roobush

Hello

to all those who have just moved out to oz, do you think that life is better out there? When I say life, I mean your quality of life. I think you make the most of your life no matter where you live, but quality of life is different if you know what I mean!

What made you want to leave the uk?

I'm hoping that oz will be able to offer a better quality of life for my kids than the uk, but maybe I watch too many ozzie soaps / reality tv shows and being brainwashed?

thanks in advance
roobush

Stu Ward

Absolutely yes !

Pay less for a bigger house (renting here in Oz)
Access to beaches every day
Better outdoor lifestyle
Great Activities for the kids
Better quality eating


Only negative i have and its very small (hot christmas, just dont feel right)

We love it here !!!


Stu

quoll

Better? no. Worse? no not really, just different.

Housing - our house in Bristol was more substantial and a "nicer" house (large end of terrace Victorian) than our house in Canberra (3 bed weatherboard with tin roof) but in Canberra we have 1/4 acre whereas in Bristol it was more like 4 sq m (exaggeration)

Jobs - never without a job in either place and incomes have gone up and down over the times. Had a bad patch with monster high interest rates when we were getting on our feet here so probably about the same overall.

Retirement prospects - definitely better in UK with state old age pension, much wider range of things to do within cooee and not reliant on a private super fund which goes up and down with the market. In home care seems to be pretty good in UK from what is happening to my parents and medical costs and coverage would have the edge on what we have here.

Kids' education (thank goodness no longer an issue) - definitely not comparable with UK when we left (long time ago) which resulted in us spending thousands on private education. Faced with the same situation now I think we would do the same again.

Weather - constant hot weather is as horrible as constant cold weather once you get over the "holiday" feeling. Needing to slather yourself with sunscreen before you leave the house and having your skin look like boot leather before you are 40 - nah, not my idea of fun. The outdoor lifestyle is a bit ho hum - having bushwalked in both countries extensively, give me the Pennine Way over the Kosciosko National Park any day of the week - the flies bite up in Kossie and you can rug up against the cold but in the heat you get dehydrated and cant escape it. I never thought I would be praying for rain and like everyone else thought it would be a good miss - live in drought for a few years and your priorities change!

Food - Australia used to be far better in culinary terms than UK but the UK has definitely lifted its game in the last 10 years and for quality and value for money I would say it now has the edge except for its coffee - bleugh! When you have to rely on Starbucks for the best coffee in town you know that the coffee scene is woeful.

Beaches? Not my scene but the UK has some beautiful beaches (and some truly terrible ones) and folk seem to forget that. I have very happy youthful memories of summer holidays spent in Devon and Cornwall in particular with stunning beaches and nice weather to boot.

People - ah the crunch point for me, better lifestyle is more holistic and less materialistic imho and you can live in a mcmansion but if you dont have your people within cooeee then you may just as well be on the moon because there is always that inherent sense of isolation no matter how many "friends" you make here, they arent "your" folk.

We came here because DH is an Aussie and he got a good offer at the time so it seemed like a good idea. If we had stayed in UK I have no doubt we would have been just as happy, we didnt leave because we didnt like it, we were just young and adventurous and it was another step in our lives. I dont think I ever thought it would be the last step.

TrickyTree

Life for me is just about the same in Oz as it was England. I do virtually the same things I did back home Monday to Friday but the weekends always seem quiet. I still have not replaced my friends and trips to the City Ground in the 4 years I have been here.

emelems

I find the saying "same shit shiner bucket" sums it up for me..

Em x

renth

I disagree totally. The UK would have to be a disastrous place to spend your retirement unless you have a private pension "pot" of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Australia wins hands down with a much more generous (means tested) pension and compulsory super contributions throughout your working life.

The British state system is a Ponzi scheme which will inevitably be unable to sustain payouts as the population ages.

Anyone who thinks the UK is a good place to be a pensioner needs to read this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008...ions-bill-2006

" The average private pension pot will eventually give a single man of 65 an annual income of £1,960

• A pension pot of £100,000 will give you a yearly sum of £4,500

• 5m people lost £13bn in the private pensions mis-selling scandal

• 9m have no pension provision other than the state

• 2.5m older people now live on less than 60% of the average national income

• The weekly means tested state pension is around £124

• The basic state pension in the UK is 31% of average working pay (the lowest in Europe)

• Since October 2007, we have paid £6.7bn into our pension pots - they are now worth £157bn less than they were before"

Back on topic, better quality of like in Australia?

Definitely, 100% this place is awesome, a bright future for me and my family.

Cheetah7

Deffo a better quality of life for us.

We have our own house (or rather pay the bank for it), we could never have done that in England and the homebuyers grant has given us a real 'leg up' towards getting that as we came with little money.

In London my workpals rarely wanted to socialise after work, as they wanted to get home.

My colleagues here are always doing something, cocktail parties, going out after work, etc - there is usually something going on, home can wait - relaxing and winding down is more important.

Our nearest beach in the UK was Brighton and although I love Brighton, it just isn't Coogee/South Beach/Cottesloe.

In London my asthma would get really bad if I cycled but here I can cycle along the coastal paths and rarely get out of breath.

I thrive on sunshine, although I have to cover up - sunshine makes me tick and a light box for Seasonal Affective Disorder does not cut the mustard - the view of the sun setting over the Indian Ocean however does.

I am happy to pack up some food and get on my bike and go off cycling - I can do this with either my friend or on my own, the scenery /wildlife make it just as nice on my own.

My asthma is so much better having gone from two inhalers and a tablet, to rare puffs of ventolin.

Purely comparing to what we had in London, our lives are 100 percent better.

renth

Me too, I was terrible in the UK, blue and brown puffers, here in Perth, nothing, ever. Asthma gone. 100%.

carolinephillips

No asthma, but hayfever worse!
Sunshine good- no SAD hooray!
Daughter very happy, OH happy, me don't know yet.

Grayling

Asthma and hay fever will improve/worsen depending on their particular triggers.

Some people improve when they move.....others get worse.

Victoria and South Australia have notoriously high levels of asthma and hay fever.

ABCDiamond

First time I left, it was just for a change, to live somewhere different.

Second time; it was to return to where I then realised I had a better quality of life

Cheetah7

Its really liberating, I do still keep my steroid inhaler so I can start that up again should I need to, very occasionally I might wheeze but doctor reckons its adapting to new pollens and stuff.

My Dad cant believe how healthy I look, I am not tanned just look healthy.

The amount of people that suggested a light box for my SAD, no way do I want to spend an hour a day in front of it just to be functional.

worzel

Hell, yeah!

Weekends in the UK, were spent wandering round Tesco's, watching TV or driving 4 hours in heavy traffic to get to family. Now I have a small boat, go camping, diving, off-roading, fishing, barbies...

Work is work wherever but it has been a new challenge in a new role in a new industry. The commute is longer but there is none of that "you didn't go to the right school / rugby club" crap here.

Grayling

Strange that....I did far more fishing, hill walking, camping etc. in the Uk than I do here....UK had a better climate for those activities.

Just shows we are all different.

annqldau

Same sh!t different bucket but it's a dam site warmer and brighter and lot more things to do if you'd already done everything local in UK. Although the drive may be further. Give me heat over cold any day and blue sky over raining or gray sky for months on end. Meet new people instead of the same people you've known for the last 40 yrs... which has it's good and bad points. Work same old same old just in a different country and jobs on a par with UK for us as you lose on some things and win on others.

Overall I have a different quality of life in Oz it's better for somethings and worse for others. Both countries are uniquely different and strangely similar in other ways.