Life Is Good! But I Still Need Your Help!

[tbplayer]

Who would of thought I could drive my Corvette here in Northern Kentucky in late January? Sunny skies with roads clean and clear! Mother nature is being kind to us this year so I need to enjoy it while I can?So I have made my decision retire early in Phils, and now comes the hard part: carrying out the plan! The information gathered from all of you is invaluable. I can honestly say it would have been very difficult to make the decision without having a resource such as this forum. I intend to pay it forward as I gain experience.One of my big pending decisions is what to bring and how to bring it. I made a post on the electronics angle, but there are other considerations I would like feedback on.How – I really would like to get a 20 or 40 foot shipping container but I have not really looked into the cost yet. I would probably get one parked in my driveway and do a self pack and load. At the other end (most likely Baguio City) I would hire some help for the unload, or perhaps have it included as part of the shipping.What to bring – Unfortunately I made a bad decision when I moved here (from Germany) and I thought I would stay put for a while. I bought a lot of new things and if I sell them, I will get only pennies on the dollar. The loss I would take possibly justifies the cost of a shipping container. Of course I also have to consider the space I will living in. I intend to rent a 3+ br good sized house but the key will be how big the rooms are.Here is a list of some large things or groups of things that I will need to decide about. Of course I have a lot of other things but these are the ones I am pondering. Any feedback on bring / don't bring is appreciated. Of course, many of these are dependant on getting a container, so assume I am.Antiques: I have one large tall secretary that has been in the family for over 50 years, but it is over 100 years old. My dad refinished it when I was a kid and it has sentimental value as well as intrinsic value. I also have two armoires I bought in Germany, 100+ years old. Very nice looking but not a lot of sentimental value. (Side topic: Is there any market for American / European antiques in Phils?)Living room furniture: Sofa and two chairs and tables. I like this furniture and it is only one year old. It does need a good sized room.Master Bedroom furniture: King sized bed, dresser and entertainment cabinet, all one year old and I paid a lot for them. The mattress is great but I will not bring it because it is the heaviest damn mattress in the world! I like this furniture and of course these things would also require a big bedroom.2^nd (guest bedrooom) furniture. If I thought I had room in the new house and also room in the container, I could bring this as it is in really good shape.Electronics: The biggest things are two 55 inch LCD TVs and one 42 inch LCD TV. These are all really nice but if I sell them, I will not get much. (I probably would not need all of these but perhaps a member would like to purchase one for a bargain price if I bring all of them?). I have a set of large Athena tower speakers with powered subwoofers and surround speakers that I have had over 10 years and I still love them. I hate to give them up. I realize I will not have a warranty when I take all of these things overseas and I will probably need high powered transformers. I did that in Germany and it is not an issue.Kitchen: If I have a container, I would probably bring all the small stuff except 110 volt small appliances. I might give away most breakable things like glasses and buy new ones.Washer and Dryer: I have a really nice set of a LG washer and dryer. Dryer is 220 electric. If I rent my house I will include them. Should I even consider bringing them if I determine they would fit in the new house?Foosball table: Lots of fun if I have room for it!

what part of Northern Ky are you from?

[OnMyWay]

what part of Northern Ky are you from?

Cincinnati area, on the wrong side of the river. Interested in buying my house, cars and belongings so I can make a fresh start? :)

[i am bob]

Just a thought that I'm not sure if anyone else considered...If you can move your stuff cheap enough, maybe you should take it with you... If you decide in 5 years that don't want to stay, there is a lot less value to what you have brought with you now and would probably be better to try and sell or just leave it in the Phils at this point.Not saying this is ideal but it is something to check out the cost and recovery on.

[OnMyWay]

Just a thought that I'm not sure if anyone else considered...If you can move your stuff cheap enough, maybe you should take it with you... If you decide in 5 years that don't want to stay, there is a lot less value to what you have brought with you now and would probably be better to try and sell or just leave it in the Phils at this point.Not saying this is ideal but it is something to check out the cost and recovery on.

