rikyuu

phew, thank you so much for that information.

hi all, We were hoping someone could advise please; were in Australia and have to renew our children's UK passports for a trip back to the UK later this year. This is now done partly online and then the forms printed to be completed and sent to the UK with the old passports. One thing we're stuck on however is the counter signatories, which are required for children. It has to be someone in Australia, with a British passport, who is professional and has known us personally for 2 years. The passport office can check up and there are heavy penalties for lying. Well, we just don't know anyone like that. I know 1 British person who I met twice and drives a truck. Has anyone else had this problem? Are we the only people without close, professional British friends? What happens if you've only been here 18 months, it would not be possible to have known someone here for 2 years! Any advice would be most welcome. Thanks!

isn't a majority of that 'personal worth' tied up in housing? Seeing as though the houses here are amongst the most expensive in the world, it's no great surprise that many people's money is sunk directly into keeping a roof over their heads, whilst having to cut back on items which don't add to ones wealth. Where-as in countries with reasonable housing costs, people have more money to spend on non-physical items that don't directly add to people's wealth. It's a bit misleading, just because people spend all their income on a stupidly expensive house, doesn't mean they are wealthy. In fact, in another recent survey this week, it was revealed that the average amount of cash Aussies have saved is barely $20k. So what's more wealthy; to have fully paid off a $100k house with another $100k cash in the bank, or to have paid off $250k of a $500k mortgage with only $20k in the bank?

you should be able to manage. I support a family of 4 on $70k pa, renting a 4 bedroom house in Melbourne, although it has no pool.

ah, in that case, I think you need the one which clamps onto the supply cable. If it's not visible, it's probably hidden behind a panel, which you will probably need to be qualified to remove. Or you can get the ones which plug into the mains socket, but that will only tell you the usage from that socket. Good news is though, if you connect a few solar panels you can get the meter to spin backwards, so you effectively sell the solar power back at the rate you paid eg 25c/kwh, as oppose to 8c/kwh which is what they now pay you with a smart meter (in Vic).

If you have a smart meter, you can monitor your usage online, down to each hour if need be. I use; https://electricityoutlook.jemena.com.au but other supplies have similar facilities.

I never shopped their, got all the car seats from BigW as much cheaper. Decent clothes come from M&S or Next (very reasonable prices with the exchange rate and often free delivery), crappy ones from k-mart/target

no idea. It's like a lot of other goods and services, advertising prices on the internet is still not widely practised, you have to phone around. For my first job application, prior to the interview, they phoned me and asked how much I was expecting for the role, I said a figure and they went on to say I'd have to take on some extra repsonsiblity for that salary, so why bother asking me I thought, just tell me what you are paying for that role. I was also asked in my second application during the interview, again I guessed based on what I was paid in the UK and used $2/1GBP, they offered me slightly less, but I wanted to secure my first job so accepted. It's very low pay for what I do and about 30% below the avergae for my experience. I get 2% pay rises if I'm lucky. Needless to say, someone leaves the company every month or so.

Just need to manage until 9am tomorrow, when the cool change finally comes.....

you're not alone, I couldn't understand them either. None of the costs seem tied down and it's hard to tell exactly what's covered and how much you'll be out of pocket. I think people just pay as much as they can for the premium, then pay how ever many $1000's their out of pocket.

yep a 4l turbo's gonna do that! And if you have a family then just get the sedan instead of the Ute. If you want some decent sound too, there's plenty of V8s to be had and with LPG only about 30p/l, cheap to run too!

I think anything without aircon should be an immediate NO (apart from exceptional circumstances) unless you are comfortable sitting in a 50 degree oven in traffic. Even outside of peak summer, the strength of the sun alone through the windows heats the car rapidly.

and they won't want to risk all those ponzie scheme housing investors losing out by putting up interest rates.

my colleague who earns 50k pa on a temporariy contract, borrowed 440k from the bank, so that's about 9x, and he owes 60k hex (from Uni). Aparantly that's fine as it's an investment and will get rent, which won't actually cover the interest payments, but that's fine too as the government will give him tax back on his loss making investment. As long as he stays living with his parents, the bank will let him buy as many investment properties as he wants. However, I've heard there's no debt problem here, and the banks have done so well over their foreign counterparts because the don't do high risk lending.

You do get a lot for your money renting in the outer suburbs, particularly in the west. We rent a huge 4 year old, 4 bed house, ensuite, WIR, walk in pantry, double garage, 600sqm land for 350pw approx 1560pm, about 30km from CBD in a very nice area. Next door just sold for $470k, the mortgage would be 3000pm and house prices are dropping anyway. Our rent went up 1.4% last year. Our previous house in a new estate in Deer Park was brand new, similar size for 320pw.

