kporte

been visiting BE for a few months now and it has amazed me how my ideas and misconceptions of a life in Oz have changed. when the idea of moving came to my wife and i, the motive was simply for a better quality of life. i believed that the cost of living was far less than the uk, that houses were a giveaway and that i would earn far more dough. i am not entirely sure where i gleaned these useful nuggets of info, but joining BE put me right. there have been many threads concerning these issues, and posters such as arkon have been berated for posting opinions percieved as negative. thank god for the "negative" posts or i'd be going into this like the light brigade!! my wife and i are still very much up for it and i have the possibility of a decent job on reasonable pay in the picture from yesterday, but now our tentative plans are geared around realistic goals and the 4 bed house with pool and two new cars has changed to 2 bed house and 2 year old Holden with high mileage!
i still hold onto the belief we will have a better quality of life but because we will be prepared to downsize our life in a lot of ways. it is so easy to get carried away with the idea that Oz is some kind of shangrila and i thought i was past this at 40. your thoughts on this, as always, will be most welcome.
cheers

Mrs Jackaroo

Well if you head to Oz with that attitude then I dont think you can go far wrong. Of course on the flipside of the cost of things such as houses, cars etc etc you also have the fact that you spend your free time completely differently here than you do in the UK. On weekends in the UK we used to spend a lot of our time wandering around shops spending money on sh!t that we didnt really need. The weather was crap (a lot of the time) and there was very little to do which didnt cost a lot of money. Here however there a parks on every corner, lovely weather (not right now but soon!! ) and it is a very sociable place. There is usually something to do every weekend and if you have nothing planned then you simply relax in the garden - cant fault it.

Its just every day life here but so far I'm able to enjoy it more than I did in the UK

Hutch

Sure - bring on the negative posts - get a dose of reality - realise that it isn't all 'A New Life Down Under'. But please don't imagine for one second that you're getting anything like a balanced viewpoint from Arkon 'All Australians are thick' and his crew of Ozzie xenophobes.

kporte

you've not been out long tygwyn, settled in ok? how is the oz dream for you?
went to the cinema and then for a meal with my wife at the weekend. £1OO down and the meal was crap. i feel that in brissie my down time will be better spent, healthier and cheaper. i,ve put on 3 stone in the last few years here and am at weight watchers to rid myself of the michelin man look for the medicals!

kporte

sure. got to make your own mind up. a bad experience has got to colour your views somewhat though. how about you, going well?

Hutch

Yep. I fly home on the 7th of July. Can't wait.

Mrs Jackaroo

Yes we've settled in ok thanks. It was a bit of culture shock when we first arrived because we hadnt been to Oz before and it really wasnt anything like I had expected it to be! I've got my head around the differences now though and dont seem shocked by it anymore. When we first arrived the weather was lovely and you really could imagine how your new life is going to be. With the weather the way it is now its not a great deal different from the UK but I still dont spend my time the same way I did back there. I go around my Aussie friends house a lot (everyday!!) either for a cup of tea or a few beers. Our daughters play together pretty much every day and when its not raining we're all out on our bikes! Cant fault it. The funny thing is that my friend is picking up my accent and actually called 'thongs' 'flip flops' yesterday - love it!

I wouldnt say it is a 'dream lifestyle' but I'm enoying it all the same (even though we're skint!! )

Rach xxxx

ELLJAY

I second that entirely. You've done so well to come to that realisation before you get here. We came thinking "worst case scenario" so it could be only better than that (even when we moved into a rental crawling with cockroaches :scared: )
But as long as you can take pleasure in the simple things - sitting by the sea - watching the waves crashing down (even if you can only afford one cup of coffee between the two of you!)
Seeing a "low" phonebill - because you don't have any friends yet - so you've not phoned anyone!
As has been said time and time again - it's not for everyone......but as the saying goes "you'll never know...unless you try it!

L-j xx

kporte

read a bit of your blog and found the bit about people moving to cities interesting.......... think you might be right there. will give it some thought while i wait 6 months or so for a visa!!!

matt-and-jenny

2 year old Holden? You lucky baaastard.

Hutch

Yea - my pet theory. It is puzzling, isn't it? Where do you plan to move to?

kporte

this is how i feel. at the moment i am pressured into a lot of hours at work, never see my wife and am at work most weekends.justify this to myself by booking an exotic holiday or buying some pointless gadget to make myself feel better about my life slipping by. due to overtime money is ok but life rating is poor. want to get out of this cycle and focus on what is important, you know?

kporte

brissie. former boss moved there last august and seems he wants me to work for him again, so may have job to go to. how can you have any idea of good areas etc? will have to do a recce as have never been to Oz before. dont mind a commute ( do 30 miles each day into edinburgh) so could combine working in brissie with the hutch city rage theory and live in the country!

kporte

this is probably the second round of unrealistic goals and we will end up with a ten year old lada, live in a shop window drinking paint thinners and raking bins at mcdonalds.
thinking about edinburgh and how great it was.
with no cash for a flight "home".

i think i've gone too far the other way!!

Hutch

The somewhat harsh bottom line is - you can't. I mean, it's no different to the UK at the end of the day - there are areas here that'd I'd never consider moving to in a million years and yet people love them. You can visit places, have a coffee in a local cafe, drive around the streets and try and get a feel for them, but it's not until you actually live there that you'll really know if it's for you and yours. That's why it's so important to rent when you first arrive - then if you find somewhere's not your cup of tea, you can just move on to somewhere new. That said, there's plenty of folks here who live in Brisbane and can give you an idea of which areas are worth bothering with, and which aren't. Oh, and I'd definitely recommend a recce.