Exactly. If I get 5 years out of it I am happy and it will not go home with me if I decide Phils is not for me. The question is, how much will it cost to move? I have made two moves across the Atlantic so I know it is expensive, but when a corp is paying I thinking top dollar quotes are made. I am hoping for something a bit more reasonable.

[tbplayer]

what part of Northern Ky are you from?

Cincinnati area, on the wrong side of the river. Interested in buying my house, cars and belongings so I can make a fresh start? :)

we live right on the river about 45 minutes from cincy...well, if i were going to buy, it would be in the Philippines, so will have to pass..lol

[KanoJoe]

I had not really thought about a storage option here, because when I looked at that in the past, they had been really expensive. I should take a second look at that.

I am the same quandary as you, in that I am not sure what to take and what to leave behind. I have an even more fundamental problem in that I am still not sure where I want to settle down... Be it the Philippines, Thailand, Panama or go back to Colombia... My solution is to par down all of my US belongings to that which I really want to keep and make it fit into a 20 or 40 foot container... I will have stored in the US until such time that I either find my Valhalla and have the container shipped to me or forget the dream and settle back in the US... Storage fees on a container run around $100 per month in my area, so not a huge cost... Vehicle storage runs between $50 - $150 per month, depending on whether it is inside or outside...

[Art2ro]

​When one is unsure of all the uncertainties of one's worldly possessions and unsure where to relocate for retirement and can not maintain two households, it will be truly an expensive proposition! In our situation when I finally retired, we either sold or gave away most of our household belongings and started from scratch after arriving in the Philippines! Best decision we ever made! After 13 years, we now own our own home and furnished the way we want it from top to bottom, it's not lavish, but it will do for the Philippines! And I've been driving a restored 1979 Toyota Corolla for the past 10 years and she's still running pretty well and she even has air conditioning that still works!

[Curley]

I am faced with the same dilemna, I had assumed that I would sell my house complete with all furniture as is quite common here, I was thinking of keeping some of my artwork as it's original and worth a bit. I have some lovely cherry wood furniture, expensive glassware and cutlery as well as years of collected "crap" that one cannot do without. My thoughts were to buy all new in the Philippines but you say that you cannot buy decent furniture in the Philippines? With such cheap labour surely it wouldn't be that expensive to have some made would it?

[Dzighnman]

This is a big topic to layout in one post, so I will only frame my experience and accept PM's with specific questions.I am married to a Filipina, we resided in the USA until 2010, when we made the move to the Philippines full time. I did a mountain of research and learned alot.... most importantly, for me, was I would pay duties and taxes on the contents of any container, UNLESS, I processed an application with the Philippine Ministry of Finance and was granted a one time exemption that covered all but vehicles. We opted for that route and we obtained a 45' hi-cube container, using Ranier Overseas Movers and their partner in Manila, Goetz transport. We took everything we could fit into the container and it was termed, used household goods. We filled it and got our money worth with stuff we knew we would not find in the Phils... or quality issues would exist. We ran into a snag when the container had shipped and the Phils forwarder (Goetz), asked for our ACR-I card... to process the paperwork for our exemption. We, of course, could not apply for that until we got there and since we had timed the shipment to arrive just after us... we did not have alot of time to play with.... long story short, I had to go directly to the Quarrantie office and got a BS doctor blessing form. (he never looked at me.. .too busy watching basketball).. then back to BOI, applied for ACR-I card and got certified copies of the application... sent a copy of the application, my passport and copies of all the other crap they wanted, marriage cert, birth certs etc... to the forwarder in Manila and three days later, we had our exemption then 2 weeks later the container arrived (I was tracking the ship on their website... nice) and directly to our house that day, for an 8 hour load out.... all ended well, but as usual with alot of bumps along the way.... the largest was getting the forwarder to come up with a solution to the "which comes first" issue regarding the exemption and the ACR-I card. We learned along the way that they only really look into containers for vehicles.... and they DO scan every container in Cebu's port. Or so everyone laid claim. We never had to face local port staff seeking bribes, nothing.. total cost of everything vrom the loadout at our home, land transport from south of Portland, Oregon tyo Tacoma, Washington, shipment by ship, and truck transport to our house with 8 hours alotted for offload. (all these features can cost extra if you are not used to negotiating with freight forwarders). Only cost they ate??? The telephone wires they ripped down in Naga on the way to us... sorry to any forum member there for the phone outages there on June 20th, 2010 :thumbsup: ...Oh, and they cleaned out quite a few low hanging "fiesta" banners along the way... a hi-cube container is one of thetallest thee is so we were wondering how well the infrastructure would survive.. when it arrived, there were three guys on top of the container, lifting wires along the route. Something to think about is WHERE your destination is, and if a truck/container can get to it... not a given as you may or may not know in the Philippines.Like I said, much info collected, let me know if you have a question related to our experience and I will try to assist. :tiphat:

