Slaters

Hi. Me, my husband, our 2 children and our dog are looking into moving to Australia in Jan 2020. We haven't submitted our visa application yet, we plan to do this in a few months (just trying to get some money saved first) we have been to Down Under Live and they seem to think there is a good chance of a PR visa being granted for us. Our children will be 7 and 5 by the time we hope to move. My husband is the one with the trade, he is a welder/fabricator with 14 years experience. I work in sales/administration. We would both be willing to take any job to start with to get us started. We are trying to get as much information and views from people as we can as it's a very big and life changing decision. We know we will need around 4000 for shipping goods, 4500 to send the dog, 2000 for a deposit on a rental (roughly). We were debating Perth or Brisbane, I like the look of Brisbane but we agreed it might be too big of a climate change and we decided on Perth - job/house market depending. Can anyone give me any information on jobs for welder/fabricators and office jobs in Perth? And also if you say Perth or Brisbane would be a better choice for the trade. The areas we like are Woodvale, Rockingham and Scarborough (in like order) Does anyone have any thoughts on these? From what iv seen Woodvale is affordable and close to many things. How much money do you think we will need to take with us to last until we have jobs? What we have in mind could be way out. Just so we can get ourselves in a good position. We currently spend around 80-100 a week on food shopping, what would the equivilant be there? Around 200 maybe? And also we have no idea on the price of second hand cars, i currently have a megane but won't be taking it with us. My husband will be looking for a full time job and myself either full or part time, depending on local childcare. I read online there are childcare services for the school holidays, if that's true that's awesome because we would be going with no family. We like the idea of more outdoor living and look forward to embracing it and making friends which we can socialise regularly with - if all comes together. Sorry to ramble on, just hoping we can have some information so that we don't go into this with blinkers on thank you!

verystormy

I will post a bit more tomorrow, but with your budgeting, you need to budget the single biggest cost of migrating. Living costs.

Generally, you need to budget enough to live on as a family with no income for at least three months and ideally six. So, that is enough money to pay rent, keep the car running, household bills, food and all the other bits associated with day to day life while you get work which you need to allow six months for ideally.

Slaters

Thanks for answering me! Iv been trying to look into how much all that will be, but it's difficult. I thought maybe 3 months, I hadn't thought 6 months worth so I'm glad you have said that! Do you live there? Or have any idea what average bills would be for household, cars ect? Just as a guide? I thought roughly 5000 aus dolls for all bills a month? Around 2500 gbp....i am probably way out from people saying how expensive it is! Glad if asked while we are saving in case we need to put the ideal moving date back.

spouse of scouse

It's a really difficult question for anyone to answer, for example depending on the house and area you could be paying $300 per week rent or $1,000 per week. It's a fairly common question though, below are a few links that may give you more of an idea. The first two relate to Perth/WA, the others don't but apart from the rental costs not too much separates the different States.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/austr...-costs-907743/
http://britishexpats.com/forum/austr...sts-wa-896312/
http://britishexpats.com/forum/austr...cating-880331/
http://britishexpats.com/forum/barbi...bourne-905191/

Dorothy

Woodvale, Rockingham and Scarborough are 3 very different areas! Rents are going to vary tremendously, so it's not going to be easy to give you a figure.

However, rent in Woodvale would be about 500-600/wk for a house. Rockingham will be less, but there are some not so nice areas (i.e. places to avoid) so you will have to be more selective when looking. Scarborough is going to set you back 600-700/wk for a house.

I have a very small house and it's only 2 of us, but our bills are around the $600/mo mark. Not including groceries. We spend about 200/wk on groceries for 2 of us. Add in the car rego ($700/yr each), health insurance ($200/mo each), house insurance (you need renters insurance for your contents), school fees, books, uniforms, excursions, lessons, the occasional evening out and you're looking at another 700 per month.

I live not far from Woodvale (it's where we go Saturday nights to watch bands and drink expensive cider). It's a nice enough area, but not inexpensive.

Your most important thing is where will your husband be working? I commute an hour each way and in Perth that's a PITA if you have to drive. Thankfully I take public transport, but if your husband is a tradie he will be driving.

the troubadour

A lot depends on whether Perth can recapture its mojo back or continue to decline with its economy.


This will reflect on rents and house prices and cost of living. I have been surprised to note a house in my inner city location to be more than $150 a week cheaper rent than a few years back. There just doesn't seem to be the demand. A few years ago, long queues, were the norm to view a property around here as people moved out to rent in some cases to cash in on the massive increase and shortage of available close to city rentals.


