deb8181

If you are over 31 when you arrive in Australia, they give you 12 months in which to get hospital cover (even basic cover) before they start charging you the 2% for every year over 31 on your private health instalements. Also if you have adult children 18 and over some health funds take them off your fund and they have to take out their own health insurance, so that is something else to watch out for. Other health funds will cover them from between 21 and 25 years of age. I am with HBF and they are going to do that with my son this year (he is 18 years of age). I am therefore going to change with a fund that will keep him on there for longer as he is only an apprentice and doesn't earn that much. I have basic - intermeidate hospital cover and mid to top extras (dental, opticians etc.) This is what i am looking for at the moment. Its going to cost approx $128 - $150 a fortnight for two adults and one 18 year old depending on who i choose. Hope this helps.

I would have a UK address over there as my daughter still lives there at the moment.

Thanks for your reply George. Both mine and my husbands passport run out at the same time unfortunately. I was told i needed six months on it by the travel agent in Oz when i booked my flights to the UK. We are both UK citizens and have only been in Oz for just over two years. We have a permanent skilled visa which is inside our soon to expire UK passports and we dont have dual nationality as we havent been in Oz for long enough. I guess if you weigh up the cost of the £129.50 and then half a day of your holiday lost, its probably easier to get it done over here so you havent got to worry about getting it done when you are over there, plus of course we are going on 15 December so it will soon be Christmas and everyone shuts down i guess. I just hate paying over the odds for things like this when you never get your money's worth when you pay the cheap price never mind paying through the nose for it!!!

Hi there Has anyone had to renew their British passport whilst living in Oz. I am visiting the UK in December this year for a holiday and mine and my husbands passport will only have 5 months left on it at that point. I have been advised that i need at least 6 months left on them and therefore need to renew them before i go to the UK. I have looked into renewing them and i am shocked to see it is going to cost approx. $282.00 each ($564.00 for the two). To renew in the UK it is only 77.00 pounds each - that is over 200.00 pounds more to renew them over here in Australia - DAYLIGHT ROBBERY!!!!! My daughter still lives in the UK and has suggested that i send them over to her and she will send our applications in for us but i don't think this is allowed. Please help. Any advice would be appreciated. Deb8181 :huh:

Yes i believe it is a breach of the Consumer Protection etc. Glad to see everyone is on the ball and that people using this forum get unbiased information from others to help them in the move to Oz.

Hi Jo I looked on a website called Stayz.com and got my rental off there. There is also Gumtree Perth which sells and advertises just about everything you need. If you see something and need some sort of validation of it lets say, to check its genuine, just let me know and also if you are looking for something specifically let me know and i will keep an eye out for you and keep you informed. Feel free to PM me if you want. Always happy to help as I know how i felt in the same position :wink:

Yes we were like that when we knew we were coming across, its very daunting just arriving here with just a suitcase and nothing else. We have been here 16 months now in Perth and had a very stressful first few weeks getting everything sorted. It does get better with time. The hard part is trying to get a rental, a job and schools all in the same area at the same time without having to travel long distances. We decided which area we wanted to live in then got the rental, then the school and then the jobs. Our son is 15 and we got him into Maranatha Christian College which is a private school not far from where we live. I drop him off in the morning on the way to work and then he gets the bus back and lets himself in before we get home again. He seems to really like it there. He does quite a lot of outdoor education which involves Khayaking, camping and swimming. He's also going to Melbourne in September with the school as part of his history lessons! We booked a furnished rental from the UK to stay in for the first month that we were here to give us chance to see where we wanted to be. Eight months after being here we bought our own house in Secret Harbour. We were sick of being dictated to by Real Estate Agents who are all take and no give and we wanted somewhere we could call our own and do with as we wanted. If you want any help with anything just get in touch. Do you know which part of Perth you want to be in as its quite a big place? :biggrin:

Dont worry about her, animals tend to cope better than we do. The 30 days will go really quickly as it did with us. You will look back on this time and know that it was the best thing you ever did. In the meantime have a good flight and bring all your woolly jumpers as its quite cold over in Oz at the moment if you can believe that! :wink:

