HELP?
Jan 17th 2008, 4:38 pm
#1
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 17
HELP?
Firstly may i say i love this forum,as i am getting loads of things answered,so i thank all of u, but i have a few questiond i,m not sure on...
Firstly, we are just in the first inital stages sorting out agent etc,(but think i mite do it myself to save money).
Secondly we will be going out on a 176 visa(whatever that means). We going for brisbane as my hubby an electrician.
My concrems are how much will we need(without the agent,visa,skill assesment cost) to take with us, what do you do when u get there for somewhere to stay.
Do you carry all that money with you,or open a aus bank account first.
also how much does it cost to ship yr stuff over(and how long does it take to arrive). What if you are in rented accomadation thats furnished,what do we do with our stuff? To me it seems you need round about £20,000 to set up,does anyone think that this is a realistic amount or am i over estimating.
Do you pay for medicines etc as i do take a inhaler (only when required).
Obvioulsy we would have to sell our house,so we had some capital to start us off.We have a 8yr old boy so would schooling be easy to get him in, and how long does it take. sorry to drag on a bit but really need some realistic opions from all of you. especially those who have already gone through it..
Bet ive missed summit out lol
many thanks
J
Firstly, we are just in the first inital stages sorting out agent etc,(but think i mite do it myself to save money).
Secondly we will be going out on a 176 visa(whatever that means). We going for brisbane as my hubby an electrician.
My concrems are how much will we need(without the agent,visa,skill assesment cost) to take with us, what do you do when u get there for somewhere to stay.
Do you carry all that money with you,or open a aus bank account first.
also how much does it cost to ship yr stuff over(and how long does it take to arrive). What if you are in rented accomadation thats furnished,what do we do with our stuff? To me it seems you need round about £20,000 to set up,does anyone think that this is a realistic amount or am i over estimating.
Do you pay for medicines etc as i do take a inhaler (only when required).
Obvioulsy we would have to sell our house,so we had some capital to start us off.We have a 8yr old boy so would schooling be easy to get him in, and how long does it take. sorry to drag on a bit but really need some realistic opions from all of you. especially those who have already gone through it..
Bet ive missed summit out lol
many thanks
J
Jan 17th 2008, 8:40 pm
#2
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Nov 2005
Location: at the bottom of a wine glass
Posts: 28,176
Re: HELP?
what do you do when u get there for somewhere to stay.
Do you carry all that money with you,or open a aus bank account first.
it then what you gonna do?
also how much does it cost to ship yr stuff over(and how long does it take to arrive).
What if you are in rented accomadation thats furnished,what do we do with our stuff?
To me it seems you need round about £20,000 to set up,does anyone think that this is a realistic amount or am i over estimating.
Do you pay for medicines etc as i do take a inhaler (only when required).
We have a 8yr old boy so would schooling be easy to get him in, and how long does it take.
Bet ive missed summit out lol
Jan 18th 2008, 4:34 am
#3
Account Closed
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 134
Re: HELP?
If your transferring more than £30k there is no charge, under this they charge you £15 (hence you get them to hold until your ready to transfer) and you get a commercial exchange rate which is much better than putting all your money into travellers cheques and bringing it with you (plus you must declare all funds over AU$10k when you land in OZ - cash, travellers chqs etc (you can keep it but you have to fill in a form as they like to know where it came from - house sale etc).
Once your in Oz you go to the Local Migrant Banking Centre (ours was in Perth but they tell you in a letter where you go and who to contact).
Once there you they will sort you out with your keycards (which allows you to get access to your money from any of your accounts, no longer do you have 1 card for each account). You can also set-up other accounts and I'd say open as many as you want whilst your there also apply for a credit card as it's easier if the bank person does it, we opened:
1 x a day-2-day chequing account (Streamline)
1 x Internet only savings account
1 x childs account for our son
1 x joint Mastercard credit card (which was approved a week later when the cards arrived)
Also register for their Internet banking as it's really quite good. We moved all the money from the Cash Investment Account into the internet only account as you get much better interest (6% rather than 1%) and this is what the bank employee suggested we do.
Be aware that you do pay for banking in Oz, there is a monthly fee and you get so many free transactions, we opted for an unlimited account but the bank will fill you in on this.
