Speaking only from our experience moving here 11 months ago from Florida, everything here costs at least three times more. A lot depends on where you are moving from...people from London think it is cheap to live here. We left all our white goods behind because we would have to force them to work with transformers and god forbid, if they broke down, no one would be able to fix them since they don't have metric parts! We were fortunate my husband's employer paid for our moving expenses. We saved by packing and shipping ourselves - our 40 foot container was just a little over half-full. We bought our big appliances here - washer, dryer, refridgerator, freezer, a 40 inch and a 27 inch digital TVs at the Power Store. We got the salesman to give us a discount for buying everything there. $2k off the $11k total. Just be aware that the number of different models and choices here can be very limited compared to where you are coming from. Also, washers and dryers work differently than the ones in the US - our washer (a Whirlpool made in Australia) takes 2 hours to do a load on the cotton cycle! Most people dry their clothing on the clothesline here. It is a good idea to buy your fridge when you get here since most kitchens have a space allocated for it...and the space is NOT big, so beware. Our small appliances work fine with the transformers we brought from the US. Frankly speaking, we wish we had brought our yard tools etc. It adds up very quickly when you have to replace so many things. Of course, if you have great jobs lined up and will make good money it may not bother you too much. We are glad we brought all our furniture cos the stuff here costs much more and are not of as good quality as what we have.
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