[SubicSteve]

This is a big topic to layout in one post, so I will only frame my experience and accept PM's with specific questions.I am married to a Filipina, we resided in the USA until 2010, when we made the move to the Philippines full time. I did a mountain of research and learned alot.... most importantly, for me, was I would pay duties and taxes on the contents of any container, UNLESS, I processed an application with the Philippine Ministry of Finance and was granted a one time exemption that covered all but vehicles. We opted for that route and we obtained a 45' hi-cube container, using Ranier Overseas Movers and their partner in Manila, Goetz transport. We took everything we could fit into the container and it was termed, used household goods. We filled it and got our money worth with stuff we knew we would not find in the Phils... or quality issues would exist. We ran into a snag when the container had shipped and the Phils forwarder (Goetz), asked for our ACR-I card... to process the paperwork for our exemption. We, of course, could not apply for that until we got there and since we had timed the shipment to arrive just after us... we did not have alot of time to play with.... long story short, I had to go directly to the Quarrantie office and got a BS doctor blessing form. (he never looked at me.. .too busy watching basketball).. then back to BOI, applied for ACR-I card and got certified copies of the application... sent a copy of the application, my passport and copies of all the other crap they wanted, marriage cert, birth certs etc... to the forwarder in Manila and three days later, we had our exemption then 2 weeks later the container arrived (I was tracking the ship on their website... nice) and directly to our house that day, for an 8 hour load out.... all ended well, but as usual with alot of bumps along the way.... the largest was getting the forwarder to come up with a solution to the "which comes first" issue regarding the exemption and the ACR-I card. We learned along the way that they only really look into containers for vehicles.... and they DO scan every container in Cebu's port. Or so everyone laid claim. We never had to face local port staff seeking bribes, nothing.. total cost of everything vrom the loadout at our home, land transport from south of Portland, Oregon tyo Tacoma, Washington, shipment by ship, and truck transport to our house with 8 hours alotted for offload. (all these features can cost extra if you are not used to negotiating with freight forwarders). Only cost they ate??? The telephone wires they ripped down in Naga on the way to us... sorry to any forum member there for the phone outages there on June 20th, 2010 :hystery: ...Oh, and they cleaned out quite a few low hanging "fiesta" banners along the way... a hi-cube container is one of thetallest thee is so we were wondering how well the infrastructure would survive.. when it arrived, there were three guys on top of the container, lifting wires along the route. Something to think about is WHERE your destination is, and if a truck/container can get to it... not a given as you may or may not know in the Philippines.Like I said, much info collected, let me know if you have a question related to our experience and I will try to assist. :hystery:

WOW,Awesome post full of great information. I was under the impression that even with the onetime exemption you STILL had to pay tax on stuff like electronics. I don't have a lot of stuff I want to bring over but if I could get my 50 inch plasma, stereo, speakers and subwoofer in with my household items, I would be a very happy man.Thanks for the info.