NigelWaring

A good idea especially if you can quickly get that emergency fund up to about one million dollars.

Over the last six years I have needed just over $860,000 since I was diagnosed with Stage 3B Lung Cancer (inoperable), a much more common disease than most think, mine is Adenocarcinoma which is the non-smokers version. Since diagnosis it has metastasized (spread) to my ribs, spine, sternum and hips so that it is now Stage 4 Cancer. Just over two years ago I was put on Alimta Maintenance Chemotherapy and it has now stabilised, Alimta is never a cure but hopefully will keep me going until something better becomes available. The cost of Alimta including the work done by the infusion centre is about $1,500 a time plus the cost of a very comprehensive blood test, CT Scan and a review by my Oncologist. I am so glad that I did take out full cover health insurance about 40 years ago, I do not think that my health fund is as enthusiastic though. Anyway nobody has to worry about any of this because we all know that it only happens to other people. I'm not really being sarcastic. I'm now very much involved with a support group and stressing the seriousness of the situation seems to be the most effective way of saving lives.

HappyHeart I've not had any of those problems, it may depend on which health fund you are in. I'm in the Teachers' Federation at the top cover level, my wife was a teacher. I have just about all my treatment at the Sanitarium Hospital in Sydney, they also handle much of the public patients treatment because there is little available at Hornsby Public Hospital, you can't even get an x-ray with them, you have to go to the private one across the road. Anyway for treatment and visits to specialists I just present my Federation Health and Medicare Cards, they process everything on the spot and I never have to pay any top up fee.

I can't be sure on this but I think that funnel webs are not poisonous to many animals including dogs and cats and birds. I was once gardening and moving small rocks which exposed several funnel webs, one magpie must have eaten at least six of them without any problem, it was around our garden for many years after.

We live about one hour by train from the Sydney CBD and bought our own place 30+ years ago, you wouldn't believe how little we paid or what it is worth now. Rents out here, beyond Hornsby, are $300 to $600. I'm now retired but when I was a worker I soon got used to the travel and would manage to read at least one good book every week. Nowadays folk have laptops and pocket wifi so they can amuse themselves in many ways. I have seen people from the Central Coast (2 hour journey) watching the previous night's TV that they'd recorded, it is one way of catching up. We do like where we live, Hornsby is a passable shopping centre but for more serious stuff we can go to either Chatswood or to Erina Fair on the Central Coast. We are in the bush and a couple of times it has been exciting during the bushfire season but with a brick house and metal window shutters we seem to be OK. Not a good area though for anyone who likes the beach, Sydney beaches would be at least an hours drive, a bit less to the Central Coast and theirs are less crowded.

We've seen quite a number of funnel webs, our neighbour takes them to a local organisation that collects their venom for medical purposes.

Thanks for that very realistic report Vicky, particularly liked your comments on Culture / Australians / Australia which described it all very well. All those who have not taken out medical insurance, I recommend that you do right away. I never really thought that I'd ever need it but so many told me that it was essential so I took it out on the first working day after I arrived. That was around 40 years ago and since then I've only had average claims. The health fund was definitely making a profit out of me until about six years ago, since diagnosis my medical expenses have become close to a million. Yes I would have probably got similar treatment on the public health system but I might have had to queue a lot longer and I'm not sure if I would have survived as long. I can now pick one of the best private hospitals and have access to several top of the range specialists. My own direct contribution to the costs has been quite manageable, almost negligible. Yes I can definitely recommend that you take out medical insurance, even just the basics, as soon as possible.

I was in Dampier for almost four years, loved it, the heat was no problem to me. I was a Monday to Friday worker so I spent the weekends exploring, would take a tent and stay out most Saturday nights. Often I'd be two or three hundred kilometres from anywhere, I'd walk over to a small hill and round the other side and often there was a pile of empty tinnies. I did enjoy my time up there, might call in for a look if I'm in the area again.

We have been in the Botanic Gardens a few times but this trip was just to catch up with all the new things in the last ten years or so. We had eight very full days and were quite exhausted at the end of it.

Earlier this year we visited Bay Gardens in Singapore. We always enjoy walking among plants and flowers so thought we'd share these with you. They are a small selection from the more than 1,000 that we took:

I don't blame you at all. Visiting and touring around Continental Europe is great, we have done it lot and it certainly beats Asia, parts of which are now becoming quite dangerous, my wife is Australian but she has no family left, however, we are so well settled into our home and the area that we could never leave even for another part of Australia, it will be a sad day for us if we have to go into care. I'm in touch with a number of people who went to Canada when they were young and thoroughly enjoyed living there but now, as they retire, they are finding the winters difficult to handle but many feel trapped there because of grandchildren. We didn't have any children so not a problem that we have. Anyway Mrs Dawn, with fares now very affordable you can return for a holiday whenever you want; hope you've taken citizenship just in case.