What no heating in Scotland?!! LOL. The warmth is nice, but much over 30-35C and you can't really do anything out doors other that sit in the shade, but not everyone has time to sit in the parks/beahc at the weekend, normally there's lots of stuff that needs doing. If you actually want to do any work outside it's too hot. It gets difficult to go shopping with the kids and get them strapped in a car that's over 70C inside and just gets cool with the aircon by the time you get home, which is itself an oven, so you wack the aircon up to max, if your're lucky enough to have it. Aircon is much more expensive to run than heating and then yes, you've got the blue skies outside, but you're say inside trying to get cool under the aircon, plus you usually have the curtains/shades closed because the heat gain through huge single glazed windows is more than the aircon can cope with (the heat coming through windows is a great as a central heating radiator). Plus every time you step outdoors with the kids and it's sunny, or even slightly overcast in the summer, you have to plaster yourself and the kids in suncream so they don't get severely burnt and constantly make sure everyone gets enough water so as not to become dehydrated. Heaven forbid if your car breaks down with 2 kids in it when it's 35-40C outside. You'd better make sure you have some shade to go under, the sun cream and plenty of water otherwise you'll suffer. I also find that in the cold, at least you can put more clothes on, where as in the heat there's only so much you can take off! It's never too cold to go out (decent warm clothing will cope with the coldest of weather in the UK), but it can be too hot to go out. So it's not all positives in hot weather vs cold weather, the reality is, it can be just as difficult and as dangerous.

I would have thought the high AUD would keep prices lower than those countries with a weak currency, but as others say, it is Australia, the land of inexplicable pricing.

I've not seen one in Melbourne yet (touch wood), which is surprising considering how messy the missus is in the kitchen!

are occupancy rates soaring because it's cheaper to stay in a hotel than buy a house? Because I thought tourism was decreasing.

ps. a bit off topic, but whilst I'm thinking about it......my next encounter with Qantas was no better either. It was Xmas 2010 and I was working in the UK when all the snow fell. On the day I was due to return both runways at Heathrow were clear. Unfortunately, even though I was able to get through to Qantas in New Zealand (the only place that would answer), the Qantas people at Heathrow had failed to tell the Qantas plane people that the runway was clear and they could use it. So they cancelled the flight even though all others were taking off! Then told me the next available flight was in 8 days (after Xmas!). So I flew back with Emirrates and landed on Xmas day, missing my families first Xmas in Oz (and the company didn't pay me for flying on Xmas day!).

you must have had the same oxygen thief as us because we had to be grateful to get it before Xmas too and it was a really special favour they were doing for us. (ps. I have all email correspondence to back up my story).

you had a much better experience with Crown than we did. They picked up out stuff in August and we didn't see it in Melbourne until just before Xmas. We had to manage for 4 months with 2 young kids and all we had in 2 suitcases. It took many, many (international) phone calls and emails. Their constant excuse for over 2 months was that the container was still empty, they eventually sent our stuff because I mithered them so much. I also wasn't happy that the only label they put on our boxes were my surname (badly written/spelt) and "Melbourne". Fortunately I had done my own labels and stuck them on. But I'm glad it went ok for you, one less thing to worry about! .....to cap it all, when we arrived in Melbourne, quantas forgot to put any of our suitcases on the plane, so we actually spent the first 3 days with 2 kids (2&3) and the clothes we were wearing.

in 1982, the median house price was $46750 and the median income was $19256, so you only needed to borrow 2.4x your income making housing easily affordable. If you saved 10% of your income and put down a $2000 deposit, you'd have $44750 to pay off = $316pm vs an income of $1123pm, $807pm left to live on (a lot in 1982 and equivalent to $2414pm spare in 2010). in 2010, the median house price was $524500 and the median income was $67116, so you needed to borrow 7.8x your income. If you saved 10% of your income and put down a $6700 deposit, you'd have $517800 to pay off = $3659pm vs an income of $3915pm, only $256 left to live on...impossible. Add to that, what sort of job did you have to do to earn $20k in 1982? What skills, qualifications and experience? Because in 2010, a qualified engineer with a degree and lots of experience only gets a bit more than the median wage and hence can not hope to buy a median house. So, the second parent has to work part time, but it's not possible to earn enough part time to pay for the child care fees....and child care is not good for the kids. And what happens when the kids are ill one day, who has to leave work immediately to look after them? And if you can afford a house by both working together, what do you have left to spend? High house prices can not possible be good for families or for retail (and hence manufacturers of retail goods). Only for investors, property agents, banks and the government in terms of taxes.

only good for those with mortgages, not good for savers or those looking to get on the housing ladder as it will help to keep house prices high. Also it's not making a dent in the exchange rate, so the situation is still not good for people transferring money from the UK.