The Brooks

would it be possible for a family of 5 (2 adults & 3 children) to move over with only £10,000 ($23000.00) and make ago of it. Due to bad financial decisions over the years this is all we have left out of our house sale, we are going to Perth, staying with friends to begin with till we find some where to rent, shipping some things over but will need new beds washer fridge dining set. Hubby will start work more or less straight away, oh and will need a cheap car.

Thanks in advance

marvinc

I'm sure many have gone with much less, remember reading a thread on here on how much people went over with. If you have somewhere to stay with friends and a job to go to thats a good start. Good luck

chrisandvee

I think you will be fine, dont forget its not the money its the fact you are moving to oz. I think you will need to find jobs quickly when you get there and probably pull in the purse strings for a while.
Im not gonna have much more than that of which im putting $5000 for a car $2000 bonds for house ect and then around $7000 to furnish a rental im going to do this by getting a mixture of things from ebay www.ebay.com.au and using good old ikea when we get there which leaves us a few $ to survive till the money starts rolling in.
good luck on your move im sure evrything will be fine
ps where in perth are you staying we will be staying with friends around edgewater till we find house

Bobcat

Where in Preston are you from? I'm from Brookfield.

The Brooks

Thanks for the replies, its just a worry with 3 kids in tow.


hi Bobcat we are just outside preston in Kirkham

Dorothy

We came with about $40k. 2 kids 2 adults. My husband was not able to find work for 9 months, so I worked 2 jobs to support us for a while. Our savings are now gone, as we had to buy a lot of things when we got here and with OH out of work my salary didn't stretch very far, but who cares? The kids are fed, clothed and happy.

Just Lisa

Do you plan on buying a house in Aus?

If renting you'll be fine is your OH will be in work asap.

Plug

That's exactly what we had, 3 kids, ten grand, other side of Oz though. If you can get work early on, you'll be fine!

shears

Check out this thread:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=421240

Bobcat

We came out here to Perth as a family with three boys aged 1, 3, and 4 right smack bang in the middle of the bloody 'Recession We Had To Have" days!

We knew no-one except my brother who luckily lived NOR in Beldon. I say luckily because had he lived SOR we would have followed suit and moved there too; whereas as is......... we love it NOR.

It was very tough then because jobs were scarce and try as I may; I just could not get a job for love nor money. Prior to arriving in Perth, for 3 years I had held a management position up in the Solomon Islands where I supervised a 60 strong workforce.

We had it made up there; tax-free salary, LAFHA, subsidised Govt housing, company vehicle, free business-class air fares back to Manchester each year via any route we wanted............. we soon came down to earth with a bump though! I was too old, too qualified (I'd never heard that one before!), too experienced, too fat, too whatever.......... there just weren't any jobs around so we really struggled.

I was on the DOLE for the first 4 years; only work I could pick up was as a pipe-fitter doing shut-downs up the Pilbara for Woodside which lasted about 3 weeks each time; or shut-downs at Kwinana which paid well but meant a lot of traveling time back and forth each day. I'd never been out of work before so it was a real shock to the system........... and before too long our savings had gone.

Could have quite easily thrown in the towel and snook off back to Preston; but the thing about Australia........... well it's not really such a bad place to struggle in? The kids grew up healthy; they had a fabulous outdoors lifestyle despite us being somewhat poor.......... so I'd much rather struggle over here than have to endure the same struggle amongst the poxy weather and the grime in Lancashire!

Despite not reaching the same level of success we were used to during our first 4 years here........ things did eventually pick-up and opportunities galore cropped up (Hughie Green?). I managed to get off-shore on the rigs and earn some serious money once more......... and we have never looked back as we've cracked it. The opportunity is here if you are willing to give it a go.

Granted; it won't be easy at first........ far from it. But at least you have this BE site to network on......... there was nowt like this when we arrived. Give it a go....... and I sincerely hope none of you look back too

mabozar

I see you work offshore. Myself and my family plan to move to Perth quite soon, and I've been keeping an eye out for jobs.
I presently work offshore in the North Sea, about 100 miles north of the Shetlands, and am looking for warmer waters to earn my crust.
I'm an instrument tech to trade, but have been on production side of things for a few years.
Can you recommend any good agencies that would be worth firing my cv to?

Cheers,
Ian

Bobcat

G'uday

The offshore industry is still very much FBI (friends, brothers, and in-laws); that's how I got in as a friend I worked with in Papua New Guinea got me a job in the dog-house with Halliburton on the MV Mag Creek.

I was a 'gunnie' doing seismic from Bass Strait at first (not really a top posting) then we went shooting up the Timor Sea based out of Darwin (much better and warmer up there).

I later joined a floater up in Singapore and spent 3 years on that.

I'm not in the offshore industry now (too old!) but i still have some contact names and addresses in a file somewhere; i'll locate them and PM you.

With your North sea experience you'll be laughing.......... you shouldn't have any trouble getting your foot in the door.

Your HUET will be current when you arrive down-under; if not you can do it at Freo. They do it in a pool now; used to be freezing out in the open sea at Fremantle harbour when i first did it.

jad n rich

It could work if you works straight away, but be wary of the moving in with friends relatives promise, seen so many people hoping for that sort of start falling out and ending up needing a rental much sooner than they thought.

I would hope if your moving a family of 5 out here on that sort of budget, at least one of you has been out here and found out if you do actually want to move here/ can get work/ can afford to live here, its expensive and if it went ass up you could end up barely with the airfares home

The Brooks

Thanks to everyone for your replies much appreciated.

Sam. x