gagno9

This is to all those who are currently living out in Australia on a student visa with your family.

When me and the OH have conversations about when we move we are constantly thinking about how things will be living on a tight budget. We are both use to working full time and having enough money to enjoy ourselves during the evenings or weekends. Also when we want time alone (For a meal etc before you say anything) we have friends and family who are around to look after our daughter.

I suppose what Im trying to ask is, what sort of things do you get upto as a family while living on a small budget and while one is at college studying what does the other one do to pass the time of day?

We understand that this is not going to be an easy time but if anyone could provide us with some examples as to the things they do I would be very grateful

Lee

fifty_pence

have your OH sign up for a Masters degree and you can work fulltime

shark bait

The student visa is a complete nightmare!
think long and hard before doing it.
Being in oz is great, but finalcially its very very difficult.
Living here is not cheap ! also paying for kids schooling is robbery.
If u want to live in a good area you will need to run 1 or 2 cars.
Jobs are very difficult to get, in OZ its who you know, not how good u are.
Therefore if jobs are hard to find , getting your 900 hours in is difficult.
Here in oz , we spend the same if not more per week than in the uk, without decent wages.
On the plus side the standard of lifestyle here is better than the uk.

mandyp

Hi Lee,

We've been here living on a student visa for around 18 months. .we didn't come over with a huge amount of money (I think we were just short of what we were supposed to have, going by the calculator on the immigration site).

There is hubbie, myself and 2 kiddiewinks (4yrs and 2years old). So fortunately we don't have school fees to pay.

We are living pretty comfortably on what we are earning here, fortunately we are bringing in not too much less than we did back across. I earn really good money though as I work at the weekends and get good penalty rates.

I personally find it a cheaper way of life over here as back across on similar incomes we subsidised a great deal by using a credit card n ran up a bit of debt for the (not even great) lifestyle!! We didn't go out all that much back across TBH, but find that the social sceen is weekend through the day stuff, going to friends for BBQ's or going to the beach, so it's more about doing things as a family.

If it's your only way of getting here, then you just have to get into a positive mindset and make it work. . it's only for a couple of years!!

Good luck
Mandy

pumpkin blossom

I can't talk from the point of view of someone with children, as we just have a dog.

Hubbie works 2.5 days a week (total of 20 hours). Where he works he could pick his hours, more money for evenings, even more for weekends, but he decided he wanted two full days and then a part day on week day times. He spends his spare time fishing and walking the dog at the beach. Sometimes if I am lucky he might do the shopping for dinner, but generally he is too 'busy'.
He had thought he would like to do some voluntary work for meals on wheels, but he is not allowed as his 20 hours are already used up.

As just the two of us we do just fine, have two cars, eat out fairly often, hubbie goes out drinking at least one night a fortnight, we have foxtel, buy ourselves treats often....
I really don't know if we spend more or less money here, I have not worked it out, but I don't feel like we go without at all. I suppose the main thing we don't have here is holidays abroad, which we used to have at least two, normally 3 to other continents. We have a tent here though.

We have always been careful with money, so we haven't really had to cut back at all. Infact I have bought more new clothes in the last year than the 2 years before. The main thing stopping us buying things is not knowing for sure we will be able to stay, and not wanting to have to go through the whole selling everything thing again.

I think it you had to pay school fees too it would be quite hard if you did not have savings as a back up.

Good luck

gagno9

Thanks for the replys even the negative one because lets face it, its not an easy option and unless you all have the mind right mind set it just wont work.

We are planning on going with about 20k (english) min and that includes the 9800 it costs for the course. Possible???? I know its not much but if you have any comments negative or positive about our chances then people please rant. Without sounding cheeky, what did you take? Roughly

Our daughter is 3, 4 in dec before flying out in jan so school fees are not a problem at the beginning thankfully. I guess its the stress of not knowing what jobs we will get and what rate of pay they might involve and how we manage our lives around the part time work and schooling with a child.

Being a difficult option to take for PR I must admit its always encouraging to hear how you guys are getting on being in the same boat. As before any advice you feel might be helpful please share, it helps a lot more than reading one formal website after another

gagno9

One other thing, some of you have said that you spend roughly what you did in the UK. Does mean that you are spending much more than you earn as you can only work part time?
Or when you say you are bringing in near enough to what you did back in the UK, how is this possible working part time?

Cheers

pumpkin blossom

We spend the same on day to day spending. Our rent here is higher than our mortgage in the UK, but we spend less on food, conciously as we are on less money.
The extra money we earned in the UK would go on holidays, which here we are not having (we used to go on at least 2 long hall holidays a year). Also we don't buy lots of things we did such as gardening stuff, as we don't have our own house and until we know we are staying for good it is not worth spending on.
We could have lived on just as few hours in the UK too if we didn't take holidays as we didn't have any debt. Here we are near the beach and the weather is great, and it is all like a holiday to us still, so we don't feel like we are missing out.

I think we had about the same as you in savings, and after buying the cars, furnature etc we are not eating into it other than for the course fees.

gagno9

I think that if it was possible everyone would take more money with them but you can only take what you have.

Everyone has didnt budgets that they are able to love on, as everyones limits are different. Fingers crossed how I lived as a student will help lower the amount of money my OH will probably spend.

How vital is a car?? As we are heading to melbourne, i didnt think that we would need one as the public transport is so good there.

pumpkin blossom

That depends really. I am studying horticulture, and a car is essential for getting work, as none of them are situated well for buses. Also the buses here (in Adelaide at least) are rubbish (always crammed full of people). And public transport in Melbourne when we visited was very expensive, and they refused to accept my TAFE card for a student fee!

We have two cars, as hubbie only working 2.5 days a week, obviously doesn't want to just sit in the house the rest of the time.

Now I do hate public transport, but if I had kids I would be even less likely to want to live without a car. We certainly don't live close enough to the supermarkets to want to walk with all our heavy shopping.

mandyp

Not sure about Melbourne, but as far as it is here, public transport is not great.

Everything is fairly spread out too, we do loads of miles. Unless you lived very close to where you are studying, with everything you need at your doorstep, you will definately need at least the one car.

Cheers
Mandy

Smartinis

I agree that the public transport over here is REALLY crowded especially the trains, they're not particularly comfortable either but do run quite frequently (about every 15 minutes) even if some are often cancelled and most are slow stopping trains which is frustrating for commuting. If your on a budget you will not be able to afford to live in the CBD so will be commuting but I disagree that its expensive, a weekly ticket covering all Melbourne suburbs is about $50, that includes, trains, trams and some buses. Compared to the UK I think its really cheap and is you are entitled to a student concession card its only about $25. The main drawback though is that unless you live close to a station you may need a car to get you that far to start with. Parking at the stations though is free but for most that means catching an early train to get a space in the car park.