DavidandGill

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

Hi Ted and Angie Congratulations on your Visa, haven't been logging on the PIO lately (too busy getting ourselves ready for Spring, gardening, playing bowls, looking after the grandchildren etc., etc) but so happy to see the good news. Good Luck with the final stages of your move. Gill

We had a similar problem with one of our savings accounts, and we had to wait until we had some correspondence addressed to us at our Daughter's Australian address to sort that out. However, as far as bank (NatWest & RBS) and credit cards (Tesco and Post Office) are concerned, they were willing to accept our daughters address as our temporary address in Australia. We actually went to the Bank and showed them some of our Visa paperwork to substantiate our move - and they were very helpful in changing the address on the date we left the UK. Same with credit cards, I phoned and as long as you can prove your identity there really should not be a problem. They have to understand that you cannot retain your UK address if you are renting it out as mail would end up with an "unauthorised" person. I think they are being unreasonable and perhaps you could try to persuade them by sending copies of your Visa paperwork and proof of identity. It is no different to trying to conduct business with any banking or financial body, you always have to prove your identity - would they take the same approach if you were moving within the UK? With our Bank, we advised them that the sale proceeds of our house would be credited to our account four days before we were leaving the UK and that we anticipated transferring substantial sums via the internet to HiFx to purchase a house here in Australia. They noted all this on our file and we had no problems when the time came to transfer that money. I firmly believe that is because we went to see them and took documentary evidence so they were well informed and there was no movement on our account that was unexpected. Our pensions are paid into the account each month and we use a UK credit card for our food and general shopping and pay it off each month using the internet. This system has worked for us for the year we have been here and we not been disadvantaged with the exchange rate doing it this way. I would go back to your bank/credit card providers and politely challenge how reasonable they are (not) being. Good Luck

I think that is right - extract from the Centrelink pages on eligibility :- There is a newly arrived residents waiting period and I believe that it s 104 weeks as you stated. To qualify, you must: be an Australian resident and currently living in Australia and not be subject to a newly arrived resident’s waiting period and have reached age-pension age but not qualify for a payment from us or from the Department of Veterans' Affairs and provide us with your and your partner's tax file numbers, or be granted an exemption from providing your and your partner's tax file numbers, and have an annual adjusted taxable income* of less than: $50 000 (singles) $80 000 (couples, combined), or $100 000 (couples, combined, for couples separated by illness or respite care or of whom one partner is in prison). *This limit is increased by $639.60 for each dependent child you care for. Note: Dependants or partners of Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders are not eligible for concessions using the cardholder’s card. Best wishes Gill

Many Thanks Alan - this is interesting.

Could you elaborate please Alan?

