rikyuu

hi, we did this when my youngest was about 12 months old and eldest was about 2.5 years old. It was difficult, no doubt about it, but we had a basnet (cot attached to bulkhead) for the youngest and she just really ate and slept. Seem to remember the kids next to us was the problem, screaming and crying for most of the 24 hour flight! Hopefully you won't get that. Eldest ate, did drawings, watched videos, played around, slept. Actually it made the flight seem shorter because you spend many hours seeing to the kids instead of sitting their bored. But you get tired, very tired and you have to keep your calm with the kids.......very difficult when we finally arrived in Melbourne (another flight a year later) and Qantas decided not to have loaded any of our stuff onto the plane, so we had to manage with nothing for 3 days!

in that case I'll be your opposite number and sleep 3 hours a night as that's all I seem to be getting recently.:sad:

yes, the employer is forced to pay 9% of your wage into your pension on your behalf and can not give the 9% to you instead. Are you sure it's not in any way costing you a cent? It's like saying if your employer offers you $80k + a car package. Is the car really free, or is there just a slight chance that without the car, you could have got paid more?

I don't think it will help. Your UK state pension becomes frozen in time and doesn't even increase with inflation, any private/company pension transfers to Oz are crippled by the exchange rate and when working in Oz, you are forced to put 9% of your wages in a pension fund and (unless self managed) pay someone to invest your money unwisely in the stock market (most pensions have been losing money the last few years), when you could get 6% yourself in a savings account (which you can't as you're forced to pay into the pension fund). You then pay tax when you draw your pension. My current forecast shows that I would have to pay about 40% of my wage into my super to have a reasonable retirement.

PAL and NTSC are the system that the video is transmitted to the TV, both UK and Oz are PAL. Most UK TVs will not tune into the Oz analogue or digital channels, but if you buy an Oz set top box for about $50, you can plug it into your UK TV, usually by HDMI these days, but some still use composite video (yellow plug) and left/right audio. Not seen any SCART here yet. I also used a UK power board with an Oz plug where I had many UK devices and transformers in one place. Swapped to Oz plugs elsewhere. Interestingly, Oz plugs don't have fuses, they rely on the 20A circuit breaker back at the fuse board. Seems a bit dodgy to me as there are plenty of low current devices (eg mains radio, alarm clock), which would normally be fused at 3A, but would have to be able to take 20A fault current before tripping the circuit breaker, when unfused.

I earn the similar ($72k), have 2 young kids and my wife doesn't work currently (looks after the kids), except we live in Melbourne. To give your friend an idea of what we do with that; we manage ok, but it's getting more difficult, even in just the 2 years we've been here. We rent for $350pw (nice 4 bed about 25km west of CBD), have 2x10 year old cars, buy cheapish food (about $150pw), don't go out much (mainly camping/parks/beach/zoos/restaurant once a month), spend a bit on hobbies, don't spend much on clothes, go on cheap camping holidays (can't afford flights for 4 back to UK), public school for eldest child, no health insurance (only top cover is really worth it and can't afford $350+pm). Although inflation is low, we've found costs have risen significantly. I had a 3% pay rise at the end of my first year, but increases (mainly utilities/fuel) have used that up 2-3 times over, so we are getting worse off each year. I was paid 33k GBP in the UK. Brought 25k GBP here with us to set up from scratch. Hope that helps a bit. I expect Sydney will cost more.

Adelaide sounds good, but not lived there

yep, they're completely different! The first can very much depend on how much deposit and how much they've paid off the house. The second is just whether you'd have more money if you've left it under your bed, but doesn't even consider mortgage interest rates. Something meaningful to an investor may be; house is worth less than what you paid for it+all the related costs (mortgage interest, lost savings interest, maintainance costs, inflation etc etc). To an owner, not thinking of selling up, doesn't really matter if you can afford it.

I don't think a budgie will make it, they can't fly that far. (bugger someone beat me to it).

Nightmare on Elms Street used to give me nightmares when I was a child. Maybe a bit tame by today's standards. How about 'The Saw' series of films? Highly sickening. Oh yes and 'the thing' (second release) and poltergeist. Anything that comes out of a TV or mirror or has a scary clown or dog's/wolve's teeth and eyes involved!!

