Moogle87

Hi all,

I apologise if this has been posted elsewhere. I had a look & couldn't find anything.

So, I'm a teacher. I'm 29. I have 4 years experience in teaching.
My husband is 27 & is currently a Pharmacy advisor (a dispenser basically). He is starting his training to become an Accuracy checking Technician soon, but this will take 2 years & we are looking to move in Jan 2018.

We live in the UK.

We are both very much fed up with life in the UK. My job is starting to make me ill from all the stress and crazy working hours. We have no social life & on top of this we are thinking of having kids in a few years time, but at the moment I can't possibly see how we can kids into our life. I don't want to have to fit my kids into my work; that is just crazy to me. But I know so many people at work who have to say "no" to their kids because they are working.

So, we have thought a lot about emigrating & think that either NZ or Australia are the best options for us. I would prefer NZ. The only draw for Aus for me is that I will earn a lot more.

We've been to an expo & I've been doing a lot of research, but I have some reservations.

Firstly, we are very lucky to own our own house. But this, combined with getting married last year, means we have no savings.
We will have to sell our house & use the equity from the house to make the move.
We have around £25k equity at the moment, so we will not need to use all of this to move. We will keep roughly half as a deposit for in NZ.
We were going to sell all of our furniture etc because it is going to cost over £3k to move it all over there. We can't see that it will be worth it. Especially considering our electrical items (we have a lot of expensive electrical items!) won't work (although I haven't really looked into this).
Our thinking was that we would just have to start with the basics eg. bed, TV, sofa & then build up as we go. Or pay & take over the bare minimum with us.

In terms of the visa we are looking at the Work to Residence visa, which isn't expensive.
We will not move until I have a job offer in place. I have spoken to a few people from recruitment agencies & they don't think that I will have a problem securing a job due to my subjects (ICT, Business, KS3 Computing) & experience. With a job offer we will have 195 points, but without is only 135, so that is obviously a problem.

So, my main concerns are cost of living. I know that it is higher in NZ than in the UK. I have looked at salaries, taxes etc & I will be looking to take home around $65,000. My Husband will take the first job he can just to bring in money. So we are looking at around $28,000 for him (based off minimum wage).
This is about what we both earn now in the UK.

I'm worried that it won't be enough though. That is what we take home in the UK & yet we have very little left over at the end of the month. Adding in the additional cost of living in NZ, I'm not sure if we will be able to manage. However, as my husband has said, we could cut down our spending. eg. I have a new car, his will be paid off in 2 years. That will save about £260 just on car payments & we could use what we get from our cars to buy new ones. We also spend about £60 - £80 in an average month on eating out/takeaway etc.

We are looking to move to either Wellington (1st choice) or Christchurch. However, not in the actual cities, we would live anywhere up to 30 mins away. To be honest, it depends on where the work is. But I would be willing to do a commute of up to 30mins for work (by car).

I've had a look on Trademe & I think rental wise we would be looking at about $1200 a month. To buy we will be looking at between $250 - 300,000.
However, I've read that you now need a 20% deposit to buy in NZ, which means that we will not be able to buy once we've moved.

So, I'm worried that we will be moving from the UK where we own our own home, to NZ where we are stuck in the rental trap because we will not be able to come up with a 20% deposit.

My second worry is the poor condition of houses in NZ.
We love our house in the UK, it is a new build, 3 bed townhouse.
But, what's the point in having a beautiful house if you have to be miserable at work trying to pay for it? But our mortgage in the UK is only £560 a month & we pay £120 for council tax a month.

Another issue (although less so, as long as he can get a job) is work for my husband. Ideally he wants to continue with his pharmacy training. But I'm guessing that his qualification wouldn't be recognised in NZ & he will therefore need to start again. & that is if he can even get a job as a dispenser.

My husband has a film degree & even doing unpaid experience at Weta would make him VERY happy. This is something he has tried (& failed) to do here in the UK as we currently live in the West Midlands. Although this isn't guaranteed to happen in NZ, even the photographic (one of his hobbies is photography) opportunities are so much better than here. Which is another reason why Wellington appeals to us.

