Spacecake799

Hi Michelle and Carl
Hope i can offer you some reasurance. My husband also works in IT and when we first looked at NZ in March we thought he should get a job offer no problem. However we didnt have enough points for the EOI as he only has microsoft qualifications so we applied on my catering qualifications. We were really excited to be selected and started the whole process of clearing out etc.
We sold our house and then found out we wouldnt get invited to apply as catering wasnt on the shortage list. :scared:
We are now staying at my dads, the children 14, 12, 7 left school today. I said goodbye to my sister last week and we fly on Tuesday 7th.
Were taking a chance that when we arrive someone will offer my husband a job so we can apply for a workpermit as we have no other options open. We have a return ticket for April if everything goes wrong.
My OH contacted loads of agencys to register, now we have a definate date they have been on the phone most nights, he even has a telephone interview tomorrow night.
If its what you really want to do then go for it, our stuff is in storage and i hope everything works out for us, but if it does'nt at least weve tried.
Hope this helps. carole

DiffordA

WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Thanks for the positive vibes -

katracy

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Good luck and keep us informed on how it is going.

UKNZAUS

Thanks for the positive vibes from me too!

We've had a chat tonight and its looking likely that we'll put house up for sale and go after christmas yay

It's the biggest risk we will ever take but will be sooooo worth it! Oooh I'm so excited ... roll on the stress of moving!

Thanks again

Michelle & Carl

Jude J

Ohhh, you lot!!! I wish I could do something!
Actually, I wish you could all swap places with some of the miserable people living here that dont want to! Not talking about anyone on this site, by the way!

We came 4 yrs ago, with small amount of money, no job, no container full of stuff, just whatever we could fit in our suitcases. Our kids were 12 and 14. We were on a holiday visa and had a return ticket which was open for a year. Without any references we managed to rent a nice house, and 4 months later we applied for and got our residency. I know it is all different now, but I just wanted to give you another positive story and wish you all well
Jude x x x

katracy

Its good to read how other people have done it!!! The move I think sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns!! Good luck to everyone taking the plunge, we are going to be doing it next year!

UKNZAUS

Thankyou Jude!

So glad it worked out for you - and WOW you came with hardly anything, you brave people! I couldn't cope without some (most) of my possessions lol. I am trying to find out what we'll do in what order so I can list things and start the ball rolling this week!!! Got PSS coming out next week and will get some more out for quotes over the next couple of weeks - got that bit sorted, I think! We've decided we're going to head up to Auckland, so I need to research rentals etc up that way and jobs too! He's registered with loads of agencies and they all keep asking if we've got a date set so I'll let them know we're coming and give them an approx date of arrival yay

Ooooh its exciting stuff!!!

bookemjano

Hi, we did it that long way round - came over with visitors visas and got jobs then applied for residency, and it worked out really well for us. I'm not saying it was all plain sailing - you have to factor in the worries about actually being allowed to stay at the same time that you're adapting to a new life, but it seemed to happen much more quickly because we were actually here. Hubby's job wasn't on the shortages list either (real estate agent - way too many of them anyway!), and I've only got a part time customer service job, but once we had all the paperwork in it all fell into place pretty quick and it would have been signed sealed and delivered much quicker if we'd have come over with the right paperwork, so double and triple check everything.

Before coming we'd been to see an immigration officer in NZ House in London who told us that the main two things they're looking for are the ability to settle and the ability to contribute - well if you're already here and working and your kids are happy in school then you've already got those two things covered.

I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but it certainly was right for us to do it this way.

Good luck with your decisions!

UKNZAUS

Thankyou for your reply! Another positive tale .... thats what we like

We have definately decided to go for it now and am spending the rest of this week sorting out all those little things (tomorrow things) before getting estate agent up for photo's! Plus my house looks like Hamley's as I'm a childminder and need to remove most of the toys lol

Glad it worked out ok for you and can't wait for it to be our turn! Hoping to hear something back from job apps from NZ Expo this week ...

Thanks again for your positive experience

Michelle & Carl

DiffordA

I am really pleased that you have made the decision and are just going to go for it. I'm sure you will look back on this time in 6 months or so and wonder what all the fuss was about and why you didn't just do it sooner!


We have done some very careful budgetting and with the use of a complicated spreadsheet have decided that if we stop eating we can make it over March time next year!!

Can't wait!! We too are heading for Auckland so maybe once we have all settled we can meet up for a coffee and laugh about this very thread!

Good luck with the sorting! We have a week off in a couple of weeks and so are having to fit everything in to those 5 days (removals quotations and the like as nobody seems to work outside office hours!) so I think we will be more tired when we go back to work than before the "break".

All the best!

UKNZAUS

Thankyou for your well wishes! I'm up for a coffee meet-up once we're in lol.

We recieved an email from a lady who works for the NZ Government in Rotorua last night, asking for our CVs so she can pass it on to prospective employers so might not need to 'take the risk' yay. We met her at the NZ Opportunities Expo in Manchester!

We also did the budgeting for going to Australia and we discovered that if we just stopped spending 100% we would make it over 12th of NEVER haha!

Kids have been ill for 2 days so I haven't got anything else done, really need to start it though soon - the days are flying by recently!

Good Luck to you too and hope you get a windfall so you can move sooner xx

GowHow

Got our letter from NZ immigration this morning. We have been accepted!

All we need to do now is fill in one last form saying which visas we need and to prove we have a few quid to keep us going for 3 months and we are in...oh and sell the house

Jack The Lad

Congrats

Now have some

So its 9am. Doesnt matter

GowHow

We've got a couple of bottles of Cloudy Bay on ice ready for this day. (brought them back from NZ in Feb so they should be cold enough by now

Buzzy--Bee

Well I hope they're nicer than the Cloudy Bay Mrs Buzzy bought me for my birthday which was £18 and didn't taste as nice as the £5 German wine I had the previous night!

Cloudy Bay can be variable, I find.



Buzzy