marta

Thanks for the advice! I think we will use them for our upcoming trip to Europe.

We are on a 457 (Temporary Long Stay Business Visa), I am sponsored by my partner who is sponsored by his employer: Two Skype interviews in January, job offer in February, contract arrived in March by mail, we lodged visa sometime in April, got visa three or four days after lodging (lodged online), move in May, flight in June. Done. BTW Our visa is valid for four years, not three as mentioned earlier by someone.

Dell have good laptop offers on their website. We bought twice from them in the last few years.

We also used PSS and it worked out fine.

Yeah good luck from me too! :wubclub: Know how it feels to live off one salary. And the worst part is when the hope is gone somehow. - How can we ever find a job?:arghh:

I have been looking for work since June 2011 when I arrived in Australia. I have been told many jobs in Melbourne are found through networking but a network needs to be built up first, and even if you know a couple of useful people it can be hard to get a job. At least in certain work areas.

Unfortunately not yet. :nah: But se reason for sis is sat I am a German native speaker and we have sis little problem wis se 'th' because we make it sound like an 's' and sere are some other issues I cannot go into right now yeeeeees?! But trust me I still cannot say 'squirrel'.:ssign5:

Point Cook seems to be nice and reasonably priced too but it's a long to way to commute to the CBD I think. I have a friend who lives down there and her husband is really annoyed with commuting every day. I assume it's likely that your wife will find a job somewhere near the CBD when she is in IT. As to print most of the publishers and printers seem to be located around Docklands and Port Melbourne, south of the CBD. But I am not completely sure about that. Good luck!

Hi, my partner works as a lecturer and needs a lot of books and folders too so we had the same problem when we came over almost a year ago. (However, we don't have children.) He needed to prepare his lectures and seminars before and after we arrived here in Melbourne which meant he needed a lot of different material which could not be scanned in in any way and we could not get it in the libraries here as it was not in English and he needed the books because of the things he had scribbled into the books. So we sent two large parcels with books and folders which cost a lot but it was necessary. We also took a lot of books in our luggage. Upon arrival we bought a cheap laser printer which we resold already on Gumtree as we already had two more printers in our container. Also we usually travel with our respective laptops plus a small hand luggage (rucksack/handbag). Good luck!

It's perfect for a young single guy I guess.

I guess Melbourne might be a good place for younger people who would like to live in a "big" city with most of its advantages such as going out without having the stress and crimes of a metropolis such as London. But Melbourne life is also expensive and finding a job isn't easy these days. PS: And Hello to West Sussex! My partner's from down there...and I love that part of England dearly.:wubclub:

Sorry to hear about those problems. Most of the graduate jobs, or traineeships (at least as far as I have noticed) are for PRs or citizens only I am afraid. Not sure if that applies to apprenticeships as well but I assume that he will be able to do an unpaid internship without problems. BTW I am about to start my fourth internship and don't have PR. Anyway. I know you can work (part-time??) when you have a student visa but I am not so sure how an apprenticeship would count, eg if it counts as a full-time job. Overall it's usually very hard to get any kind of work or training when applying from outside Australia, especially without without much work experience (that's what I have experienced at least), and even when you are in Australia it can be hard. Sorry I don't have any encouraging ideas at the moment I am afraid. Wishing you and your family all the best!

I thought with PR you must live three years of the five in Australia before you can renew it (which is why we don't want it). I am confused.

Hi and welcome. Which uni is it you will be going to? I have to be honest but I don't think you'll find a decent two bed flat for 250 bucks a week. If you want to live in zone 1 you should be prepared for 450 a week and more. My partner and I are living in a grubby two bed flat in St Kilda which has convenient public transport in all directions, and we now pay 490 bucks a week. Rent is even more ridiculous than in London down here. It's unbelievable. For 250 bucks a week you might find a room in a house sharing community. I know that one of our neighbours let one of his rooms in his two bed flat for that price. But surely that's not for everyone. In any case good luck to you!

Hi, I am a German in Oz and 34 and would be interested in a meet-up too. I live in the St Kilda area and can easily get into the CBD or wherever it suits.

Honestly, I wouldn't not have been able to work and do a PhD at the same time but maybe that was due to the subject. I did my PhD full-time 24/7 for four years and it wasn't fun nor easy. Though I did an internship after I handed in my thesis, during the time when I prepared my viva which was a separate examination about two independent subjects. I got a small bursary from my uni for three years, and some money from my parents so didn't need to worry about money that much.

My partner and I have finished a PhD five years ago (he in the UK, me in Germany). And there's at least one more person on the board with a PhD. Good luck with your research!

Sometimes it's also hard to get a job once you are living in Melbourne.

I don't have any left apart from my photo albums which are at my parents place. Apart from that I threw everything away when I moved internationally for the first time which was in 2007. I didn't see why and how to keep lots of stuff. I don't miss anything. Well, I regret that I have to give a lot of books away every time we move again. Which happened three times since 2007.

Good luck and enjoy the sunshine!

If I was alone I would do ok with 50k I think. We are a couple on a 457 in Melbourne and live off 80k together.

Yes UK sizes, thank god they have the Petite range. What would I do without it... The stupid thing about Next is that they deliver via DHL (sorry Germany) and that these guys are not always reliable. I had ordered something and I got a card they made a delivery attempt at a particular time. Thing is exactly that time I happened to be at home and nobody rang the doorbell. Then some guy from DHL called me at 8am next morning and asked for redelivery even though I had organised a redelivery date online already the evening before. The guy claimed he didn't get that and asked when he can finally deliver. He started to get annoyed with me. I said I could only do afternoons if at all. And the we agreed to afternoon next day. So what happened? Next day the guy came sometime in the morning when I was not there as I told him. But luckily my partner was still at home so he could sign and take the parcel. Everything fine. But honestly can it be harder to get something delivered please???? Apart from that I am happy with Next as they processed the order very fast and the items were very fine as always.

Sorry a little late. No not me unfortunately. Not anymore. But my partner is @Melb Uni. He is also my sponsor (457). Good luck!

Email. And you will need to be able to print out the whole thing with your respective visa numbers on it, especially as you won't have that visa stamp/sticker in your passport. We went to Australia House to get stamps just to be on the safe side. The waiting outside took longer than getting the stamp inside actually. But I kind of like my sticker.:em4400: All the best!

@tisme: So maybe it's the age then? He is the breadwinner from the UK, sponsoring me and 42 of age and I am 34 in a couple of days and German so cannot use Medicare (at least not without a job). Thanks guys, I will have to look into this further obviously...........