Here comes the sun

We are moving to Dunedin next September, we have jobs to go to but we have a fair amount of debt to clear in 12 months, therefore we wont have any savings to go out with. We've just bought a house and dont want to sell it for a couple of years.

Can you use british creditcards namely a barclaycard to buy things like a car and pay for utilities?

I appreciate this is not the best situation to be in starting out in a new country but my hubby leaves the RAF in 12 months and it coincides with the end of the school year so we wouldnt want to stay in the UK any longer. Im hoping as we are both going in to jobs it will be a temporary situation.

Boopy

Yes, you can us UK credit cards. Just be careful as your payments will seem far higher from here in NZ$.

uk+kiwi

Well I don't see why not, if they are credit cards that you already own and just take with you. Applying for UK cards from NZ however will be a totally different thing.

But the reason I wanted to reply was that, without knowing the severity of your situation/plans, think carefully about the best way to finance these purchases in NZ if you don't have the cash to buy them. And keep them to a minimum.

Interest rates on credit cards are high and if you have jobs, you may be able to secure a (cheaper) loan for the car, for example. Essentially I believe it will be easier to enjoy your new life with as little financial pressure as possible.

Good luck! And have a look at www.moneysavingexpert.com for some useful insights if you're interested.

Here comes the sun

We originally planned to emmigrate last year then changed our minds decided to stay and furnished the house .....very expensive. We then bought a buy to let house as an investment, and changed our minds again! So after putting most of our savings in to the new house we are pretty short of cash. 12 months is not a lot of time and every penny will pay off the car loan and remaining credit cards so when we leave we only have one card to clear which will hopefully allow us to get a car set up a rental etc until the wages come in. Id rather go out with no savings and no debt, than savings and lots of debt in the UK.

Thanks for the reply its a relief to no we can use our credit card as back up.

uk+kiwi

I think that's a good plan.

I'm not sure if your credit card company will allow you to continue with the card if you inform them you are emigrating fyi. Maybe others know this?

But I see no reason why you couldn't forward the post (bills) to another address via the PO's redirection service and keep your UK bank account set up with a direct debit to pay off the monthly amounts payable. And remember to send NZD home to pay these credit card bills. Tbh, it sounds like a pain to organise so it will pay (haha) to sort out all your finances in the one country asap I would have thought.

lardyl

and there will always be additional costs for emigration that you do not budget for - we had a £2k contingency and spent some of that during the move over here - mainly temporary accommodation and a nice $1600 excess on the rental car that some scumbag drove into on a car park - ruddy Kiwi drivers!

minky

We still have our uk credit card after being here a year and use my mums address as postal address in the uk we dont use it that much only when the exchange rate is betterfor buying bigger things.

Divine Comedy

Hiya, we were RAF till 3 months ago.Where are you posted? Have you thought about applying for RNZAF here? Its a good start to living in NZ till you find your feet? Dont know if they are recruiting at the moment but its worth a look on the website, or a quicky email to them, thats what we did. All the best with everyhting, Debborah.

mickey_d

Same here, we are actually in credit on ours, got some cashback on them after we'd paid em off & it's earning interest, how great is that

luvwelly

You can use UK Credit Cards here but I have to say I have had some bizarre experiences using mine so far....so personally I wouldn't rely on them as your sole way of getting by. This is not because of my dodgy credit rating as we usually use them as a convenient means of payment and rarely borrow on them.
Most of the time it's fine, for instance, only this afternoon I used my Barclaycard to pay for a term's swimming lessons (still haven't got around to filling in the forms and supplying the salary details for an NZ credit card but must do it soon!) BUT when we first arrived a transaction for around $1800 was declined for no apparent reason and we had to phone Barclaycard and get them to authorise it etc etc ....they made some excuse about all NZ transactions going through as 'cash advances' even if purchases were involved and that this transaction was over the cash advance limit...it was not a cash advance.....not sure I buy this one but personally I do not like the stress of a card being declined and subsequent hassle....it totally undermined my confidence in credit cards as a failsafe way of navigating yourself round the world even though I have done this without incident since the 1980s when on holiday/living abroad in Europe.

For small transactions say up to $500 it may not be an issue for you either, it's the larger ones such as car purchase where you could come unstuck and when you phone up to explain...if you have a large amount outstanding they are basically going to panic if you tell them you have emigrated!!!

Hard to know what you should do for the best....it is very easy to open a bank account here.....I was living in a different EU country before I came to NZ and so now have UK account, EU country account and NZ account...I use internet banking to move the monies round but with Barclays Internet Banking you can't do foreign currency transfers online whereas with my EU country internet banking I could, so I moved money for car purchase etc etc in advance of receiving any salary here directly from my EU country account and to be honest I don't know how I would have handled it without that facility being available. My OH was working for the same company in NZ as he had done in EU country but it was still 2 months before we saw any NZ salary so I would say it is very unwise to come out here cashless.

Ah just remembered that was the other bizarre decline...our incidentals hotel bill for the first month we were here - a couple of thousand NZ dollars....declined by Barclaycard, needed to phone them etc etc ...a nightmare really...you also need a way of paying off your creditcard bills while you are in transit...I used EU country internet banking for moving funds from EU account to UK account, then paying Barclaycard in UK from UK bank account. It's all surprisingly complicated really, even there isn't a shortage of funds as such.

If you have a known employer, maybe negotiate a massive salary advance as the best way forward.

Here comes the sun

Thanks for that, its better to find out this kind of stuff before we get there, might have to re think things a little! Theres always euromillions 88 million jackpot tomorrow

Here comes the sun

Hi
My hubby has definately had enough of the RAF! so i dont think he would want to join abroad. We are sick of moving around every two years and the lack of flexibility in working hours. Thanks for the suggestion though! We ve got jobs to go to which is a bonus. We are posted to birmingham at the moment.

julesnye

If you have a fair amount of debt, do you really need to keep the house?
Surely, to make your life better, would be to be debt free and without the worry of how your going to meet your payments etc?
The reason I write this, is the fact that we have quite a large debt to repay and decided that in order to be debt free, when we emigrate , we would need to repay the debt in full and not have the mill stone of debt to worry about.
We believe in this path so much that my wife and two children emigrated on 07/09 and left me here to sell the house.
this by the looks of it, we have now done, even though it's early days and any number of things can go wrong.
Is there a reason that you need to keep the house?
There is talk, that the housing market will not only stagnate but collapse next year.
Hey, but dont take my word for it.
My only advice, would be to get out lock stock and smoking barrel asap, especially, if you are as disillusioned with the UK as we are.
What ever you decide I wish you luck

Here comes the sun

we have only had the a house a month as we didnt want to pull out and leave the other guy in the lurch. But we wouldnt get what we have put in back yet after fees etc. but we will continue to let it out probally for two years then sell it for a deposit on a house in NZ.

It must be difficult living apart from your family good luck with the house sale. We can clear our debt in 12 months but wont have any savings for the first few months until our NZ wage starts to come in.

julesnye

worst part is not being able to talk due to a phone problem.
Good luck with what ever you decide.