Life Is Good! But I Still Need Your Help!

[Tatoosh]

I would not ship the washer/dryer combo. One, you likely won't have a place to put it. Two, it is expensive to run though handy in the Baguio area. Sell them and save the money. When you get here buy a local washer for your helper to use. Yeah, you'll need a helper if you can find a good one to help you find what you want and negotiate a reasonable price. Dryers here, the top end are gas with electric motor and controls. Figure 30k (pesos) for a new one. Used popup occasionally for 15k to 20k depending on age and condition. They are great, don't use much electricity and a tank of propane will likely go two months. That means about 400 pesos propane cost per month, but you get nice dry clothes, less mold, and whole lot less lint. I have one and the first time we used it our clothes shed so much lint you'd think were all long haired collies! I haven't seen any trucks carrying shipping containers here. I won't say they don't exist, but they may not be easy to get once your container is here and through customs. Other large trucks are for hire but will set you back 15k or 20k for a trip up to Baguio minimum or more (I am guessing). You will need someone to ride the truck up with your stuff. Don't figure on loading it on the truck, then grabbing a nice easy ride up on the Victory Liner while you wait for your truck to arrive. You may find significant things missing. You need to provide a required rider or follow in your own vehicle. I haven't read the whole thread, so hopefully someone has talked to you about cost of customs when bringing your stuff in. If your wife still has Filipino citizenship she can help get stuff in without a huge customs fee. Otherwise, stand by. Customs is notorious for being the MOST corrupt group in the country. If your wife requests a 13a visa for you and it is granted, you can bring stuff in for 6 months duty free or for a lower amount. Someone that has done this (not me) needs to guide you through the ins and outs because it can be hugely expensive and if the customs agents don't whack your wallet, the fixer you will likely hire to deal with them will.Good luck!

[OnMyWay]

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...

Hmmm, not sure why, but even though I am subscribed to "Follow" this topic, I'm not getting alerts? I missed the last few posts until now.Thanks for this info. Storage is starting to sound like an option, because, like you, my first place to live will probably be more of a scouting location, rather than the permanent location. I was fairly certain I was going to make the scouting location Baguio City but the distance to an airport is giving me second thoughts. If you don't mind telling me, where are you where the container storage would be around $100? I could live with that.

[OnMyWay]

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?

Yes, and when you start adding up all those "must keep" items, it turns into quite a pile of stuff!I didn't check the quality or price but I saw decent looking furniture in malls in the Manila / Alabang area. They have Lazy Boy stores but I am sure it must be very expensive, as it is expensive in the US too.The local handmade wood furniture is very popular and I love beautiful wood, so I will end up with some of it. It is not very comfortable as lounging furniture though.

[OnMyWay]

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:

Thank you very much for the information! I would like to do a container and I need to figure out which method to use to avoid duties. The other advantage of the container is that I can bring things that are borderline and if I decide I don't want them, I can give them away in Phils. I would rather give things away in Phils than the US. I always give away a lot of stuff when I move.

[MikeB]

Hmmm, not sure why, but even though I am subscribed to "Follow" this topic, I'm not getting alerts?

If they're email notifications, check "My Settings" and verify your email address is correct.

[OnMyWay]

I would not ship the washer/dryer combo. One, you likely won't have a place to put it. Two, it is expensive to run though handy in the Baguio area. Sell them and save the money. When you get here buy a local washer for your helper to use. Yeah, you'll need a helper if you can find a good one to help you find what you want and negotiate a reasonable price.Dryers here, the top end are gas with electric motor and controls. Figure 30k (pesos) for a new one. Used popup occasionally for 15k to 20k depending on age and condition. They are great, don't use much electricity and a tank of propane will likely go two months. That means about 400 pesos propane cost per month, but you get nice dry clothes, less mold, and whole lot less lint. I have one and the first time we used it our clothes shed so much lint you'd think were all long haired collies!I haven't seen any trucks carrying shipping containers here. I won't say they don't exist, but they may not be easy to get once your container is here and through customs. Other large trucks are for hire but will set you back 15k or 20k for a trip up to Baguio minimum or more (I am guessing). You will need someone to ride the truck up with your stuff. Don't figure on loading it on the truck, then grabbing a nice easy ride up on the Victory Liner while you wait for your truck to arrive. You may find significant things missing. You need to provide a required rider or follow in your own vehicle.I haven't read the whole thread, so hopefully someone has talked to you about cost of customs when bringing your stuff in. If your wife still has Filipino citizenship she can help get stuff in without a huge customs fee. Otherwise, stand by. Customs is notorious for being the MOST corrupt group in the country. If your wife requests a 13a visa for you and it is granted, you can bring stuff in for 6 months duty free or for a lower amount. Someone that has done this (not me) needs to guide you through the ins and outs because it can be hugely expensive and if the customs agents don't whack your wallet, the fixer you will likely hire to deal with them will.Good luck!

Thanks! Yes, the washer and dryer were at the bottom of the list of things to bring.I could live with with 15-20 k to truck from Manila to Baguio, but as you said, security would be a concern.

[OnMyWay]

Hmmm, not sure why, but even though I am subscribed to "Follow" this topic, I'm not getting alerts?

If they're email notifications, check "My Settings" and verify your email address is correct.

I was getting alerts on other threads but not this one. I turned Follow off and back on, and now I am getting them again, like now for your reply. :hystery: