seraphim

Not a Kmart or target $13 cheapie, but something that looks really nice? Has anyone bought a balsam hill tree? Are they worth the money? Or is it all just as tacky and an $80-90 tree from Big W will look the same? it's our first Christmas here and I'd like something for the family to decorate to make it part of our new christmas traditions! Thanks in advance!

"Muppets" like me buy cars with full service histories that turn out to have falsified records, hence why the dealer took the car back when fairtrading were involved to avoid court. The joys of arriving with a week to find a car, accommodation before starting the job I got before I decided to move here! The faulty car was a repair under the 3 month/5,000km warranty in NSW (and probably elsewhere). The 150k no service and 70k between ol changes were both examples of cars they attempted to tell me were fine BEFORE i bought my car! I could ask where do keyboard warriors like you come from, but sadly, I know! I'd imagine..IT services, and a massive hobby onanist to boot? (sorry mods, had to be said, there's too many gobby jocks on here sometimes!) The advice was for the OP, do not be drawn in by the nice friendly accent, car dealers here are as crooked as everywhere else! I'd consider buying a brand new car now we're settled as the fixed price servicing and no abuse by thing wearing locals is a bonus, stick to japanese or korean motors as they last well and are cheaper to run and service here.

Just remember the hard lesson (at least in Sydney!). Used car salesmen are the same the world over, two minutes of conversation and you feel like you need a bath! don't let the friendly Aussie accent fool you, they're just as crooked rip off merchants as in the UK, except here they think the world owes them a living! . Source: personal experience having bought 3 cars in Sydney in the last 9 months from dealers. Also, what is it with cars never having any history?!?!?! 150k and no service history or a 70k gap between oil changes? You can tell I've had great experiences buying my cars, had to take a ford dealer to fairtrading, and return a honda for warranty repairs.

Big W. 4g mifi dongle with 3gb data (30 day use) for $79. I had a telstra one when i got here. Upload in central sydney 7Mb/s. Download 31Mb/s. (best) faster than my current home broadband.

Not heard of this either and my mifi dongle was locked to telstra. it's illegal for them not to agree to unlock after the contract has ended, but that is often 2 years after purchase!

When We came a few months ago, 3 in the UK was doing a scheme called 'feel at home' which meant that for GBP 15 per month on PAYG, you got a load of calls texts and data to use in Australia it only worked for 3 months however, then you drop back down, and I don't believe you can use to to call the UK while out here. Just make sure you have 3 x GBP15 of credit (plus a little bit extra in case it expires and you burn money by forgetting to buy another month of the 'feel at home' pack. ) Also make sure your handset is unlocked, UK phones work fine here. Once I got set up, I got an Optus PAYG, as for $30 every 28 days, it gives some data, some calls (including to UK landlines, which is a nice bonus to have a quick chat to the folks!) and unlimited local texts. It works quite well for us. Coverage is OK, apparently telstra have better coverage all in but Optus covers me in Sydney and surrounds which is where I live so works for me!

I found that I was taxed pro rata but, as I'd arrived halfway through the tax year so overall had earned less in that year than their estimations of a full year spent earning at that rate, there are end of year tax calculations when you submit your return. This meant we got some back so had paid a little less tax etc than we would being resident for the full year. Much better to be resident for tax purposes as the rates are lower than for temporary visas I believe, although the rub is you cant take your pension when you leave like a temp can (again, I believe). Just like any other country, rain will rain, work is work, and taxes are taxes! Still a nice place to live though!

I'm not in Katoomba, only around 10 minutes from Penrith in one of the 'burbs'! It's ok as an hour to the mountains and an hour and 10 to the beach!

LOL, I know! keyboard typo!

Bit of a moan (my first!) here. Are we being unrealistic in expecting tradespeople to: 1, turn up when they say they will 2, Quote us for the work 3, DO the work they quote for, and not change the job halfway to what they feel like doing? 4, do the work properly 5, get paid and go away, returning only if there is an issue with a warranty? is this unrealistic? So far we've had out: Tree surgeon Locksmith Painter Roofer Air Conditioning Electrician Solar Installer TV Antenna repair man (don't even go there, suffice to say a complete rip-off merchant!) None have just done what they quoted OR turned up when they said (are 3 hour lunches and leaving your apprentice on the job normal, then expecting to earn $70 plus per hour (or $170 per hour in the case of the aerial repair guy!)? Is it better to look for a UK tradie? are they generally better? I had to explain v=i/r to our solar installer so that doesn't bode well! We've got a couple of big renovation projects coming up so don't want these hassles then!

Do you commute from Surrey Hills to Penrith then? That seems a long trip! I'm Penrith area but work locally at the moment, don't know if a long commute would be my thing!