Any advice on the areas that I've mentioned living in, cost of living, housing (the quality?) & jobs would be really appreciated.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my MASSIVE post, lol.

Kotare

Firstly, take the cost of living comments with a grain of salt, some things are more, some less but overall the cost of living is similar to UK (actually I think less but I don't have dependant kids, mortgage etc).

Similarly, housing quality, on the whole newish houses are excellent for nz conditions (lot of old poor quality rentals around though).

Next bring everything that has a lifespan of more than a year or so with you (replacing it will cost more than £3k). All your electrical kit should work ok here.

If you mean replacement cars no sweat, very few people buy 'new' cars here as they tend to get imported from Japan at the 2-3 year point and last longer than uk given nz conditions. A 2013 Rav4 with 50 km, 3 year warranty will cost under $30k as an example. If you want runabouts halve that.

Good luck

Peter

thebrits

I've just bought a house in the Wellington region. You can get a house for $300-350,000 if you buy in a less desirable area as we did, though prices are rapidly increasing right now. Your mortgage payments would be higher than in the UK as our interest rates are higher. You have to have a 20% deposit. I'm a Kiwi (here because my British partner is making the move, I wanted to know what people find tough to transition to) so I'm used to our houses and delighted with my new home, but it's nothing like a UK new build. Very limited insulation, probably no real heating aside from something in the living room, no double glazing. We don't have affordable new housing.

I have friends who are teachers and they seem to work long hours here too. So I'm not sure that the lifestyle would be different for you - how would you even begin to figure that out?

When you say 'take home' - you mean you're looking at $65000 after tax? That seems high to me as I don't know if they give full weight to overseas teaching experience, and top of the scale (which can't be achieved with 4 years experience) is only $73000 before tax. Also, as teaching isn't on the skills shortage list, any employer would have to prove they could not find a NZ candidate before they could offer you a job.

We are shipping over IKEA furniture from the UK - NZ has nice, expensive furniture and little else. You can buy a lot second hand on trademe though, which is what most people I know do.

Our budgeted annual expenses are a little under $30,000, about half of that is our mortgage. We keep to a pretty strict budget so it really depends on your lifestyle and what makes you happy. We have one (old) car and the amount we spend on food/entertainment is far below average.

I love my country and if you're extremely active and love an outdoor lifestyle, it can be great. I also love Wellington, but many people on these forums find the wind to be a dealbreaker. The happiest migrants I know are people who came here short term on a working holiday, fell head over the heels for the place and stayed. NZ isn't for everyone (it's small, insulated and isolated and it's hard to know what that means till you get here) so having that time to try it out is worthwhile.

MrsFychan

As already stated Teacher is not on the shortage lists but is on the skilled list but I honestly feel that the only job you would get offered is where no one already in NZ will take. There was a news report a few months where there was a school is a remote area that has not been able to fill the position long term as no one was willing to move permanently to the area.

There are a glut of home born and NZ residents with teaching qualifications that just can't get jobs in the areas they live as there are none.

Also you would need to make sure you could live on one wage as a lot of members have found it really hard to have 2 adults in the same house working for quite some time. I know of an experienced IT guy not get a job for nearly 3 years and is now working part time in a local food store as that was the only job he could get.

Moogle87

Thanks for the advice Pete, that is very useful information. Especially on the removal front. We thought that with what have, it just wouldn't be worth bringing it over as we thought that it would be cheaper to replace over there with used items.
Are NZ & UK plugs the same then?

& by the sounds of it we could probably get 1 or 2 runarounds in NZ for what we get for our cars here (possibly take out a small amount of finance) if we traded in our cars for cash here & just used that to buy there.

On the housing front, I have been looking at houses on Trademe & I think that I would only consider buying a new build or newer house to be honest. Especially with what we have come from. We pay about £75 a month for our gas & electric for example. & that is to heat our 3 bed house. I'm guessing it will be higher in NZ? Going from a 2 bed to a 3 bed isn't as much of an issue to be honest. & looking at house costs I think we would only be able to afford a 2 bed if we wanted a newer house anyway.

