This may be a stupid question but I will ask it anyway- I don't mind looking silly.

[Dawn]

Originally Posted by Glenda

We got rid of some stuff at the local landfill tip recently ... what a place! It was so well organised with areas for different items, and everything was inspected with anything remotely useful put to one side for resell. Fascinating.

I love that kind of thing! One persons rubbish is another persons find!! Agree Glenda, fascinating!

[hball]

For rental properties try Trademe.co.nz and specify fully furnished in the area you are looking at. We continuously put our fully furnished property on there as we look for short term tenants, and while I know that we are a little unusual in that, it is because we include everything in the inventory, from red and white wine glasses to surround sound TV!!!

[kokopeli]

At this time of year, you'll get a good price on a cabin at a camping ground, especially if you take it for 3, 4 or 5 weeks. We have stayed at over 150 camp sites and most of the campsite owners we met were willing to cut a deal on price for a longer stay.

The Takapuna Beach campsite near Auckland and North South Camp Site in Chch seem to attract new arrivals while they find a home. We met a couple fo families who had rented cabins for over two months while they got sorted. Cabins range in quality, but usually come with bedding, towels, kitchen and maybe a tv. Enough to see you right until your container arrives. If you PM me I can send you details - it always helps to have a personal intro.

[ebianca]

Thanks kokopeli.

We will be aiming for Wellington when we come.
OH will be going on his own first to look for work and then when that is sorted we will all come over (me and the 2 girls).

OH will probably be over early Sept if all goes to plan and then depends how long takes to get a job and then get Visas sorted as to when we come a s a family- hopefull be there Nov/Dec.

Beth

[duane1x]

We're kind of going the opposite direction - take as little as possible. I think a container could be USD $10K and I start looking around and I think, surely I could buy most of this stuff for 10K or a good bit less even. Appliances aren't the same voltage and plug configuration so we wouldn't bring those anyway. Do I really need a container to get some beds and couches and stuff halfway round the world? Our current plan - and thank goodness DW is in agreement on this - is to liquidate most all of it.

Then there are those few sentimental items - I think we can put them in a small storage unit and decide what to do down the road. The main items we'll have are lots of pieces or artwork. Not that they're Picassos, but as DW is an artist we've collected lots of pieces from friends and colleagues over the past 10 years. These would go into the storage unit. Someone suggested we give each of our friends one piece to remember us by, with the idea that one day we may ask for it back. If the winds blow that way. I kinda like it.

In other words, what we can't carry doesn't come. Maybe some cartons of books/music to sit in someone's garage and be mailed to us later. We carry clothing and either rent furnished or furnish ourselves with the old checkbook and some help from supershed - that looks like a great resource.

Just another view on the container thing. Probably not the right answer for everybody.

_______________
DW work:
http://bfranklet.com
Walls are bare? Hey, get busy and make us some more!

[Dawn]

Yep Duane1x that's our approach too. We've e-bayed practically everything we own and given special bits and pieces to peeps we know. We have 3 tea-chest size boxes that will be freighted to us when we're settled, they have, photos, DVDs, CDs, Poppy soft toys, not much rreally but all we feel compelled to ship.

It's working well for us. It's kind of liberating, like casting off our past ready to start anew It's a good feeling!!

[KiwiHopeful]

I feel like I'm a little late jumping in here, but here it goes ...

I was ambivalent about getting the container. I thought too about just burning the house down and starting anew in NZ rather than forking out $10K to move all my stuff. Well, my wife was insistent upon brining the bedroom furniture, as it was a wedding gift from her grandmother. So, container it was.

For insurance purposes, everything we put into the container had to be inventoried and valued. Even after getting rid of *a lot* of stuff, we still had nearly $50K worth of items in there--and that is low-balling the value of the 20 cartons of books that I included!

It may be wise to actually sit down and figure out what your gear is worth, making a list and giving a value to all the stuff you own, then deciding if a container is right for you or not.

BTW, here are some pics. You can see that we used about 85% of the 20' container.





Oh, and here are the two boys who are going to destroy whatever is left of NZ after Dawn gets finished ...

[pianist1]

Duane1x,
I agree with Kiwihopeful...ship as much as you can. Replacement cost here for your things will run you into the ground. BTW don't count on having anyone send your other things by surface mail. USPS scrapped surface mail in mid-May so everything has to be sent by airmail now! We won't be getting those nice care packages from the US at these rates!