Day 16: Step #8, Figure Out What To Do With All Your Stuff
How To Determine What To Take With You, What To Leave Behind, And What To Get Rid Of Altogether
Dear Student,
You’ve determined which overseas haven just might have your name on it…
You’ve begun your research into the three most critical issues you need to address as you prepare for your move—residency options, taxes, and health insurance…
The next step is to figure out what to do with all your stuff. What should you take with you? What should you keep but leave behind? And what should you get rid of altogether?
When we made our first move overseas way back in the late 90s, from Baltimore, Maryland, to Waterford, Ireland, I was figuring things out as we went along. My first mistake was shipping my houseful of Baltimore antiques to Waterford with us. I later discovered that I could have bought nicer antiques in Ireland for about half as much as I’d paid to ship the lesser-quality pieces across the Atlantic Ocean. It would have been easier, cheaper, and more fun to buy all-new old stuff in Waterford.
My second mistake was overestimating what we’d “need” upon arrival. I wanted to make our rented house in Waterford as homey as possible, right from the start, so I arranged for Mail Boxes Etc. (now the UPS Store) to collect, pack, and deliver Kaitlin’s favorite games and toys, our everyday kitchen gear, photos, knickknacks, and keepsakes, as well as four boxes of books.
In all, we shipped a dozen boxes with Mail Boxes Etc. On the one hand, these essential items were waiting for us when we arrived at the little house on the river that would be our home our first year in Ireland. On the other hand, it was a great deal of money spent, frankly, for little reason. I could have replaced most of the stuff locally easily and affordably.
To find an international shipper back then, I consulted the Yellow Pages. I called at least a dozen firms listed. Some never returned my call… some didn’t ship to Ireland. After days of back and forth, I arranged for representatives of three firms to visit my Baltimore home and give me estimates for packing, shipping, delivering to Waterford, and unpacking in our new home. Two weeks later, I had cost quotes. More phone calls, more follow-up, and, finally, I settled on a group headquartered in the UK. A lot of hassle to ship a bunch of stuff that, believe me, we could have lived without and that, again, we could easily have replaced in Ireland. I swore I’d never do it again.
Seven years later, I was back on the phone, this time shopping for an international shipper who’d take my Waterford household stuff to Paris. I rationalized this exercise to Lief by explaining that we’d never be able to afford to replace my Irish antiques with French ones. (I was right about this.) “But I promise, dear,” I told him then, “this will be the last time we’ll mess with this.”
Then, in 2008, as we prepared for our move from France to Panama, I wondered again how we’d furnish our new home in this new country. Over the years, we’d bought, renovated, and furnished an old building in Panama City’s old town, Casco Viejo, as well as a preconstruction apartment downtown. Those experiences had taught me that, while you can buy antique furniture and good-quality reproductions in Panama, the supply is limited, and the prices are high. How could I head off the inevitable budget and overspending discussions with Lief?
Living in Waterford, I’d gotten to know the local antiques dealer. The month before our move to Panama, we visited Ireland. I stopped in to see my friend Rody at his Waterford City Auction Rooms. I was greeted at the door by a sign proclaiming that Rody was planning an auction that very evening. Serendipity.
I’d buy furniture for the new place in Panama from Rody in Ireland! We’d come out ahead, even allowing for international shipping. Our Paris apartment furniture stayed in our Paris apartment, which we have since rented out to a nice American university professor and his wife. Keepsakes and things we didn’t want to risk those renters breaking went into paid storage.
When we walked out the door of our apartment on the rue de Verneuil three years ago bound for Panama, we carried only two suitcases of clothes each, a couple of duffel bags of toys and books, and our laptops. The furniture from Rody arrived in Panama, without incident, a month later. We paid no Panama import duty thanks to our residency status.
At the time I promised Lief (again) that this would be our final international shipping adventure. The truth is, though, I’d do it again.
For one thing, it’s ever-easier to manage an international move. This most recent Ireland to Panama experience was a cake walk compared with my original one from Baltimore to Waterford.
