Think about all of the stuff you have in your house, your garage, your shed, your attic, your basement. Now think about what you would do with said stuff if you decided to up and move to the other side of the world.
Feeling a little panicky yet??
I know that feeling well. For me it started the second I agreed to embark on this crazy adventure with Shane. And honestly it only let up this week when our crate from home FINALLY arrived.
We're now officially settled in our house in New Zealand. The furniture has been put together (thank you, Shane!). The clothes have been rediscovered, hung up in the closet or shoved in a drawer. We have a real kitchen table with real chairs. It's luxurious living over here!
And I've realized a few things through this journey -- some things that might help you if you ever decide to move abroad.
FIRST THINGS FIRST. HOW DID WE GET OUR JUNK HERE?
We had a roughly $15,000 budget for moving our entire family, household and dog to New Zealand. So we knew we wanted to move our stuff on the cheap side. That meant, we weren't going to bring all of our stuff with us and we were going to do the majority of the dirty work on our own.
We decided to ship a 200 cubic-foot crate through a company called U Pak We Ship. It's a company (and there are lots out there) that consolidates crates from multiple shippers into containers. That way, customers can send a smaller amount of stuff for less cash.
I started packing for this step as soon as I knew we were headed to New Zealand. I packed up winter coats and clothes, dishes we could live without for the remainder of our days in the U.S., kids toys and books, games and art supplies and lots and lots of toy trucks.
And then, in a stroke of genius, I decided to buy new Ikea furniture, leaving it all in its flatpack boxes, to serve as our furniture in NZ. Because Ikea ships stuff all over the world, most of their furniture comes in boxes that are the perfect size for the crate we used. So we did a little research on the sizing and then bought a kitchen table, four chairs, two dressers, a bunk bed, a queen bed, matching mattresses, a desk and a couple of end tables.
Shane ensured that the stuff in these boxes met the customs criteria (scrubbing the bottom of our shoes with disinfectant, thoroughly cleaning the kids' bike tires) and then filled out the necessary paperwork. In the beginning of May, he rented a U-Haul trailer and took all of the boxes to a terminal at Dulles Airport, where he put together our crate, packed it up and sent it off to sea.
And that's where it stayed. For months.
Initially we were told our crate would be arriving in New Zealand in mid-July, which -- not coincidentally -- is when the kids and I arrived. But our ship didn't crest NZ waters until late August, and our container didn't arrive at our doorstep until Sept. 6. So we spent about two months living bare bones, a bit college-dorm style.
Which gave me a lot of time to think (usually while laying wide awake on our blowup mattress at night) about what I would do differently next time around. Here's what I learned that may save you some sleepless nights:
WHAT I GOT WRONG
1 Trusted the crate would be on time
This was my major mistake. When the company told us the crate would be arriving in July, I believed them. And thus packed accordingly.
Remember, the Southern Hemisphere enjoys opposite seasons, so while it was summer in Virginia, it was winter here. In May, I packed all our winter clothes and jackets -- knowing we wouldn't need them in the U.S. again anyway -- and sent them south. Which would have been fine had they arrived shortly after us. But in reality, we spent two months on the chilly side, wearing the same sweatshirt over and over again as our warm clothes chugged along this way.
What I should have done instead is thrown a few sweaters and our winter coats in the luggage that came with us on the plane. Problem solved.
2 Shipped our beds
Furniture in New Zealand is EXPENSIVE! We knew this before we left the U.S., which is why we decided to ship Ikea furniture instead. But we should have spared our aging backs and necks and just committed to buying a new bed when we arrived. Instead we gave the air mattress a go much longer than we should have. And it was miserable.
I finally had a teary breakdown after about four weeks of pain and told Shane we HAD to buy a new mattress. Like, today. Right this second. He agreed, and when the delivery guy showed up at our door, I could have kissed him on the mouth!
The mattress ended up costing about $1,500 -- worth every penny and not much more than what we would have spent at home. We should have just bought the mattress when we first arrived and saved the tears.
(I should add, the kids slept on an air mattress with little complaint until the Ikea furniture got here. Oh to be young again!)
3 Left the sentimentals at home
I tend to be a bit on the un-sentimental side anyway, but I went a little overboard on this packing job. I didn't want our picture frames to get busted and my teapot collection to break. I didn't want the lamp my father-in-law bought me years ago (one of my favorite possessions) to go missing -- so I stored all of that stuff in our rental shed in West Virginia. And I regret that now.
The stuff that makes home home is not the 16 sweaters I actually don't need anyway. It's the stuff I thought too fragile or important to send. I wish I had packed just one more box of that kind of stuff and shipped it this way. It would have been like seeing old friends when I unpacked it.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT
1 Brought the expensive stuff with us
Prices in general tend to be a bit high here, but furniture and kitchenware are REALLY expensive.
Yesterday, we went shopping for a third dresser -- we came up one short -- and prices ranged from $200 for a cheap particle board thing (the one we bought, surprise surprise) to, like, $1,000 for something that looked like cheap particle board. Way too much moola!
Luckily, before we started packing, we spent a few days researching NZ store websites and the Craigslist equivalent (TradeMeNZ) to get a sense of what we were in for. That helped me determine that furniture and kitchen goods would be a priority for shipping. And I'm glad I figured that out early.
Conversely, if you're ever moving to the U.S., just throw everything away and start from scratch. Ikea and Walmart got you covered!
2 Packed unopened Ikea furniture
I'm still patting myself on the back for this idea. We spent about $1,500 American dollars on our Ikea haul and pretty much outfitted our whole house with that amount of furniture. The alternatives -- shipping our existing furniture or buying all new here -- would have been much more expensive. So I guess the difference can be put to my birthday present (hint hint, Shane)!
3 Didn't overpack
I have fretted about this way more than I should (don't you hate overpacking??), but I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Everything is here. Everything fits in the house, and we didn't have much overlap in what we bought in NZ and what we shipped from Virginia -- even with the delayed arrival of our crate.
What we have is a really lovely and comfortable house, a tad on the minimalist side, but one that will certainly fulfill our needs during our time here.
Mission accomplished. Phew.
