POE And Shipping Household Goods

[dualhammers 1]

My fiance is arriving in the states in 14 days. She plans to have most of her household goods shipped later via a freight company, but we don't have a lot of money so we wanted to know a few things.

1. Is it possible to do multiple duty-free shipments or must everything that will "come later" be on one Customs form (and one shipment) when my fiance crosses the border?

2. Do any of you have recommendations for small weight movers? We have far less than $2,000 worth of stuff and would rather go with a company that charges by the pound rather than having a base 2,000 starting rate.

[thursdayschild 0]

I'm interested in the answer to this as well. I don't have a whole lot to move and I'm contemplating not moving a lot of it because it just seems to be too expensive to be worth it.

Right now I'm planning on flying Air Canada to the USA and just bringing extra suitcases it's about $160 for 3 large suitcases(2x50lb and 1x75lb). $260 for 4(2x50lb and 2x75lb). I don't think a shipping company is going to compete with that but I could be wrong.

[dualhammers 1]

Bumping this post because I am really hoping for answers. Move is in 11 days.

[pocheros 101]

I'm in a similar situation as you guys. Currently I have about eight medium sized boxes sitting in a friend's apartment that weigh somewhere around 50lbs each. Because I moved quite a distance (from Ontario to Las Vegas) and it wasn't enough to fill up a pod or rent a truck for (I also can't drive, so that wasn't an option), but too much to put in luggage, I decided that when I get the money I'm going to mail the boxes over here with UPS. You can check out their website and get accurate estimates- they'll calculate the cost according to the size and weight of the box, and how you choose to ship it. By the way, I compared the extimates to the Canada post wbesite and UPS has better pricing (not to mention Canada post has always given me bad experience but UPS has been excellent.)

A medium sized box around 60 lbs (I think the max is 66lbs- it says on the website) costs about $130 to ship. The lighter it is, the less it costs. So, to mail my 8 boxes it's going to be somewhere around $1k, which seems hefty but it'd actually be more expensive for me to replace the contents than simply mail it. That seems like a fair price to me, and since we're expecting a tax return soon I shouldn't have to wait much longer. That's another consideration to make

Mind you, I haven't actually shipped any of this stuff yet, because I'm a little strapped for cash, but that's my plan.

You don't have to ship everything all at once (I believe you have 10 years to bring over your stuff). If you ship the boxes one at a time, however, you need a form for each box. The form also requires a black and white photocopy of your visa and I-94. I went to the UPS store and asked en employee about this and this is what he told. He was super friendly and helpful!

Also, I bought a fish hook for $6 at Canadian tire so I could weigh my luggage accurately, since I wanted to stuff as much inside it as I possibly could without going over the weight limit. Make sure to double check what the overweight fees are, and how much overweight luggage you're allowed. I think it's $100 or something? If you figure that you can take between 50-70lbs of stuff for $100, that's comparable to simply shipping it later on.

Edited December 7, 2011 by pocheros