Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We talk about
our life in Nelson, New Zealand.
We also talked about what furniture we would take with us. After hearing from current immigrants and doing research into the prices of furniture in New Zealand, we were convinced it would be more financially prudent to bring enough furniture to fill a small house.
All the electrical appliances would be sold, the difference between the two countries’ systems made our appliances useless, including our beloved 50” LCD television (which only sold in the last week). The only electronics we brought were dual-system compatible (computer, printer, ipod accessories, etc.)
Everything else would be sold, and Angela got underway almost immediately advertising our furniture and items, hawking them in her “Moving to New Zealand – Everything Must Go!” ads. Our bedroom set sold full price in the first week, along with our chest freezer and some end tables. That was a very weird thing, someone actually coming into your house and shopping your furniture. “Is that for sale?” they’d point and ask. Well, sure, my beloved wicker chest is for sale … how odd it was that first night to take money for our things.
But it got a lot easier with the money rolling in and our possessions being moved out the front door. A week or so later a woman came by and bought a couch, several tables, lamps, the bread maker, and some art off the walls. Her husband and brother brought their truck over and we watched them take lamps out of sockets, haul our couch out the front door, and load up their truck with our stuff. What might the neighbours be thinking??
Soon, the guest bedroom stuff was gone, the elliptical machine was taken down and hauled out by a nice woman, and another woman found she adored about 6 pieces of framed art we had on our walls.
Come early June, Angela prepared for the dreaded garage sale. She researched what to do to make the most money and took weeks labelling and preparing everything that was left over, including appliances. Always have it on the first weekend of the month, it’s right after payday for most people and you’ll get the most money! She set up the garage like a store, making people walk around things, and set up remaining furniture on the outside driveway with $1, 50c and 25c buckets of stupid little things (popular with the older folks and kids across the street).
Saturday was very busy, but only in the later afternoon did we hit our stride by doing the “Half off the sticker price” sale that would continue into Sunday. Of course, Angela had made sure to mark the original prices high enough to still make it a good deal for us! Doing this late on Saturday earned a final tally for the day of over $800, more than halfway toward her goal of $1000 total out of the garage sale. Sunday proved as busy and the half price specials were very popular. We also got rid of a final couch and the bench weights as well. Sunday brought in another $500 or so and we also had a prospective buyer for our television (he did eventually buy it), so it was a good, if not hot and sweaty, weekend earning a cool $1300+ from our stuff, with the rest off to charity. We've heard from others that was a stellar take!
In the meantime, Don worked on the shipping side, with a 20-foot container that we could fill it as full as we wanted with whatever we could and it would be a door-to-door service. Angela started packing up belongings in April with great care, storing boxes in the basement. Read more about advice on shipping or selling.
The shipping container was scheduled to arrive the last weekend in June, so all remaining items were prepared the weekend prior. What a task packing up was!
The container was dropped at our house on a Thursday, and packing started Friday and didn’t stop until Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t that we had so much stuff—in the end, we probably filled the container only 2/3 full—but it was how things were packed that mattered.
Don took great care to make sure items wouldn’t shift too much, and that furniture was protected. He mapped out what pieces of furniture would go where, and on top of what. Angela prepared all 180-some items and boxes for packing. The next time we'd see everything would be about 3 months down the road.
Once the door closed on what remained of our things, it was both scary and exhilarating to be free. It was freeing, it was liberating. We were left with an air mattress, a fold up table, our soon-to-be-sold television, some leftover pots and pans that would be donated, and a few dishes for the remaining 1.5 weeks. It was uncomfortable at best, but we hardly noticed.
back to Part 13: Packing up and shipping our stuff | Immigration home | on to Part 14: Goodbyes
