How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

I know this is private for some people, so I have set up a poll which is anon.
I am really worried about this article I have read about in this emigration paper, in which it talks about people coming over with couple hundred thousand dollars. And experts feel families should emigrate with NZ$150,000 or more.

We are a family of 4 (2 adults, 1 toddler, 1 baby) and I have 40k in savings (which i want to keep in the UK for emergencies), we hope to take around 25k and we wont come over without a job lined up.

So how much did you take, or are planning on taking?

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

LMAO 25 views and 2 posts - you guys are as nosey as me :D

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

With the current exchange rate and interest rates I think you ought to bring as much cash over as you can free up. What sort of emergencies in UK are you anticipating that would need £40k to sort out, if you don't mind my asking?

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

i thought i would be better off leaving some money over there, keeping a bank account alive, just in case we ever needed to go back (funerals etc).

after a few years in NZ, i would transfer some more across... and keep doing that till i am certain i am staying long term.

is that a crap idea?!

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

thats exactly what we're doing, we sold our house before we came & most of that money is in a uk bank account & every now & again we transfer some over, & will do most of money when we buy a house , but at the mo we have a nice cushion in out NZ bank too

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

[QUOTE=dreamfish]i thought i would be better off leaving some money over there, keeping a bank account alive, just in case we ever needed to go back (funerals etc).

That's what we planned, but nothing ever goes to plan. We sold our house in UK before coming here, we paid off all the debt. We both had jobs to go to, so we could start from fresh. We don't have small children, but a 19 yr old. It cost £10,000 to emmigrate here. After paying for 1 wk holiday in LA on route, 4 wks in B & B, a small deposit on the house, cash for a used car, 1 yr up front for all insurances and living from savings for the first 4 - 6 weeks. We are only left with £3,000 and struggling to keep that.
For emegencies I've just got a low interest credit card - just in case, rather that use our little savings.
Don't be put off, you just have to be very careful financially. I've had to knock the retail therapy on the head. Having said all that, we live comfortably in a nice house, I just have to think abit at the shops. It's getting out of the habit of just getting what you want and to just get what you need.
Hope that helps.

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

hehe, sure we are and about as curious too.....
I'd've thought it depends upon where you plan to live, whether you are going to buy or rent and if you have job(s).
I am really reluctant to take a chance and move unless we both get jobs and I'm really unsure whether or not to keep the house - leaning towards letting it out and making about £200pcm profit over mortgage etc (including agent's fees, about £2000/yr delapidations/running costs, etc) - rental value about £850pcm and mortgage is £430pcm - however, I bet capital gains would hit us hard if we did this and stayed away for over 3 years without selling it.
But we could take quite a lot of equity out (or sell) and then buy outright (or with small mortgage) in Auckland area - :confused: looking at everything in the round I'm not keen to take a chance on the housing market in Auckland remaining as bouyant as of late - having siad that the UK market can't continue to rise, it must re-adjust soon.
Aiming for a joint income of $100k or so with 3 days child care (1 pre-school, 1 school age) per week. So we should have about $5k a month to live on.....and the house in Uk could be part of a pension fund or a "safety net".
We will be taking some indepedent financial advice soon if my job comes off....what with all the "tax efficicent" savings etc scattered about! Of that I have planned that about £10k will get us moved and provide a little reserve when we arrive - but prospective employers will provide hire car, temp. accom. and some other useful up-front expenses.... <fingers still crossed>...........

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

Hi there
we decided to sell up and commit fully to the move - time will tell if that was the right decision for us.
we put aside £100k from the proceeds of the sale of the UK house as a deposit for our house in chch, we brought £20k with us for initial setups - cars x2, insurances, initial rental, day to day until we sorted out jobs - we have about £4k left in NZ savings and about £3k left in UK bank savings and trying hard to keep those intact for emergencies etc.
Vicki

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

If we ever sell our house we plan to bring around £165k. This is all mainly down to house profit. We have around £5k savings and another £5k in the shape of our car which we will sell.

Thought about renting uk house out but the plan is to buy a house in NZ with no/little mortgage to allow us to work less.

Current job offers in NZ are indicating we will have a joint income of around $100k-$120k with childcare for a 2 year old needed.

The big if is selling our hosue in the UK. I keep seeing articles saying that the market is still bouyant but we are not getting viewers. We have swopped agents and they have indicated the price is right. We have even reduced it recently but to no avail.

Here is a link if anyone is interested.

http://www.vebra.com/home/search/vde...2&pid=10964355

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

i really wish we could keep our house here :(

its a 3 bed semi and our mortgage is £750 a month. the rental market around here is flooded and the most we could get is about £550 so i wouldnt want to risk letting it out and then have an empty house for a few months. Plus having to make up the mortgage each month :(

Its half a mile from the rail station taking you straight into london if anyone is interested??! :)

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

also don't forget the dreaded Capital Gains Tax - if you sell it after 3 years of letting that comes into play AFIK - looking at exchange rates and the differentials in property values my brain says "sell, sell, .... bank, bank, .... find favourable ForEx rate then convert, bank and buy land".......... is this dumb??
Ian

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

does my bum look big in this?


(the answer is no by the way) :D

what you say makes a lot of sense and is probably the route we will take.

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

but my heart says "keep the house.....
keep the house.....keep the house.....keep the house.....keep the house..... you'll be coming h...o...m...e..." (and the wife leans that way too) I've got a predicament..... :o

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

OK - you should give it three years anyway to really give another country a chance. Get used to the homesickness and get to know your new home.

The UK house prices cant possibly keep rising in 3 years from now....... can they?

If you have a home in the UK - it would make it all too easy to come back

The average age of first time buyers in the UK these days is 34 - so if you are 30 (like me) - I will simply become a statistic when I come back :o and no one is going to see a family go homeless - so you will get a roof over your head and time enough to find your feet. Its unlikely you will come back without first lining up a job so you will ahve an income to come back to.

This is all my reasoning. Life is about risks and it is so easy to get comfortable and so hard to leave that comfort zone.

Be daring!! go for it. Life is too bloody short.

Re: How much money did you take/do you plan to take?
 

Hi, We are still in the EOI stage but are wondering about cash transfers to NZ from UK. Does anyone know if we can open a bank account in UK that has branches in NZ? Does HSBC have any NZ branches? We have read something about money brokers giving a better exhange rate especially for large sums than ordinary banks. Does anyone know anything about these brokers? Advantages/disadvantages?