cellmoss

Me and my family are due out in the next couple of months,

im constantly reading up on New Zealand, starting to find lots of bad points about life out there.
Poor housing conditions, expensive to live, low wages,place just a big rip off.

Any one who has made the move is life better than the uk?

We both have good jobs here very nice home nothing to fancy but we built it ourselves (not that we plan to sell it)
2 nice cars (mines a convertible)
And a lump in savings 10k

if we do make the move we will have nothing left in the bank, husband has a job to go to but i will have to find one, will need to replace both cars or at least one.

Starting to wonder if maybe we have it to good here in the uk and moving to New Zealand maybe a step backwards.

The kids are not happy in the uk they really want to move, my 2 teenage girls are struggling here with all the pier pressure, my eldest had had alot of bulling and the schools here just don't care.
My youngest son has severe dyslexia and struggles and again the school do not give him enough support. He hates going to school he is at. And we cant move him due to catchment areas.

We want the kids to have better lives and better social skills is New Zealand the place to do this.

Stay or go ?

MrsFychan

no one can really answer that but yes you are right it is expensive to move here that 10K will go with shipment costs and getting a foot hold in the first few months, bonds for rentals, possible car hire before your container turns up, utilities, medical bills, school fees and every day living.
As for social life it depends on what effort you make to meet people.

Schooling isn't free and again like every school in every country you are going to come across some issues, as for your youngest not having any experience of this I cannot advise if the schooling is better here, it does have a different way of teaching which I'm not convinced about yet but then I'm used to rigid UK style, learning a formula to work out maths problems, reading text and you will be tested on it etc.

Housing is very different to the UK, I do really miss central heating and proper double glazing. We called our rental a shed because basically that's what it was with no heating and single framed windows., Our shed in the UK was actually better equipped than the rental house.
The house we bought we call the deluxe shed because at least it has heat pumps that heat just the room their in for the time they are on and double glazing.

You are going to be very far from family if they are your support system at the moment and with only 10k in your hands, which will go on the move, trips back will be few and far between until you managed to find a way to save or family pays for them.

Saying all that we do quite like it here, it's quiet and picturesque, the kids spend a lot of time out running around the fields and playgrounds, not sure your daughters will be into all that though. Where we live it's like a lazy Sunday everyday, nothing much happens or will happen as there's nothing here and if you want to go shopping/cinema/Restaurant we need to drive.

The weather can be frightening and beautiful. The winds where we are can be extremely strong and whirling round the house late at night does give me sleepless nights, earthquakes are also something to be aware of. The whole of NZ lies on fault lines so there are quakes everyday somewhere in the country, most you don't feel but when we came over in January we were averaging a quake you could feel every 2 weeks and then we had a rather large one in June/July that even had the local's worried but tankfully nothing like what CC experienced.

Would I do it all again?, not if I had a job I liked and husband hadn't been the driving force for the move with the proviso that we could return (with financial help from family agreed), if we hated it/it didn't work out. Ours was very whirlwind and possibly with more thought we could of looked at moving within the UK and not had so much stress and had spent the move money on a couple of years family holidays which we won't get now for some time.

It's an enormous and expensive move and at the end of the day for what is basically a prettier looking country with less choice of everything and possibly a slower pace of life depending on your work situation, my husbands works longer hours here and it's expected of him at no extra pay, he has less holiday entitlement and no medical insurance provided by the company that he had in the UK.

Justcol

ask why you want to come.
are your house and convertible car more important than the happiness and security
of your children??
You can buy a nice house here, they are not all made of matchsticks. Older homes and bottom
of the market houses are the ones that catch expats out, they are very poor quality so if you
dont like them, dont buy one, its that simple. I currently rent a wooden, style home and its very
warm and cosy, centrally heated, bright and modern. Convertible cars are plentiful here and
you'll get far more opportunities to drive with the roof down.

It doesnt sound like you've done very much research into what NZ is like. I would get stuck into
researching kiwi styles and prices for houses, cars (they are more expensive here) possible job vacancies
that might be available in what ever area you are planning to live. check out furniture costs, house rental costs,
schools, health care, leisure activities in your chosen area and maybe further afield, sports clubs for
you and your kids, theres a lot of good stuff here and a lot of stuff most of us still miss back in the uk
but I for one would not go back to the uk, NZ even with all its faults and funny kiwi people is a better place
to be and a better place to live.

