ezzie

For crying out loud....Tax, NI, pension contributions...we even read about a sick pay payment! I had no idea the NI was so much...because we've paid to top up our pension from over here, we now realise this was only the basic part a. Once dh's salary is taken into account, the amount skyrockets to nearly GB 4,500K per annum! Holy Moley!!!!

Is there anything else we're missing? As I said, we kept finding reference to other payments like 'sick pay contributions' etc. How does anyone cope with paying NI like this? We thought we'd be taxed less than in Oz, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Plus over here you get the 9% super contribution without having to contribute yourself.

Tr1boy

You're starting to sound like a broken record. STAY IN OZ! It's pretty obvious that's where you want to be. You seem to want the best of everything with pensions, UK uni education, you want to be paid here and there but sounds like you haven't built up much of a super scheme which you blamed on having 3 kids (that's simple, don't have 3 kids, we all make our choices in life).

Ezzie, you seem like a nice lady, but honestly, just make a decision and go with it. All I've ever seen from your posts is the negative side of the UK, there is absolutely no balance in your evaluations. Life isn't fair wherever you live. Work out where you'll be happy, because if you are purely evaluating the locations from a fiscal perspective you'll be ultimately disappointed. Personally we will be much better off in the UK, but our circumstances are not yours, and to be honest, that's just icing on the cake for us.

These payments seem a lot because there are no trailing costs like in Oz (or very little particularly with NI. And the 9% super contribution is not 'free', those of us that have been here a long time remember when it kicked in and everyone's base pay went down (not for your actual job, but the market rate for skills suddenly dropped by a corresponding amount) and it is one of the reasons wages are higher in the UK. My tax here pays for people's pensions that haven't contributed anything at all, how is that fair to me? At least in the UK if I pay in I can get it back when I retire, in addition to any private pension and super I have. But in Oz there will be no state pension for me, even if I did stay.

There's a point where you just have to stop analysing, calculating, rationalising and just go and live your life, wherever it is. I can't see anything in your posts about actually being happy.

ezzie

Well that's because I know where I'll be happy (UK) but having been out of the UK for so long I really am trying to get my head around different taxes and systems and this is the best environment to do it and most feedback is incredibly useful.

I'm also desperately trying to garner enough 'proof' to sway dh as to how a move back to the UK would be positive - or even 'do-able' as at the moment, he's the one not making the decision to go back - not me as you suggest. Do you really believe that I'm such a sad basket case as to hang around posting for no good reason. If I wanted to stay in Oz...well, I wouldn't have a problem would I.

As it is, I'm desperate to get back and have seen the chance slipping ever further from me. I know it must be everso comfortable for you to sit at a distance and make a judgement on me, but if you came closer all you'd see is red eyes from all the crying. This is an incredibly stressful and upsetting time for me, not made any better by people who think they know my mind better than me....which admittedly is currently sleep deprived and addled.

Sally Redux

I would also like to move back but I will accept UK life as a package. Swings and roundabouts. If you keep trying to add up every tuppence ha'penny you really will drive yourself mad.

ezzie

Not really the tuppence ha'pennies I'm worried about. We'll be dropping a good 20% income without much hope of increasing salary as we would here. I don't know why people say wages are higher in the UK, all but one person we know has put several thousand on their UK salaries by coming to Oz.

Jerseygirl

In that case can you put a price on happiness? Is it worth an extra 'X' thousand pounds a year to live somewhere where you are unhappy?

ezzie

...but having the money to afford music lessons for kids, see them off to uni, ensuring there's enough in the pension pot etc, all contribute to the final level of happiness.

Sally Redux

I don't know my love - sounds like the odds are stacked against your move, if you can't actually persuade yourself.

N1cky

How on the one hand can you complain about taxes and NI being so high, and also be campaigning for the 3 year university fee rule to be abolished.

Jerseygirl

Music lessons are nice but something they could do without...isn't uni for UK residents/healthcare/social security incl pension more favourable in the UK?

ezzie

I'm just shocked that ON TOP of a third of income going to tax, NI amounts to a further 10% being shaved off!

That doesn't leave much left in the pot does it? And that's before deductions for private super and goodness knows what else (which is what I was attempting to pick everyone's brains about).

I can't see how attracting Brits 'back' to the country can be viewed as a bad thing, especially seeing how those that migrate are often skilled and educated.

Considering all the people who CAN walk into the UK and pay just home fee rates, I'd rather it were British Citizens who were accommodated and restrictions applied to those entering on other various rationale who have no links whatsoever to the country.

Sue

ezzie, do a search for posts made by one of members by the name of "honeymommy." She, her hubby and their 4 kids went back to the UK in 2004 with hardly anything. Due to unusual circumstances with their US visas going pear shaped they had very little time to prepare for the move. They had no jobs, or home, to go back to. I think it was tough for them in the beginning, but slowly things started to come together, and from her last posts on BE they are all seemed to be doing very well. Her kids were tweens and up when they moved and they all settled into school well and from what she reported back to us they all appeared to be thriving.

If you read through honymommy's posts it might give you another prospective. I am not suggesting going back with hardly anything is the best thing to do, but it shows it can be done.

Whatever you do I truly wish you all the best. It is really hard when your heart is one place, but circumstances are keeping you somewhere else.

ezzie

No doubt we could do without meat, TV or shoes if we really were struggling, wouldn't make life much fun though.

Music lessons for my kids are a necessity really, one of them is at the top of her tree in Australia and the other two also play at a high level. We've already sacrificed a lot to buy their instruments (one includes a $25,000 harp) so I wouldn't be scrapping their lessons now. It's fabulous to hear them play and they love being in their orchestra. Money well spent, but I don't want to think about exactly 'how much' money!!!

I think healthcare is about the same from a medicare/nhs perspective. We'd not be eligible for any social security and the uni system in the UK looks like it's about to be whacked up to 5000k per annum according to this weeks report. Which is shortsighted madness - I thought the whole idea was to encourage more undergrads from low income families to enter university? I know there's cuts to be made, but the UK needs to skill-up not dumb down to climb out from underneath it's massive surplus.

ezzie

Bless you Sue - I think I remember Honeymommy, so will track down her posts right now. Ta again!

Mummy in the foothills

Honey I can hear the torment in your posts.
If you could transplant your whole life, home, kids, Dh, wages, all to UK it would make the whole process a lot easier for your Dh, if he's the one who has dug his heels in.
But seeing it's not possible, I can see why he's making it so hard. But you sound like you are starting to waffle too, if you really want to go, just dig in your heels just as hard and say so and keep saying it, and don't apologise for it.
The kids can keep up their music, they can join school orchestras and work a bit and help pay for their own stuff, or collect their birthday and Christmas money, theres always a way, you don't have to hand them everything they need or want. If the retirement situation is so awful in OZ then complaining about the UK one isn't going to persuade your Dh any.
Your son can have a gap year and work then he'll be eligible for home rates, and get a few loans. like most kids do.
You can down size on the home front, they'll all be leaving and going off to college soon enough, it's character building to share a room if the room is large enough. Maybe that way you can live mortgage free, the house doesn't have to be the perfect style or size, once it's just you and the Dh sell up and move to a cottage in the country.
Where theres a will theres a way, if you are willing.