Finally leave a UK bank account open that you can access with your UK switch cards, this is handy as things like Council Tax refunds can take ages to come through and some people will only send cheques. A UK cheque can be paid into an Oz bank account but it's treated as foreign currency, takes around 30 days to clear and they charge you $5 for each one (pay in 5 cheques and that's $25 in charges). It's much much quicker and cheaper to send them back to someone in the UK who can pay into your account (parents in my case).
also how much does it cost to ship yr stuff over(and how long does it take to arrive). What if you are in rented accomadation thats furnished,what do we do with our stuff? To me it seems you need round about £20,000 to set up,does anyone think that this is a realistic amount or am i over estimating.
As for time, our goods left our house on Nov 7th and we were given an estimated arrival time in Fremantle (the port for Perth bound people) of 1st Jan 2008. The container was taken off the ship at 15:12 on the 1st Jan 2008 (you can track your container providing they give your the container number).
Setting up home in OZ can set you back a bit, I believe they quote around $30k for furnishing a home (that's everything). We got a furnoched holiday rental for a couple of weeks until our container arrived however we had to move into our unfurnoshed rental property sooner (owner withdrew 2 rental from under us) so we ended up buying the essentials (1 queen sized bed which we were buying anyway and a new sofa bed), we've rented a washer, fridge & TV (which is quite easy to do here) and people at my wife's work leant us things like cuttlery, ironing board etc. As we bought everything with us and I mean everything from a 3 bedroom house ! were reluctant to buy anything else and our container should hopefully clear customs next week (3 weeks after paying customs charges).
Hope this helps, anything else you need to know feel free to ask and good luck with everything
Jan 18th 2008, 3:46 pm
#4
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 17
Re: HELP?
You can open a Commonwealth Bank Of Australia account in the UK at the London Office which is what we did. How it works is they open a UK account with a UK sort code and UK account number which you can put money into (income tax refunds, saving, pension refunds, house sale, money from your other UK bank accounts etc). You instruct them to hold the funds (otherwise every time you put money in they transfer it to Oz). Once all your cash is in there (in our case house sale profits) you give them a call and ask them to transfer the money to your Australian Cash Investment Account (which they automatically set up for you). This usually takes 24 hrs to appear in the Oz account.
If your transferring more than £30k there is no charge, under this they charge you £15 (hence you get them to hold until your ready to transfer) and you get a commercial exchange rate which is much better than putting all your money into travellers cheques and bringing it with you (plus you must declare all funds over AU$10k when you land in OZ - cash, travellers chqs etc (you can keep it but you have to fill in a form as they like to know where it came from - house sale etc).
Once your in Oz you go to the Local Migrant Banking Centre (ours was in Perth but they tell you in a letter where you go and who to contact).
Once there you they will sort you out with your keycards (which allows you to get access to your money from any of your accounts, no longer do you have 1 card for each account). You can also set-up other accounts and I'd say open as many as you want whilst your there also apply for a credit card as it's easier if the bank person does it, we opened:
1 x a day-2-day chequing account (Streamline)
1 x Internet only savings account
1 x childs account for our son
1 x joint Mastercard credit card (which was approved a week later when the cards arrived)
Also register for their Internet banking as it's really quite good. We moved all the money from the Cash Investment Account into the internet only account as you get much better interest (6% rather than 1%) and this is what the bank employee suggested we do.
Be aware that you do pay for banking in Oz, there is a monthly fee and you get so many free transactions, we opted for an unlimited account but the bank will fill you in on this.
Finally leave a UK bank account open that you can access with your UK switch cards, this is handy as things like Council Tax refunds can take ages to come through and some people will only send cheques. A UK cheque can be paid into an Oz bank account but it's treated as foreign currency, takes around 30 days to clear and they charge you $5 for each one (pay in 5 cheques and that's $25 in charges). It's much much quicker and cheaper to send them back to someone in the UK who can pay into your account (parents in my case).
