lawlaw

well thanks very much

tonyk38

You're welcome!

lawlaw

wow lucky you guys, hoping the spouse visa wont be too much of a pain in the ass. our friends emigrated last year and went the de facto route, it was a bit stressful but they got there in the end.
So where abouts do you think you may go, i go on the ourbrisbane website all the time so have a few ideas but not sure.

matt-and-jenny

We stressed and stressed about our visa, then when we finally sent it, Matt was granted residency 2 days later
Since we will only have one care between us, I think we are going to look for somewhere on the trainline between Redcliffe and City Centre (North). We are also thinking of maybe share housing for the first few months, until we get settled down in jobs. I'm thinking our jobs will determine where we live. We want to live north of Brissy though, as that's where all my friends. Plus I prefer the Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast.

lawlaw

Its really weird for me and steve cos essentially although i lived in aus when i was younger (sydney) i have no clue about anywhere now, we have friends living in Brisbane, family is sydney and friends in Melbourne but trying to decide where your going to live is weird. having lived in land locked derby for so long i would like to live near the beach. Where have you been living in england?

matt-and-jenny

We lived in Manchester for 3 years while at uni, and we're living in Bradford now, which is Matt's home town. We both went over to Brisbane 3 years ago - Matt got a working holiday visa. So Matt has already seen and approved of Brisbane! But if we can't get work in Brisbane, we may have to try in Sydney or Melbourne.
You're lucky you have friends and family in all those cities! It's such a big help having people over there, however small the support is.

lawlaw

i had not thought of it like that but your right steve has never been to aus but im sure we will both love it, cant be worse than Derby

Simone

Pascal is also on a spouse visa. I am an Aussie citizen(lived here from age 5 till 14, then back to THe Netherlands for 8 years, now back again) too.

We are renting an old small house, but it is in the middle of Perth(4 km's from CBD and has a relatively large garden. Location is good, it's neat and tidy(painted, curtains), and not actually many bugs and spiders at all.
Downsides are it is very small(a very small lounge, just fits couch, chair, coffeetable, bookcase and tv), 3 small bedrooms, small kitchen/dining(dining table is always in the way, hardly any cupboard space!) and small bathroom. It is also old, which you can notice in the kitchen an bathroom(1 tap hot water, one cold water, and old taps that leak a bit. And it's a bit ugly they kitchen, but that doesn't matter that much.
ANyway, as I said it's nice and cheap to rent (180 pw, but this is Perth...), and we'd even buy it if we could, but to buy my estimate would be it's at least $350,000!!!!!
Oh, other downsides are it only has a tin/asbestos shed/garage, which doesn't really fit a car, and there's no gate or fence to the back yard(just open), but we can definetly live with all this!!
Only problem now is, we're spoilt for location(it's also a nice, quiet street), and the 'character' of the neighbourhood(all 50's cottage type houses, different colours, very 'cute' I call them).
But we'll be right

ABCDiamond

I've seen quite a few threads on here about people coming over with little in the way of funds, so, as others have stated, it would appear that not everyone is "minted"

Stu.E

10,000 GBP's will do you fine depending on your expectations. We moved to Sydney and thats all we took. And it was enough to furnish a house from scratch (some new, some second hand), pay 4 months rent and still have some left over to play with until we'd both got jobs. Just spend carefully and open an account in the UK first (try Commonwealth Bank), do the transfer in one hit and you'll only pay commission once.

Geordie George

We're making do with about that kind of capital behind us! Mr GG and I are your ages and also have no children. We kinda worked on the basis that it would take us X number of years to get much more in the way of financial backing behind us, so why wait? We're prepared to do whatever it takes to make ends meet initially while we're out here, so might as well get started!

With regard to the bank account advice (just to give another POV), you can actually open Aus bank accounts whilst still based in the UK. Ours are with HSBC and the procedure was relatively straight-forward.

Good luck,
GG

Tass

If we can do it with 2 kids and still have money in the bank , you guys definately can ! Difference for us was we came out and started work straight away , no holidays for the first 3 months until we got house , furniture , car etc organised.
Don't put it off , you'll get debt and before you know it will be saving to pay all that off before you can even think about coming out to Oz !!
Go for it !
All the best,
Tass.

alrobson

If that's all you have then it will have to do. You are still young and as you have no kids then you can go without things for a while if you need to. As people get older they always worry about not having enough money so don't let it stop you. Even if I didn't have any money I'd still go.

One life, one chance, don't miss out and regret it later.

lawlaw

thanks very much to all of you for the response, i feel a lot better knowing so many others have not gone with heaps of money.
I cant wait to get over there now although I know it wont be all sun and holidays.

Laura

lawlaw

Thanks for this, one question our account is with HSBC in the UK can we go in and switch it to an australian one before we leave and will they transfer our funds to aussie dollars for us?

Thanks

Laura