Hi everyone, In reply to one or two queries - Credit Cards (UK) I used to work for a Bank in their credit card operation and knew my way around the "best deals" at that time. The Post Office credit card has never (to my knowledge) charged the foreign exchange fee and I have had one for years which I only used when abroad. How it works is that credit card companies usually charge a FE fee on top of the normal foreign exchange rate (it can be as much as 2.5% which is a heavy loading on top of the transaction value). It may be that more cards are issued now without the FE fee - I think someone mentioned Saga, but I have found personally that the PO Card has always given a very reasonable exchange rate and I have never been charged any additional fees. Obviously paying it off each month means no interest charge either (I don't actually know what the interest rate is, again having worked in the business one of the first things you learn is never pay interest!) Super - My husband is over 65 and therefore, unless he could prove he works for something like 30 hours a month he cannot contribute to Super. However, being a mere young slip of a thing at 60 I can contribute, so we put as much of our surplus savings into Super in my name and because I am over "preservation age" (generally 55years,) I could make the lump sum contribution and go immediately into "pension phase" meaning I get a monthly payment from the Super. It is really just withdrawing our own money each month but what remains in the super is obviously invested and the hope is it might grow at at least an equal rate to what is being withdrawn. The majority of our money is invested in term deposits at interest rates around the 5.5% mark. We investigated a number of routes into Super but finally decided to go with the NAB which we have been pleased with so far. Certainly the personal service is better than we found in the UK and we can contact our adviser very easily for advice when things get sticky like the Greek situation at the moment which is affecting Australian investments. Commonwealth Seniors Health Card - I must recommend anyone arriving in Australia to apply for a Seniors Card. We get some amazing discounts using it - particularly rail travel into Melbourne at only $12 return for two of us, and discounted entry into places like Melbourne Aquarium etc. But, do not confuse this with the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card sometimes also called a Seniors Card. This is extremely confusing because the two entities are completely different. The CSHC is issued by Centrelink and to assist with Prescription costs and health services for pensioners. Below is the link to the relevant webpages for Centrelink. It is available to Australian residents who are not newly arrived in the country (hence the two year waiting period) and do not qualify for an aged pension. It may not be relevant to everyone but I would recommend reading the Centrelink pages below for full details. http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/conc_cards_cshc.htm I think that has covered the main queries - except for wicker. I don't know about furniture with wicker elements, we were certainly advised by our removers (Pickfords) NOT to even take anything wicker, I sold all my lovely baskets and units before leaving the UK. They said that anything wicker would result in Australian Customs going through the entire container. We did bring an Elephants Foot Table (gross I know!). My husband acquired it in the early 70's before animal parts were embargoed and he got the appropriate CITES certification for it. We were expecting that to be trouble with Customs but they let it through with no hassle at all, probably because we had the correct paperwork for it and Pickfords made sure it was packed in the container so that when they inspected, it would be the first available box for them to open. They also opened a couple of boxes containing shoes/hiking boots which David scrubbed clean and disinfected with Jeyes Fluid and then wrapped and sealed in plastic after they were completely dry. The plastic had been ripped open but you could still smell the Jeyes slightly so they were happy with that. We ended up paying $96 duty on three bottles of champagne that we were given just prior to leaving the country and we had no additional customs charges other than the regular inspection fee (so we were happy with the $96 in the end!) Speak to your removers about wicker/cane etc., it is a very sticky subject although I think furniture would be treated more tolerantly than say, cane baskets etc. Thanks everyone for your best wishes and although I don't contribute so often now to this site, I still read it and wish and hope everyone gets to live their dream. Gill

