Turban Explorer

Where are you heading to? It's still perfectly doable but you'll need a job pretty damned fast and probably won't get to do a great deal of travelling in between working. I'd save what you can here and then go and have fun in Asia for a while afterwards.

bcworld

Yeah...I reckon there's a lot more W and a lot less H in WHV these days!

renth

I bet there's still loads of shagging though.

bcworld

Well it's free* aint it!

*certain streets in St Kilda excepted

Paul2412

Sydney of all places to start with!

Although the plan always was to do more work than holiday, as we are using it as a extended trial run to see if we would like to live there.

For the first few months, it'll be a case of getting a flatshare at about $300 per week (plenty available on Gumtree), I've also got some hours I can do for my work back here which would cover that and then my partner has registered for NSW to teach which has all come through and I'm a Microsoft .NET developer. According to several recruitment agencies and contacts I've got, the short term contract market for .NET is very strong in Sydney at the moment.

I'm just hoping we can find some work which will fund our year, otherwise we could be heading back early.

moneypenny20

Why don't people use the WHV as it was meant to be used anymore? Not knocking anyone, just think it's sad when there's a perfect excuse to get out there, explore, have a blast and do things they've never done before all they want to do is live in the same old same old.

Paul2412

We'll be doing that as well for at least 3 or 4 months, but I find it strange that some people re-locate to a country at the other side of the world after spending just a couple of weeks out there first.

moneypenny20

You think that's weird? We didn't even do a couple of weeks out here first. Well we did come over to the other side back in the early 80s but not sure that counts.

slapphead_otool

I also think everyone is missing an important point. Australian assets are physical. They sit underground, just like gold in Fort Knox, or oil in the desert. They will not go away or deteriorate.

Much of the rest of the world relies upon created assets - tourism, banking and financial, and manufacturing. They rely upon continuity to survive. It's hard to mothball a car industry in Detriot, or a financial sector in London.

Until the recent loss of confidence this didn't really matter, but now the advantages of investing in Australia are obvious. Sooner or later you will need that bauxite, or copper, or whatever. You know where it is, and how much of it exists. It's a very safe bet for the future.

chris955

So Australias 3.1% inflation rate is low but the UK's 4.2 is moderately high

chris955

Hopefully on the day we change our house sale money

carling black label

The UK's domestic inflation rate is....................

Jan 2012:

Total pay (including bonuses) rose by 1.9 per cent on a year earlier....

Five year moving average all....

The ONS says over the last 5 years wages have gone up by 13.1% in the UK...

How does that compare to real Australia.....

Domestic interest rates are a blunt tool to control domestic inflation (wages) not speculation in commodities......

Hot money is flowing into Australia chasing higher yields, chasing rentiers money; chasing free money for doing nothing but sitting on capital...

chris955

Dont know how it compares really, like many I am self employed so wage rises don't apply but it makes no difference to me anyway. I found loads of stuff keep in the UK and others things cheaper here, swings and roundabouts.

bcworld

$A increasingly popular with central banks

The Australian dollar is becoming increasingly attractive to foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds as they try to reduce their exposure to under-performing US and European currencies.

Russia's central bank has flagged it may begin adding Australian dollars to its foreign currency reserves as early as February

.....

As a result the Australian dollar was likely to trade higher, on average, for the next five years.

"I think the reality in Australia is that we should get used to the fact that the trend in the Aussie dollar has changed," Mr Oliver said.

"The Aussie dollar is likely to stay here for the next five or 10 years."

chris955

Maybe $1.30 WOOHOO