mandymoochops

You don't have a year to land, you have a year from the date of your medicals.

So if medicals were in say Nov 2013 and you got pr in August 2014, you would have to land by nov 2014.

Although you don't have to stay, you just need to activate your pr by this time.

Then the 2 out of 5 rule starts - so say you popped over for a holibob to activate the visa in Oct 2014, you would need at the very latest to move permanently by Oct 2017 - although I would say thats cutting it fine.

There are many on here that have had to take emergency trips back to the uk for sick rellies, family emergencies etc - so using the example above i'd look at moving in Oct 2016, giving you leeway.

LucyLovelock

We applied in 2000, called for interview 2002, got our PR 2003 and did the landing process May 2003, with a view to moving over in the sept. Got here in May, panicked, and thought I couldnt do it (lots of personal reasons too) and that was that.....roll on mid 2005 and realised that the dream was still burning and we couldnt let it slide without giving it a go......moved out in Dec 2005, despite having a very close family member pass away shortly before we moved out, and we have not looked back since.

I took my now 3 and 4.5 yr old up on the hill behind our home this afternoon in the beautiful blue sky and sunshine, to fly their kite. Our view was of our fab lil town (ok ever growing town!) and the Rockies beyond.
Definately no going back for us.....glad we did it?! Too bloody right!
Good luck with your application and I say dont live life with regrets.
There are those that try it and for whatever reason move back.....sure it aint cheap to do that, but you know what, lifes not a dress rehearsal!
Good luck!
x

craigpark2

Well said!

Howefamily

I went through the should we shouldnt we for a while and I do believe for many its all part of the process.
Part of it was the fear of screwing up big time and we were surrounded by those in England who thought we were nuts.

In the end I focused on how I would feel if we didnt do this and it was awful. So I pushed to the side all my worries and ignored them.

We have been here now about 14 months and it was the right thing for us.

cheeky_monkey

If you base everything around kids and when is the best time..you will never go because there is never a perfect time to go...my advice is go now...life is too short to live it by time tables..take a chance and enjoy the ride!!

Maplease

Surely it's natural to to-and-fro. Some will internalise it, others discuss it in the family and some will use an internet forum to look for advice and assistance. I think it's completely naturally.
We are going through the NSPNP route and are due to go have our medicals next week. Do I still wonder if I am doing the right thing, especially with a 4 year old? You bet I do. However, we have decided we will give it a go and if it doesn't work, we are prepared to take the financial hit. Only you know if you can financially afford to do that or be prepared to.

Good luck in making your 'final' decision.

iaink

My 6 year old spent last night puking. As a result my OH wont be working this afternoon.

The problems of raising kids without family around dont disappear just because the diapers have.

Howefamily

we didnt have support with sick kids back in the UK so nothing changes here. Especially if they were sick. And tbh, I believe sick children should be with a parent snuggled up at home anyway

Geordie Lass

Its a tough one - but all the "should we shouldn't we" is pretty normal too.

I think if you are not *both* in it 100% and you do it you will struggle. We were both in it 100% but it's still hard. We have been here 7 weeks.

If it weren't for a couple of friends I have met on here that live near us I think I would have been absolutely desperate to fly back home by now. I love it here but it's not easy. Even once the decision is made and you are here once the dust settles you have moments of wanting to rush back. Not often but when they come they are awful.

So what I am trying to say is I think it's vital that you are absolutely convinced you want to do it before you do it... There is no reason why you can't apply and make the decision later down the line

Kaye5

Raising kids without support from family and friends IS hard. You are right to bear this in mind and think carefully about if you can live with that.

We've raised three kids (and are still doing it) in the UK without any support for the past 15 years. Our social life is zilch and is mainly when people (rarely) come and stay with us and we crack open a bottle of wine around the BBQ (British weather permitting).

So in this aspect, for us, moving to Canada won't be any different. For you, if you have a lot of support here, it will be a shock to the system.

The only time in 15 years we have had a night with all three kids away was when we were in Ottawa - a friend of the family took my boys camping and fishing and my aunt took my daughter for the night. One night off - 15 years. Darn it, we're heading for Nova Scotia!

I'm sure you have other considerations too, but on this one, I can tell you from personal experience, it is tough going, whatever the kids' ages.