Moogle87

Thanks for replying.

I think that I would only really consider buying a newer house. But we are OK with going from a 3 bed in the UK to a 2 bed in NZ. Could you get a newer 2 bed for around the 300k mark in Wellington?
When you say the "less desirable areas" do you mind me asking what makes them less desirable & what areas you are referring to?

Any job in teaching is going to require long working hours, that I am OK with. Teaching in NZ is, I would have thought, a well paid job. In the UK it is an average paid job, but with the expectation that you do well above average working hours. It is also how relentless it is here. In my particular school, they pretty much expect you to put the school first. It doesn't matter if you have family, if you have work to do then you should get that done first. From what I understand NZ is a lot more family friendly. I'm not saying that you don't have to get your work done, but that they understand that you have a family & that family is important. Very few schools (none that I personally know of) have that culture in the UK.

& there have been reforms passed which are now pushing for longer school days and for all schools to become academies. Basically that means that each school will be run as an individual business.
So, from my perspective things are only going to get worse.

The average working week for a secondary school teacher here is 55 hours. Do you mind me asking if your friends do the same amount of hours in NZ?

Please don't get the impression that I am not prepared to work hard, I am prepared to work very hard. I give it 100%. However, what grates me is when I'm expected to put in additional hours for things that have no benefit to the children. This then means that I have less time to spend on making my lesson more engaging. Or when I'm asked to spend time in lessons doing things with the children which takes up half of my lesson, but which is actually helping them to learn very little. There is A LOT of box ticking in the UK & that is what I'm getting increasingly fed up with.

In terms of salary, I didn't word what I meant very well, so apologies. I have looked & think that I would get $65,000 before tax.
I will have been teaching for 5 years by the time that we actually move as well.
My worry is that it will not be enough to live on.

Our problem is that no matter what visa we get, we will have to sell up here to be able to afford the move. & that is an issue for me because if we sell up & use some of the equity from our house to move, we will not be left with much if we decide that it isn't right for us & move back.

We will also not have 20% to buy a house there.
Although I have seen that there is a scheme with Kiwisaver. Maybe that could be an option if we rented for a few years?

We are planning to come & have a look around both Wellington & Christchurch in Aug 2017. I would never move somewhere without actually going there first.
However, I do appreciate your advice on the fact that it is very much an insular country.


Thanks again for your advice.

Moogle87

Hi, thanks for your reply.

The agency that I spoke to did say that it is unlikely that I will get a job in Auckland. She didn't mention any other areas. However, she did ask me to email her with the areas that we would be looking to live in. So I will see what comes from that.
Regardless we will not move until I have a job offer & we will not move to an area where we are unhappy to live in.
So, if I can't get a job then we wouldn't move.
As I've said in another post, we have a trip planned for Aug 2017 & are planning to look around different areas & see where we would be happy to live.

Living on one wage worries me. I don't think we would be able to afford to do that. We couldn't do that here, so we will not be able to do that there.

However, my husband would really only be looking to get a minimum wage job. He has a lot of experience in retail, so maybe something in retail?
I think he would be willing to do anything within reason.
We aren't expecting to move & for him to find a job in a pharmacy for example.
Is it hard to find full time minimum wage jobs over there?

Thanks again.

jmh

The impression I get from your own researches is that you are not going to be better off financially. That means that you are hoping to benefit from lifestyle factors which are much more subjective. My lifestyle is better but that's because I don't live in London anymore. I was also able to sell my London house and buy in Auckland mortgage free.

Since your reckie is a long way off, I would double-down on either saving or paying more of your mortgage off with any spare money. That won't go to waste. Keep your options open about Australia. The extra money might be worth it, and if you get Australian citizenship you can move to NZ easily later down the line.

My experience of recruitment agencies is that many are often little more than glorified sales reps who have a narrow focus on the market. Do you own research on the job market (e.g. Education Gazette

Your subjects are not particularly specialist - if you could add maths or sports to that you would widen your chances.

