lou_pete

Hi all
Please bear with me........ This is probably the first of many, that i shall be posting. I'm hoping you lovely, fine people can give me some advice on relocating to Melbourne (hopefully we will do it by the end of the year). Firstly, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Lucy, i'm a married mum of two (girl aged 6, boy aged 4). I'm a staff nurse, my hubby is a HGV driver. I understand, my hubby has to retake his truck license in oz. Just wondering what sort of prices they have for renting a three bedroomed property, in Melbourne. We don't need anything too flash, just somewhere to start off and get our bearings, if you know what i mean.
We are going on my visa (4 year). And will probably take around £8k with us. We are not a loaded family, we rent in the UK and will probably rent for a while in OZ. Eventually, we will go for PR. I would love to hear from others who have been in a similar situation as us. And ANY advice about relacating would be smashing!

Our interests include - motorbikes, punk music, swimming, sports, gigs, playing guitar, playing harmonica, playing drums and anything else we can get our grubby little mits on! We all love exploring and we're keen to get our kids out and about to see the delights of Australia.

Anything you can offer in the way of advice will be very much appreciated.
Have a great day everyone. Don't be getting up to too much mischief.... OK, maybe just a little
Thanx loads.... Lucy

geelong

Welcome to this thread. We found that it was worth having our UK belongings shipped over, including washing machine etc. We had to suffer sitting on garden chairs until our stuff came but it would have been more expensive to replace everything out here. Hope that helps a little.

steve_uk

We shipped our stuff over and wish we hadn't - it doesn't really suit\fit our new house.

The sister-in-law pays $300 a week for a 3 bed brand new townhuse in a nice eastern suburb area.

Can your OH drive oil tankers? The company I work for are usually looking for drivers for their tankers.

lou_pete

Hi there
He doesn't drive oil tankers . But I'm pretty sure he would scream the test. He was planning on doing that test here, but to be honest i think it would be a waste of time. Especially if he would have to retake it in OZ anyway. Do you know how much it will cost to retake? It would give us the opportunity to keep a certain amount of money aside for it.

And hey, thats a great price for renting a three bedroomed property - $300 per week - i am so delighted to hear that news. Now its time to cartwheel! I had a bad feeling it would cost a fortune. These TV programmes have a lot to answer for. Tut tut.

Many, many thanx for the great advice. If you can offer any other advice, i'd be really greatful. Woohoo! Its a cosmic day, here in the land of Lucy.
Cheers, guys!

steve_uk

Not sure how much it costs to take the tanker truck test as I work in their IT area. I can ask one of the Operations guys though, expect they would know.

From what I gather, renting is much much cheaper than buying. I pay $4000 per month on my mortgage.

Only trouble with renting is that there is a rental shortage so you cant be too fussy and have to be quick.

Looks like the economy is slowing up here as well - dont think my house is worth what I paid for it during the 'boom'. Def a buyers market now.

Glad your having a good day!!

suzyambrose

Hi

I have a similar thread, maybe you could get a few answers from that? I'm also trying to find out about suitable suburbs etc so keep in touch

I have posted the link for you
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=584771

if that doesn't work it's called Melbourne 2009

lou_pete

Hi suzyambrose
Thanx loads. Will definately check it out. I'm finding this site excellent, people are really helpful and encouraging. When do you hope to get over to Melbourne? Have you found the whole experience a challenge? I am so excited about it.I know we'll have up's and down's, but hey.... who cares, thats just the way I like it!!! Haaaa! Would love to stay in touch and we can see how each other are getting on.
Bottoms up!

suzyambrose

We're going in October, just deciding where to go has been a challenge for us have you been to oz before? Im excited but I think there's a slight nervous dread too, so much to think about! I just hope it's everything we want it to be. I'm scared of struggling and having no backup plan!

lou_pete

That is exactly what we was worried about too. Especially when you have young kids to think of! I just went for a nosey on your thread and I see you also have two little 'uns.
We was going to go last year, almost had everything in order, but some of the research i did was really offputting. It made me think we would be worse off financially. But now I think.... hey, if other people can do it, then why can't we? I know it will start off really difficult, but it will be soooooooo worth it in the long run. We don't have a house to sell back here, as we private rent. So we wont have thousands of pounds to take with us. Just our savings and whatever we make from selling our bits and bobs (good ol' ebay, huh?) Its a new start and a huge challenge. The kids will love it and so will us parents. We should all take the bull by the horns and say ...... FAIR WELL BLIGHTY. I'm gonna miss the UK, family and friends etc, but this is an opportunity not many people get.
I see you was looking at Frankston area. That was an area we have been considering too. I just have to wait and see what hospital positions come up.
October/November is also the time we are looking to go.
Hey Ho.... Lets go! Its a jungle out there! Yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaa!
Lucy. xxx

suzyambrose

Gosh small world! We have a house to sell but the way things are we might have to rent it out REALLY don't wanna do that or might just post the keys to the mortgage company and say see ya! if we drop it another 5k we'll amke nothing anyway. I think sometimes you can read too much, especially on here, like people debating wether you can live off 60k a year in oz I mean the ozzies can, so why can't we!? There's so much to think and worry about especiall with 2 kids in tow I've found it hard enough to fin short term acommodation but think we're going to use a company called Moving to Melbourne have you heard of them?

The thought of ;eaving family and friends is hard and if I think about it too much I start to feel ill and get emotional so I'll save it for the airport! Think I'm gonna have to do a car boot or something, I find ebay a bit of a hassle sometimes especially if your selling samller items that you wont get that much for but I'm just in the process of TRYING to open my own bank account for the proceedings!

Suzy xx

FlumpBrain

Hi all,

Never been to Oz before, and have just accepted a job at Frankston hospital, as a midwife, got sponsorship easily and have lodged my e457 visa application last Friday. My hubby is an alcohol rehab support worker, hopefully he should find work easily , and i have my 12 year old daughter and my 7 year old son travelling too - our 18 year old daughter has decided to stay in the UK with grandparents until her course is finished, and then she plans to follow us over.

We too had planned to move last year, but my 12 year old needed surgery to her hip. We had already sold our house, and are now privately renting too. We only have in the region of £15,000 in savings, plus whatever we make on Ebay and car boot sales before we go - hopefully it'll be enough !

My advice regarding a nursing job would be just to e-mail your cv to the hospitals your interested in working, even if no current vacancies are advertised, they'll have all your details on file

bigAPE

Wow, so many Brits moving to Victoria. If the kind folk on here don't provide all the answers for you, you might also consider asking the question on BritVics, which is a community forum dedicated to Victoria. I won't post a link on here for fear of enraging the powers that be, but if you Google "britvics" you will find it straight away.

There are lots of nurses on there and some also living around the area your talking about. In fact I'm pretty sure a couple of them work at Frankston Hospital

Note that at this time BritVics is down, the hosting provider for the forum is having a problem.