[kiwizebra]

Most of our appliances and furniture are quite old.
Should we buy new stuff and ship it to NZ or would it be better just to buy in NZ and take a smaller container (i.e. saving shipping costs and freeing cash to buy in NZ)?

Any suggestions?
:roll :roll :roll

[starkhorn]

This is a question I think everyone has faced and it's obviously different for each person.

My suggestion would be the following.

Go to the freedom furniture website and the noel leeming website. These are two of the main furniture and appliances chains in NZ. A simple google search should find them.

Then do a shopping list of things you want to buy, noting down the price in total. Then you have a rough idea on how much things would costs in NZ if you re-bought all new.

Then go to shipping companies and get quotes to ship all to here....then compare the difference. If it's not too different and your stuff is already very old then it might be worth buying all new here and vice versa.

Of course there are other variables to take into account like personal items that can't be replaced (pictures, dvd collections, computers etc). What will you do with them? I think some people have shipped these as excess baggage or something like that....I'm not sure to be honest.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Starkhorn

[gil]

Hi Kiwizebra,
Generally, recieved wisdom is that you bring what you can, as furniture and white goods are quite costly here (but where aren't they!). I suppose you need to weigh up: do we want new stuff or do we want to keep ours? The next questionis, if old, how little can we ship it for and if new, do we buy here and ship or just wait and buy it in NZ?
We brought everything in the house: shipping/insurance was about £6,500 but then we haven't had to buy anything here. Swings and roundabouts, I guess!
Good luck,

Gil

[Trigirl]

also are you intending to rent or buy when you get here? most rentals come with whiteware (fridge/freezer, oven, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer). even if you are only intending to rent for 6 months or so while you settle you'll need to factor in storage costs for any of those you bring over - clearly not an issue though if you are intending to buy straight away.

[StevieD]

Yeah, we bringing everything. For a 20 container load it is costing less than 3.5k Do some shipping insurance on top and see what you can get in the equvalent amount of dollars - probably won't be able to come near. We are renewing some furniture, and filling a box. And if you do take old stuff, the Kiwis have a great used item culture, so there is a good chance you can at least get something back on it.

Good luck.
Steve

[sarahw]

Whatever you do bring a washing machine from Europe - even if you buy a new one to use a couple of times & bring with you - we paid an absolute fortune for one in Harvey Norman.

I have kicked myself at how much stuff we threw/gave away before we left that we really could have done with here. Definitely bring a fridge also if you have a good one. TV's aren't too much more expensive or DVD's etc. but the kitchen gear bring it all!!! We didn't think we had too much stuff - when we added up the value of everything in our container we were shocked that it was in the 10's of thousands of pounds - something we certainly couldn't afford to pay out over here for new stuff! We paid about £4K to bring everything over in a 20ft reefer container.

Just sit down with a piece of paper & work out how much it'll cost to replace everything vs how much it'll cost to ship everything - you might surprise yourselves. The second hand market here is very buoyant & might not be as cheap as you're used to. Check out prices on http://www.trademe.co.nz

[Trigirl]

one other thing to think about is how full your container is going to be. as steve says a 20ft container is going to cost you in the region of £3500. if you have space in the 20ft container you might as well bring more stuff as it wont cost you more (except maybe a tiny bit for insurance). you have to have quite a lot less than a 20ft containers worth before you start to make savings by being able to share a container with someone else (and that has its own hassles too)

we brought the contents of a 3 bed home (but no wardrobes and no appliances) plus clothes for 2 of us, garden furniture and 4 bikes and that completely filled a 20ft container - i was even worried it wasn't all going to fit at one point!

[katandbob]

I bought all new stuff here from Selectrics - I got a huge discount for paying cash/big shopping list - it cost $ around $3000 for the following - F&P tumbledryer/toploader/ washer (I love mine, I can wash a 6ft horse rug in it - it washes fine - better than my front loader that I had in the UK so I guess its personal preference)Frost free fridge freezer, and a Posh Whirlpool cook/microwave, if you haggle you can get some bargins.

but I recomend that you check out the prices on websites to get your own opinion

Kat

[Trigirl]

do you mind me asking how much a huge discount was? we're just about to buy a free standing oven, fridge freezer, top loader and dryer - and i'm wondering how much discount i should be pushing for off the asking price.

