suggs

Long story, spent a fortune getting visa's, validating (£20k), never bothered with this site until tonight. Sold the house the business the lot, ready to leave for good, one thing the exchange rate is not great.

I am not gloating, just a plain working class couple, nothing special, worked hard, i am just past forty, over weight, but happy.

If you had 400k sterling sitting in your current account, would you exchange now and go, i mean exchange at 2:1, or would you wait?


Any advice appreciated, do not know what to do, what would you do? In the current economic enviroment?

P.S. Kids left home, me not working, missus works in NHS, doctor, renting currently in the Midlands, interest pays rent.


Suggs.

JCSUPERMOTO

1.Change only £50k for now!
2. Go do some exercise so you are healthy enough to enjoy the other £350k
3.Just over 40?<sucks teeth> quick run and enjoy yaself

moneypenny20

Wouldn't change all of it that's for sure. Put a pile in the highest interest account you can (not locked in for more than 6 months though), transfer enough to keep you going for say six months and maybe the rest in another account, less interest but easily accessible then you can transfer it as the rate gets in your favour or as you need it for property etc.

Dreamy

As the others have said, I'd only change what I had to, put what I could afford to in a higher interest account and then wait for the exchange rate to go back to a better level (if it does )

I have a regular income from the UK which I transfer over when it gets to GBP10k but it'll just sit where it is for the time being.

slipshot

If it were me, I;d change a small amount now and leave the rest in a UK savings account until needed.

But the key thing that many people seem to forget is to look around and research money transfers and look at who gives the best exchange rate since they are all different every day. The larger the sum the better the chance of making far more.

I have always used xe.com since I found they offered the best rates even though I paid a £9 fee to move it, I made much more on the exchange rate - and these are small sums like 5,000 GBP.

Best do research before moving, sign up and register with a few so you are ready to go and on the day you decide, check them all then fix it!

Grayling

Bear in mind that you would be liable for Australian income tax on the interest wherever it is invested.

This may make a difference.

G

asprilla

If it were me I'd change 50k and come over, with a view to getting back into some form of work in the next 6months or so. I would buy shares with the 350k in the UK. Dividend income might not be too great for the next 2 or 3 years, but you would expect that things will improve soon. Far better than sticking your money in a bank account, in my opinion.

Last thing I would do at the moment, would be to change it all into AUD... unless I 100% needed to.

suggs

Morning,

Thankyou all very much for your replies so far, it would seem that the solution for now would be to leave as much as possible in Sterling until the exchange rate reaches a rate which only each individual can assume to be the required rate. We are intending on flying out this summer, so i am going to stick it all in here;

http://www.nationwideinternational.com/

From what i have read, you can access it from Australia, and pay the interest tax on it to the Australian authorities while living in Australia. When the rate hits required rate, i will send it all to my Forex account.

Thank you again, i cannot see any other option.

Kingseat

If you go shift 50 over make sure your other 350 isn't all with the same banking umbrella. Just incase as I am sure you are only covered to 100 per institution.

MartinH

What you do is spread your risk.

You put some into long term investments (equities are very cheap at the moment and a good long term growth bet).
Buy a bolt hole appartment that you rent out (in case you eve want to return to the uk). Again very cheap at the moment.
Put a chunk in an offshore sterling based savings account.
Take some with you.


......or you could just put it all on red and hope to double your money.




Oh yes and you cannot rely on anything I tell you

Grayling

Reality is that £400K is not a huge amount and you will spend that much if you want to buy a house depending on location.

rent in parts of Australia, for a family, may be a lot more than you will be getting in interest.

when you consider other factors such as the tax implications and no guarantee that exchange rates will change in your favour then the best plan may be to simply move the lot and use it to buy a house.

G

Petals

I agree as if you are just over forty and want to live on the money then hopefully its got to last a long long time.

asprilla

I agree with this, but the problem is - the current exchange rate.

I know that it's impossible to predict the future, but lets say that the UK pound strengthens in time. Change GBP50k now ($100k) and then GBP350 at ..e.g 2.35 would give you another $820k, so $920k all up.

Something to think about anyway.

suggs

Cheers for the replies,

Yep, in todays climate £400k is not a massive amount of money when you have it, but its a massive amount when you do not have a penny to your name, and also have debt. So not too bad off, but like i said, no gloating, just a normal chap looking outside the box?

I look at it like this;

So Today
Exchange rate is 2:1
House prices in Oz are very high in relation to earnings
So an $800k house is $800k for the money i exchange at 2:1


Say in two or three years;

Exchange rate hits 2.5:1
House prices in Oz relax say by 20%
So $1 million exchange cash and 800k house only costs me $640k

So, in reality i am $360k better off for waiting two years, admit, i have no crystal ball, but i am a gambler, so it just may pay off.

That $360k can be spent between today and two years time, having fun, so $360k divided by current exchange rate 2 = £180k divided by two years = £90k per year, so i have £90k per year for the next two years to live off and have a good time waiting for things to fall over in my favour and i will be no worse off than exchanging today and buying a house in Australia at todays costs? (three years £60k per year) All in all, i think i am quite conservative with my positive hopefull expectations in my favour?

Cheers

Its just a very bad time to make the move from the UK to Australia, so maybe best to either sit tight in the UK, or put it offshore, spend some of the capital enjoying yourself in Australia, taking it easy, because you may be no worse off in two or three years time, like above, just my two penneth, but at the end of the day you take your chances and are a long time dead!


Be Happy, the most important thing.

Sparky Making

Very interested in this thread as we are in exactly the same predicament. My husband is behind me shouting it is going down and down and down, think he is on Teletext checking the rate, well I hope thats what he is talking about!