Assanah

That is true. You can get really nice houses in NZ BUT they are expensive. The rest of the houses is substandard contributing to the high incident of infectious disease in NZ. That is why money is much more important in NZ than in Europe. You need to have a decent income. Lots of luck will probably do too.

Anyhow, I would also like to ask the OP what are the pull factors of NZ for you? Why are you considering a move half around the world but not within the UK?

Whether or not life will be better in NZ is a very personal question. There are many on this forum that love their life here, a lot that are OK with it, many are moving back to the UK as well. There are no certainties in life.

Catchafire

Have you actually been to NZ? Any clue on where to live? Your 10k is savings in going to swallowed up fast just in flight tickets.

As far as we are concerned, we love our life here and can't imagine a better place to raise our kids.

We bought a 'sub standard' house. Put some installation, heat pump and a HRV system in. Warm, dry and toasty.

And yeah, the harder I work, the 'luckier' I get.

Justcol

DandJMay

And yeah, the harder I work, the 'luckier' I get.[/QUOTE]

bourbon-biscuit

Correction- they are expensive in some places. In other places a decent, warm house compares very favourably with houses in some places in the UK.

What about adventure and broadening horizons?

Yes, but careful- not everyone who is moving back to the UK is doing so because they hate their lives in NZ. Also, lots that move back later go on to ping-pong or at least remember NZ more warmly than they imagine they will when they're on here trashing the place to make an exit feel easier.

cellmoss

Partner has a job to start when we arive x the company are paying our flights x
Me personnaly dont have any family but los of close friends x x partner does tho x not to concerened about cars only going to replace 1 in new zealand till i can find work x im a carer and seen lots of jobs in christchurch x fingers crossed work should be possible x

Expat Kiwi

Honest answer? You should be looking for that within the UK, I'm not sure that your life will be that much better in New Zealand and you'd be more than 10 grand out of pocket.

There is still peer pressure in New Zealand and there are schools that pay only lip service to anti-bullying policies. There was a report a few years ago which said that NZ had one of the world's worst rates of school bullying. Whilst there are definitely some good schools in NZ there are equally some good schools in the UK, it's cheaper to move into their catchment zones than half way across the planet.

100,000 people have left NZ for Australia in the last two years, almost all of them looking for the better life that you're seeking. Whilst most of them are being replaced by inward bound migrants, I do wonder if a high number of them stayed long enough to get their NZ passports and then high-tailed it to Australia.

phyns

Expat Kiwi, can you point me in the direction of that report. I'm looking at moving my family out of the UK so that report would be very interesting to read.

Assanah

I personally don't know any ping pongers....only read about them The ones that I know that left are all happy were they are now and not even remotely thinking about moving back. I also know Kiwis that moved back to NZ and are really unhappy here. Maybe they are soon to be ping pongers back to Australia, the UK or wherever they lived before.

cellmoss

Wow so many post

We have looked at housing found some nice ones to rent within our budget x
My oh company are going to put us up in a hotel till we find somewhere to live. Have looked at alot of schools but till we find a place a little difficult to pic a school.

My other half is diabetic type 1 and again company giveing the family health insurance.
We have tried yo figure out bills but hard to estimate will just have yo wait and see.

We did think of moving in the country but where we want to go us out of our budger x believe it or not moving coutries worked a much better option.

We are an active family like the out doors x my daughters and me are big horse lovers x boys like climbing and mountain walks and mountain biking x

ellenarosemary

My brother and his family were ping pong poms, they moved over initially in 1968 on the £10 pom route, stayed till the 80-'s and moved back lock stock and barrel. Stayed for 3 years and moved back, then moved to the UK again, eventually moving back to NZ permanently and taking his in-laws with them. Think this was the main reason for the ping-ponging.

When my brother got back to NZ for the final time his opening words were 'thank god i'm out of that awful country '.

Think personal/family issues are the main reason for ping ponging rather than the country itself.

Everyone is different, we are up for the adventure and think it will be a good place to bring up children.

As for the cost, no its not a cheap option and £10K probably wouldnt cover it, no-one ever emigrates because its cheap!!!

napierlass

Bullying happens everywhere...I had a great childhood in Napier NZ in the great outdoors, lovely schools etc. Yet my older sister hated High School (nice girls only school)...but nothing could be as bad as the bullying my daughter is experiencing in a UK schoo and for that reason alone she desereves the chance to staret afresh in NZ.