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Unless you have a massive family, I don't see how anyone could spend that much; maybe AUS250 I could understand.....but 470!!!

Cut out on the chips, puddings and biccys and we save almost half on our bill, so you have to question the healthiness of diets when people's bills start rising...and no, I eat biccys and stuff like the next person..

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JerrySpringer

High food bills do not always mean unhealthy produce. My food bills would be cheaper if I stopped buying organic food. Not that I'm complaining - it's choice. e.g I could get 6 artificially engorged (thru hormones) chicken breasts for the same price as 2 organic, but I choose the organic. Comparing shopping bills is futile unless you break it down to the individual products you buy.

glittababe

Sorry not a typo! Family of 5 (2 adults, 3 boys), cost of basic groceries per week at Woolworths $310, however the fruit and veg never kept more than 2 days and weren't 'A' grade (spoke to neighbour about this, apparently the 'A' grade stuff gets shipped out), so we went to fruit and veg farm shops daily, plus we brought other stuff daily (milk, meats etc) which brought our shop bill over $400. Again we're very health orientated and prefer organic, plus I'm lactose intolerant, so certyain foods are more expensive. However, I would still have only taken home $600 a week, with food costs, rent etc etc I couldn't afford to live! You don't take your family 11,000 miles to be worst off. At the end of the day you live to your means. Now back in the UK we're enjoying the prices of Asda, free schooling, free dental treatment etc etc Please don't state how they're not free cos we pay for them with our taxes, cos we also pay 40% tax in oz and STILL have to pay for dental and health costs!

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I never found a NHS dentist in London!!! So it wasn't free all the time, however hard I looked.

I even considered going to a dentist, not paying, and saying "chat to my MP for the money!!"

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(Sorry!)

On a more serious note, I've said this before; also, you might have to eventually pay for treatment, but then you get the work done quickly. Time is money. If you don't pay, you might get inferior treatment, or have to wait longer. So it probably all balances out in the end. Sometimes its not always what you pay, its the value or reward you get at the end of it.

NKSK

I'm pleased to read that there seems to be - from my point of view anyhow - a sense of realism coming back into the thread. The last few postings have given me a sense of optimism (after the earlier threads causing me a sleepless night). We're hoping to make the move mid-year 05.
We are a young family of four and I will be the sole earner (at least until the youngest starts school) and as a teacher (at the top of scale), I will be pulling around 60-70K gross - some way below the 80K quoted as the 'decent' salary point.
After selling our house in the UK, we think we can get a good sized house with a (relatively) small mortgage of $110K and the original plan was to make the purchase early on.
But after reading the doom and gloom in the earlier part of this thread we've decided to treat our migration as a two-year working holiday, buy return rather than one way tickets and stick to renting. If we find that Oz really is as expensive as people are making out (I have to say that I was there in March 04 and in 00 and, although I found it to be a glorious country, it did not strike me as particularly expensive.) then we will leave. I sincerely hope that things aren't as severe as some make out but I suppose it has made me realise more than ever, that in life, you always need an escape plan.
BTW I can't quite get my head around the dental fees. Surely in a country which prides itself on its egalitarian roots, dental treatment would not be so expensive that it excludes all but the minority? Is it really the case that if you don't have thousands of spare dollars then your kids grow up with wonky teeth? It actually becomes a financially better option to fly back to the UK or Singapore and pay a private dentist to sort it out!

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(on the subject of dentists and doctors ..bit of an aside..)

lol I don't necessarily trust dentists anyhow..its all a money spinner. Now they have a stuff to fill with this resin which hardens in ultra violet light. I have a slight crack in one of my molars. As I can see exactly where and waht the hole is, I'd sooner buy a millimetre of resin, and the ultra-violet light at cost and do it myself...just kidding..

dentists are like doctors - they spend years learning theory you can actually pick off the internet now. Have to admit dentists do more practical so I don't knock them their money - but who is to know if they are drilling the hole bigger than it needs to be - they might slip, or have a off day - you can't ask them to prove their work, can you?

In the old days, a village doctor was God - now they are a bod who has read - to be fair to them - a shit load of books. I also have to read a lot of books in my career - its why I get paid good money too. Except our software is always changing, the human body doesn't. My brother is a nurse and one of the first things he learnt is actually how little, in some ways, Doctors know. They cover a lot of knowledge, but often have to go and look it up in a book, just like we all do now on the interner. All the complicated jargon is to keep the profession churning along. My brother reckons doctors, or GPs will come more and more outmoded as practitioners who are more vocational will take over at more efficient rates. The age of the internet has actually done a bad service for doctors as it has lowered the "bloody hell" and smoke and mirrors factor of their profession.