Well, Thursday was our one year anniversary, when at 5.30am on 14th June we validated our Visas and became Permanent Residents of Australia. And, what a year it has been. Within 24 hours of arriving, our granddaughter was admitted to hospital to have her lungs drained after they became full following a nasty cold. We were left literally holding the baby, our then 5 months old grandson, for a couple of days. Luckily, since then although there have been other hospital visits, they have been mostly for routine checks or fun (more of that later!) The year has absolutely flown past and we are finding it very hard to believe we have been here that long already. We found a house in the area of Torquay which we particularly liked, and were able to finalise our purchase 3 days before our container was due to be delivered. Our son-in-law managed to secure a Ford Focus from the Ford Ex-staff lease scheme for us at an excellent price which we actually part exchanged only two months later, for a Ford Territory. We joined our local Bowls Club playing Twilight on Wednesday nights, but have found that we enjoy it so much we are currently playing Winter season Indoor Bowls at Torquay and Social Bowls at Barwon Heads Bowling Club on their synthetic green. Very different to the grass at Torquay but we need the practice! Some big highlights during the year – First, our granddaughter Scarlett was asked to be the Poster Child for the 2011 Good Friday Appeal, and in June she presented a cheque for $15,000,000+ to the Royal Children’s Hospital. Then, in October she was invited to present the Cardiac Wing to the Queen, when she opened the brand new RCH in Melbourne. The Queen spent some time with our Daughter, Son-in-Law and Scarlett and talked to them about Scarlett’s heart transplant. She was really lovely, realising from their accents they were from England, she asked them where they originated from and how long they had been in Australia, as well as asking about their experience of the hospital. Finally, our Daughter and her partner got married on Easter Sunday, with our grandchildren as bridesmaid and pageboy. On a more mundane note, I know from reading this forum that money is a constant worry for many people making the move. We have been a bit obsessive about keeping spreadsheets since we both retired early in 2006, and we have simply continued this practice just changing our record year to match the Australian Tax Year (July-June). We both have pensions paid direct into our UK bank account and we have both Australian and UK based accounts with HiFx. We transferred all our money to Australia during the period July-October 2011 when the exchange rate averaged only $1.50. This meant our major purchases, house, car etc., had to be based on that average rate. One thing I did do, however, was I kept our UK credit card with the Post Office (they do not charge a foreign exchange fee on transactions abroad) and we relied heavily on this during the first few months. In fact, although we have now taken out an Australian Credit Card, we still use the PO card for everyday purchases which I pay off each month via the internet from our UK bank. This means we are not relying on moving money every month to meet ordinary household expenses and the money we already transferred remains in the Bank here earning a better rate of interest. Our surplus funds have been invested in a Super which also provides us with a modest Australian income, this covers bills like electricity, gas, water, telephone etc. We basically try to charge as much as possible onto the UK credit card and pay it off in full each month and we are now starting to see a regular pattern of “slightly more coming in, than going out”. This means our UK pensions are more or less covering our ordinary monthly expenses. For the first few months these were much higher than normal because we were buying lots of new stuff for our house but recently our expenditure is more normal and generally we are not seeing a great difference between our annual costs in the UK – v – Australia. It has to be said that some stuff here is more expensive – eg: anything that is usually bought in a chemist - cosmetics/branded toiletries/make-up are silly money and I still baulk sometimes at the cost of some items BUT, I have discovered there is nothing that cannot be bought via Ebay, including favourite makeup from the UK! Clothes are, I think, generally dearer here and often not such good quality, but lucky for us we live in a surf town, so everything is very, very casual here. Other things are cheaper, petrol/diesel are cheaper than the UK, car tax/insurance is roughly the same. Some food stuffs can be expensive, especially some of the familiar English things like Heinz salad cream, and Marmite. (I can’t stand the stuff, but David is dedicated and Scarlett likes both Marmite and Vegemite!) We generally shop at Aldi which is extremely good value and only buy certain branded items from our local Safeway once or twice a month and try to ensure that we need at least $30 worth to get our fuel discount of 4c a litre. David has a monthly prescription for statins which costs around $17/$18 a month but as of next year when he will get his Commonwealth Health Card that will drop to around $6 a month. I paid a lot of money for 6 months worth of contact lenses, from a local optometrist which, frankly, was way too expensive and used up my whole year’s allowance on our private health insurance. I will buy online in future. Otherwise, we are not finding cost differences too difficult to manage. We by no means spend frivolously but neither do we have to watch every penny. Lastly, wine and beer is cheap! Always good! Needless to say the lifestyle here is very different but we are enjoying it a lot – much more outdoors focused and of course, being near to our daughter and grandchildren just makes every day wonderful. That is not to say it was not stressful moving here – I AM NEVER EMIGRATING AGAIN! But it was so worth it in the end, and a year down the track we are settled and happy. We regularly have Skype video calls with friends in the UK and keep in contact via email. So for those of you who are “in progress” you will be stressed, you will worry, you will wonder if you are doing the right thing for all sorts of reasons, but once you get here you will love it and love being with your families. Keep believing!:laugh: Gill

Sorry Caroline, have been so busy I have only just caught up with the forum - but I see you have got a reply from others on here, just wanted to apologise for not responding to your question. Gill

I think it is fair to say that almost everything where there is a time limit attached, starts from the date on which you arrive in Australia and take up Permanent Residency. Contributory Parents it is 2 years before you can get a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (which gives you access to cheap prescriptions and some benefits) and 10 years before you can apply for Aged Pension - but that is mean tested so by no means guaranteed. State Seniors Cards are available immediately upon residency, providing you meet the age criteria, and are well worth applying for, we have saved heaps by using them, especially for travel to Melbourne by train/tram etc.

We deposited our Visa money into Westpac and when we got close tohaving to pay, we transferred it to our Daughter's Westpac account and once the whole amount was done, she drew the bank cheque for Immigration and sent it with the case file number. It all went through really easily. Just note, there is usually a daily limit (ours was $10000) for transferring funds to another person so allow enough days to transfer to whole amount. Gill