stumpysean

Hi,

Have decided to go for student visa option after months of deliberating! (years actually!)

However, we're adding up how much money we'll need and its really scary. We were thinking of booking in to the course starting next July, however i'm not sure we'll beable to afford to go then. It may have to be the following Feb. This sounds soooooo far away!

By the time we've sold our house and paid for the course and everything else, we'll be skint!!!!

How has everyone else managed? Ideally, I'd like to go next July but am petrified that we won't beable to afford it. Have just looked at house prices too and we'll be no better off there atall. We were originally hoping to go and be 'mortgage free' but this looks highly unlikely. House prices have risen so much we wouldn't get anywhere near what we were hoping for.


Comments welcome!

stumpysean

bump

werty1

We only found out about the student visa in july 07, we had always wanted to go to oz but never thought it was possible. In sep 07 we thought let try it, we already had return flights booked for mid dec as we were going on a months holiday so thought why pay for flights again lets just stay while we are there! We put the house up for sale the begining of sep and in sold in a couple of weeks, the house completed 2 days after we arrived in oz. We have just had an invoice for semester 2 and you can pay in installment if you need to but need to prove you are struggling financially. We have one child in school $5000 a year and our daughter starts kindy in feb 09 and that will be £2500.
We have found work easily. I have been working since the day the course started and husband started after about a week and half and hes got horticulture work too so it counts toward the work experience. I have been offered 2 other jobs.
Everything is great and we have our first visitors coming in nov and second lot are coming for christmas!
You only have to pay for the first semester when you apply so if you manage to find sponsorship when you get here you dont have to pay the rest, but you still have to pay school fees in certain states if your sponsored remember.

Good Luck

moneypenny20

If you have no equity from the house sale left I honestly have no idea how you would manage to survive here. It's hugely difficult because you and any family members are only allowed to work 20 hours a week during term time. Most part time jobs require 25 hours so you are really limited in the work you can do and obviously the jobs available will only pay about $15-$18 per hour. With this you have to find rent, transport, utilities, clothes, medical expenses oh and food

I guess it can be done but from my perspective I don't see how. Also once the course is finished and you've passed, you then go on to a bridging visa, which whilst giving you the ability to work full time, and claim Medicare, it's still quite hard to get permanent full time work and PR could be still another six months away.

Hate to rain on anyone's parade but if it were me I'd want to know the worse case scenario beforehand.

I hope you make it work, and hope someone comes along with a happy successful story of doing the student route with minimal finances.

stumpysean

Yes, we understand all your valid points. We have sat up untill the early hours trying to make a decision! We have written down everything we will need to pay out for once we're there and it's frightning to say the least, but we can't see any other way. We would probably hope to find a sponsor once there and maybe swap to a sponsored visa. But who knows, there are no guarantees are there?!!!

We will have a fair bit of equity thank goodness, but were hoping to have this to put down on a house. I am quite shocked at how much house prices have gone up since we visited 2 yrs ago. We were hoping to buy outright but we'll defo need a mortgage probably not dis-similar to what we have in the UK. Thats the thing that worries me, we'll end up worse off financially than we are here.

werty1

We came over with enough money for the college fees, school fees and got a car. Our rent, food, bills, clothes etc are coming out of our wages and we usually have some left at the end of the week to save unless we've had a special occasion, or like last weeks we needed 2 tyres so we had to be extra careful with the money this week.Moneypen is right about everything said above but we thought, if we end up back in England in 2 years time we will just start again, we havent used any savings, just equity we made on the house, we'd only owned it less than 2 years so had not even made a dent in paying the mortgage off.Good luck to you, we are happy so far with our descisions.

stumpysean

Thanks for that info, it makes life a bit easier to think that we can pay in installments if we need to. Adding up what we need to spend is scary! What about school fees, do they need to be paid upfront for the whole year, or can we pay term by term???? We have 2 boys so will be expensive!

Are school fees the same for state school and high school? I'm not sure what schools my 2 will go to. My eldest is 10 (feb birthday) and my youngest will be 8 in June???? they're in yr 3 & 5 in the UK?

werty1

I think it depends on the school, my sons school had never had an international full fee paying student before and the principle was quite shocked. They said we could pay $2500 when he started and the next installment is due in July, but we wcould have paid monthly or what ever suited us best, and the only thing that makes you feel better about paying it, is that the money actually goes to the school not the government.
Some schools charge more for older children too, but it all depends on the state and school.

stumpysean

ok, thanks for that info. I had a look at some schools near the TAFE on the sunshine coast last night, i think i might contact them and ask them what their policies are.

BTW, Does anyone know anything about the schools on the sunshine coast????

pumpkin blossom

There are only two of us, but we manage to pay our rent and bills, and have a bit left over from our wages. Our wages are over what moneypen quoted though. And that is with me just working 15 hours a week, and hubby working 20.
We also have our house equity in a high interest account, so that is paying for at least one weeks rent a month.

