Mosschops

Hi all,
I was hoping that maybe I could get some questions answered here.
My wife and I have been thinking of immigrating to Oz for a few months now, so I went down to London last weekend to the Australian Expo to find out what I could.
I seam’s that my skills as a carpenter are not in to much demand but my wife’s as a HDU nurse are.
I got chatting to a guy from an agency that claimed he could sort out our visa’s get my wife a job with sponsorship and have us out there within 5-6 months.
Sounds good so far.
What I can’t determine is the cost if living. I understand that my wife could earn in the region of 40,000 – 60,000 AUD p.a.
I know this is a really open ended question, but is that really enough to support a couple with a young child???????? Or would I need to find work as well, and send the little one to child care?
I know this sort of a strange question but id like to get some idea of whether we can make it work before we get too far into to process.
Any advice would be appreciated
Thanks Very Much.

Juliecabs

Hi Mosschops (great name BTW ), and welcome to BE.
Those wages equate roughly to between £17 and £26K pa, so personally I reckon that might not be enough to survive on, taking into account the cost of mortgage/rent and all living expenses. Especially if you've got to buy car/s as well.
Other people on here may think differently, but I think you might have to start looking for a job yourself.
Sorry to put a dampener on things
Good Luck
Julie

tracey.d

Hi,

I think these kind of questions are always really difficult to answer. If you do a search there are plenty of threads on this subject. However, each situation is different. Different people live different lifestyles and need diffferent salaries to be able to pay for that.

It depends entirely on what you are taking with you and what kind of accommodatin etc. you are looking for. I am going over as a single parent with 2 kids and will be on a similar salary. I sometimes worry that we wont survive but then I know if I am determined we will.

As I said, do a search and see what you can come up with, There are a few good threads where people have itemised their utility bills etc. There is also a recent one where shopping baskets have been compared. Take a look and see if you can work out what you will need for your circumstances.

Tracey

diddy

Hi, welcome to BE.

Try doing a search on this as it comes up loads.

Paul.

phoenixinoz

Here's a recent one http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ost+living+Aus

As others have said, it's well worth a search on here as there are lots,lots more which are all interesting.

Good luck.

kimi

its a hard one to answer, will you need to rent, buy etc etc, do you have any savings.

Also who said carpenters are not in demand. My hubby works for a building firm and all trades are required at the moment.

Kim

Hels

Where in Oz were you looking at? That will have a HUGE baring on whether its enough to live on or not.

Hels

Mosschops

We would rent for a start, not a lot of savings after sale of house maybe £10k after relocation, at the expo all the carriers were geared towards engineers and medical staff

mand8002

This is a very hard thing to put a definite figure on, but we have found that you don't need as much money as in the UK for general living. Even though food probably works out the same, our electricity bill is way cheaper and we have no gas. As we live in a complex, we have no water charges and as we are renting no property tax. I estimate that we need $750 per week but we do rent quite a large house so this could be reduced.
Hope this gives you some idea.
Amanda

chr1sarter

If your skills are in the building trade, and you are moving to Perth, then you are in high demand. WA is going through massive growth in the housing market, and they cant find enough trades people to build the houses. This looks set to carry on until 2011. Cant help with other states.

bridiej

And down south as well, Bunbury is growing at a rate of knots, loads of building going on.

Cant speak about bills yet as we havent had any yet, but rentals are around $230 - $260 a week, food we've found is probably about the same, some things cheaper some more expensive so it evens out really.

As for wages, Malc got his first job and he's on $22 an hour, which is more than he was on in the UK, so that is a big bonus.

Amazulu

Carpenters not in demand? If you came to Perth with 100 of your carpenter mates, you'd get jobs straight off the plane. I met a guy in the pub the other week who is a carpenter. He'd only been here a few days, walked onto a building site to suss out the job situation & was offered a job on the spot. No problem there dude.

As for the cost of living, overall it's roughly the same as the UK, maybe slightly less. Here is my breakdown, as I've just moved here & been buying loads of stuff, I've got some experience of this:

Housing costs - cheaper here, in my opinion, significantly so,
Groceries - more expensive here,
Cars - New cars cheaper, 2nd hand more expensive here,
Electrical goods - more expensive here,
Clothes - about the same,
Utilities - cheaper here,
Mobiles - cheaper calls here, handsets more expensive here,
Financial products (credit cards, loans etc) - more expensive here,
Petrol - cheaper here,
Internet - more expensive here,
Bedding, linen etc - more expensive here,
Furniture - more expensive here.

Hope this helps.

bridiej

See, I have to disagree with some of that, we've found groceries about the same, meat is cheaper as you can buy large packs, say 6 pork chops, which we then divided up so you've got enough for three meals and it cost $11.99 or something.

Also, second hand cars we feel are cheaper. Malc bought a 1998 Hyundai which was just over $8K - that's under £4K! And my 1997 4x4 Terios was under $10K so only just over £4K. There's no way we could have bought the same cars for that sort of money from a reputable garage in Kent.

But this is the thing with cost of living threads: it's all subjective and depends on what products you buy, what you used to buy and what you buy now.

diddy

Agreed.

We had to live within our means in the UK and we do the same here. You'll find a way too if you wanna move to Oz.

I always found people's cost of living break downs on here really annoying coz they were full of stuff we wouldn't waste money on - foxtel, a pool guy, ect.

Paul.

Amazulu

Agree that meat is cheaper, lamb for instance is cheaper. Quality steak is about the same. Also butchers are cheaper than supermarkets. I've found other places for cheaper stuff than supermarkets. Crazy Clarks for instance is way cheaper for kitchen/bathroom stuff (cloths, scourers, detergent etc).

As for cars, I have not been looking at older cars so cannot compare, but newer 2nd cars, say 1-2 years old are way overpriced compared to new cars.
On the other hand prices are negotiable.