Can I bring all my food from the cupboard with me?

[feebee]

Me and my boyfriend are relocating to Singapore in the next couple of months and we need to shut down our life in the UK quite quickly.
We have a large store of food (tins, jars, packets etc), all non-perishable and unopened - can we bring them with us??
His company is paying for the relocation costs, so it seems a waste to leave everything behind.

[BigSis]

yes, you can bring it all. I brought all my spices and things and there was no problem with that.

[feebee]

Thanks! That is great news - I may be tempted to stock up even more now!

[scarbowl]

Just in case you are wondering, we do have plenty of food and some great grocery stores here. Likely less expensive than in the UK.

[februus]

Just in case you are wondering, we do have plenty of food and some great grocery stores here. Likely less expensive than in the UK.

The costs comparison varies depending upon what you are buying, some items here are astronomically expensive - it is still cheaper for example for us to ship baby milk from the UK by air than it is to buy it here (excluding some chinese brands where the costs are comparable, but the less said about them the better)

One word of warning, your moving company may not allow you to move anything that has been opened because of potentially encouraging rat infestations on the ship. This might stop you shipping some items (such as spices) depending upon how picky they are.

[missis]

Also, if you're moving this time of the year, the temperature in your container could reach extremely high temperatures. Don't bring anything that's already open. Spices - you can pick up all you need in large bags in Mustafa's for less than 50p each! (Little India)
Tins should be ok I think....

[BigSis]

I don't think you'll need to buy more stuff - just bring what you've got to save wasting it.

The only thing we bring back from the UK these days are beef oxo cubes (because you can get the others here but not beef) and blackcurrant lemsip!

Pretty much everything else you can get here.

[feebee]

OK. I won't go tooooo crazy and buy more stuff here.
I was out there recently checking out the place and did lots of investigations of like for like things, and it seemed with the exchange rate that everything was much cheaper in the UK, with the exception of soy sauce!

Don't know if that is only because the pound is quite weak against the Singapore dollar at the moment, or if Western food is just generally more expensive.

Would you recommend bringing any alcohol ( we also have a stock of that) or is it quite expensive for duty?

Thanks
Fee

[sundaymorningstaple]

OK. I won't go tooooo crazy and buy more stuff here.
I was out there recently checking out the place and did lots of investigations of like for like things, and it seemed with the exchange rate that everything was much cheaper in the UK, with the exception of soy sauce!

Don't know if that is only because the pound is quite weak against the Singapore dollar at the moment, or if Western food is just generally more expensive.

Would you recommend bringing any alcohol ( we also have a stock of that) or is it quite expensive for duty?

Thanks
Fee

http://www.customs.gov.sg/leftNav/trad/ ... +Goods.htm

[nakatago]

Duty-free booze: only 3 liters total and in only the following combinations:

* 1 L spirit, 1 L wine, 1 L beer
* 2 L wine, 1 L beer
* 1 L wine, 2 L beer

When you go outside of Singapore/Malaysia for more than 48 hours, you could always pass by Duty-Free to buy the poison of your choice to "get around" the significantly hiked up booze prices.

reference: http://www.customs.gov.sg/leftNav/trav/ ... ssions.htm

[BigSis]

we shipped 3 cases of wine when we moved here and declared it and they didn't charge us duty. This was quite a few years ago and I don't know if the rules have changed but if you check the sites that SMS and nakatago have linked you might be able to find out what you could get charged per bottle if they decided to charge you. It might still work out cheaper.

I bought a couple of bottles of cheap French wine last night and they were $14.95 each which is a real bargain over here (they're the kind of vinos that would cost about £4 in the UK) - so if you use that as a kind of guide, you can work out if your booze is worth shipping (bearing in mind that any decent wines are probably going to be $25 and upwards). The cheapest bottle of spirits you'll get in the supermarket is around $38 unless they're doing a special offer and they're the equivalent of those supermarket spirits that you get in the UK which would be around £8 per bottle so it is much more expensive here (named brands of spirits such as Absolute, Gordons etc are usually $50 and upwards).

Yes, Western food is much more expensive as they have to ship it all over here. If you ate an Asian diet you'd save $$$s but most of us have cravings for Western food from time to time. Chicken and pork are the cheapest kinds of meat and fish from this area is cheap (prawns are great value compared to the UK for instance). You have to adapt if you want to save money and occasionally 'splurge' out on things like M&S fish fingers if you're feeling a bit homesick

[februus]

it seemed with the exchange rate that everything was much cheaper in the UK, with the exception of soy sauce!

Amazingly, my wife managed to ship soy sauce from the UK. She assures me it was just scooped up with everything else in the kitchen. I am keeping a close eye on where the rice is coming from these days...

[JR8]

KC Dat scooped up our anonymous rubber front doot mat from outside our house and it got packed together with my PC. When I unpacked that box I was looking at the thing wondering what the hell it was til the missus chipped in.

I wouldn't bother bringing alcohol. If your container is 'on top' for a couple of weeks the contents are going to get well boiled... £2000 Latour '82 > 20 cent red wine vinegar

Only thing we had to chuck here on arrival (food-wise) was jars of pickled herring. If the pressure buttons are up on jars, chuck em. Be alert to that.

Yes alcohol is pricey in SG. Crikey e0.29 for a half litre of good beer at my corner shop in Berlin, what, $3.5+ in Singapore? But Asians don't drink do they (lol), only foreigners... so it's just a targeted tax at foreigners and reprobates...