BEVS

Equally, I have liked your posts too Heavenlyscent. You gave it two years and tried your darnedest. You had hopes and dreams for your new NZ lives, having spent the $$ to get here but they were not realised and you felt there was little choice but to retrench for the sake of your future. Not an easy choice.

Perhaps time for a BE article from you HS.

BEVS

So - we have two NZ BE posters ,of old ,with quite differing views and experiences of NZ. Both their opinions are valid and worth taking on board. There will be all sorts of reasons, personal, practical, emotional, why one has settled here and one has not. It;s a good reminder that we can never know just how it will be for anyone of us who choose to emigrate .

127luton

Have to agree with -you Bevs !
it's always a very different journey for some - some big suprises ... good and bad. We have been here for over 5 months now - and have had some difficulties - but also some absolutely amazing and wonderful experiences

Berni x

john and julie

Its great to read the good, the bad and the ugly. We land in Hamilton in March and we are coming with a do or die attitude. We have travelled a fair bit and are under no illusion..........foods not cheap......2nd hand cats are not cheap....property has to be looked at very carefully..ect etc...........As long as the sun does not stop working we are up for the challenge.........as they used to say just as the wagons started rolling......Yeeeeee Haaaaaa

MnB

Guess '2nd hand cats are not cheap' was a typo??

Karma for leaving it in and making me smile
B x

Bo-Jangles

Second hand cats are about $100 from SPCA and you'd be doing them a favour as usual they have way more than they know what to do with.

Batty

I'm impressed I'll do a warts n all (and there have been many warts) update one of these days

UKNZAUS

Mine was $50 and she was 'done' too

Boopy

We arrived in NZ in June 2006 (myself, hubby & then 19 yr old son) so been here nearly 5 years. Whether NZ is for you or not, depends on your reasons to move here. Initially we all think life is perfect. But as time goes by, wherever you are you start to notice flaws of some kind. Since 2006 the cost of living has just kept creeping up, however, it has done in the UK also. My last visit was in 2009, I was so shocked at the cost of my grocery bill at Asda! To us some kiwi's may have strange ways, but who's to say it's not us that are the strange ones. Wherever you go in the world, you'll find people are different & as we are the immigrants here, we just have to learn to adapt to it.
My salary dropped by 1/3rd from UK, but I was aware of that before we moved, we didn't move for the same or better lifestyle as we had in UK, but a different lifestyle. Times are tough at the moment, but they seem to be everywhere. At present I'm constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul, but we'll ride it through. We love our life here & have a very good circle of friends.
To those of you unhappy where you are, give it a chance & yes, try another area before you give up!

Toneye1

We left NZ in March of last year to return to the UK. Nothing awful happened to us over in Welly but we realised that maybe had taken the view that NZ was the perfect country and realistically no country is the perfect country.

I will never regret our decision to emigrate to NZ, it made me a better person, I can now cook properly (!!!), restore furniture, am not too proud to accept hand me downs for my kids (previously would have been horrified!), I also, upon our return to the UK, went round randomly knocking on doors in my very long street introducing myself to bemused looking strangers who are now friends.

I miss my friends in NZ so much but am incredibly happy to see my friends in the UK, I also make much more of an effort to see them. I truly appreciate the wonderful things about the UK although I really miss my dentist in Welly! My kids are thriving and my son says he misses his friends in NZ but he loves being in England because he has his cousins, aunts, uncles and the all important grandparents, I also now have a wonderful relationship with my mother in law....who knew it would take moving to the otherside of the world and back again!

I love having central heating again, and double glazing and when we got our gas and electricity bills my husband and I fell about laughing because it was so cheap. My grocery bill is definitely cheaper here and I forgot about the wonders of child benefit, but I still make lolly cake and my kids still insist on morning tea. I may be a pom but I am a kiwi mum!

MnB

Glad you're enjoying being 'home'!! I agree.....the subtle changes in outlook / values gained from the NZ experience are life changing in lots of positive ways and we shouldn't be afraid to recognise them or acknowledge them more as you've done.....
Karma on its way & 'Welcome to BE'