Essential Things To Bring To Ba When Relocating?

[Ries]

I hear all these silly warnings- and I have to laugh. I have been able to buy fresh jalapenos and similar peppers easily- at my neighborhood verduralia, and certainly in chinatown. I find all kinds of spices, including curry powders, and dried peppers. Certainly, not at the big chain supermarkets, but at more and more new stores- Piaf, on Dorrego, across from the Pulgas, for example, has a wide variety of spices and hot sauces. This may have been true ten years ago, but now, with a bit of research, you can find many things. I cook thai, indian, and mexican, and can find acceptable substitutes for most things.

As for clothes- I guess, if you only wear ultra cheap crap from Bangladesh, or designer togs from Paris, you might have trouble- but I wear a lot of argentine clothes that are well made, long lasting, and reasonably priced. There are great high end designers here that cost a fraction of what you pay in the USA (I have never been to australia, so I cant speak to that).
I find good underwear, for instance, at about 1/2 what I would pay for similar stuff in the US. I go to once, and buy wholesale, and mens shorts are 40 pesos, good quality cotton musculosas are 35 pesos- similar to what slave labor chinese stuff costs at Wallyworld, but made here in union shops.
I wear argentine work clothes in my workshop in the USA- Pampero or Ombu brands- and they are half the price I pay for Pakistani work shirts in the US, and the same or better quality.
I wear argentine shoes all the time, here and up north, and have pairs that have lasted years.

The thing is- I avoid chinese or pakistani mass produced low end crap whereever I am, and buy local, usually from small producers and designers, and, if you do that, Argentina is cheaper, and just as good.
Argentine knifemakers make incredible knives, much cheaper than the flavor of the month german or japanese chef knives.
Argentine quality is out there- you might have to look for it, but its there.

what you need to bring is the chinese crap you cant do without- apple computer adapters, electronics, stuff like that. laptops are expensive here, and the selection is bad.
and special fancy cosmetics. but most things are perfectly available here.

I bring oddball hobby stuff- because its cheaper in the USA- like my computer embroidery machine, or my knitting machine. There is no architectural tracing paper here, for some reason.

 

[johnw100]

Bring everything apart from the Kitchen sink. Actually I did bring some taps and plugs for our house, left the sink though.

 

[Ries]

I bought made in Argentina Ferrum sinks and FV grifferia, seven years ago. Zero problems, much better quality than the crap they sell at Home Depot in the USA, half the price of Kohler. My FV stuff is sand cast bronze, with a chrome plating. Most of the faucets available in the USA at higher prices are pot metal, plastic, and will leak in a few years.
I bought a Franke/Spar kitchen sink, made in Argentina, stainless steel, swiss design. Again, great quality, 1/3 the price, at the time, in 2008, of a similar sink in the USA.

So, no, I wouldnt bother with the kitchen sink.

it is true that the quality, and price, of refridgerators is bad in argentina- so, by all means, bring a large fridge/freezer combo in your carryon luggage.

OH- and a car. You should definitely pack an automobile. You may need to pay an additional fee for oversize luggage, but it would be worth it. Cars here are fiendishly expensive. Used cars are often the same price as new. Selection is limited, and spares hard to come by. I would recommend several years worth of brake pads, oil filters, tires, and, of course, several hundred gallons of motor oil.

 

[johnw100]

I bought made in Argentina Ferrum sinks and FV grifferia, seven years ago. Zero problems, much better quality than the crap they sell at Home Depot in the USA, half the price of Kohler. My FV stuff is sand cast bronze, with a chrome plating. Most of the faucets available in the USA at higher prices are pot metal, plastic, and will leak in a few years.
I bought a Franke/Spar kitchen sink, made in Argentina, stainless steel, swiss design. Again, great quality, 1/3 the price, at the time, in 2008, of a similar sink in the USA.

So, no, I wouldnt bother with the kitchen sink.

it is true that the quality, and price, of refridgerators is bad in argentina- so, by all means, bring a large fridge/freezer combo in your carryon luggage.