If you have equity from your house you will certainly be able to afford to do it, but you will have to eat into it slightly. Forget the being mortgage free, this is no longer the country for that any more than the UK. I suppose it depends how much you want it. Personally I REALLY wanted to be here, and if we spent our whole equity from the house, well we never had it in our pocket anyway, so no loss, just gain as we end up in Oz.

Good luck

midnightaction

I am single with no kids so am going over on my own so my situation is slightly different but I look at it in that this is a "Student Visa", so I may as well treat it like a "Student Visa" and live like a student !

I know that is not possible when you have a family, which is why I am glad that I am doing this now before I have one. I am sure most members on here remember being a Student and how you managed to survive off of the very minimum of incomes at the time, which is exactly what I intend to do. It will be a shock to the system because i live very comfortably at the moment, but we have to make some sacrifices to get to where we want to go.

I can live in a house share for around $130-$160 a week, I don't need a car as I am more then happy to catch buses, I am gonna be paying my student/visa/medical insurance fees upfront so the only other things I am gonna have to pay for over there is food, bus fares, going out and beer (Well if I am gonna live like a proper student then I gotta have the beer !) which I should have no trouble covering with my 20 hours work per week

I can understand that lot of people think the only way you can do this is with thousands in the bank, but that is not always true, depending on your situation there are ways of doing it with minimal money.

I see this as me starting fresh like I did when I left home at 19. The day I left home I drove my car away with the back seat full of clothes a crappy old TV and about £300 in the bank, and I managed to start a whole live for myself from nothing. This is just a second go at doing that just in a different country and with a little bit more common sense behind then I had at 19

I have to add though I am in awe of all of you guys that are doing this with families, I know I could never do it if I wasn't doing this on my own, and I wish you all tonnes of luck, not that you will need it because your all gonna succeed and get your lives in the sun

stumpysean

That's a thought, Yes, our equity would help to pay rent if we put it in a high interest account. Do you plan to eventually buy or are people generally happy to rent? I seem to remember reading that many people rent for years? It's something we have never done. So to us seems like dead money, but i suppose it depends on your situation.

When we first started looking at emigrating 3 yrs ago, house prices were much much lower, especially in Perth where we were originally going to go. I had a look on realestate.com last night and was quite shocked.

How have you found rental properties? Again, these seem to be quite expensive? Is it best to look for a rental once you get there? or try and get one secured ready for when you arrive? I was thinking about staying say on a campsite or holiday type place for a few weeks to give us chance to look at areas etc.....

We're only planning on having one car whilst we're studying to cut costs so we'd need to live pretty close to the TAFE?

Any experience of this? Are the schools close to the TAFE? The whole area is new to us so need to do more research on area.

Thanks for everyones input

stumpysean

Hi,

I don't blame you at all. Good luck to you! You'll have a ball i'm sure. It will be so much easier for you with no ties. We're prepared to go for it, i don't want to get to 40/45 and it's too late. Whilst i'm still young enough to do it, we need to give it our best shot otherwise we'll always wonder 'what if'......my eldest can't wait to go, so that's a good start! we're all ready for the challenge (i think, sitting here in th eUK!!!! lol)

We need to take the bull by the horns and go for it - as my hubby said this morning!!!!

GaznEm

Hi, we're also coming out to Oz on a Student Visa in 3 weeks. There's just the 2 of us with no kids, and we have equity from our house behind us, but in view of the fact that this is our only way into Oz, we think it is more than worth it.

We are fully aware that things may not work out and if that's the case, then so be it. You never know how things will go unless you try them. Good on you for contemplating doing this with kids, as it must be much harder.

mandyp

Good luck to everyone going out in the 'student route'. It isn't easy but i think as midnightaction says,you need to come over with a student mentality as in LIVE like a student, keep luxuries to a minimum and live almost week to week! We have an acheivable budget, but have been fairly bad recently (when I say bad it's only maybe been $200-$300 over in the month) it is easy to overspend at times, that's life. We had thought that we would be able to keep some money back for a deposit on a mortgage but i don't see this happeneing. I'm comfotable with the fact that we may never own a house over here, it's much cheaper to rent anyway (I think it works out bout half). We're just hapy to be over here and happy to see where life takes us! Already we can see the better quality life for us and the kiddiewinks and that's whats important for us. Hubbies on bout $20 ph but I'm on $36 ph as long as i work the weekends. I've only been working for 6 weeks as it took so long for my blue card to come through. In the last few weeks I've got my weekend hours and they are keen to keep me happy and give me the hours that suit me. This has been so good as hubbie hasn't managed to get his 20 hours last few weeks (he spoke to his boss last week n said he'd have to look for another job unless he got the hours, then they had a serious chat bout sponsorship)!! All in all as long as you stay positive, you can make it work! Everything continues to fall in to place so as far as we'r concerned this was the route for us to take!!

Anyway, av rattled on enough stay positive everyone it'll all be worth it in a few years time when we're congratulating each other on getting our PR's n citizenship!

Cheers
Mandy