Moogle87

Thanks jmh.

I don't think that we will be better off financially. However, the reality is that if we could live for around the same as what we can live for here, we will be fine.
We are definitely moving for the lifestyle.
At the moment, we both just feel like the UK is not somewhere where we want our kids to grow up. & I need a better work life balance.
That is the main thing that we are hoping to get from moving.

In terms of Australia, my hubby has said that he would prefer it there. However, I don't like really hot climates. I am super pale & just burn. So I'm not sure if I could live there purely because of the climate.
The other HUGE issue is that it would be £6k just for a visa for me.
Teaching is on the shortage list, but again are the jobs really only in areas where nobody else wants to go?

I've read that Aus has higher living costs & a lot of hidden taxes. So although I will earn more, will this actually be taken up with the hidden extras?

I have got a friend who knows a teacher in Oz, so I will ask her if she can pass on her contact info to me.

For the UK Computing is very specialist. However, my problem is that I'm not Computing trained. It is almost impossible for schools to get well qualified Computing teachers here. & that is despite a tax free training wage of £25k! & the Government has shifted focus massively to Computing.
But I have a lot of Business & ICT experience both at high school & A Level.
I was hoping that the fact that I can teach 3 subjects may help, but maybe not, lol.

Thanks again.

donmun80

Re Young couple.
Move to NZ --- NO.
Think Canada is a better option.

Moogle87

Thanks for your reply.

Do you mind me asking why you think Canada would be a better option for us?

MrsFychan

all this talk about life style, what do you think would be different here than to somewhere less congested in the UK?. Hell a lot more cheaper to move within the UK.

You will need a car, the transport system is much more prone to weather conditions, Wellington has one road out to Auckland, get a crash and you are stuck in traffic. Took me 40 mins to drive 8km on Thursday.
We don't have leaves on the rail tracks we have power cables down, landslides, trees down, bridges taken out. And thats the normal stuff. Bugger it if the new road way isn't complete before a big earthquake hits.

In all seriousness and with hindsight we would of been better off in a better part of UK than here with what we came from to what we have now.

LoCarb

Actually, two roads out of Wellington and three train lines, one airport and two ferry services.

250,000 Brits live in NZ and 99.99% don't come on here

Moogle87

From what I understand the culture is more family friendly in NZ.

Moving in the UK is unlikely to change what we dislike about the UK. Partly its my job (though not all). I have worked in a few different schools as unfortunately I finished teacher training when the recession was at its worst, which meant that where I lived there were very few jobs. To get my first year done I had to work in 2 different schools. Which was fine at the time as I still lived at home.
As I've worked in different schools I know that the culture in teaching is pretty much the same everywhere. I also have a lot of friends who live in various places across the country who all feel the same.

Now, I don't know for sure that it will be any different in NZ & I do need to do more research on this, but I know that moving in the UK is unlikely to help anything.
& actually it is still expensive to move in the UK. Especially when you move trying to make life better, but in reality that doesn't happen.
I do appreciate that moving to NZ will be considerably more expensive & there are n guarantees, but that's what I'm trying to figure out now & do my research before we actually spend any money.

& I live in one of the less congested parts of the UK. I actually live in Stoke-On-Trent, although I live right on the border of Stoke/Cheshire & I grew up in Cheshire.
I like where we live & I love our house.
But we both feel that seeing as we want to start a family in a few years time, that the UK isn't really the place where we want to do this.
We also both own cars here. To be honest where I grew up public transport was naff (an hour to get somewhere that takes 20 mins to drive to), so ever since I could, I've driven.
We have always thought that we would both get cars wherever we go to be honest.

As for the rad out of Wellington, that sounds just like the M6 when there has been a crash! Luckily neither of us have to use the M6. But even so you know about it when there is a problem on it!

valleygurl

Just go for it x if it works it works if it doesn't then you tried at least you can't say in years to come what if!!! we are on our way back after 5 years in the UK can't stand this country and have never felt more at home anywhere than when we were in nz.(this isn't Eden is it??)