OH- and a car. You should definitely pack an automobile. You may need to pay an additional fee for oversize luggage, but it would be worth it. Cars here are fiendishly expensive. Used cars are often the same price as new. Selection is limited, and spares hard to come by. I would recommend several years worth of brake pads, oil filters, tires, and, of course, several hundred gallons of motor oil.

Well I dont know about the U.S but I brought 5 taps and 5 sink wastes over from the UK to Argentina because they were a 1/4 of the price of the brands in Argentina and better quality. The ferrum wastes were horrible plastic that would snap if you overtighten them. I bought bronze popup wastes for £6 a go from the Uk. We also brought ferrum toilets locally. Two ferrum toilets have broken parts in the internals which required replacing in the first couple of years and a broken lid.

Unfortuantly pretty much everything is inferior quality and more expensive here, apart from beef and wine. Even big brand names like Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Black and Decker,Electrolux, etc use inferior parts for their products here but cost more than back home.

 

[TomAtAlki]

Well I dont know about the U.S but I brought 5 taps and 5 sink wastes over from the UK to Argentina because they were a 1/4 of the price of the brands in Argentina and better quality. The ferrum wastes were horrible plastic that would snap if you overtighten them. I bought bronze popup wastes for £6 a go from the Uk. We also brought ferrum toilets locally. Two ferrum toilets have broken parts in the internals which required replacing in the first couple of years and a broken lid.

Unfortuantly pretty much everything is inferior quality and more expensive here, apart from beef and wine. Even big brand names like Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Black and Decker,Electrolux, etc use inferior parts for their products here but cost more than back home.

I don't agree with you at all. If you do your homework and search out for the good stuff it's all here. Stay away from Jumbo & Easy. It takes time, every purchase becomes an adventure for us, but what else do we have to do with our time?
Nancy

 

[Ries]

I think the key is to avoid "big brand names".
Because anything imported is going to be very expensive.

instead, buy local. Maybe the UK is different- in the USA, what I think you mean by "popup wastes" are horrible cheap plastic things, until you get up around three hundred dollar faucet and drain sets. No six pound bronze in the USA- more like sixty.

Anyway- to the original poster- imports, all imports, in Argentina, are currently very scarce, and expensive when you can find them. So, if there are particular brands of anything you MUST have, be it shoes or tampons or underwear, tea kettles or rice cookers, makeup or hair products, tea bags or seasonings, by all means, if they fit, bring em.

If you are adventurous, and willing to try new things, there are local substitutes for most things. Argentines live pretty well, albeit with a limited palate of tastes in food, and there are most civilized comforts here, just not exactly the SAME ones as in Australia.

 

[johnw100]

I think the key is to avoid "big brand names".
Because anything imported is going to be very expensive.

instead, buy local. Maybe the UK is different- in the USA, what I think you mean by "popup wastes" are horrible cheap plastic things, until you get up around three hundred dollar faucet and drain sets. No six pound bronze in the USA- more like sixty.

Anyway- to the original poster- imports, all imports, in Argentina, are currently very scarce, and expensive when you can find them. So, if there are particular brands of anything you MUST have, be it shoes or tampons or underwear, tea kettles or rice cookers, makeup or hair products, tea bags or seasonings, by all means, if they fit, bring em.

If you are adventurous, and willing to try new things, there are local substitutes for most things. Argentines live pretty well, albeit with a limited palate of tastes in food, and there are most civilized comforts here, just not exactly the SAME ones as in Australia.

No the popup wastes dont have any plastic in them apart from the seals, theyre all brass. Search for popup or click clack. I`ve been using them for years, here you`ll pay £30-£40 in the uk theyre £5.
And I`m an ex-bathroom/kitchen fitter I know my stuff and i`ve done installs here and the quality of goods for the same prices is far worse. You can get decent stuff here but it costs 4x as much.

