and what ifs! But we know in our hearts now we are going, it's just making it happen. I might come back to you with some questions later! Hubby has a call with a recruiter in the UK tonight so let's see how we go!! Thanks again everyone, you guys are AWESOME

Thanks everyone, really appreciate the feedback. VERYSTORMY - I've been reading a lot of your posts and it was actually one of them where you talked about getting a job in the UK within a week and moving back so quickly that actually made our decision easier. Because you showed us it's not impossible!! Even better now hearing you are also in your 40s Like you did we are not looking on returning to where we left. We spent most of our working UK lives in London but are both originally from the South West. All our family are there and neither of us have lived there since we were teens, so we are looking around the Somerset area which we haven't ever lived. Plus we feel that when we lived in the UK we didn't have kids, now we do our set up is entirely different so it will be all new anyway. Thanks for the heads up on house sales. We've decided that if we can, we are going to rent out our house in Perth and sell it at a later stage. Firstly hubby wants it as a 'just in case'....I don't think we'd be ping-pong poms but you never know, and secondly because the market is so dire in Perth at the moment. LKC - I agree. It's all well and good for them to tell us how 'perfect' it is here, but they only come on holiday. They don't actually have to live here which is entirely different. Good luck with your move in 6 weeks, so jealous, you must be so excited! FLANO - Good luck with your move! OK time to ramp this project up a bit I think! I am so sick of looking at planes overhead leaving Perth and wishing we were on one!!!

I've been reading all the posts on here for the last week or so, and thought it was time to say hello I just wondered what kind of reaction everyone was getting from relatives back in the UK about their choice to return. I know it doesn't matter what people think, and it's our life, but my in-laws are being so negative about the whole thing and trying to talk my husband out of it! Which is making the whole stressful sitution about 10 times worse!! The background.. we have been in Perth almost 10 years. I have wanted to return for the last 5 (basically since our oldest child was born, we now have 2) but hubby has always wanted to give Oz a fair go. Well. the last months he has finally admitted that he has never really settled here and wants to return too. We are just weighing up whether to go as soon as possible or give ourselves 12 months to get properly organised before we move home. Anyway,... my parents are fully supportive of the move (as they have never liked us being here anyway to be fair)... but my inlaws are totally against it. All they have to say is "it's ludicrious, you're mad, the UK has gone to sh*t, you'll hate it, you're too OLD to go back into the UK workforce (we are very early forties - is that too old?!?!?!)." Of course all that talk is making us second guess our decision.... just because we haven't lived in the UK 10 years and we know it has changed. But I honestly don't believe we would hate it, or that we are idiots for wanting to move back. Perth is lovely, and we've had a good time here and have lots of friends. But...reasons for moving home... family, family, family (maybe not the in-laws now ha ha)... friends, feeling alive, the green, CULTURE, proximity to Europe (I speak two other European languages which always got me good jobs in the UK, but is pretty useless here). And also for the kids, they have dual nationality now so we've given them a good start. But they barely know their grandparents, and don't know any extended family. And I worry that here they will grow up in an insular little bubble, too far away from other cultures and experiences. I'm sure anyone who has lived in Perth knows what I mean!!!