60 Days Until We Move; Container Conundrum
We are now 60 days until liftoff! Eeek!
The majority of information we have about an international move has been gleaned from Facebook Groups, so sometimes, the information we anticipated turns out to be...inaccurate.
All along, our plan has been:
-Buy a One-Trip, 20' container;
-Fill it with the things we have to take with us. Essentially no furniture, but tools, bikes, garden equipment, fishing/sports gear, cat trees, etc.
-Keep the container after the move; repurpose it as a swimming pool in our to-be-built home.
A 20' Container here in landlocked Phoenix runs about $4-4,500. Even if we didn't use it as a pool, the demand for 20' containers in excellent condition is strong in Belize, so we could likely sell it for close to what we paid for it.
LANDLOCKED is the key word.
Speaking with a few international shippers, they have told me that the cost to get a container from Phoenix to Houston will be more expensive than if we shipped our goods to Houston, and they packed a container there.
That throws a major wrench in our plan, as we figured when a container dropped at our home, we would ensure we pack it to the gills, and we'd be able to add in little convenience items, maybe a pallet of Cheez-Its, you know - necessities.
On top of that, I am being quoted roughly $6,000US to get the volume of a 20' container from Houston to our door in San Pedro, or about $9,000US if it's in our own container.
What's the difference...?
The $6k version, our goods will consolidate in with other shippers' goods, into a 40' container. The negatives I see here are:
-Potential for our stuff to be erroneously delivered to someone else - a few boxes here and there;
-Our items would be delivered by box truck all at once - meaning, scramble to find where to store it all immediately, instead of leisurely unloading one box at a time from the container, at our own pace.
-We won't be able to store items in the container that we won't need in the Villa, but will want at the new home.
-Our Realtor Extraordinaire, Kristian Guerrero, quickly talked us out of using the container as a pool. Even a One-Trip will rust, so don't build anything out of something that will rust on an island!
Do those potential negatives offset a $3,000 price difference? They do not. Not for us, not right now. Not when we were expecting the shipment of goods to cost considerably less. Those prices do not include duty of 40% for used household goods, by the way.
By contrast, the last experiences I had with shipping containers was in 2013. With my Home Furnishing Company, I designed and imported my own line of furniture from India. It's a little further away from Phoenix than Belize. I was shipping a 40' container from Jodhpur, India to Phoenix, AZ for around $11,000. That's twice as many cubic feet and four times the distance traveled, and that included duty paid.
We are experiencing some sticker shock.
My new mission is to determine if it's more cost-effective to ship our goods to L.A. (that portion is much cheaper!) to be consolidated and shipped. My presumption is from L.A., the cargo ship goes through the Panama Canal, so that's a longer water ride than Houston to Belize City. I have contacted two shippers in L.A.; they have not been forthcoming with pricing. I am also waiting to hear back if we consolidate with others' goods, does everything have to be in a box? Of course every item will have our name, address, contact info on it on a sticker, in at least 2 spots - but we have some items that won't easily fit in a box, like ladders, cat trees, deck boxes...
So, more stress, more re-routing of our plan....it's an adventure!