I would have thought $5,000 a month to cover all costs quite doable in Perth now days. Of course it won't be a grand lifestyle after rent but doable.
I'm not sure if the market for welders has picked up though. But jobs as handyman/maintenance and the like could help to tie one over in the meantime.

brits1

Hi, Its good you are doing some background work and you have some great replies already but myself I would start my application as soon as possible as your husbands trade could be taken off the list by the time you may decide to apply. In regards to Brisbane or Perth...I would first look at where there is demand for your husbands work, Queensland can be humid and hot where Perth can be a dry heat...both have their good and bad points weather wise. Brisbane is greener in my opinion and Perth is during late Autumn/Winter but dry and brown in the late Spring and Summer early Autumn. As for costs it does all depend on your rental area..(I would advise trying to pay as much as possible really as it usually means a better area and school etc) and down to your standard of living ie if you like eating-drinking out/concerts/holidays/buying "nice" clothes etc then you will find your lifestyle to be expensive in Aus (my own personnel experience) but then you can always "cut back on things" to make your new lifestyle work. Child care like the UK can be expensive, you pay for public schooling (ie uniforms, booklists and school fee's etc) and each school pricing varies, you also pay for child medication and general GP's even bulked billed GP's have a gap which you pay on each visit but that will not be so bad if you do not have a lot of sickness in your family. We were lucky and had a bulked billed GP and their gap was tiny plus we were not a family that had to visit the doctors often, I also use to pay for private cover for an ambulance which I am very happy to say that we were lucky not to have to use it in the years we lived in WA. If you shop around for specials at the various supermarkets you can shop less expensively, certain clothes shops were cheap ie K-mart, Target. With 2nd hand cars I am not sure nowadays but we found them to be expensive especially if they had their service books which is a must in my opinion, we hired a car at first until we asked other peoples advice and also looked at a lot of car garages and then we felt confident to buy. As for your employment, I would make sure I had all my references, certificates and up to date qualifications with me and hopefully you will land a good job. All the best.

carcajou

Do you have a positive skills assessment yet?

If not, I would stop at this point and go do that, and then come back when you have that.

The skills assessment is not a formality, and neither is a visa, and it's OK to debate Perth vs Brisbane I think it's premature to be comparing rentals in suburbs when you have no visa, quite possibly have no skills assessment yet, and are still years away from a move (provided you can actually get a visa).

Too much can happen, your application and assessment may not be as automatic as advertised and it won't be good to get excited about the possibilities and then have to come down off that.

Slaters

[QUOTE=spouse of scouse;12475360]It's a really difficult question for anyone to answer, for example depending on the house and area you could be paying $300 per week rent or $1,000 per week. It's a fairly common question though, below are a few links that may give you more of an idea. The first two relate to Perth/WA, the others don't but apart from the rental costs not too much separates the different

Thanks for that, very helpful. We are looking more towards Rockingham....think we will be lookong around 450/500 p/w rent. Im guessing around 4500/5000 aus dollas a month for all bills....i hope thats not way off. Do you live there?

Slaters

They are different areas, do you have any suggestions which is a best area? I like he look of woodvale, but i like the idea of close to the sea. He is a fabricator, so not sure where he will work until we got there. Just trying to do some homework to hopefully put is in the best position to move. Is it nice where you are?

Slaters

Thanks for that info. Does the economy seem to be picking up at all?

Slaters

Luckily we dont live an expensive lifestyle. We have nice things and never go without but we dont over indulge which i think will benefit us. Thanks for your info!

Slaters

Thanks for your input. We are debating suburbs so we know how much we need to save as they all vary and need to ensure we can save enough money.

Slaters

Our visa agent advised us that if we go with a PR visa that the public schools are free? Other than uniform ect...is that not correct?

Slaters

Where abouts to you live? Would you suggest perth or queensland for a family? Obviously they are depending on jobs which we need to look more into. We dont go out much on evening because the kids like to go to bed, but they will be a bit older then so we are hopeful to have nights. Wouldnt be more than once or twice a week as we would be happy in the garden or at the beach. Did you find it easy to make friends? We tend to shop in skate shops for clothes or i am a Primark fan...cheap and cheerful. I kno our plans are a while off, but i feel its worth asking all this stuff now.