General rule of thumb is a 20ft sole use container will set you back around £3200. This includes them export packing your goods, loading the container, shipping to OZ via sea, delivery to your chosen home in Oz (usually with 30 kms of the major city in the state), unpacking and "one time placement" of goods. It does not exclude Customs Charges which are payable locally in Oz (ours was $374) and any other charges (if they want to clean your goods).
As for time, our goods left our house on Nov 7th and we were given an estimated arrival time in Fremantle (the port for Perth bound people) of 1st Jan 2008. The container was taken off the ship at 15:12 on the 1st Jan 2008 (you can track your container providing they give your the container number).
Setting up home in OZ can set you back a bit, I believe they quote around $30k for furnishing a home (that's everything). We got a furnoched holiday rental for a couple of weeks until our container arrived however we had to move into our unfurnoshed rental property sooner (owner withdrew 2 rental from under us) so we ended up buying the essentials (1 queen sized bed which we were buying anyway and a new sofa bed), we've rented a washer, fridge & TV (which is quite easy to do here) and people at my wife's work leant us things like cuttlery, ironing board etc. As we bought everything with us and I mean everything from a 3 bedroom house ! were reluctant to buy anything else and our container should hopefully clear customs next week (3 weeks after paying customs charges).
Hope this helps, anything else you need to know feel free to ask and good luck with everything
If your transferring more than £30k there is no charge, under this they charge you £15 (hence you get them to hold until your ready to transfer) and you get a commercial exchange rate which is much better than putting all your money into travellers cheques and bringing it with you (plus you must declare all funds over AU$10k when you land in OZ - cash, travellers chqs etc (you can keep it but you have to fill in a form as they like to know where it came from - house sale etc).
Once your in Oz you go to the Local Migrant Banking Centre (ours was in Perth but they tell you in a letter where you go and who to contact).
Once there you they will sort you out with your keycards (which allows you to get access to your money from any of your accounts, no longer do you have 1 card for each account). You can also set-up other accounts and I'd say open as many as you want whilst your there also apply for a credit card as it's easier if the bank person does it, we opened:
1 x a day-2-day chequing account (Streamline)
1 x Internet only savings account
1 x childs account for our son
1 x joint Mastercard credit card (which was approved a week later when the cards arrived)
Also register for their Internet banking as it's really quite good. We moved all the money from the Cash Investment Account into the internet only account as you get much better interest (6% rather than 1%) and this is what the bank employee suggested we do.
Be aware that you do pay for banking in Oz, there is a monthly fee and you get so many free transactions, we opted for an unlimited account but the bank will fill you in on this.
Finally leave a UK bank account open that you can access with your UK switch cards, this is handy as things like Council Tax refunds can take ages to come through and some people will only send cheques. A UK cheque can be paid into an Oz bank account but it's treated as foreign currency, takes around 30 days to clear and they charge you $5 for each one (pay in 5 cheques and that's $25 in charges). It's much much quicker and cheaper to send them back to someone in the UK who can pay into your account (parents in my case).
General rule of thumb is a 20ft sole use container will set you back around £3200. This includes them export packing your goods, loading the container, shipping to OZ via sea, delivery to your chosen home in Oz (usually with 30 kms of the major city in the state), unpacking and "one time placement" of goods. It does not exclude Customs Charges which are payable locally in Oz (ours was $374) and any other charges (if they want to clean your goods).
As for time, our goods left our house on Nov 7th and we were given an estimated arrival time in Fremantle (the port for Perth bound people) of 1st Jan 2008. The container was taken off the ship at 15:12 on the 1st Jan 2008 (you can track your container providing they give your the container number).
Setting up home in OZ can set you back a bit, I believe they quote around $30k for furnishing a home (that's everything). We got a furnoched holiday rental for a couple of weeks until our container arrived however we had to move into our unfurnoshed rental property sooner (owner withdrew 2 rental from under us) so we ended up buying the essentials (1 queen sized bed which we were buying anyway and a new sofa bed), we've rented a washer, fridge & TV (which is quite easy to do here) and people at my wife's work leant us things like cuttlery, ironing board etc. As we bought everything with us and I mean everything from a 3 bedroom house ! were reluctant to buy anything else and our container should hopefully clear customs next week (3 weeks after paying customs charges).
Hope this helps, anything else you need to know feel free to ask and good luck with everything
