Yorkshire_Girl

Hello all, I have just come across this forum and am now busy reading all posts on the moving back to UK section.

Not sure where I should introduce myself but assumed that as this is the area I will spend most of my time in then I'd put it here. Hope that is ok.....

I am currently living in Wellington, NZ with my husband and two children (aged 2 and 1). We moved here in Feb 2006 with the intention of making it a permanent move. We had done lots of research, visited etc and felt fully prepared to not return to the UK. Just to be clear - We never left the UK (York) because we disliked it, in fact we always new we would miss many things about home but was willing to live with that to have a better lifestyle for us as a family.

However, since we last visited house prices have rocketed and the cost of living is the same as in the UK although wages are far less. Despite my husband earning a professional salary and my earning potential as a teacher (when the children get older and I return to work) we simply cannot make ends meet here and are seriously struggling. We don't smoke, drink excessively, we don't go out much and still we struggle to pay the bills. When we were in the UK we still had weekends away/holidays and here we cannot do either - we are grateful we saw NZ when we came here with sterling to spend as there is no chance earning $NZ.

So with a heavy heart we knew we had to make a decision that provides security for us as a family and that is to return to the UK. To live here for several years (as we may have done if we didn't have children) would leave us in a position where we would never be able to afford to return home. So we are booked to go back in May 2007. I will miss many things about NZ as it is beautiful but to be honest the weather sucks and the housing is horrendous! I am looking forward to going home too and think both my husband and I will feel more settled for not wondering if we could have done better for our family - at least we gave it a go and it has been a HUGE learning curve!

We are moving to Exeter - I have never been but hubby has and we were in a position where we had the whole of the UK to choose from so we thought what the hell..... If anybody knows Exeter well I would really appreciate any info on family friendly/not so family friendly areas to live.....

I'm actually really nervous about the big move, finding jobs, being further down the housing market etc, etc and hope we're doing the right thing.

If you're still reading after that big load of waffle - well done
Nice to meet you and I'll bombard everyone with a million questions soon....

kiwi_child

I am sorry to hear of your financial hardship in NZ. I guess with kids, the two of you really need to be working to get ahead in this area. I am going back end of the year to live in NZ and see how it goes, but if it doesn't work out for me, then I too will be looking at the UK. At least I really only have myself to look after.

Best of luck to you all with your future

Yorkshire_Girl

Hi and thanks for your message. Where in NZ are you from? Did you leave long ago? I certainly don't hate NZ - I think it's a wonderful country but we just can't make it work for us at the moment. We will have indefinite residency so have the option to return one day. I think the biggest lesson this experience has taught us is to never say we will definitely do/not do anything. Who knows what the future holds.....

Good luck with your future - wherever it may take you

kiwi_child

From Auckland but spent some time in sth island too. We each have to make the best decision at the time, and we never really know how things will turn out. That's just life, and a part of moving countries/cities.

Thanks for the kind thoughts

sassenach

welcome ,it sounds like you are doing the right thing after all i think most migrants peceive they will do better financially and its one of the main motivators for moving but when the s**t hits the fan and it turns out its not going to be as good as thought ,its time to rethink .
I used to have an uncle who lived in exeter and we used to get down there often ,i tink its lovely and you cant go far wrong with going to the south coast of england ,its one of the best places on the planet .
Good luck with your move and im sure everything will turn out great for you .

Sparkle2nite

Hi and welcome.....we came back from Spain, but had originally intended on moving to NZ. We came back for similar reasons, cost of living and also the children were not settling in school. Having read about the expense of NZ I'm so happy we did not move there, coming back from Spain was costly enough and we too have yet to get back on the housing ladder!

Good luck and your among friends here, so ask away!

Sparkle

Dreamaway 10

Hi there and welcome to the forum.
its very nteresting to hear what you say, there seems to be a lot of people who say the same about NZ for housing and wages etc.
NZ unlike OZ where we are is very beautiful but underneath all the beauty to me there is nothing for me ,to me its souless..
I do not know anything about Exeter as I have not been myself but I understand its a good part of the UK to be.Someone else on here will fill you in no doubt.
I know York and its lovely.
The thing is at the end of the day unlike many of us here we came with the best intentions ,our move we thought would give the children a better lifestyle and ours was to be permanent.
You say you are moving back in May just the right time of year to return I reckonall the trees will be out in bloom and not too cold.
I know that at the end of the day its going to be hard to go back but know thats where I belong and cannot wait to get on with my life .
I feel that I am just wasting time here now.
We have a business to sell before we can get home.
At least at the end of it all we can say we tried it and what an experience I have learnt so much since being here especially on a personal nature I have learnt so much about myself and have more confidence I also know how strong I can be and also how low I can be.
There are so many of us in similar situations on here so you will have plenty of us to talk to over the coming months.
I for one could not live without Expats it has helped so much to talk to others when you think that you are the only one going through it.
Good Luck.
Any advised required you will get it here someone is always willing to help out.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Something to think about if you want to move the South West of the UK. It has the largest gap between average earnings and average house prices in the entire UK. You would probably earn less than the UK average there, but house prices have skyrocketed as people move there, particularly from the South East/London for the quality of life and have pushed housing beyond the reach of most of the locals.

