Are there any PR Visa holders of Australia not going to emigrate now, or never due to:

1) Exchange rate; when we as a couple in our now late forties decided to go for it just before we reached 45, the rate of exchange was $2.68 to £1, this was feasible, we had our life savings and house sale money, we could see a positive, now, we would take a huge step backwards, just too expensive.

2) Are there any who would recieve their full income in UK Sterling so would take a huge haircut in income due to the poor exchange rate? Myself, i am now semi retired, so all my income bar a part time role would be in UK Sterling, are there any others thinking of not going or even returning to the UK, due to increasing living costs, due to the weakness of Sterling?

I just cannot see how $1.5 to £1 is of any value relative to salary comparisons between the UK and Australia. By value i mean work effort put in to earn and save income and savings. Its all relative, but offers no value at all.

For me and my wife, its priced itself out of all our efforts, Australia has become to expensive due to the exchange rate, and the local costs associated to living such as rents etc.

Sooty

Not in that situation but I could fully sympathis with someone who is.

Sooty, I totally sympathise, we are also PR Visa holders and I have spent a lot of time over this Christmas break looking at the economics and reluctantly come to the same conclusion, that we can no longer afford to emigrate, or at least, I don't see how at the moment.
Still have the dream to go but working out the finances, it doesn't stack up anymore. When we first got the PR via in 2007, we could have taken $500k over with us, and that would have allowed us to accept the lower wages, the lack of child benefit/childcare vouchers and the increase in school expenditure as we could have dramatically reduced our mortgage. But now, even though we have sold our house, we will have more like $280k to take to the Gold Coast, and the reasonably modest 4x2 house with pool I want is likely to cost $600k.

I know we can't afford the balance on the mortgage at an interest rate of 6.99%, accept lower wages and come out with a comparable income. I know some will look at this and think what are we on about, but we are a family of 6 and we already use every penny of the salaries we both work hard on a full time basis to earn and I still have to pay out approx £600 per month for childcare to enable me to get to work in the first place. Over the last year my husband has had to take a cut in salary of 40% and we have had to tighten our belts in so many directions but doing the figures on going to Aus now suggests to me we would be doing even more tightening! I am already downsizing my expectations when I say a 4 bed house as I have a lovely 5 bed house here but I have to get rid of it anyway due to OH's current wages, I don't really want to end up in a 3 bed house in Aus, I don't think that would make me happy long term even though I could accept it short term.

Here in the UK we do at least get good deals on groceries and consumer items and my kids go to outstanding, free schools.

I can't any longer see how we could go to Australia and make ends meet, I suspect from reading these forums that we would work longer hours for less and see even less of the children than we do now. I was looking for a place to eventually retire to, but I think if I transfer my pension now, I will lose a lot of it, I don't know whether I am right or wrong, inflation will erode it here anyway.

I wish someone would tell me I have got my facts wrong, but simple maths tells me not....

So I really do sympathise with you, letting it go is proving hard for me...

To be very honest we have PR visas and are still coming over but we wont be exchanging our money until the exchange rate is good for us or unless the housing costs equals out the exchange rate.

I would rather move to a country where i can go out in the sun each day or take a walk down the beach and be tight with my money than plod along the dirty streets of England and be rich

It will not always be like this with the exchange rate if you want it bad enough then this should not stop you .

I wondered how long it would be before somebody would come along and say that they don't care about the economics of it because it is sunny every day.

Hi,
I could be wrong but I'm sure I've read somewhere that there may be tax implications if you don't bring all of your money over within 6 months of validating your visa.
Regards Derren

I think its only on the interest you have earned ? But i could be wrong. Well to the poster above above i do care about the how the financial world is at present but i dont want that to ruin my new life somewhere else.

I don't live somewhere that has dirty streets though, I live in a small town that has plenty of community activities and community spirit, half a mile out of our small town is open countryside that is beautiful in spring, summer and autumn and even in winter when it snows, although that is a hassle I could happily live without, country pubs galore, loads to do....which makes it difficult to leave already. I would leave all that for those walks on the beach but it isn't sunny every day is it, on the GC its been raining heavily for weeks and is flooded in many places....

Figure of speach my mate

There's always a reason not to do something if you look for it. Sometimes you just have to take a gamble in life, who know's it could just pay off. But you won't know unless you give it a go.

Sometimes I think I'm one of the lucky ones, we had no massive amounts of house equity or savings to worry about holding us back, so we just jumped straight in head first. Paid off for us We are now financially better off than we've ever been. We have exactly the same jobs we had in the UK, only with more disposable income at the end of each month.

And the sun is shining

There won't be many walks in the sunshine around here this coming week. The forecast is for 35 today and going up to 40+ for the next 4 or 5 days. And I think the people who have been flooded out in Queensland would beg to differ with the "sun every day" thing, too.

BE Urban myth with no truth behind it. It's your money, bring it when you want.

I know Dorothy, I was going to point out it isn't sunny every day but decided not to bother. I am just about to dial into an emergency response team call about the floods in QLD (I work for an insurance company).

Snap hun!!! We will be coming with nothing but ourselves n the love of the outdoors!!! LOL! Ems xox

Sometimes that's all you need hun

My best mate only came with 3,000 pounds and she's doing just fine too.