DavidandGill
-
Posts
104 -
Joined
-
Last visited
DavidandGill's Achievements
Senior Member (4/6)
81
Reputation
-
Hi Carol I went into our local NAB this week and they are offering the deal we got last year. If you have a Classic Banking Account + an ISaver account you can qualify for a Credit Card with a $50 bonus! Go for it, we did and got approved. Regards Gill
-
Hi Carol, I changed my PO Credit Card address to my daughter's address before we moved out here, and just recently changed it to our now permanent address. You can write to advise them of the new address - they do stop sending statements until you receive a letter from them and confirm your instructions - or, if you use their online system, you can phone and change the address over the phone once you have satisfied all their identity questions, which will include parts of your online access code. We use Skype credit to make these kinds of calls to the UK - we bought 10 pounds of credit about 15 months ago and still have around 3 pounds worth left - it doesn't expire and makes the odd phone call to the UK relatively cheap. They will certainly send the statements to you in Australia - however, the postage will be very erratic and its best to keep an eye on the balance online and set up your payment even if you have not received your statement yet. I have had one occasion when a statement took 4 months to arrive, but usually they get here within a couple of days of the payment due date. The only failing of the PO Credit Card online system is their online statements. Their web page will only show 1 page of transactions and my statements are routinely 2 pages - this means I have to wait for the paper copy to arrive before I can check all my transactions but on the one occasion when I was double-charged, I wrote to the PO and it was refunded by the end of the next month. As to the NAB credit card - they were doing a promotion after Christmas last year, where if you had a Current Account and an ISaver account you could apply for a credit card and receive a $50 dollar cashback. We applied on the basis of our UK income (converted to a $ amount) and were given the cards. I am not certain you have to have your income derived only from Australia to apply - if you need to prove your income, you could probably use your UK income a evidence. We had only had a bank account with NAB for a few months at that time but we did have a substantial balance because we had not yet set up a super so that may have influenced their decision. We have used the PO credit card for 18 months and this has worked quite well for us. I am just about to start receiving my UK state pension which I have elected to have paid directly into the NAB and we are considering changing my husband's state pension over from the UK bank to NAB so then we will probably use the NAB credit card for daily expenses more but like many people will always be tied to a UK bank account as our private pensions have to be paid into the UK bank and cannot be paid into an Australian bank so we will probably retain the UK credit card. It's also handy when I make purchases on Ebay/Amazon and pay in sterling. Hope this helps, good luck with it all! Regards Gill
-
Hi Phoebe - so glad to hear this good news, everything crossed for your results too! Stay strong. Gill :xmas24:
-
Hi Julie, No I didn't know this - thanks for the advice, will remember this at Tax Time next year!
-
Hi all We seem to be so busy these days, that I don't get much chance to read PIO each day so have just been catching up. On the subject of Bank Accounts - we originally opened a Westpac account + Savings account because our daughter banked with them. When the time came to pay our Visa charges, we did fund transfers to my daughter's account over a 7 day period at $10,000 a day timed so that the total amount required reached her account ready for her to draw down the Bankers cheque (equivalent of Bankers Draft in UK) payable to the DIAC. She then sent that to Perth and the whole business was sorted out in around 15 working days from start to finish. Good way to go providing you can trust your kids!! It worked for us, as I could do the funds transfer from the UK via the internet and then provide her with all the info she needed to draw the bankers cheque for payment. After we got here, I was extremely unimpressed with the counter service at Westpac (having worked for a bank in the UK for 26 years I have high standards!) and decided to move all our accounts to NAB a few yards up the road. We opened a Classic account + I-Saver account (I believe at the time you had to have a Classic account to have the I-Saver) and a Retirement account (over 55's) The Classic account pays no interest and we leave a small $50 balance in it as we have a debit card linked to it which we don't use -we also have a debit card with the Retirement account which we do use. The Retirement account pays a small amount of interest which varies depending the balance - very small rate for less than $3000, slighter better for higher balances. The I-Saver pays the best interest with a bonus interest for the first 4 months. We did change our I-Saver once to retain the bonus interest but I couldn't be bothered doing this every 4 months and our Financial Adviser at the NAB suggested we look at U-Bank - an online bank operated by NAB. They pay a good rate of interest plus a bonus percentage if you pay in a minimum of $200 a month. We have put the majority of our savings cash into Super and have retained our "caravan fund" in the U-Bank account with a smaller "rainy day fund" in the I-Saver. We pay $200 a month into U-Bank and get 5.16% (currently) interest - the normal rate is 4.46%. You have to link your U-Bank account with your ordinary account (in our case our Retirement account) to set up the Automatic Savings Plan but it is all pretty painless to do online. The beauty of this account is we can transfer money back to our NAB account if required and still keep the bonus interest rate. All the rates information is variable of course, and is on the NAB and U-Bank websites and well worth a look. As far as the NAB is concerned, we have had superb service from them, both at the counter and with our Personal Financial Adviser and based on the service from the Torquay/Geelong branches, would highly recommend them. Westpac didn't even ask why we were closing our account! Hope this info is useful to those our there trying to organise finances - every little bit helps. I am a bit excited now as I have just got my paperwork for claiming my state pension (I am in the age group for women where I have had to wait longer for it!) so something else to look forward to getting! Cheers everyone. Gill
-
Question - I have just received all the forms to claim my UK State Pension. Does anyone out in PIO land receive their State Pension direct into an Australian Bank Account and if so, how does the exchange rate compare? The paperwork states that "you will benefit from competitive exchange rates based on bulk buying of currency". Does anyone have any personal experience to substantiate that claim? All our other pensions and annuities are paid into our UK Bank, we use our UK Post Office Credit Card for our normal monthly expenses and pay this via the internet from the sterling account and then transfer out any surplus funds that accumulate once or twice a year when the exchange rate is favourable. Just wondering whether to have my State pension transferred directly every month instead of going into the UK bank account - at least here it would earn interest from date of receipt whilst in the UK it would earn next to nothing and based on our first year here, our outgoings are less than our income (based on credit card spend only - we pay our utility bills from our Australian account in $). Just trying to weigh up the pros and cons - every penny, sorry cent, counts! Just had another thought - does anyone know if you choose to have the pension paid into a UK account, can you change your mind at a later date and have it paid into an Australian account, or vice versa? Are you locked into the first decision you make forever?