Nice post and I often think that I do a lot more outdoors stuff here in Oz that I did in the UK. But then I think "is that just because I've got kids to do it with now? Is it just because my life's circumstances have changed, not the country?". When I think of the distances I travel to do anything, I wonder where that would have taken me in the UK and the answer is pretty much anywhere and there are so many places to visit in the UK. As for restaurants, the UK has it too. Within 15 minutes from the suburbs I lived in (15+), there were lots of quality takeaways and restaurants. Something I find a bit lacking in the West of Melbourne (can only comment on that because that's where I live).

a lot depends on whether it's an investment property, looking for a profit in X years or a home to live in. If it's a home to live in and you paid a price you could afford, the NE doesn't really affect you, even if you sell to buy another house, the other house will likely have fallen in value as your house has, so you won't have lost anything. If it's an investment that's relying on a profit, then yes, there will probably be some loss.

yeah, around Jan this year it shot up from about 50c/l to 80, 90 even 100c/l in some places. The RACV said they were going to look into it, but never saw anything else other than blaming the cold winter in the northern hemisphere. It then took some 8-9months to drop back to 50c/l, despite the winter being long over in the North, it got down to about 48c/l for about 2 weeks, before it quickly started to climb again and now sits at 70c/l. No mention of a reason this time.

if it's any consolation LPG has jumped from 48c/l to 70c/l in just 4 weeks. That's a 46% jump in a month and it hasn't even been in the news.

anywhere away from civilisation....

looking at the news summary each day, seems like most of the reported stabbings and shootings are in Sydney and most of the fatal car accidents are in Melbourne/Vic (9 since Friday and 20 this month - just 2 weeks).

The rich get richer, the working class pay more taxes and the poor get poorer

Done a couple of tax returns since we came here. Mine is quite simple, I work full time, earn a little interest on savings and have a wife a 2 kids who don't work. Some things on the return are prefilled, I always double check them from my bank statements and end of year tax report from my company. Each year, it caculates that I owe the medicare levy (not the surcharge) of around $1000. Today a colleague mentioned to me that our company already pays that as part of our income tax payments, news to me. So I checked how much tax I should be paying online and compared it to what I actually pay and I am indeed paying about $1000pa too much on my income, which I presume is also intended to cover the medicare levy. Therefore I appear to be paying the levy twice. So I have a couple of questions; 1) how does the ATO and hence my tax return form, know that part of the tax deducted from my wages is for the medicare levy? 2) if it doesn't know it's for the levy, why doesn't the tax return see that I've paid too much income tax and give me a refund (of the $1000) which is then used to pay the levy? (I get no refund or offsets for anything and end up with a charge of $1000 + a bit for savings interest). 3) if this is a mistake (for this year and last year) is it possible to get it corrected and get a refund? Thanks for any advice

They'll keep on finding ever more inventive ways not to let that happen..... Restrict land, reduce homes built, increase immigration, give money away etc etc. Sent from my HTC EVO 3D X515a using Tapatalk 2

a lots of regs involved like building a fence, may even need to be a certain standard with regulatory gate latches, gaps etc etc. They need to be on flat, level ground, clear of debris. Grass underneath will die and will probably need replacing, whilst somehow matching the existing grass. Huge amount of water needed, possibly plus chemicals. Where will you be living? Melbourne is warm enough for a unheated pool for about 2 months. Land lord (and neighbours?) may be concerned about flooding the property if it should burst/be cut.

depends a lot on where you are going (bush, beach, caravan park, mountains etc), how long for, how many sites, how long you are staying at each one, who is going (just 2 of you or kids too), if you are planning to eat out etc. Just some simple items off the top of my head, which I sometimes overlook; bin bags wipes tissues water bottles torches suncream sun hats matches lighter spare gas body towel dish towel margerine tomatoe sauce milk bread These days I normally go for 1 night with my kids (it's all I can get), in any weather (it's been hail, rain and down to 0deg last 2 weekends), so we have a solid metal trailer with a pop-up roof with most stuff already set-up inside for speed and convenience. Still adding bits to it, but got it pretty well setup now, with 3x120w solar panels to power the fridge and lighting (powers the house lighting and TV when at home). We're going to Torquay for 4 nights at Xmas, the 4 of us.

looks like this is the problem; http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/perth-rents-smash-major-capital-cities-20121010-27dtk.html

OP- I don't know if you can try Melbourne instead. Lots of nice 4 bed, new rentals (ie. fairly modern) for about $350pw. The process is the same pain, making you feel in competition with everyone, but there's plenty advertised if you don't need to be within 20km of the city.

I've had things that I didn't appreciate, but can't think of anything I appreciated that I didn't know I had. :laugh:

sounds like a leak from the brass fitting, quite common over time. If you've turn the water off and it's stopped leaking and you have the correct size spanner and decent ladder, then you may be able to undo the fitting, clean up the thread and wrap some plumbers PTFE tape around it and remake the join. Probably best to take a closer look with it leaking first, just to ensure it's the joint and nothing has actually split. Or pay a plumber $$$.