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Hello all! My fiance and I are looking to immigrate to the Halifax area in four years. I'm getting our budget rolling as I plan on having $60,000 together since I know that having ready funds is one of the items necessary. I'm wondering if anyone else who moved to Nova Scotia from the US could give me a ball park figure of how much you paid for movers, where you moved from, experiences you had and recommendations for quality movers.
Just for comparisons sake, we'll be moving only two bedrooms, an office, and livingroom, plus kitchen items.
I moved from California to Alberta. The movers packed us, picked up, and unloaded in Alberta. We unpacked ourselves. The load was a 1,800 sf 3 br house worth of goods with almost zero clutter. The movers kept commenting on how little "stuff" we had for the size of house. We also put one car (BMW 3-series) and one motorcycle on the moving truck.
I think the ending cost with insurance was a little over $14K. Of course, this was back when fuel was relatively cheap. These days, the move would probably cost $15K or $16K.
Thanks very much! I have mapquested the driving directions from our house to Halifax, and it estimated about a 9 hour drive. What fraction of your trip would you say that is, if you don't mind my asking? Also, we would be driving our own car, and someone else had posted about it costing them 2500 dollars a car for their move. Yikes! Was the cost of moving your car similar?
We moved from NC to Halifax 4 years ago...we got rid of everything and drove up with our belongings to start again, so can't help you with the cost of movers. Just a heads-up on when you get there: we had a really tough time finding short-term accommodation while we hunted for a home, so you'll be fine if you arrive with a home you've already bought, but if you don't plan on buying before moving up, I'd recommend going up for a visit a month or two before you move and finding an apartment or house to rent. I also wouldn't rent sight unseen - there are some real dumps available to rent there. We only lived there for two years - the very strong anti-American sentiment we encountered daily encouraged us to move on. Our friends from CT (who'd moved to Cda 10 years before but to Halifax at about the same time as us) have lasted 4 years and are looking to move on - they also hear anti-American stuff quite regularly.
We'll definitely be taking a couple of trips up before we rent. We'll be getting married there (before we move) and a scoping trip or two after that as well. I've actually lived in both England and Germany before as well, and I've found that there are always going to be people who have anti-American sentiments, just as I know plenty of people in the US who have various anti-immigration sentiments. Plus, generally speaking, people tend to like me. We don't mind being the people who change people's minds.
Thanks very much! I have mapquested the driving directions from our house to Halifax, and it estimated about a 9 hour drive. What fraction of your trip would you say that is, if you don't mind my asking? Also, we would be driving our own car, and someone else had posted about it costing them 2500 dollars a car for their move. Yikes! Was the cost of moving your car similar?
If I remember right, the cost of adding the car was around $2,000. There was no additional cost for the motorcycle because they considered it a "household good". The move was about a 20 hour drive. However, miles alone are just a fraction of the charges. These days, our move probably would have been around $10,000 without the car and a 9 hour drive.
As a side note, I used to live in Connecticut and miss it deeply. You are lucky to live there
A quote from NAVL, should anyone be interested....
I think you'd be surprised at CT now, depending on where you lived. The casinos have changed the area considerably, and as much as my fiance and I have LOVED it here, I don't even want my kids going to the public primary schools in our town. The CMT reports recently came out and only 1 of the schools in our area actually passed. My fiance is a teacher, this past year he worked with 6-8th grades and this year he's moving up to high school. It's been something of a shock since I moved to CT in the 6th grade and graduated high school here, to see what an emormous change the population has undergone. It's sad, really. And it's ridiculously expensive to live in a neighborhood or town where you can actually get a decent quality of education. I could ramble on forever, so I'll stop now. Although I do want to say that the high school here is phenomenal, but you can't expect to do well if you don't have the foundations of education expected when you start high school. Ah hem.
Anywho, so since no one here has actually had a similar move to what ours will be, I decided to bite the bullet and called North American Van Lines, since many of you (throughout the Canada forum) have spoken favourably of them. It would be under 900 miles, and so the "rough" quote they gave me is 3500-4500. Now, obviously my move is planned for four years from now, so they told me to expect a change from these figures to fluctuate with the price of gas, but still, 4500 is much more palatable. Bear in mind that we will be driving ourselves AND that I plan on doing the majority of the packing myself, because I am admittedly anal retentive about organization. Also, we'll be paring down significantly on certain things, so our move is going to be a 2 bed house move.
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We don't mind being the people who change people's minds.
A quote from NAVL, should anyone be interested....
And it's ridiculously expensive to live in a neighborhood or town where you can actually get a decent quality of education. I could ramble on forever, so I'll stop now. 
Although I do want to say that the high school here is phenomenal, but you can't expect to do well if you don't have the foundations of education expected when you start high school. Ah hem. 