-
Congratulations - wonderful news!
-
I have assumed that once you have citizenship, you would be entitled to live here without having to repeat the Visa process. As British Citizens who have moved here on Permanent Resident Visas, we would (if we so wished) be allowed to move back to the UK without having to apply for a Visa so my assumption is that once you take up Australian Citizenship, you would be able to move back to Australia if you have lived elsewhere for a period of time. Does anyone know if that logic is correct?
-
Torquay - VICTORIA!!!! Great Ocean Road - just fab!
-
Happy Anniversary! Do you feel like you are fully settled now? We do after 15 months, it's almost like we have lived here forever - and still loving every minute. Its so good to be able to see our daughter and grandchildren so often (almost every day even if it's only for a cup of tea) and we have made some good friends in our time here. We are also really lucky in that a couple of our friends in the UK are coming to stay at the end of October and we are all going to do the "campervan" thing together for a couple of weeks - it will be great to catch up with old friends. Hope you are enjoying your Adelaide life just as much as we enjoy our Torquay life! Gill
-
Australia charges GST on imports so without a Visa your household goods would attract heavy tax penalities - that is probably the reason why you are being told you cannot ship without a Visa. Once you have a Visa, your household goods can be imported without attracting tax, unless there are some specified items onboard like alcohol. That would also be the reason why the shippers and insurers need your Visa number. Good luck with it all. Gill
-
Hi Andy, Yes we live very close to Cosy Corner - actually the other end of town about 600 metres from Whites Beach which is where the waves crash. We love it here, even in the summer when the place is full of tourists (funny only a year ago I was a tourist!!) and Cosy is full of families its a lovely place to live. A bit more expensive that a non-coastal town, but we manage ok. Sounds like your a seasoned long haul mover - hope it goes well for you, it's a very stressful experience but once finished its an amazing achievement and so worth it to be with family. Best wishes Gill
-
We have been to Drysdale a few times, mainly driving through on our way to Queenscliff, so I am not really very familiar with that area but I have found nothing particularly disadvantagous about living in Torquay - except the house prices and shopping prices are elevated due to it being a high demand holiday town. In the summer, particularly from around two weeks prior and six weeks post Christmas, the town is heaving and trying to find a parking space can be tiresome but fortunately we live only 600 metres from Whites Beach which is beautiful, the opposite end of the bay to Cosy Corner which is the most populated beach area because, as its name suggests, it is the safest beach area for children. All house prices close to the coast are relatively high, compared to more suburban areas so established towns on the Bellerine Peninsula are a bit like Torquay, maybe a little bit less (more house for your money). We love Torquay but we are lucky in that we live in the quiet end of town away from the centre. Within a few miles two new housing areas are being opened up - Armstrong Creek and Wariliy which are within very reasonable distance of Torquay but we fear that the size of these new towns will impact Torquay quite severely in that neither of these are actually on the coast so people will want to take advantage of the beach at weekends. These are big developments, and will include a hospital and huge shopping malls so there will be a lot of people moving in over the next few years. Look at RealEstate.com.au for properties on the Bellerine and you will get a good idea of what is around. I can't really think of any downsides to living here - even the short drive to the bowls club takes us along the esplanade looking out towards St Philip Bay and on a sunny day I swear there is no better view. If you have any more specific questions I'll be happy to try and answer them for you - I don't log in everyday but will get to them eventually! Congratulations on the Visa Grant and hope we might get to meet up one day when you arrive down under! Gill
-
Hi Moira, whereabouts in Melbourne are you heading to? We are down in Torquay on the Great Ocean Road - about 1.25 hours drive from Melbourne CBD. Love it!!! Gill
-
It is scary, but so worth it! After a year we almost find it hard to remember what it was like in the UK. Yes, we are really settled. Life is good. G