I went to the doctor with my wife, and 30pc of her time was all the chit chat, and bedside manner which you then get charged on...I actually knew the answer anyhow, I was telling my wife what the doctor was saying, and knew the answer before she did. I was telling the doctor, who was uming and arghing - she wasn't sure!! At one point, I was almost helping her out with what she was saying to my wife - I was explaining as the doctor wasn't quite getting her words right. This doctor wasn't even charismatic or funny to make it all worthwhile - I was quite dissapointed really, if you see what I mean. You could argue that a docror gets paid to make a call - but they can't - they have a go - then send you to a specialist - now they are someting different. I'd pay them..

lol

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glittababe

Very true quality of care is everything and sometimes you have to pay for it. However, i live in Suffolk and have a fab NHS dentist and GP (its like a lottery tho). It means that the children all get great dentistry (well until they're 18 anyway), plus all of my kids will need some cosmetic dentistry which will cost a fortune in oz! I think most people using this forum are realistic regarding the costs involved. Our friends had already spent 7mths living and working in oz before finally making the move in Nov. 'just in case' it all went pearshaped they made provisions for returning to the UK and are very glad they did. I've said to my hubby tho, at the moment we're enjoying being back in the UK cos of the cooler weather, snow and generally being part of our little village life again - however 6 mths down the line will I be begging DIMIA to let me back in????? We've weighed everything up, we know how expensive it is in oz and all the probs the country has, all in all we're pretty realistic. threads like this are fab tho as they remind me of the little things like the price of bread ($2.17 :scared: - shocking), smugly its 15p in Tescos (be it the value one). Its certainly a reality check for most peeps! If you're in debt in the UK, would it be any different in oz (in the long run)????

Grayling

You ain't going to get anywhere near me with a scalpel or drill Badge :scared:

This thread proves that people will believe what they want to believe.

Hopefully no one has to learn the hard way.

G

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well said, nicely put. Your village sounds great. Village life is the way to go, I reckon.

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AndrewP

Its just an observation but many people on this thread are comparing their income in the UK with a full-time high-pressure job to their income with a low-pressure and/or part time job in Australia. Now it may or may not be true for any given job that the earnings in Australia are lower but many of the differences can be attributed to people stepping down a gear & wanting a slower pace of life. Naturally thats a perfectly acceptable life choice but the drop in income would happen if you did the same in the UK.

What I'd be much more interested in is to get an idea of what the earnings in $ would be compared to the equivalent in £. Now obviously this varies a lot depening on your line of work. An IT contractor friend of mine was earning the same in $ as he now can (now he's back in the UK) back in the UK. In other words he used to get a contract equivalent to $100,000pa & now its more like £100,000pa (I agree - silly money & I wish I did his job). My sister, who's a nurse, found her earnings to be closer to £1:$2.

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I was partly joking, but also making some points.

Why would I go anywhere near anyone with a scalpel or a knife. I did concentrate on the theory, not the practice. There is no way I would drill a hole in someone's teeth - thats why they get the money they do. (I did say this, if you reread my post.).

I would however, and this was one of my points, be careful with a doctor who is no more articulate than myself. I was also pointing out the fact, which I am sure many will agree with, that Doctors are no way near as respected as professionals as they were. The Age of the Internet is now a great leveller.

My brother is an army medic, and he tells me a lot of it is quite simple - the practical element that is. I've done a few minor procedures myself - part of the training I had to do as well. You just have to control your nerves and put the bloke at rest..I've got photos of blood everywhere; we used to practise on each other!

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glittababe

Depends on whether you live in Little Britain! Was in our little post office sending some stuff to oz, I could smell the wood burner, the oil in the lanterns and hear the grandfather clock ticking! It was as if I'd gone back 100 years! When I got to the counter, the post mistress (shes in her 70's) looked at the customs declaration and said "so your sending presents to your friends in redland Bay are you????" I just smiled sweetly and nodded. After sorting the parcel out, she then spouted off a list of peeps she knew that had emigrated out there and then produced mail that she'd kept for me while I had been away (I didn't ask her to do this). It was so surreal! It just reminded me of the scenes in Little Britain! All she needed was a flute and a scottish accent!

jad n rich

Have not read all the thread, weve put our cost of living up here before about $63,000 a year including private education and medical, those figures were for a year but we had three kids at home all boys. Thats in after tax dollars so we needed a lot more than $80,000 in pre tax dollars. No holidays or entertainment in those expenses.

The way people live tells me more than costs. Just looking at the people we mix with, so say a middle class aussie family they mostly live quite similar, both have jobs, they are trying to afford private education, many still have a mortage, they need 2 cars, they holiday in australia as travel is expensive with this currency, the weekend is barbies, I dont get the impression many have much left over for luxury items, many here seem to watch every cent. When our kids were in state school, people were taklking about surviving on very low sums we often heard $35,000 a year, most had to claim some government benefit to get by. I dont know how they did it but they did.

Siren & Brian

60-70000 plus family allowance entitlements for the 4 kids. That adds up to quite a bit.

Also dentists for braces etc, most will not charge you up front but ask you make monthly payments. Mine for 1 child was only $50 a month and now you should see his smile

Amazulu

Tescos 15p bread is disgusting, decent bread is 75p-£1.20. I would agree that grocery prices are similar to the UK.