I need help not paying $10,000 to ship all our wordly belongings home :)

Have you tried going directly to the actual shipping lines themselves
Maersk
APL
Hanjin
OOCL
Evergreen
K-Line

Just a few of the bigger shipping lines there are, but can give you names of others if needed.

Might be cheaper to sell on what furniture you have in Canada and buy new in ireland, than paying the cost of shipping it all

I've done it three times in the last 5 years, most recently back in February. Each time between Dublin & California.
I used a company called Suddath.
They charged based on weight, the last time it was $4000. This was only for 2 adults clothing, some sports equip, kitchen utensils and a small amount of furniture. The time before was April 2014, we moved the contents of a 1 bed apartment. My employer covered the cost but I know it was over $10000.
Each time it took roughly 8 weeks.

Every time I was told not to pack anything at all. The guys that come out have to document everything for insurance and customs.
All the guys we had where careful when packing everything into the boxes, anything valuable or delicate was well protected.
The whole process is not as bad as you may think except for the 8 weeks travel time.

I'm a firm believer in the "keep it, it might come in handy" philosophy, but having tortured myself and the family to move the contents of our house once, I wouldn't do it again. We still have stuff in boxes twelve years later that we were on the "must keep" list, and I'd say 90% of the furniture we brought is in the garage, either because it didn't go/fit/work in the new house, or because we replaced it with something better/more suitable afterwards.

Unless the items have real sentimental or financial value, you'd probably be better off using this as an opportunity to aggressively de-clutter!

How much did you pay?? I just want to ship some paintings and some personal possessions too.

maura2e wrote: »

I don't know if this is of help, but I moved home to Clare from US this time last year and found Liffey Van Lines out of NYC so helpful with the whole process. They ship to Ireland all the time and couldn't have been more helpful. This was the one thing I thought was going to be so difficult and stressful to deal with, but it wasn't at all. My things arrived in early Jan & went through customs without a hitch! I only sent personal possessions, no furniture though.

I'm note sure if they ship from Canada but they might be able to give you some useful information on who does.

Have you found a place to live already and measured the place? Asking as you're moving furniture and North American houses can be much bigger than some European ones and you don't want to be caught out with an American King size bed (which is NOT the same as an European King!) which won't fit in your bedroom.

Just seeing your reply now as Im not on here very much but am posting a response should others find it useful. I shipped 10 large (~3.5 ft long by 2ft high) plastic containers that I packed myself with clothes, books, personal possessions & also shipped my bike and the cost was $500! I did pay to rent a van to transport it all to their depot in Manhattan and that cost an additional $200, so all in all I thought it was very reasonable. In hindsight I wish I hadn't brought all the books but instead all my kitchen utensils, dishes, etc. as those things are more expensive to buy here.