First year / initial costs?
 

Hello All,

I realsie that the following question has so many variables as to make it very difficult to answer but I would greatly appreciate all your comments/ experiences.

Ignoring housing how much money are you planning to take with you or would take if you had the benefit of hindsight? We are both mid thirties, have two kids (3 & 4) and are heading for the gold coast.

We are both hard working ( I am a plumber and my wife a teacher) and as a family we are used to moving, starting from scratch and therefore surviving on minimal money until we are settled.

What king o figures are we looking at bearing in my mind we would have to basically furnish a modest house, get some transport (second hand), pay any legal fees and costs involved in buying a house, assume I will be out of work for a while, etc, etc?

So please help us out so we can begin to sort our budget out should we aim for £10,000, £20,000 or £100,000.???

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

:D lifes whot you make it i didnt have a lot but amazed myself how good its been you make your own luck :D

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

Too many variables. Some people don't find work for months and others drop straight into a job. Plenty of plumbing work available in SE Qld at the moment due to the gov waterwise program but you'll need a licence of course.
Vehicles, rent, food, licences etc bled over $50k from our bank account in the first few months and even though I'm working income rarely covers expenditure.

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

I was surprised to read that some people who went with very little were pleasantly surprised at how they felt their lives were better both in terms of quality and fincances, and some that managed to get everything almost straight away - buy the big house, the pool, couple of cars etc, found they were worse off.

Interesting to hear both views. :)

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

hi
will watch this one with interest, we are in similar boat i am a nurse, husband in engineering, 2 kids (1 and 3) aiming for brisbane sunshine/gold coast areas, very concerned at how much money we are going to get through!

hope all goes well for you

Beth :)

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

We've spent just short of $45,000 since landing. That is for everything except our own house as we are waiting until next year to do that. We didn't ship anything, so that also includes furnishing our 3 bedroom house from scratch. :)

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

have you thought about one of you securing a job b4 you go? at least then you would know you'd have money coming in.

the reason i say this is we move to the gold coast on 22nd jan and everything was running smoothly here, our house sale was going through and would have got over £80,000 back from the sale, this has just fell through and even if we got another buyer today, the chances are we still won't have that money through for when we go. i already have a job as a nurse to go to so there is a weight off our minds there. we'll probably rent near to my work so we don't need to fork out for a car straight away, I know we'll get by till the money comes through as we always do and like other people say, you can spend as much or as little as you want on things.

shell

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

Hi,

We (OH + me) spent just under $20000 in the first month or so. That included buying a car, all furniture for a two bedroom unit + TV, washing machine, fridge and all electrical appliances. We also paid for the bond for the unit and two weeks rent upfront. This also included food and local transport but not accommodation.
We didn't buy the cheapest of the range but not the most expensive either...the LCD TV was quite pricey (OH musthave as the cricket need to be watched on a big screen! :rolleyes:)
We did go out quite a bit in the beginning as OH has got friends and family here and I also had to buy a couple of suits for work too.
We are staying in Cronulla (35km south of Sydney) and had no problem finding work. We both started work within 2 weeks of applying. I work in Sydney CBD doing admin at a merchant bank, OH work locally as an electrician.
Now when we are settled (been here 3 months) I think we've got more money left over after all the necessities than we used to have in London. :)
Good luck with the move

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

Have a look at a thread I started a couple of months ago...

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=389771

Add to the list in that thread $50 per day for ABC child care - I think it's $50, sorry. Also add to that buying a car or two, take your pick on prices on that too.

I think we spent about another $1000 on beds for the kids and various other bedroom bits and pieces too.

$400 on a BBQ decent one though, should last a while.

$1200 bond for a rental

Then there is the stuff for the kids, ours are (4+2):

2 x boogie boards
2 x rash vest
2 x bucket & spade
2 x lunch boxes

the list goes on, but you get the idea !!!

Excluding the cars and childcare, I think without being dramatic that about $10000 will set you up.

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

Thanks for all your replies, I was starting to panic a bit when thinking of furnishing a house from scratch but by the sounds of it approx $20,000 should see us alright, had better start putting some overtime in!!

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

Sorry hun but i don't think $20k will cut it, your cars will probably cost that much - they don't have MOT's here and you'll be amazed at the death-traps on the road AND HOW MUCH THEY COST!!!!!!!

Aim for 50k if you have some left then invite me and the guys over for a BBQ!!!!

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

Its a deal!! I neglected to say that 0K was for not including cars as I was planning to simply take whatever we got for ours here and use that for buying in Oz, but it is interesting you say they are expensive, I had looked on ebay.au and they seemed reasonable but I had not realised they was no equivalent to an M.O.T.!!!

Re: First year / initial costs?
 

Have a look at www.carsguide.com.au or www.drive.com.au to check out car prices. No M.O.T but we had someone (a MTA service centre) check out our car before we bought it (from a dealership). If it's newish car it might still be covered by the warranty.