 

[johnw100]

I don't agree with you at all. If you do your homework and search out for the good stuff it's all here. Stay away from Jumbo & Easy. It takes time, every purchase becomes an adventure for us, but what else do we have to do with our time?
Nancy

Can you give an example because I`m failing to find anything thats better here or is ridiculously expensive.
I try and do my homework on everything, I would spend an hour on the net looking for reviews for a friggin kettle to make sure its ok. For example we had a Panasonic 32" tv back home, I bought the same model out here because theyre a few years behind here, but i knew it was a decent tv. I was expecting the same quality, it looks the same but its not. Its much slower to turn on and change channels. Half the functions are missing from the menus and it has only 2 hdmi instead of 4 of our one back home. And it cost more.
I could reel off pages of similar experiences with things we`ve bought here that are inferior but cost more and i`m talking 3-4 years ago when things were cheaper.

 

[Ries]

This is definitely another of those cases of two countries separated by a common language- at least partially.
While I am not a professional, I have built a dozen or so bathrooms and kitchens myself, and am responsible for a good ten sinks at any time, with my various properties. So I have done plenty of plumbing installation and repair.
In the US, we dont commonly use what you call a "waste popup"- but they are available, and the cheapest ones are roughly 20 UK pounds.

As far as things that are better and cheaper here than in the USA (again, I cannot speak for the UK)
I regularly buy, and transport north, all kinds of fabrics and yarns, particularly natural fibers- the Argentine textile industry is pretty strong. Knitting yarns average about 1/3 US prices for equivalent quality. Many locally woven fabrics, again, natural fibers, are half the price or less of US.
I buy shoes here- usually half price, often much less.
For instance, hand made to order shoes at Correa here are a tiny fraction of John Lobb prices- I believe Lobb now is well over 5200 pounds PLUS 20% VAT, for a pair of leather shoes. Correa is well below ten percent of that.
All kinds of similar comparisons for leather jackets, belts, horse tack, and the sort.
Even off the rack shoes are often half the price or less of what I would pay up north. I stopped buying John Fluevogs, from Vancouver, when the basic mens shoes rose above $200, many of his nicer boots are in the $300 to $400 range. Similar shoes here are 1/4 to 1/3 the price.

I buy some tools here- needles, scissors, hand tools- there are good local brands. Again, I avoid imports.
There are some pretty decent machine tools made here, as the imported ones are so hard to get. I have friends in the USA who are knifemakers who would love to have one of these- http://www.scacnc.com.ar/scacnc_006.htm
shipping was the killer- base price in argentina is about half what a similar US machine costs.
As stated above, I buy work clothes here.

Obviously, antiques of all sorts are a steal. Compared to US prices for similar quality, furniture, lighting, and plates and glasses are incredibly cheap.
I just saw a very nice anvil, about 200 kg., at about a quarter the going price in the USA for a similar used anvil. But more beautiful, probably italian or german and 100 years old.
Jewelry here is very reasonable, mid century modern furniture at well below world prices for the same pieces.

Thats just a few things off the top of my head.
I have been in a fair amount of small, family owned manufacturers here who produce quality goods, often because imports are unavailable, that simply dont exist in the USA, where cheap asian imports have swamped the market and put all kinds of companies out of business. Wood, metal, textiles, there are lots of small local producers that do things the old fashioned way.

 

[Montauk_Project]

From Australia--tea tree oil. you can find it here but not common and will be more expensive. Any cosmetic or cream that you really need. They have tons of them here and some are very good, but it may not be exactly the same. For example, I have very pale skin and it is harder to find cosmetics here for that tone, and the only make up I use (every once in a while) is called bare minerals and impossible to find here.
If you are a woman, bras as most here come only in one cup size, cup size B. Have not been able to find good sports bras.
Bathing suites. Tons here, but what they like to use here might not be to your liking. I have a hard time finding a "conservative" bikini here. In fact, have never found one. Or a one piece that doesn´t scream "grand ma". If you like tiny bikinis, then you are in luck!
Small electronic stuff, like a reading light, you can find here but will be expensive.
A kindle or another E reader. This is a lifeline if you like to read as you can get all your English language books and newspapers on it. You can buy a kindle here, but more expensive (about twice as much).
Remember, you will find it hard/impossible to get packages.