Kwill! I am going to have to message you! I am pretty confused about investing in the UK tax implications. Trying to figure it out. Anyways, I am hoping the move will be permanent. Oh, and regarding shipping stuff over, it is an ongoing debate I am having with myself now. I don't get a lot of £ to move with so will be paying for a good chunk of the move myself. When we moved previously, we moved stuff on a pallet from upakweship. That was great, very cheap and we only had crap furniture anyways. Now we have stuff that is a bit nice though still from craigslist etc, but I am happy with it. At first I was thinking we would just do a crate, but thinking of the work to sell stuff and buy new stuff was really stressing me out so then I was thinking maybe a 20 foot container, which will be $4500 door to door. It will take longer for it to get to me, but I really don't like shopping and honestly, I had a hard time finding stuff in the charity shops and on-line (gumtree, ebay). Thinking about it still stresses me a bit. I think I would be fine if I never had moved that far before (and back!). If I don't do a container, I will do a crate. I should get a quote for those door to door since I know it will be more than $1300 or $2200 (1 or 2 crates) since I am not moving from Raleigh to London. I am probably not being very smart about this. Realistically, 1 crate is fine and I think that is the volume we used coming back from England. I would do 2 crates if I decided to bring more stuff, but all this deciding is a bit stressful. Ugh... How did you move your stuff? What stuff did you move? Anything you would have done differently?
I don't know about containers and crates. Work had me get 3 quotes from removal companies, which turned into 2 quotes because the third company still hadn't gotten back to me when it got to be almost too late to book something.
In my case, I had been renting a room and a half in a shared apartment in the States, but I still had some furniture in the common areas, as well as in my room. I also had a lot of books and papers and dishes and random stuff.
About a week into December, I found a woman who was willing to take over my spot in the lease, allowing me to get back my deposit, but the catch was that she wanted to move in 1 January when I wasn't due to start my post in the UK until 1 February. I couldn't have the removal company come in December when I was still working on my visa application, and I didn't want to miss Christmas with my parents and siblings in another State. I had to take care of everything in about two weeks without movers and without a place to move to. So I rented a storage unit nearby starting a month before I thought I would actually have movers come. The first month was free, so I only paid an application fee plus about a week prorated. Everything that wouldn't fit in my car went either to my housemates or to Craigslist, so most of the furniture I kept all either folded or disassembled. I ordered a shredder off Walmart.com, and I went through as many of my papers as I had time for, filing or shredding or tossing. I made many trips back and forth between the apartment and the storage unit, and my housemates made some trips, too, when I ran out of time on the last day. The storage unit was a mess by the end when I was just throwing things in the car and then just stacking them anywhere I could.
Anyway, I made it home very early in the morning on 24 December, and I drove back to the town where I'd been living in mid-January and stayed with relatives while I got the movers sorted out. That gave me a little more time to sort out the stuff in the storage unit and add things that I had been keeping at my parents' house. This was probably more stressful than it needed to be, but the storage unit had easy parking and trolleys to move things back and forth. For the movers, it was pretty easy to come with their truck to the loading bay, pack up my things in boxes, and roll them out of the storage facility.
When I got to the UK, I rented a dorm room at the university for 5 months, and then when I finally got my own flat, I bought the previous tenant's furniture, which he was offering for £300 total. He had almost the same Ikea armchair I'd sold on Craigslist 6 months previously, but it was in much better condition than mine had been. It was like magic. Later I bought or picked up free a few other things from outgoing tenants in my building, and I ordered a microwave off Craigslist. For me it worked out well. I find the dishes and linens and pictures and papers and books and baskets -- all those little things that fit in my car -- give a sense of home to the generic Ikea and Argos furniture I got from the other tenant.
Things I'd do differently: rent the storage unit sooner, ask for help sooner with the move, don't overestimate how carefully you can go through years of papers when the overall time available is short, and don't bring things to the UK that need US power if they are easily replaceable.
But note, most desktop PCs can be switched from US to UK power and vice versa with a red switch on the back. They don't switch automatically, so be careful.
https://www.lifewire.com/power-supply-voltage-switch-2625973Also, it turned out my alarm clock and my PC monitor and my laptop and my cell phones all were able to use UK power. I use a transformer for my rice cooker and bread machine. I wish I'd left my old inkjet printer / scanner at home, and the floor lamps also could have stayed back in the States since the light bulbs are different.