Day 33 - Packing Boxes

We are now officially packing boxes. I am working on my bookshelf which has hundreds of books. Most of which I am getting rid of. Keeping some that mean a lot or that I use a lot for research, but most of them I am giving to the used book store. This way they find a good second home.

Funny thing is that a lot of my books came from the used book store. So I guess I just borrowed them for the long term.

When packing for a move to Costa Rica, you have to have a manifest so that the duty people in country know what you have and they can determine what they will need to charge tax wise.

If you are using a shipper that goes door to door, meaning that they bring the container to you in the US to pack up and then bring it to Costa Rica to unpack. The shipping service we are using "Ship Costa Rica" handles everything for us, including the duty and taxes as well as dealing with port issues and customs. The average price for this door to door service is about $10K. This also depends on the type of container you get.

To learn more about the shipping company we are using check http://www.shipcostarica.com/

It isn't a fancy website, but they respond to your email in a pretty timely manner, and that is a good thing when it comes to doing business with your shipper.

As I stated, you need to create a manifest of all your goods that you are shipping. It will help your shipper with all the customs issues.

We have created a simple Excel file which has the following information set up in columns ...

- Item #  / Box #

- Condition

- Contents

- Model ( if applicable) Most electronic items need to have their make and model recorded

- Serial Number ( if applicable) Most electronic items need to have their serial number noted

- Value

You start with box #1 give the condition being New or Used, what the items are in the box. IE books, since books have no make, model, serial number you can skip that, but then you put a real world garage sale value.

NOTE - this is the value that customs will use to tax your items so you need to have a realistic value that you could get at an average garage sale. Do not jack up the price of your items, it will hurt you in the long run.

Once you pack your box, tape it up really good. Put an the ID # on it as in Box #1 and have it correspond in the manifest.

Day 38 - So Much Stuff

In 1986, George Carlin first performed his “stuff” routine for Comic Relief, humorously telling us the hard truth about the things in our homes.

Here is how George Carlin sums it all up...

"A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff."

And over the last 11 years, we have accumulated a lot "o" stuff.

We have a 20 foot container because we did not want to take a lot of the stuff that we have here.

So we have been selling a lot of our stuff, giving stuff away, and throwing stuff away.

We sold all our survival food. We had enough to feed 4 people for about a year. That helped make a dent, but not much. 

Got rid of  our can shelf, our 55 gallon water drums, and some of our other survival gear.

Our daughter and grand kids live with us. Because of that, we have a lot of baby stuff.

The nice thing is that we are taking some of our baby stuff to a friend so that they can build up their pile of baby stuff as we reduce our pile of stuff.

Even with all this stuff being sold and given away, we still have a lot of stuff.

Oh, here is a tip. You know all those books, DVDs, CDs and stuff like that? There is a great place called "Half Price Books" and they will gladly buy all this stuff from you. Now it is pennies on the dollar, but it is better than throwing the stuff away and not getting anything.

Stuff sold is always a good thing.

We are trying to sell our couch, which if we can get rid of it, it will give us room to stage stuff that we want take with us in the container.

Are you looking for a couch? It is pretty nice stuff. 

46 Days and counting - OUR SHIPPER

If you are coming to Costa Rica, then by all means you want to hire a reputable shipper.

We did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people on the forums.

One name kept coming up.

That company was "Ship Costa Rica"

The owner of the company is named Barry, but our contact was Arden Brink.

What is wonderful about Arden is that she is also the author of a very well known expat book

"Unraveling the Mysteries of Moving to Costa Rica: Real stories from real people, what we've learned and how it can help you!"

You can ORDER HERE from Amazon

Arden has been a HUGE help and I want to recommend her book. It is full of great information and detail for anyone who is moving to Costa Rica.

In fact, I recommend it if you are moving anywhere in Central America. It will give you a lot to think about and information that you can us no matter where you are moving.

I wanted to share with you what "Ship Costa Rica" is going to do for us....

-- bring the container on the chassis to your door in New Braunfels
-- wait three hours while you load it,
-- take it to the port,
-- ship it to San Jose,
-- provide US customs export papers,
-- provide all shipping and import papers,
-- obtain MAG and Minae permits as needed,
-- arrange dock transfers,
-- manage the Costa Rican duty calculations,
-- pay the duty on the household goods,
-- handle customs inspection and release,
-- pay the bonded warehouse fees, and
-- deliver to you with men to unload the truck into your house in Atenas
-- All inclusive, no extras, no surprises.

Folks, when you think about it, they are doing a lot.

We know of other expats who have used "Ship Costa Rica" and they were very pleased as well.

There are a lot of ways you can get your personal items down to Costa Rica and yes you can save a buck or two too. But you really want to find someone who will take care of the details for you.

I am one who believes in hiring a professional to do a professional job. You do not want your personal items to be held up in customs or waiting on duty or such. Barry, Arden and the great staff at "Ship Costa Rica" have that covered.

They are truly "All Inclusive, No Extra and NO  SURPRISES."

At least we hope so. We have been really pleased with the personal service we have gotten from them so far.

What Arden and the folks at "Ship Costa Rica" have done is allowed us to place our faith in them and their word that they will see that out items we are taking to Costa Rica will safely get there.

Continue to follow Tracye and I as we will blog more about our personal effects, as well as everything else involved in our relocation to Costa Rica.

Pura Vida!