Extreme Couponing: Foreign Service Edition

Many of you will remember our seeing pictures of our piles and piles of stuff waiting to be packed up so we could move to China. Well, all that "stuff" has finally arrived. After three, almost four weeks of delays, our Household Effects finally made to us.

The night before our stuff was to be delivered, PM and I were saying that we don't even know what all is in the boxes and we really hope we don't have boxes of stuff sitting around our entire time in China because we have no place to put the stuff. I watched it all get taken away in DC, but I still didn't know what it would look like when it got here. If it was a lot more, less, or the same, as what I remember.

Around 9:00 am, I got a phone call that the truck was downstairs and ready to be unloaded. I was to go down to certify that our wooden shipping crate hadn't been opened since the US (very unlikely that is true as our stuff has to pass through customs), but I was excited to see just how big the crate was.

Our crate of stuff. Exciting!

PM was busy with projects at work, so he didn't want to take the day off to help get all of our stuff, so I tackled it by myself. The movers here were awesome. They hauled everything inside and as they were bringing boxes into the apartment, I was given a sheet to check to make sure all the boxes arrived. I commented part way through that half the boxes were labeled "wine glasses", which I found funny as we don't own that many wine glasses. Either the movers in D.C. packed them one per box or they were just not very creative in their labeling. 

Once all the boxes were in, we noticed that we had two #13s, two #26s, one unmarked box, and no #25 box. Hmmm.... either someone in D.C. can't count or something wasn't right here! I decided not to have the movers unpack each and every box and put things away because I didn't know where anything was going to go and in case I didn't have it all done by Saturday when people were coming over, I would rather have boxes sitting around than piles of stuff. The movers left and I was left to figure out what was going on with our double numbers and missing box and such.

All the boxes piled up in the spare bedroom.

I decided to start by assessing the boxes to see what was what. While doing so, I noticed some of the labeling on them was interesting. A special prize to anyone who can decipher what "Kitchen: Food spaoy" is!

By the end of delivery day, I had conquered most of the boxes and moved stuff to the rooms I thought it would go to. PM came home to quite the organized mess and piles of boxes.

By the end of day two, everything was all put away and mostly organized. I think we have one box left unopened of summer clothes that we aren't wearing now, but other than that, everything is in its place. The thing that took the longest to organize was our consumables. Guangzhou isn't a post that gives you an extra consumables shipment as you really can buy everything here. However, we were warned that certain things were expensive and of poor quality, and since we had lots of leftover weight, we decided to ship our own. I now feel like we are on Extreme Couponing as we have a toiletries store in our house. But don't worry, if you come to visit, we got you covered on shampoo, conditioner, mouthwash, and almost everything else!

Remember how we were missing box #25. Well, after opening all the others (which were all our stuff), we discovered several items were missing, and I must assume they are in that box. The funny part is, despite half our boxes being labeled "wine glasses", what are we missing? All of our red wine glasses! We are in the process of trying to locate that box, otherwise, I guess we will head out and buy some new ones as a house isn't a home without wine glasses.

"Too Much Stuff" Club

This past week has been a busy one for PM and I. While others were enjoying their long weekend relaxing, we were busy getting ready for the movers to come today. We thought of ourselves as people who don't have much stuff. Well, when you pile it all together in the corner of your apartment and watch the piles grow from a corner to a wall to half our apartment, we started to rethink that with the help of several apartment maintenance employees who weren't shy about holding back their thoughts about how much stuff we have. I felt the need to try and defend myself for why we had that much stuff. I explained we would be gone for two years. I explained about our consumables (shampoo, lotion, laundry soap, toothpaste, etc for two years), but I was still faced with heads shaking about how much stuff we had. 

I looked at those piles a little differently after those conversations. Where did this all come from? A year ago, we were both were able to place all of our earthly possessions into two 50 lbs suitcases each. And now, our apartment looks like this! What happened? Then I thought, well, we did get married, so there are quite a few wedding presents here. And we do have a large amount of consumables. I glance back at the piles, maybe we went overboard trying to estimate just how much shampoo and face wash we really do need for two years? It was all just a guess. Last night when turning off the lights at bedtime, I looked at those piles one more time, turned off the lights and thought, "There is nothing more I can do. I guess I will just cross my fingers and hope when the movers come in the morning it all works out alright."

This morning the piles were still there. I had kinda hoped they would disappear in the middle of the night. I know most of our stuff is useful and we definitely want it, but when you see it all piled up in one spot, there has to be a way to live with less stuff. I just happened to log onto the foreign service spouses Facebook group, and a lady had just posted about feeling embarrassed when she packs out due to the vast amounts of stuff. I guess we are now card carrying members of the "too much stuff" club.

HHE: We are allotted 7,200 lbs. This stuff will travel by boat and take around 3 months to arrive in China.

UAB: We got 450 lbs here and used it all (I had to pull more out of HHE to meet the weight limit). This stuff will travel by airplane and hopefully will get there a week or two after we arrive.

The movers show up and as I bring them to our apartment, they ask me if we have a lot of stuff. I tell them I didn't think we did, but when it's all piled together, it looks like it and I've heard comments agreeing with that. I open the door to our apartment and point to our piles. The movers take one look at these massive, heaps of stuff and ask, "Where is the rest of it." I tell them that's it. They shake their heads and say, "No. No. You have maybe 1,500 lbs of stuff. This will be easy." So I guess our membership in the "too much stuff" club had been revoked. I promise to cut up our cards immediately. Although, 1,500 lbs still seems like a lot of stuff. Maybe we better keep our cards on standby. 

Three hours later, PM and I are left with four 50 lbs suitcases, a clean apartment, and the hope that all our stuff survives its journey to the other side of the world. Bon voyage stuff! See you in China!

Nothing left but a few scraps on the floor.