[willowshouse]

Have a think about trying to find new furniture in a place where you don't really know the shops to go to .. and where most of the shops sell over-priced/very unstylish items. It's more hassle than you need when you've just arrived in a new country. If you decide to bring a container and you have the room I would buy new furniture in the UK and bring it over.

By the way .. most rentals In Auckland that I've been to don't supply white-ware. The oven/hob is a given but everything else is up for grabs. Maybe I'm the odd one out?

Dawn

[StevieD]

Kat - do horses wear rugs then?? :laugh

[Tia Maria]

I agree with Willowshouse on this one. It took us several weekends just to find an OK wardrobe. So having to source a few items is OK, but to have to replace a lot of major items on arrival, you'd have to really love shopping!

So the question is, after looking for a place to live/jobs/school etc, do you want to spend your spare weekends shopping or on the beach?

Trigirl, check out this thread:

www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7346

Cheers

Tia

[bagpussr]

Mmmm we just did the what shall we leave what shall we take thing yesterday. Ours is a fitted kitchen so will leave the appliances I think. We shall be moving to the north Auckland area, possibly North Shore area in May so just getting quotes in now for removals etc. Any suggestions most welcome??

Regards Russ

[kiwizebra]

Thanks for all the advice, it makes a lot of sense, really appreciate your responses.

Best regards,

Kiwizebra

[kiwizebra]

Thanks for the advise, yup we'll probably rent to start with so that would help.


Best regards,

Kiwizebra

[Sam B]

I couldn't find a rental in Cambridge that had anything more than an oven in it either, wish I could as have put all my stuff in storage in UK for a year whilst make up my mind, so really don't want to buy..

[sarahw]

None of the rentals we looked at had anything more in the kitchen than a fitted oven & hob & an old rickety dishwasher - some places just had a sink!!

[gil]

They vary, in our experience. We looked at one and that had oven, hob and dishwasher and this one we took without seeing (:eek:) and it has oven, gas hob, built-in microwave, fridge/ freezer, dishwasher, waste disposal, washing machine and ducted vacuum (which I LOVE!) so haven't unwrapped some of my appliances! May need them in future though.

Gil

[westies]

We brought everything from our 3 bed house the 20ft container was bursting, soooo gald we did! Defo worked out cheaper that way for us, didn't see the point in buying again, what we already had!!

[andrewandjane]

this is the same dilemma that we are going through at the moment. all of our furniture is broke/ falling apart except a couple of beds and coffe table . we got some quotes for containers which are expensive. we have found pickfords have given us a quote to ship 10 tea chest size boxes and the coffee table lamp and a small desk for £500.they will also give us the boxes and collect and deliver in auckland. this would still leave us money to buy some new stuff when we get to auckland and send out some stuff. the bloke from pickfords did not reccomend sending white goods or beds unless was getting a 20 foot container as other wise uneconomical. have a look on trade me for prices if you select new and buy it now stuff it seems a lot cheaper than freedom furniture or the warehouse.

[zardell]

Just thought I'd pop my thoughts onto this thread - and they are only thoughts and not advice 'cos every ones circumstances are different.

We brought everything except wardrobes. Cost us about £3,200 for a 20' reefer.

Also cost us $60 a week to store the stuff because we had no arrival address, plus another $1,800 to finally get it delivered to our new home. Not the shippers fault that we decided to settle a couple of hundred kilometres from our port of arrival !!

We were without our own 'stuff' for about 2 months before we found our home and moved in. Within that time we managed fine without it.

Another option to buying furniture and white goods is to rent them..........do a Google for Mr. Rental, although I must say that these rental shops aren't everywhere across NZ, but I believe that they do cover most of the larger cities etc.

Now, I'm not saying do or don't bring your stuff, all I am saying is that it has to be cost effective for YOU.

If you know exactly where you're headed and you'll be finding accommodation quite quickly after your arrival then fine. If not, don't forget to add on the extra costs of storage etc and allow for that costing when making your decision.

Remember also that when you first arrive, your 'set up costs' will be in your native currency, in other words you will be spending UK £'s / US $ / ZA Rand or whatever and when you convert that to NZ $, sometimes goods can work out cheaper to buy than back at home.

The problems start when your set-up fund has been spent and you begin to earn NZ$........that's when you start to spend NZ$ .......and that's when things can start to become expensive when related back to earnings.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Julie

xx