Hi there My husband came over as a gas fitter/plumber and to be honest once you get here you are not qualified at all. You have to get your plumbing and gas licences and to do this you have to go on a course which isnt cheap. We are in WA and most plumbing companies are advertising for WA experience which obviously you dont have when you first land. One well known company in WA are asking for 10 years WA experience! My husband landed on his feet luckily and got a job in an office as a plumbing estimator/scheduler but he had done a bit of this in the UK as well. He has told me how different plumbing and gas fitting is over here than the UK so i can well understand why some companies are reluctant to take on newbies from the UK. Overall it is a very worrying time because obviously you need to be earning money more or less straight away when you arrive and with the rules and regulations over here, its not possible to get in the field that you think you are qualified for and i believe that goes for some other trades as well including would you believe, accountants. Sorry to put a dampner on things but a know one plumber that came over ended up cleaning swimming pools for a living as he couldnt get a job plumbing. Obviously i dont know all the ins and outs surrounding his predicament. If you need further information about the costs and time limits on the plumbing side of things let me know and i will ask my hubby when i get in from work. :confused:

Just seen this on the news today and i can well believe it! You might get paid more wages but its all relative with the cost of living. I was quite well off in the UK but I feel like I have had to start again financially, not being able to afford things like i used to and having to buy things on interest free credit, even then you are charged extra things on your statement which add up which you didnt get in the UK!! :confused: THE rise in the Australian dollar means we now have four of the 15 most expensive cities in the world to live in, according to a survey released today by the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit. Sydney has moved up from 32nd place two years ago to sixth now and Melbourne is up from 38th to seventh, with a cost of living more than 40 per cent higher than New York, The Australian reports. Perth and Brisbane, which are almost 25 per cent more expensive than New York, are ranked 13th and 14th. All four cities are now costlier than major cities including London, Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Hong Kong and Beijing, according to the survey, which compares the cost of living using more than 400 individual prices in 133 cities around the world. Tokyo, Oslo and Osaka take the top three places overall while Mumbai, Tunis and Karachi are the three cheapest. The Australian cities' rankings have climbed sharply in the unit's surveys in recent years. Read more: http://www.news.com.au/business/australian-dollar/high-dollar-pushes-relative-cost-of-living-in-australian-cities-up-world-rankings/story-fn6t6wad-1226089881392#ixzz1RPGnMfLP

I suppose it depends on where you live or work in Perth. I worked at Bibra Lake and was recommended (by an Ozzie) to a Dr Daryl Lacey at Cockburn Medical Centre. I went to him a couple of times and found him to be really good (from an English background), however, i got made redundant and this surgery was around 40 minutes away from where i lived. Needless to say i have had to change now as i live in Secret Harbour and work in Mandurah so it would have been quite a jaunt. I now go to the nearest which is Secret Harbour medical centre and they are not bad to be honest. Luckily i havent had to spend too much time there as i dont need to go very often. My son had his ears syringed there by the nurse and she was good with him. There is a dentist just a few yards away from this doctors as well which is useful. :wink:

I hate to put the cat amongst the pidgeons but we were quite well off in the UK and never worried about money but i can honestly say you really do need a lot of money over here. You generally earn more but things are more expensive and we are only just making ends meet and get quite stressed out if we sat and thought about it too much :shocked:

Hi there Yes we are south of the river but quite a bit further down than Canning Vale. We are in Secret Harbour. Places that are nice if you want a newish property closer to Canning Vale are Success and Atwell whether you are buying or renting. :biggrin:

I used Real Insurance for the first few months over in Perth whilst i was renting but changed to SGIO when i bought my house and got a mortgage because Real Insurance werent on the bank's list of recommended insurers and they like you to use one that is on their list. :biggrin:

Yes you can visit and walk your dog in the Byford quarantine in Perth. They have quite a big exercise area so you can allow your dog to run around and stretch his/her legs. Dont know about the other quarantine centres though. :biggrin: