jonnyraceway

To balance out the debate....we live on the Gold Coast and built our house 2 years ago...today the house is worth $750k (£425K) 
I could buy a very nice house back home (Suffolk) for that 425k.....definitely with a bigger garden than we have here in QLD, and it would be less over looked too, House size would be about the same...certainly no smaller.

Norfolk, Cornwall, London

Southwold is a great shout too.

agreed but THEY might not be exaggerating, it might be how they see/feel about things, how do we know how they feel/felt about things...we don't, we are only thinking that they couldn't have felt like that because WE didn't......
anyhow, this is a topic that could go on for years and is never right or wrong.

Another beautiful day in Perth.

Cheers. I’ll do some research.

My main office would be Maddington, with quite a bit in CBD and flying away a lot (east coast meetings).

Vic Park was a ‘pin in a map’ job.

Yes, I’ll be renting out my UK house (no profit from renting due to awe full mortgage, but I like the security). I’ll be in a 4 year visa, but the aim to to stay to become a citizen.

I’m very tempted to head over for a week when I start my gardening leave.

C’mon fast turn around visa.

Don’t blame you mate. I couldn’t live in Baldivis either, especially with all family back in the UK. What a crappy life.

Glad you’re back home now, for your own sanity if nothing else.

Nobody realises just how good we have it at home until we go away out there looking for adventure only to find that it's the back of beyond, backwards in time to somewhere in the early 1990s again and live out several years of groundhog day in a stinking baking hot lifeless suburb.
When you get home, you will be like a kind of tourist rediscovering all the fun things you once took for granted.
If anything its worth the move home just so you don't have to watch the insular inward looking TV they have away out there.
And....no more gum trees & colour bond fences or having to water your garden twice a day to stop it from turning in to a desert
If you have the money to get out of that place and get your life back, then do it.
UK is THE place to be now !!!!
 

Food like anyone else does, just not my favorites i used to eat back there and having been back last month and ate lotssss of them ,i am missing them quite a bit at the moment..
Black pudding for one, you can get it here, i've tried quite a few varietys but it tastes nothing like the Bury Black pudding i bought and ate back in the UK.
A good meat pie from the chip shop,, Mrs Mac's are about the best i've found here and are just not as good...
 BBQ spare ribs from the Chinese, again having tried various ribs here i'm yet to find any as good.
Sausage, and yes i know you can buy English ones here from the pommy shop, $10 for about 6 sausage and over an hour round trip to get them ,hence we don't buy them very often. 
Cheese and Onion pasties and pies, Pickled red cabbage, pickled onion monster munch, chip shop curry sauce on proper chip shop chips, Walnut Whips are a few more things i miss too.
Cal x

A heck of a lot of unsubstantiated waffle in this rant. He has simply trawled the internet to find the odd article that appears to back up his fantasy. Some of what is said may well come to fruition, but then the economy, housing, retail, etc is all cyclical.

Throw enough shit and some will stick.

I need some advice on how to overcome jet lag. We arrived on Sunday morning and I've not slept properly since we've landed. I went to bed at 10pm last night but woke up a couple of hours later wide awake even though my body is tired o couldn't get back to sleep. Any advice would be great x [emoji42][emoji42]

Dont agree, after living in south africa and oz, I found oz has very hot weather that could become unbearable and getting worse as time goes on, oz has a lot of rain more than most english cities. I love the 4 seasons in the UK and temperate climate, never to hot or to cold....I meet people from oz in my job and they all seem to love the British weather and say I wish it was this nice back home.

Hello,
The more we think about it, the more we're wondering if it's worth it.
Waiting for visa at the moment but we're still unsure about the move as Mebourne seems to be much more expensive than UK.
Our mortgage is £770 for a 3 bed detached, I doubt we can find something similar for same money...
My salary in UK is £50k, in Melbourne I'll get $85k (plus super). Would that be enough for the same living standard?
Utilities around £300/month, food £5-600/month (family of 4). Still enough left from our income to afford what we wish for: going out, clothes, holidays... and save for rainy days.
My wife is very reluctant about the move, I would still like to have a go and try a different lifestyle.
Thanks a lot

Yes exactly, the thing is it seems many actually believe it, they seem to talk themselves into it or something. I'm still in t-shirt and shorts, almost into November but yeah the weather's bollocks [emoji16]

Noosa is fantastic and by far my favourite holiday spot in Australia. Plenty to do and see in and around the area and Noosa itself is a classy little town.

Hey bud,

I'll try and give you a few pointers to save some hard-earned $$$

As you mentioned, look at getting the Entertainment Book (or App). We've saved $500-600 last couple of years without trying too hard or going too far out of our way. The app is handy as you can also share with 3 or 4 other devices and I find we use it a lot more than when we had the book.

WA Today - check out their website as they had a great article recently (in leisure section) of drink and dinner deals around Perth. Cheersy.com.au is a website that shows similar deals.

Dimmi website/app has a number of deals around the place, ranging from 20-50% off but these change weekly and you need to book in advance via their platform. Some fairly good venues can sometimes be found here.

As you mentioned, Groupon and Scoopon are worth keeping tabs on but I have found the quality of venue can vary.

And my favourite, Clipp app. Only a handful of venues are registered on Clipp but had some phenomenal savings from them during the week (I'm a shift worker so quite partial to a 'school day' drink). It's works on a tab system where you pay upfront via card and Clipp refunds what you haven't spent. No money transferred between you and the bar and all very legit.

Finally (and to state the obvious), once you're earning AUD and eventually stop subconsciously converting into £££, you'll find the prices a little easier to swallow. There are some decent little places here, enjoy [emoji1303]

As for affordability, anyone's rent / mortgage payments should ideally be under 30% of their household income. Any more than that is classed as potential 'mortgage stress'.

The figures you gave are pretty much on the limit of this 30% theory so it is a marginal call. The idea of paying off your own mortgage certainly appeals to me more than paying off someone else's.

Kings Park, Fremantle, Swan Valley (winery or brewery for lunch), drive along West Coast Hwy and stop off at a beach or two, Guildford, drive up to the Hills.

These should give you a good look at the place. Enjoy!

Of course its home to ex pats, Home to me is south africa and always will be, you are just Brits living in a different country for now, can you imagine an aussie referring to anything but australia as "home" if he lived abroad, sorry I just dont get it.

I'm sure bristolman will have something to say about that...

We were not worse off when we made the move due to the stage in my career I was at. However, we would have been financially better off had we not made the move later on and by the end, probably a LOT better off. At the time we had a tiny mortgage which would have long being paid off. Now, we have returned 8 years later and face saving for a deposit and starting again aged 46.

 

I certainly would not not move for the weather. We lived in Perth, famous for its sun, but winter can get damned cold and houses usually are not built to cope with it - no central heating, no fire, no double glazing, poor insulation and a tin roof. As a result, it wasn't unusual in winter to find my wife sat watching tv in a coat, hat and gloves! Then the summer can be as bad in reverse. The heat can be oppressive. The first year or so it was nice as it was a novelty. Heading to the beach on Christmas Day and things. But, the novelty quickly worse off and I came to dread summer more and more as it was just too oppressive.

 

We had never had a big dream to move to Oz, in fact it had never crossed my mind. Even visiting wasn't something I had ever thought about, but a job offer came up and it all seemed a big adventure. While I am glad we did it as we had some great experiences, if I had a time machine I would not have done it.

I let most of the anti-Perth rhetoric fly over my head but I really take issue with the weather comments as they are usually grossly exaggerated.

Save for a couple of hot months in summer, the weather is pretty darn good. The 35C+ days are not very pleasant but we are only average 15 of those a year. Even then, one would normally enjoy the cooler mornings and late afternoons and simply avoid the middle of the day. No big deal for most.

Those complaining of 'freezing' houses in winter...really? Reverse cycle AC and gas / oil heaters are pretty good to keep off any chill experienced. Hats and gloves indoors are certainly not the norm!!

I was in the cbd earlier and it was really busy. Lots of restaurants looked packed etc. I was actually starting to get really annoyed with the crowds on street, wanted to push a few of them over lol

Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story. FoC has his finger on the Perth pulse y'know ;-)

I think it's really hit and miss in Perth. Price absolutely no guarantee of quality/experience. Most places much of a muchness price wise. Some excellent places offering lunch dishes for $15-20 dinner $20-30. Some crappy places offering same for same price. I reckon it's the same the world over though isn't it? Very much depends on what you want. Some brilliant cheap and cheerful high quality fresh food places usually run by Asians.

This^^^^

Perth, as most cities really, can be very hit and miss.

Use review websites such as Zomato (formerly Urbanspoon) to sort the wheat from the chaff and one will rarely be disappointed.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Mason has nailed it in that article. Bravo!

If it was such a positive step, why are you here on this website? Who are you trying to convince?

Amen sister.

Bristol, you are back in glorious England, during the 'glorious' summer, long daylight hours and all.

The amount of time you spend on here is, quite frankly, astonishing.

Come now. How many Nzer's have you not known where they were from unless they said as much? Some are pronounced some are not. Many Aussies can not necessary tell them apart. While others are obviously so. NZ films are rather obvious.

Come on Flag. Even a man of your bloody-mindedness must admit the the NZ and Aus accents are far different. A short conversation with an NZ'er (unless they have been in Aus for a great length of time) would give away the country they originate from.

Best that you and your 'many Aussie' pals go for a hearing check-up...

I think that comparing the prices between the two countries is like comparing chalk and cheese. The wages earned in each country goes hand in hand with the cost of living and when you add the varying exchange rate to the equation it becomes impossible to really compare prices. But l must say that a beer in Perth is expensive.

Nail. Head. Hit.

We could all find examples of expensive and cheap goods and services in either country to suit our agendas, truth is that it's all pretty relative.

Except the beer in Perth [emoji38]