Please help me figure out whether to come with nothing or ship nada do how! Moving next month (Honolulu: fit in, apartments)

[AlohafromNJ]

Hi everybody,
My husband and I are moving to Oahu next month. I've sold off a lot of our furniture, but there are still things I'd like to have shipped like our cookware, clothing, vacuum cleaner, keyboard and there's an ottoman I love, a few knick nacks and some toiletries, etc. I have a bed that I'd ship if it's feasable.

Matson only ships full containers. It's approximately $8200 to ship a container from NJ to HI. I'm not sure I have $8k worth of stuff to ship. Maybe. I do have couches and rugs and two TVs and stands as well as a nice bed and a buffet that I love..but dang $8200. Might make sense to sell it all and get used once I get there.

Pods offers one for $7000 door to door with storage for two months.

So my question is......I saw a person say they shipped a "pallet", but Matson doesn't offer this. How do I get this?
Do we bring everything or nothing? Or just a pallet?

We don't have a place to live yet, so storage is optimal, but if not, my family will have my stuff shipped once we get settled, or I'll come back and handle it in a few months. Most likely have my family do it if they're still willing.

Thank you for the help in advance. I am so freaking overwhelmed and only have one more month until we leave. I'm looking forward to this all being over with and finally being there. It's freezing over here!

[whtviper1]

Personally, I'd bring as much as possible - including furniture. Everything is more expensive here and often not as good as quality as the mainland. Assuming you are getting jobs, the move is tax deductible - which can add up to a lot of savings.

[hawaiian by heart]

No one can tell you what to do, thats based on your own value system. But to be honest i don't know what your savings is or if you have a job lined up or not? But you hear on CDF Hawaii about the cost of living(its true) and most have learned to live with less(also true) then on mainland. Further another element you don't hear alot about on CDF Hawaii and had been my personal experience is people in Hawaii often spend less time indoors at home because its gorgeous outside and also apartments tend to be far smaller then on the mainland.

My suggestion is to take into account the size of your apartment your moving into when making your choice. Think about the more savings you have the longer you can holdout if things get rough and get used to living more simple.

But whtviper1 does make a point that things are more expensive here and quality is sometimes not as good, further i really don't know what your emotional attachment to your stuff is, if you do have attachment?

Pg 1/2

[hawaiian by heart]

Pg 2/2

Try fake shopping online at stores in Hawaii for the things your thinking of leaving behind and will fit into your new place. Compare if its cheaper then $8200, then start over. But once again i don't know all your details.

[ScottStielow]

I agree to bring as much furniture as you can due to the cost to replace.
I do not know where you lived until now, Apartment, townhouse or single family home.
When you look for a place rent is real expensive. So the more Square feet and bedrooms
increases the cost, along with the area.

[honobob]

Look for a LCL consolidator (less than container load). I shipped from CA for about $500 a pallet only things that I treasured or knew I could not get in Honolulu. If you are not 110% sure you will be staying then I'd double your shipping costs to determine if it's worth it.

I would max the luggage coming over but otherwise we have plenty of stores that sell crap. I can't imagine what you would be bringing from NJ that would be appropriate here. Check the Craigslist sales. Check the Friday nite bulk pick up in Waikiki.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

We moved over with a 20foot container from Matson, which we were lucky enough to share with someone else moving from Denver at the same time, so I don't have personal experience on the other kinds of shipping.

But, there have been discussions here about PODs and pallets, so maybe you could do a forum search. Or, just Google pallet shipping to Hawaii, I'm sure you'll find lots of information.

I know that people have talked about selling everything before you move to Hawaii because so many people are selling stuff that they don't want to ship back to the mainland. For me it was just a matter of convenience -- I didn't want to spend the time chasing down stuff on Craigslist and I don't have a pick-up to haul stuff around.

[LSLBlues]

We went with 8 suitcases and 6 u haul medium boxes. It is very easy to cheaply replace things if you are patient and look for bargains. Tons of people are moving so there are great deals at moving sales. We furnished our house for way less than $8200. Somehow when we moved back to the mainland we had 22 boxes!?!?!?

[hunterseat]

Originally Posted by LSLBlues

We went with 8 suitcases and 6 u haul medium boxes. It is very easy to cheaply replace things if you are patient and look for bargains. Tons of people are moving so there are great deals at moving sales. We furnished our house for way less than $8200. Somehow when we moved back to the mainland we had 22 boxes!?!?!?

That sounds reasonable to me. I was there a year (I know everyone's wondering when I'm going to stop posting here). We thought we'd be there a year or two. If we could do it over we'd have stored some of our beloved stuff we got rid of. We came with nothing. We left with nothing. So we bought and sold... or sold, bought sold.... and bought again when we got here to Atlanta.

Someone mentioned how small some of the living spaces are on Oahu. That's something to consider.

[AlohafromNJ]

Thanks for all of the advice. I think we will sell everything and store the rest here on the mainland incase things don't work out. I don't anticipate that, but just incase. We aren't selling our 2 bedroom condo here. We are used to a relatively small space (1200 square feet) and are in the frame of mind that we may have to get a 600-800 sq ft apartment there.

I'll definitely max our luggage on the plane for sure, great advice. Ill probably sell our TVs, furniture here. I was just confused about purchasing another bed. We spent over $3k on our mattress alone. But it's king sized and probably won't fit over there.

I think I can probably furnish our small apartment there for under $8k. As it is, most of our furniture is relatively cheap from cheaper furniture stores and some from target as well. My beloved ottoman and buffet and keyboard are the few things that really meant something to me and my bed as well. I love my bed. But those things together are not worth $8k. We are going to ship our cookware for sure. Gotta figure out the pallet thing. Good advice above and I appreciate it, thank you very much for your replies.