We are a bit further into the bush than Berowra. At the time relative to our pay it was inexpensive. If we were still working and on whatever today's salary would be it would be a struggle to buy this house. We were very lucky to buy at the right time, values in the area went up by heaps about three years after. There's also the pressure of not much available North of Hornsby plus sewerage together with kerbs and gutters have been installed, both of these seemed to push values up.

I've been in Australia just over 40 years. I'm here for family reasons, my family is in UK. I do enjoy Sydney and it is not that expensive when you know your way around. We have the advantage of a house that was bought when they were real cheap, with a maturing policy and some savings didn't even have a mortgage. Not only do we love Sydney but we love the house that we've lived in since it was new around 35 years ago; we are about to make a small extension and renovate the rest so that we can live here much longer. We do visit UK every few years and enjoy it as any other holiday destination to a foreign country.

I do remember references to them as New Labour, I also remember a journalist saying that the only members of New Labour were those in the Cabinet. Looking from afar though some of the things that they did were certainly not left wing.

Yes I might do that Greg but as soon as we can organise the builder and council we are going to have some big improvements done to our house. We may even have to move out whilst most of the work is being done. Once it is complete we will be replacing many things and maybe buying new stuff.

I agree with you Greg but the range in one of Australia's department stores was very poor. Even the largest machine was too small for us and it had broken parts inside, it seemed to be rather flimsy but the general principle of them seemed to be very good.

I totally agree with this. I've worked in the polling booths many times and have always found it interesting to see the facial expressions as the voters arrive, as they walk through the door a sort of seriousness comes over them. We'll never know what they are thinking but I think the above is definitely in the right direction.

Many thanks everyone for your advice. We are convinced that the hot air fryers are good provided that you have one big enough. Our nearest big shopping centre is at Erina on the Central coast, our local one at Hornsby is good but the Department Stores do not seem to carry much of a range. Anyway at Erina we found mainly very small hot air fryers and just one large one which we found had a broken part inside, even this large one, if it had have been working would probably not have been big enough for us. We will keep looking for an extra large one in a store, we don't want to buy something as new as this online without seeing it first. We ended up buying another deep fryer of the same brand that we had, our old one had lasted about 8 years and is used at least twice a week. Anyway thanks again for all the advice, it has certainly educated us about hot air cooking and we will certainly keep looking for one that is big enough, we might even buy two of them if that is the only way, there might even be real big ones that professionals use. So many kitchen toys now that when we have our kitchen renovated later this year we will make sure there is a working area big enough to handle them all.

I've been reading a few forums covering these. Those who have used wet batter said it did cook OK but it was very difficult to clean the machine after, the dishwasher alone was not enough. Several people complained about the size, think we'd need the biggest one available, if it was meant for a family of four that would make enough chips for me but there wouldn't be any for my wife, perhaps we'd have to buy two of them. Several people said to cook things like chips evenly you had to pause the machine every few minutes and shake or stir the chips or whatever. One day they might bring one out with an agitator. I remember when the first Microwaves came out they didn't have a turntable and you had to keep stopping and moving the food around or it would end up cold one side and red hot the other. On one of the YouTube videos the lady said that she always soaked the chips in water for at least 15 minutes because the machine tended to dry them out. We have a very poor oven at the moment but when we had a good one I'd often cook chips in it without any oil at all, they were different, tasted good and were probably much healthier. I guess you might be able to do the same thing in these machines. Well thanks for all the comments and advice so far, it is all very useful and will help us to make up our mind on Monday.

NZ has some kind of GST, I think it started at 10% like ours but has since crept up to 15%, it is also on more goods and services than ours, I think only property rentals and bank charges are exempt; perhaps someone can clarify this one. It must make some difference to the total cost. Way back when I was there the NZ Dollar as with the AUD Dollar at the time did not float. The exchange rate for both countries was fixed by the Governments, like China does now. New Zealand kept revaluing (saying it was worth more), their dollar. This was actually a conspiracy against me, by the time the proceeds from my house in UK had been transferred they were worth quite a lot less in New Zealand Dollars. Of course when I wanted to take my money with me to Australia they started to devalue costing me more again.