__TJ__

I've been there and I know all about it keeping you up at night and feeling sick with worry. My situation was we both wanted it 110% dh went out to get his licences (he's a crane driver ) and we joined him three days before Christmas after two weeks apart. I had to watch three kids (12, 10 and 1) while we packed half a house, closed down all the bills, sky broadband etc. It was immeasurably hard to be away from him and undergo all that stress. The flight was not fun on my own with the kids, my 12yo has autism so I'm walking on eggshells any time we are out and about and on a plane you can't controll the environment. Baby didn't sleep the whole way there and screamed a good portion of it!
Then we landed and it was lovely to be together again, we found a place to rent in maple ridge, beautiful house on a mountain, got dd into school (ds took a while longer while they tried to sort out an education plan for him, he gas aspergers so is gifted and far too smart for his age)

Then we found out that despite the contract, there was no basic, so no work no money. Having spent a large proportion of everything we had on getting there we had to face not being able to support ourselves. We sold everything we could, my jewellery, stuff we had left back home for mum to store etc. With the crane industry basically shut over dec/jan/feb we had landed at the very worst time imaginable. And faced three months where we couldn't make the rent. We had been expecting a weekly basic which would have mire than covered everything but without this had to face going back.
We spent two weeks trying to find another job (dh on pnp but you can transfer to a new employer in exceptional circumstances) he had an offer on the table but the guy who needed to sign the form was on holiday for two weeks, and the kids and I had return flights (never intended to use them but they were cheaper than one way over Christmas) so we had to come back.
IF we'd known there was no basic we wouldn't have gone,
IF we'd known there was no work, literally not one single hour! Ditto the above
IF I'd stayed here with the kids he could have lived very cheaply while we stayed in our house, (but we wanted this adventure to be together, as we face everything!)
IF the guy at company 2 had been there we would have scraped by..

Fast forward three months and dh made enough money to support us here, got visa changed and got job with company 2, but it's compromising, he is up north not in Vancouver, he is away from us, because we had to stay in uk and it's been two days and it's killing me, baby keeps asking for daddy and 12 yo has gone into a meltdown. But hopefully it will be megabucks and we can quickly pay off what we had to borrow and start saving for the move, again.

We know we wouldn't have made it if we had stayed and the first months back here have been hard, very depressing when you want something so much then it's taken away because of the stupidity of another. but you live and learn.

When we realised we would have to go back to England after just 7 weeks the financial enormity of it was enough to scramble your brain! £2,5k shipping our goods back as they landed three days after we left, another £1k for returning the dog (thank god I got that rabies paperwork sorted or he'd still be in quarantine! (btw, the cash for those was provided by mil, she would pay for us to come home but not for us to stay because there was no more for later if it didn't work out and we later had to come back. )

What I'm trying to show by typing all this is that even if you think you have planned for every eventuality, you haven't. People will say don't go unless you have £x thousand behind you, but if we did that we'd never get out there.
In uk money is tight, bills are high and there is no chance for saving, just surviving! In Canada dh gets 2.5x per hour what he gets in the uk, real world experience shows shopping bill is comparatively lower than uk, utilities lower, fuel lower but more pricey cos everything is so damn far away! Schools in our experience better. Even income tax is lower. So we are doing it all again, I'm not blind to the pain this has caused my children and our parents, but it's what we want and we can either survive in the uk, or thrive out there!
Making this choice is the hardest thing you will have to do, once it's done tho you can buckle down and plough forward to either being here or there.
I'd also heartily recommend the pnp program our acceptance letter came in 16weeks. And we got visas at poe. Then you could be out there by summer, try it for a year while your PR application goes thru, then if you want to go back to blighty you have three years to change your mind.

or4ngecrush

I always think if you think too much about it then it seems scarier and the mind goes back and forward. Life is never so straight forward so many things happened in mine that I never could have imagined. You can plan for lots and then something "crops up" I always thought before I moved here (and I don't have kids so I can't exactly compare to how your feeling) that if it all fails you go back and nothing is really lost but you can at least say "I gave it a try" I would hate to have said.. "what if"

So I think there is no harm to apply and go through all the paperwork and then when it gets closer to the move see how you feel.. That's if you can afford it..

Rubie

Believe me, after the 'hard years' come the harder years when they become teenagers and don't want to move with you, and you worry about disrupting their secondary school education, and you worry if you're damaging them by taking them away from family and friends...................... need I go on?

There is never a 'best time' when you have kids, there are issues whatever their age, they just change with their age.

On your point about not having family support - I have raised 3 kids without living near any family in the uk - it's not as hard as you think. I think probably the thought is worse than the reality if you have never been without local support.

Anyway, good luck with your decision and process. I know the heartache and roller-coaster ride that goes with this part of the emigration process and so will anyone else who has moved with children