lozzachino

Asos also sell a selection of primark stuff. I wish primark would go online!!!!

Thanks for this, so great that all the summer stuff is on sale now too! Think we may be putting in a couple of orders sometime soon! Signed up to new look and saw they do free international delivery if you spend more than £65.

Just had a look at debenhams says 14 pounds to deliver to aus? Did i miss a free delivery offer?? i also read tesco sometimes offer free delivery to aus.

If you can have a decent life in london on 30k you will be absolutely fine on 80k here, especially if you continue to share!

Apparently this has been delayed until 2015 and it will only be $2000 per child after the first one. Just read it on perth poms so dont know anything else.

We used the local jobs paper and found it just as useless as seek. Either got no reply or saw it advertised on seek as well. OH had more luck with a decent agency, i got my job through gumtree in the end.

We took three months in a rental and a good job too as we both secured jobs in week 11!!! Cut it fine but managed in the time we planned.

It isnt easy here, i'll say that!

Also, the voluntary contributions at our local school is $30 a year! Looks like its around $300 for uniforms and $100 for books and thats just for kindy!

Do you only get the school kids bonus if you receive at least one of the family tax benefits? Our was cancelled recently after i secured a job and it took us over the $96k joint earnings, so am i right in thinking we would not get the school kids bonus?

Our policy is about $3 a week for contents insurance. Not sure you would get much cover for less than that. Its about half the price we paid in the uk for similar cover.

Might help to state wherethe positions are based.

Saw this on facebook and it pretty much sums it up!

Nope, we were here for some wild days! But i can count them on one hand! This week has been amazing for 'winter'!

We went through youi as we did our car insurance through them so got a discount for taking both. Is pretty cheap. They also asked us about the house, and if there were any big trees nearby! Like the others say its because if the house is more likely to be damaged the so are your contents.

Been here 3 months legoman, and if this is the worst weather i can handle it!!!

Agree, many people look on seek and think oh theres a million jobs but in reality they are few and far between, especially when it comes to ones you will actually crack an interview for.

Hi all, things changed a lot for us soon after my post! Hubby got offered the job but really didnt like it and was very unhappy so ended up quitting after three weeks. We had a few wobbly weeks but he got another job which started late july. A couple weeks later he had another job offer but turned it down. After applying for close to 150 jobs in around 6 weeks, i got one, yes one interview. I got the job and am now working in an industry i have always wanted to and its a ten min drive from our new home. Pretty awesome but i was very despondant applying for loads of jobs and getting nowhere. after much deliberation and searching we took a rental in butler. We didnt have jobs lined up at that point and we found an agent that was really helpful for our situation. Another agent we applied for a house through would only take us if we paid 6 months lease upfront which we did not want to do. The week we got the house my husband got offered his job and i got the interview for mine, so it all happened very quickly. we like it up here even though it gets a bad name on here. Its close to lots of lovely beaches and has easy access to the city via the trains. Our neighbours either seem nice or keep to themselves. We can see the sea from our house and can watch the sunset over the ocean, amazing. We looked at areas all over perth from atwell up to butler and i am glad we had a three month holiday let to give us plenty time to choose our next rental as best we could, the amount of times we changed our minds about areas was crazy! We have tried a few different places for food shopping and think i like woolies the best (but i think coles is cheaper) and drovers in wanneroo or chili peppers in clarkson for fruit veg and meat. Was very disappointed with spud shed, it was cheap but most of the produce was not very nice quality and the stuff i did try did not have much taste to them and went off quickly (eg the cucumbers). You may be able to get 3 for $1 but they will go off before you can eat them! Plus its a trek from here so i would rather spend money buying better quality stuff closer to home. Might try some of the farm stalls on wanneroo rd sometime to compare. we came over knowing it would be hard and it was, we had a few real down days wondering what we had done, but knew that it was all going to come good in the end. Normally i panic at any change as i have had a lot of it in my life but throughout the process i have felt calm about it knew it was just going to work out somehow. my oh has bought a racing bike and is looking forward to cycling on the weekends. I have found a place that does yoga in the park on saturday mornings and cant wait to start that! We have a fair bit of disposible income now i am working and can really start enjoying life now after months and months of scrimping and saving!!!

No need to jump on people jake, you said your wages were lower than expected and Perth more expensive than you expected, people were just trying to be helpful. We have actually found living costs to be mostly on par with uk when it comes to bills and leisure expenses, with only rent being noticeably higher even when you take into acct generally higher wages. for everyone who comes here and earns double, triple or more than their uk wages, there must be a lot more that dont. Hence the high ping pong pom rates. Research research research is the only way forward with a move like this, and even then there are lots of things that still wont be as you expect. There are still things that will annoy you as its life, nowhere is perfect but you just have to make the best of whatever situation you choose to put yourself in. i hope you can at least see some positives in your life, otherwise it can be easy to get bogged down with all the bad stuff

Have you tried Smart Au Pairs? They are an agency that will match you up to an au pair, i know some people who have used them.

Have to agree with happyheart and flag. Many migrants, brit or otherwise, come out here with no jobs or one job and have limited budgets to start with. That means you look at areas that are more affordable to being with and surprise surprise, areas further out from the city in any direction, north south or eat, come out cheaper. Its a start, and if people want to move later on once they have established jobs, then they are free to budget more accurately based on what they know they can afford. why pay $500 plus a week for a 2/3 bed dump just because its close to the city, when you can get brand new 3/4 bed houses further out for under $500 a week? Unless you needed to, I dont see why any family would. Singles or couples with no kids can pretty much do what they want (i remember those days vaguely), but when you come over as a family there are other considerations in the mix. we looked at practically any area in our budget from two rocks to secret harbour, at the end of the day it come down to where you find work and what you can afford. and as other say, who cares what nationalities you live around, as long as they are decent people whats the difference?

I swear the two woolies nearest to me have different prices for the same items!! Are they like franchises then where managers set their own prices. example: woolies reduced all the Monsters University toys a couple weeks ago. Woolies in Carramar had items half price, down from $15 to $7.50 and $5 down to $2.50. Looked a few days later at Woolies Lakeside Joondalup, the $15 toys were only down to $10, and the $5 ones were $3.50. Wtf????

Its not the snakes you should be worried about its the gazillions of spiders. if you are bothered by the possibility of ever seeing creepy crawlies i don't think Australia is for you.

ooh caramacs!! I only discovered these last year! Could do with some here, will keep an eye out. Did you ever have the caramac ice cream? Like a magnum but with caramac chocolate! So divine!!

My husband used to prefer heinz to any other brand in th uk. Now he says the woolies one brand ones are better than heinz! And only 79c or 2 for $2.70