Perhaps further posts will back this up ? : I think that when you are in the UK and compare your pounds to dollars it doesn't seem very attractive. However, once you have been here a while you forget the pounds and just think in the dollars that you are paid in. Generally speaking, you will get a lot more for your money here. For example, a house for the equivalent of GBP160k will probably be much bigger than a typical provincial UK terraced or semi detached. For another example, petrol will cost you around 50p a litre at the moment!

The fact that my take home when converted would not be as great as my equivelant now doesn't bother me. What we were looking at was, if we could be mortgage free (or as near as damn it) then our combined wages would only need to cover our day to day living expenses including insurances etc. If we were mortgage free now the OH could give up work cos our mortgage payment is about as big as her take home pay. What I was refering to was, if we still require a mortgage (with so many people saying that the cost of living is as great in Oz as the UK) then with me taking a big hit in the take home department would our combined take home be enough to allow us to have/enjoy a more laid back lifestyle or would we need to use those leisure hours to work to get by. I really wish that one of the TV programmes would come along and do all of the sums for me without me having to do any TV stuff in return (and be edited to come across as whatever they want just to bring in the ratings).

I have a colleague who was a TRI on KAL/KE and he often had to slap the First Officer's hands off the controls in order to live to so I don't really fancy that. I can get a job flying in the left seat in a new A320 in India paying about 4 times the Australian offer so I'm going with that.