Originally Posted by Luthien

Monash uni and CSIRO are in Clayton. They run shuttle buses from Huntingdale station. Takes about 35 minutes from Flinders St to uni.

Lots of skiing in Victoria http://www.visitvictoria.com/Activit...es/Skiing.aspx

If you go to Falls Creek you can stop at Brown Brother winery at milawa or do a Winery walkabout weekend in Rutherglen. Beechworth is worth a visit for the bakery.
http://www.brownbrothers.com.au/ourplace/cellardoor

http://www.beechworthbakery.com


If you are looking for things to do in the city The Wheeler Centre run regular debates and Melbourne Uni run a public lecture series

Originally Posted by Buzzy--Bee

The only reason then to come now is if the chance wasn't going to be there in the future and you end up regretting what you didn't do!

BB

Originally Posted by Trailing_Hubby

Well, this is all very stressful... Mrs TH worried we would regret it if we didn't go. Hard to weigh up the chance to try something new over opportunities in London or closer to home...

Originally Posted by Buzzy--Bee

You will only ever regret what you didn't do, not what you did.

BB

Originally Posted by moneypenny20

I think if you murdered someone by accident you could regret it. Just saying....

Originally Posted by Trailing_Hubby

Maybe if we'd murdered someone it would give us an incentive to go

Doesn't feel right. There's every chance that we will get an opportunity the same, if not better, in the future so we could still make it over.

This is a great forum though, very helpful.

Originally Posted by Trailing_Hubby

So, hello! First post, but have been lurking for a while. We are in a fortunate position and are lucky to be so, and I hope this won’t come across as flippant, but I would very much be interested to see people’s thoughts on where we are at the moment.

Bit of background – we live in London, and have a combined salary of a shade under £100k. We like it here, but have always said that we would be interested in working abroad should the opportunity arise. We don’t have that burning desire to move to Australia that some have but would love to go if we got the chance. We wouldn’t be emigrating as such, more working in a different place for a while. If it ended up permanent then so be it, but we have no kids and are pretty flexible with where we go. I’ve never been to Oz, but Mrs TH was there for a month working. I’d be comfortable moving without visiting, aware that there is no land of milk and honey and that there’ll be just as many problems there as the UK – we have our eyes open!

The offer is for Mrs TH, who currently has a much better job than me – about $120k + car + super + a flight back for her a year. The job is Clayton way, so first thoughts are to rent a flat in the CBD (some of the ones on St Kilda Road look nice on realestate) and take the train out. She loves St Kilda and the areas around there, so that’s also an option. Now, I know that this “2.5x UK salary” thing is hotly debated, but it’s obvious that simply using the exchange rate as a comparison doesn’t work. If we move we want to have the same standard of living, if not better, than we have here i.e nice flat, eating out, travelling, putting money aside etc. My first thoughts are these:

1. The offer isn’t high enough for Mrs TH. I read in a similar thread yesterday that $120k would be much like £40k in London. I know it’s all subjective and everyone spends differently, but this would effectively be a cut in “spending power.”
2. Bit worried about jobs for me. I have an ok job here, but not anything that would get me a visa on my own. I see lots of threads from people in Melbourne struggling to find work, and although I can do any number of things I think I might struggle to find something in what seems like a worsening job market. We could obviously live on the wife’s salary if it comes down to it, as we’d hardly been in poverty, and I’m sure I’d have no problem working in a bar or something, but it doesn’t really fit in with the intention to do better than we are now.
3. Not sure what the visa is. Assume it’s a 457, but we obviously need to confirm.

Further complicating matters is that she may also get an offer from a company based in Europe, which would be considerably more money. Obviously not as interesting a place to live as Melbourne, and a foreign language to make things harder to settle into, but I could go skiing every weekend…

I hope this isn’t coming across as pretentious. It’s a lot of money, but what we don’t want to do is come across and find out that we are worse off, which I think might be the case here. We know we would love living somewhere new and would embrace everything Melbourne has to offer, but with it being such an expensive place to live we want to get as much info as possible before making the decision.

Thoughts are welcome, even if it’s just to tell me it’s not all about money...

Originally Posted by Bermudashorts

Trust your instincts.

I don't buy into the "only regret what you didn't do" stuff, every decision is doing something. You could regret not going, equally you could regret going.

Originally Posted by Trailing_Hubby

Exactly. Said no now anyway. We can go back and have another chat with them should we change our minds at some point in the future.

Margaret3 - Good to have stuff broken down to that level of detail. Best way to budget really.

Originally Posted by Trailing_Hubby

Cheers guys, interesting responses. Interesting that most people seem pretty positive, but I put the same thread on another forum and there were a few more people recommending staying in Europe.

As it stands at the moment we are saying no. If our ambition was to move out then it would be a no brainer, but although we would love to have the opportunity we don't want to make a compromise in terms of what we earn. We are both at the stage of our careers where our next jobs will be a step up, and if we go to Melbourne it will be sideways at best.

I assume I'm coming across as money obsessed, which isn't fully the case and it's a real shame to have an offer and not take it up, but we have to think long term.

Originally Posted by rld1177

To give you a comp, I was on around 100 in London and find 180K in Melbourne somewhat similar. I get the 2.2 ratios here and have been here 6 weeks - the key seems to be if you drink heavy (beer, wine, etc here can be pretty bad, easy to have a 100 dollar bar tab on a heavy night out with work mates) and dont adjust your eating habits. Certain products here are terrible - I've seen a 2 liter of Coke as high as 6 bucks and as low as 2.5 on sale. Sale prices in grocery stores can make a big difference.

Personally I find 180K similar to 100K in London without a car and living in the CBD (vs say Canary Wharf), but I've adjusted the food I eat and when I shop if something seems a rip off and is not on sale, I buy something else. You can also certainly go a few days here spending very little if you eat at home often and bring food in - I tend to do this as well, even though my salary is decent I see no reason to pay 17 bucks for a sorry excuse for a sandwhich in Docklands - overall I dont think it is as bad as people imply here IF you adjust and IF you are willing to eat at home a bit more vs London / UK (and you should, the food here is pretty poor compared to other major cities)