Originally Posted by sazzle1979

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Um, yeah but unlikely to return to Britain next year. Maybe, who knows ?

Sorry to hear this. The people that purchased my Grandad's house in 1999 were self employed and got a mortgage from Bradford and Bingley Building Society. Meaningless to you I know as your circumstances are personal to you but it might take a bit of determination to get a mortgage. Would going via a mortgage broker help ?

Can I just say you haven't got there yet. Nobody knows what the exchange rate is going to be next year. Not even the currency traders. They can make a kind of best guess but that's about it. I'm guessing you probably wouldn't exchange your money for a truly dire exchange rate. Like 10p for 1NZD for example.

I'm guessing on your return you will be in temporary accommodation. So you won't need your NZ money i.e. savings etc. Then you will probably get a rental, probably for six months minimum, so you won't need your NZ money, ok there's the deposit. Then you will both get into paid employment, so you won't need your NZ money. Then you will need to source a mortgage, that will take time.

My point is, currencies don't stay high/strong forever, so I would say that currencies don't stay low/weak forever. But then, I'm not a currency trader, what would I know !

I don't have to worry about savings on account of the fact that we don't have any ! If we have any surplus cash in the future it will be to fund the cost of our return to Britain. Or go back on credit cards and not worry ? Would we be in gainful employment by the time the first payment fell due ? Then transfer the balance on to a 0% credit card with a year or more at that rate to continue to pay it off ? Arrive back in Britain in debt already ? Don't know. It's the alternative to spending 'our' money at the outset. The idea of doing it like that really made me panic when that was the likely scenario for bailing out of Christchurch. These days I think it might not be so bad.

I don't feel trapped, just stuck. We've more or less agreed to return to Britain. My husband just says, 'at the right time' and 'we'll know when' .

Do I regret leaving ? Not really, it was time for a break. It was also time to see whether living in New Zealand would work or not. What I would/will regret, however, is not returning.

Yeah, I can relate to that. Of all the things I've lost, it's my mind I miss the most. In Britain I could find work fairly easily. Not the case here in NZ. In Britain I could claim Jobseekers Allowance. I can't access any unemployment benefit here as my husband earns more than the minimum wage. WTF ?

Is it just money you are worried about ? If so, do you think you could recoup your perceived losses in the future ? Five years time, ten years time ? It cost ten thousand pounds all in for us to relocate from Britain to NZ. That's modest compared to some people. Do I worry about that ? No. It's like worrying about last week's grocery bill. It will probably cost as much again to get back to Britain. It's just going to have to be a necessary expense. We took four grand out of the proceeds of the sale of our house in Britain to fund the container with all our stuff in it to get to NZ. We also settled a four and a half thousand pound credit card balance with some of the proceeds of our house sale. We always said we would pay ourselves back but we never have and probably never will. We used some of the equity in our current house to pay for land improvements to our back garden. That will have an effect come the day we should sell our house. That is just going to have to be 'hard luck'. So do we take another, 'bite' out of our equity to fund the container that takes our stuff back to Britain or use the credit card as mentioned above ?

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Been there, done that.