FPM

Being from Somerset, I can absolutely attest to this. It's pretty scary to see a pretty ordinary 3 bed house in my city (Wells) going for GBP200k+ and see average wages around 20-25k. Dorset is worse. I reckon it's be easier to buy a place in London, certainly would be easier in the SE because we checked it out.

Severe inbalance in the SW, beautiful area though, and if you can swing it finacially, do it

Yorkshire_Girl

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome! It's good to see other people in similar situations although I sympathise with everyone who has also lost vast amounts of money

It's interesting to hear views about the SW though. We are in a position where we need to move somewhere where we know people have money as my husband is an Osteopath so will be self employed agin when we return. I'll be working as a teacher about 2 years after we get home and the kiddies are a bit older. I hope that with 2 professional wages coming in we will be ok??? Initially we will have to rent but hope to get on the property ladder as soon as possible - even though we are likely to only afford a small property at first I think it is better than throwing money away on rent - then once I'm working we should be able to get something slightly better. Either way, I know it is going to be a huge struggle - but it's a huge struggle here with no prospects of a brighter future. I figure that at least we have a chance of securing a better future there - am I deluding myself?

We are lucky we will have some savings to use as a house deposit but not alot by any stretch of the imagination. However I feel grateful as I know of so many migrants who cannot afford to move home let alone set up again...

Anyway, nice to meet you all

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Well, for a self employed osteopath the SW is probably one of the better places to be. The people moving into the area tend to be on the older side of things, with many retired, and have some money behind them, having sold up in the big family home and made a killing. Ideal country, I would have thought, for muscle and skeletal problems.

bundy

Hello there,

First of all, well done for making a brave decision - sounds like you are definitely doing what's best for you and your family.

Just one word of warning about coming back to the UK - your credit rating is likely to have taken a bit of a dent by virtue of being out of the country for over a year. My husband came back after 5 months in Oz and found that his credit rating here had been quite severely affected. It's taken the better part of two years to build it back up again - remember to get back on the electoral roll in the UK asap, get a credit card if you don't already have one, set up a host of direct debits etc etc etc. My husband has also had to provide evidence of where he was living overseas, so make sure you keep copies of bills etc with your NZ address on.

For what it's worth, house prices down south are plain scary. We had the choice of buying in Cambridge (where I'm from) or West Yorks (where husband is from) and West Yorks won hands down because of the house prices. Obviously, York is hardly cheap either, but maybe you could consider areas close to York where people have money to spend on oestopaths, but where house prices may be cheaper....

Good luck with the move back.

soulflour

Hi there bundy

We live in the North Island of new zealand now (and love it to bits!) but 2002 - 204 we lived in Exeter! We were there for 18 months while my dp did his teaching pgce, and I did up an old house that we bought, looked after ds1 and gestated ds2

As you can imagine we didn't have much money, so ended up buying in St Thomas, which was and probably still is one of the cheaper areas. The house itself was gorgeous - an old quaker meeting house built in 1705 (grade 2 listed) but St Thomas..... um, yep - i wouldn't go looking there if I was you!! There were a couple of parks that I could take ds1 to, but i'd have to check all the trains and roundabouts etc. for porn, fag ends and needles first - you know the sort of thing. blurgh.

The nicer areas of Exeter are lovely - it's a nice town with nice shops and nice parks and a nice river, a nice university and a beautiful cathedral.... but i'm afraid that 'nice' is about as far as I can go. As you can probably tell I didn't really enjoy it (although we had a nice time and were happy there (but we're happy most places really!)).

A lot of the beautiful buildings were lost to bombings in the war and were replaced in the sixties (shame!) but I do remember going to lots of community based art projects. Oooh, and there's one of those brilliant arts cinemas that has a bar brilliant. I also went to a great mother and toddler group with ds1 - but then i'd have to go back to St Thomas - it's only typing this that I realise just how much i didn't like St Thomas! ha ha

One of the best things is the 'double locks' pub which is up the river - it made a great walk away up the river, pub lunch and then home again!

We ended up moving out to Totnes for the last few years until we moved here, which i LOVE - and we were outside in the countryside as well. We were glad to leave Devon though, it's HORRENDOUSLY overpopulated in the summer - a drive of say Totnes-Torquay which would take 15mins in winter would regularly take me 45mins.

As I said, the nice areas of Exeter are lovely - leafy and green, lots of victorian houses. Just don't go anywhere near St Thomas or further out that way! My dp did his teaching practice at a few schools there, and then taught in Newton Abbot for a couple of years, so if you are thinking of a particular area I could ask him for his opinion if you'd like.

good luck

Steph

Yorkshire_Girl

Hi Steph,

It's me not Bundy who is relocating to Exeter

Thank you for all the info! I will send you a pm tonight when the kiddies are in bed if you don't mind - particularly as I am also wanting to do my PGCE in Exeter so will be picking your brains....

Just wanted to acknowledge that I had seen your post though, particularly as you obviously spent alot of time on it providing heaps of useful info!

Thank you very much.

blaze

Hi and welcome!
I live in upstate NY but fantasize about moving back to Britian all the time! It's very doubtful that it will ever happen for me as my OH is American and very unsure that we could afford to live comfortably in Britian. I did (just for my own curiosity) look into Exeter as a possible place to return to (should it ever happen) as I'm from Wales but I also have close family in Cornwall. I figured that it was somewhere in the middle of the two and might work out.
But like I said, the likelihood of it ever happening is pretty slim.
Good luck with your move and I hope everything works out well for you.