Nah, it's warm but maybe feels like 32-33. good for the new solar install though! Will see what it's like out west come the summer 40's! Note: Still hotter than a demons jockstrap though!

I took my hitachi drills and they were fine over 19 weeks, but they are fine sitting for 6 months on the shelf between projects, Li-ion will hold a charge for quite a while anyway but juice them before you go if they're 'smart' batteries which self regulate. That said, relative to earnings power tools here are good value, I've just dropped $600 on a makita that's not even out in the UK yet! The joys of DIY!

Well, I've now been here just shy of 6 months just outside of Sydney, and as the family is now here and we're in the process of buying a house, I can say we've started the settling in process! We did a reccie/holiday of a lifetime Bris to Sydney last year to validate/see where we might like, came back, managed to find work, resigned, sold the house and now we're all here! The forum has been very helpful to me in prepping my application, sorting out the hard graft in getting here and other advice, so if I can help anyone with advice I'm hopefully going to pop on occasionally to see if there's any threads where I have experience and give my 2 pence, sorry cents now! However, in the mean time, here is a rundown of the initial thoughts on being here o nPR: Some may offend, hopefully some will amuse, and some will be home truths about life here: Please don't be offended, it's mainly tongue in cheek, but there will inevitably be someone outraged. I'll tell you now “no worries mate”! These are my thoughts only, my family is slightly more sane than me. $10 for a BEER?!?!What's it made of, unicorn wee?!?!?! Oh, hang on, the 'Real' cost of living isn't the exchange rate, is it? When you earn here in a like for like job, it's around 2.5x (at present). Err on the side of caution and you'll be pleasantly surprised. £4 for a beer then?Expensive but then again from my old local I couldn't see the harbour bridge! The wine is HOW cheap?!?!?! Dan Murphy, you are the older brother my liver wishesI'd never had! I'm sorry, you want insurance on your insurance? Cars here are Yes expensive and Yes,old and pretty beat up and Yes, everyone who drives a Subaru think sthey are classy until you show them Autotrader where they are £1500 all in! Getting it 'roadworthy', something of a chortle in itselfseeing the bombs on the road, costs an arm and a leg...and a kidney.It's OK, you have 2 sir, just step this way! Hard lesson number 1, DO NOT TRUST CAR DEALERS just because the Australian accent sounds friendly! You will end up buying a lemon sight unseen from a big name dealer to have a steaming turd delivered which you then have to return on a 12 hour road trip/bus ride because you would NOT want it to be used to ferry your children/plow into a line of other peoples children! Oh My God people of Australia SPELL IT HOW IT'S PRONOUNCED! You can't laugh at me calling Wagga Wagga the wrong name if you don't spell it Wogga Wogga! Strewth! Will you PLEASE walk your dogs! Or at least fuss them? OK, then, how about letting them inside so they don't bark and keep me awake through 1mm thick walls? No? Better join them and get ourselves a dog then! On a similar note.There is no such place as Staffordshire in the continental US. Adverts for “American Staffie bull terriers” are for, lets face it, pit bull's. Yes it's a 'bit' like a staffie with longer legs.And it will kill your dog/child/significant other. Australians have no control or care as far as we have been able to work out so far,those who do we've never seen! They must exist! Driving skills. I can only assume that the australian driving test local involves the examiner pointing at a car, asking 'can you tell which end is thefront', and allowing 3 guesses. Even when travelling though La Paz in peak hour I was not as horrified as I have been here! “Groceries are expensive”. No, actually, they are not. What you might want to say is that IF you want to shop like you did in the UK, then groceries ARE expensive. However, buying seasonally, buying fresh, and yes buying from Aldi, or in bulk when coles/woolies do their weekly offers, means you will spend less buying better food than you will in the UK. Sorry people in WA there is not Aldi for you, but you did chose to live there! If you think buying good healthy food here is expensive you may well simply be comparing it to buying junk in the UK. Junk seems more expensive here but homemade stuff isn't really, and some stuff is very cheap. Activities areexpensive. Yes this is true. However, lots of things arefree/relatively cheap, and for Sydney families Sunday Funday $2.50 onthe trains is a godsend! There is somethingcalled crossfit. It involves sweating while being shouted at in a'cube'. I am fairly sure this is what happened to POW's in the lastwar. I will not be trying it. I will get out in the fresh air andcycle to work instead, killing two birds (figuratively) with 1 stone,and losing 1 stone into the process! Australians are either total hung up 'a' holes needing ego boosts about being australian, or very chilled and cosmopolitan whilst still being proud of being Australian. Or drug addicts. Yes it's nice here, that's why we came.No it's not the only nice place on earth. The earth is beautiful (or will be until the next war!) They also tend to be proud of relatives that died in wars, whilst avoiding actually signing up themselves. Also proud of their UK heritage, and strangely the fact they have travelled (if they have) or that they haven't travelled (if they haven't because didn't ya know mate, Australia's so great!). They swear a lot, it's part of the language, you get used to it. Best one liner on a prime time radio show driving home, “she had a face like a dropped pie”. I cried laughing! TV here is dire. And it's also TV that was on in the UK 8 years ago. grand designs 2006 anyone? You will never miss a brummy accent until you move here. Then, well, you still don't, but at least you know what one was! You will be horrified when your child starts using vocal inflections just like an Australian! You will know they have become one of 'them'! Good curry is impossible to find. I almost stole the lunch right from our of our doc's just because she'd brought in last nights channa dhaal! Salt and pepper squid is amazing! They have never heard of electric showers, require a sparky to, get this, change a plug socket, and yet licensed sparky's still burn down houses because they are generally useless! Find a UK trained sparky and sleep well! Houses are a nightmare of expense! To buy, stamp duty, and build quality. They consider a 23 year old house here to be 'old'. I have yet to be shown around a house that would qualify as anything other than an 'outbuilding or lean to' under the UK building code (bearing in mind I've just dropped an amount with more zeroes after it than I even want to think about, on one such house!) 'modern' Australian houses are single skin brick, requiring large energy inputs to keep hot/cold, and cracking is normal. The argument, is that it's the heat. Well, the UK has roughly the same variation of around 45 degrees between hottest and coldest conditions, and has more freeze thaw, and our houses often'don't fall apart'! It's called insulated properly built houses! I am sure the elderly lady in the detached house next door is very sweet, but the romance is gone when you can here her flush the nuggets after a good old sit down and strain! I enjoyed writing that,it was very cathartic! Believe it or not, I actually like it here! Both my partner and myself (she's on PR too, as she is at least as skilled on the CSOL as I am, but why pay twice for assessments!) have worked hard and thought Australia would be good to try and although we didn't have a burning need, we could afford to try it and see, as living with regret about 'what ifs?' may well have been worse! Australia is definitely not (for us) a financial choice, it cost a lot and we have a lower income here than in the UK. That's not why we came. If you're young,and seeking your fortune, you might be able to get down the mines,but only if you're both lucky and skilled and a grafter (guess which PIO poster THAT excludes! Lol). Generally, you will have the same standard of living if working in a similar job in a similar town than you would in the UK. Stuff is more expensive for most of the necessities (electricity, cars, houses) but cheaper for the luxuries(ipads toys etc). I'd like to get residency, to avoid renewing visa's as much as anything, and to give my child options as an adult,but I'd say it would be harder if I had not have gotten job offers before coming out and had not started work the week after landing! Lets end on the goodpoints: It's been very warm recently! Australia is beautiful. It's quite hard to get into now, so those that make it permanently are very determined and hard grafters! It's enough like home that you don't feel lost, but different enough that you have to think about things. This rather nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon looks very inviting. I should really have another 'winter' 22 degree BBQ Tomorrow!