The first and most important step is thinking through (more objectively than I did for our first move) what you need to take with you, what you want to ship for immediate delivery, what you want to keep but leave behind, and whether or not you want to invest in shipping a full container-load of stuff.
For some people, this process is no more than another item on their move-overseas checklist. For others, it’s a serious psychological stumbling block.
My friend Lucy, for example, really struggled with the question of what to do with all her family’s things. As she explained, “When we first decided to pack up our home in Spain and take a working ‘sabbatical,’ journeying through Mexico, Central America, the United States, and Europe, my biggest mental block was what to do with our houseful of belongings. At first I resisted selling anything but defunct objects and dusty, unused baby equipment. Then we took the time to figure out the costs of storage and transportation for things like china, kitchen equipment, and furniture. It was going to be cheaper to replace most things than to ship everything and have it waiting for us in an expensive storage facility. Besides, when we set out, we didn’t know where we were going to settle!
“I thought it would be impossible to choose what was important,” Lucy continued, “but then I came up with some ‘benchmarks.’ First, did an item have lasting memories? The kind that make your hairs stand on end or bring a smile to your face. Second, could I replace it without having to travel around the world again to a remote island? Finally, did it have thick dust on it? You and your partner may have different ideas about what is important. For instance, our beautiful blue Andalusian bowls were not on my husband’s list, but they were on mine. And it wasn’t only because they’re pretty. It was also because, when I look at them, I see clearly the ceramics workshop where I bought them. I remember the smell of the mountains of the Alpujarras in southern Spain. And I recall how, during the negotiations for their acquisition, the old man I bought them from turned mid-haggle to relieve himself in the most beautiful bowl in his courtyard! That’s a memory worth keeping.”
Lucy used her benchmarks to determine that all of her everyday china could be sold, with the exception of the blue bowls from Andalusia, the antique jugs from England, and the hand-blown glasses from an anniversary trip to Napa. “Out went our off-the-rack mountain bikes, but I held on tight to my custom-made road bike,” Lucy explained. “The children sold their toys that had dust on them or were no longer trendy, but they kept the currently in-use and much-loved ones. We sold virtually all our furniture. Not a big deal for us because we didn’t have any antiques. We sold nearly all the kitchen gadgets, but I kept my grandmother’s potato masher. Rugs that were bought in a chain store… sold. Rug from a swap with a Sarawakian indigenous Indian… very definitely kept and stored. And so on. Now that we have settled in our new home and unpacked the treasures, do I miss anything? No.
“Well, okay, occasionally I think that it would be handy to have such-and-such a utensil, but I’ve yet to have any gut-wrenching moments of regret about not keeping anything in particular. That’s because I stuck to my benchmarks, even when I was being cajoled into loosening my grip on a few things. I stuck to them, because I didn’t want any regrets in my new life.”
Like me, Lucy also realized that sometimes you can buy better locally in your new home. After settling in France, she bought a new and improved mountain bike for only 50 euro more than she’d sold her previous American one for—much less than the cost of storage or shipping.
On the other hand, our perpetual-traveler friends Paul and Vicki have downsized completely. They travel the world continuously with but a few suitcases and a couple of laptops. They worry not about shipping furniture or storing heirlooms. I envy their freedom in this regard, but I can’t bring myself to follow their lead.
Lief and I have designated Paris as a kind of home base. Packed away there in paid storage are family photo albums and our children’s christening outfits, my son’s first-grade report card and my daughter’s high-school art portfolio, my grandmother’s recipe files and the bedspread my mother embroidered for Lief and me when we were married. I can’t let these things go. So, as we move around the world, we have to factor in the cost of storing them. Unless you’re ready to part with all your worldly possessions, you will, too. Paid storage is available in much of the world, even in remote regions of Nicaragua and Panama, for example.
Furthermore, fortunately, as I’ve mentioned, international shipping is far more easily accomplished today than it was years ago when we arranged for our first trans-Atlantic container.