What snifter said! Plus they still have my stuff! (well, I hope they do anyway!). Anyway, PM me if you would like to now which company I'd avoid!

I can tell you who not to use if you PM me! (can't say on open forum! Suffice to say, 16 weeks and counting, and Australia, the 'country they ship the most to' still hasn't seen our stuff! try explaining THAT to a 3 year old when they ask where their toys are! It was one of the more popular ones mentioned on here before too!

Blimey thanks Foo! I'm flying out in 3 weeks and wouldn't have known this. Is it for PR visa holders? Wouldn't even know where my NHS card is! Eeeek!

only by 2%. so, do I look at total remuneration vs total remuneration then?

as UK salary includes pension, should i use UK salary x 2.2 = total Australian package inc super?

Commutes would be about 10-20 km for penrith and c. 25-45km (minimum) for lake mac (less suburban commute).

2 things here. 1. what if you don't have an australian address and are just staying at a b&b? 2. our passports have no visa stamps as they're electronic and so will our printout confirming our visa be ok? 3. (3 things actually!) $166? for 5 years? blimey! Do you need to book to get a license or just turn up at the office, and is it better to do the medicare and centrelink first to gain ID for the points test (just got a standard rental application, they need more references than the jobs and visa combined!!!!!)

Dilemma, 2 jobs (both as likely and both same salaries etc. i.e not a fortune!) c $80k+Super Which one would you go for with a young family? and why! Anyone on here live there at the moment? We'll need coffee meetups on settling! Thanks

Hi, In your experience making the move, I'm just wondering when comparing offers what ratio do you use? Also, do you use total pay or take home pay when comparing cost of living? I.e if you took home £2k after tax would you need AU$4k in Aus after tax etc.?

or if not that location, what are NSW health like to work for at all?

Anyone? what are they like to work for?