kevsan

Havent you just answered your own question? Normal insurance is not valid so emigration / one way is the only option you have from what you have said

Yep - it was all a bit of an anti climax. I wanted a band and streamers, all we got was a "passport please" and then a "thanks, next!"

If you go down the webyanycar route, check out http://www.evanshalshaw.com/sell-your-car/ - they guarantee to be beat WBAC price. They have a dealership in portsmouth

100 applications in 5 months works out about just over 1 per day. No offence, but when i was made redundant in the UK i made about 100 applications every 2 weeks, (i know this, as i had to demonstrate that i was applying to get my jobseekers allowance so kept the applications logged in a spreadsheet). Can you revisit / chase up the older ones as 5 months is a long time. Bear in mind that the financial year starts again in July, and alot of places tend to freeze recruitment in the weeks / months leading up to year end, so new year new chances etc. Have you thought about varying the industries you apply to and looking at the skills you have and what other job 'titles' might apply??? Also is this permanent vs contracting? I wish you luck

Absolutely, we tried to get food into them an hour before we board and then they can just pick at stuff if they fancy it; kids meals seem to be more hit and miss that adult options, at least we can wash ours down with booze!

Pretty much what Bungo said. Largely supportive, although some thought we wouldnt actually go through with it, and got a bit of a shock when they got a leaving party invite. Having said that, there was some negativity from families friends, in particular from close friends of my mother in law, who was pretty blunt that she "wouldnt let her daughter leave her like that." Fortunately my in laws saw it for what it was, and have already been out and are actively planning their 2nd, 3rd and 4th trips!:err:

As others have said, night flights for the bigger leg work better, light toys / colouring etc. They'll watch the tv too, be sure to ask the crew for the over head earphones or take your own. Dont forget favourite bear / blanket/comforter for sleeping with. Oh and sweets to suck on to stop ears popping when coming in to land..

Some of the ones i looked at - you could check out their locations. Then as mentioned there are non IT companies that have significant IT requirements, the banks, State Gov depts, Utilities, supermarkets like Coles are out of the CBD [TABLE=class: data, width: 699] [TR] [TD]Agilent Technologies[/TD] [TD]Pactera[/TD] [TD]Square[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Electronic Arts (EA Games)[/TD] [TD]SGI[/TD] [TD]Lockheed[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Eventbrite[/TD] [TD]Siemens[/TD] [TD]Dexler[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Fujitsu[/TD] [TD]Alcatel-Lucent[/TD] [TD]Zendesk[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]HCL[/TD] [TD]TCS[/TD] [TD]SAP[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]HP[/TD] [TD]Birlasoft[/TD] [TD]Thales[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]iGate[/TD] [TD]Capgemini[/TD] [TD]Xero[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]IBM[/TD] [TD]Infosys[/TD] [TD]Leidos[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Microsoft[/TD] [TD]Mahindra Satyam[/TD] [TD]JMR[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]NEC[/TD] [TD]Ericsson[/TD] [TD]Luma Pictures[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

You could also look towards Seaford / Langwarrin which is where we are. We currently rent in seaford but just waiting for settlement on the house we have just bought in Langwarrin. . an hour by train to cbd on frankston or cranbourne lines. approx 10-15 minute drive to either station from langwarrin. Close enough to frankston for the facilities, without being, well, frankston.

As a IT PM focused on Delivery and Consulting i tend to have to be fairly mobile and go where the work is. I currently work in Melbourne & Sydney CBD but that's more luck than judgement. Our Melbourne office is in forest hill and our Sydney one is in rhodes, just across the river from Ryde etc but that's largely irrelevant as i rarely go into 'my' office

Traffic doesn't seem that bad. I drive in from Seaford into the CBD on a friday, about 50k. leave about 6:45 and arrive around 7:30, in time for breakfast. Rest of the week is train to save on parking. 1 hr commute.no dramas.

although it was raining in the city an hour ago....

We are just going through this malarky too, albeit in VIC. $1000 down to secure the house from anymore inspections etc (refundable if we pull out) then contract with deposit (10%) in 10 days. Subject to finance and inspections which need to complete within the 10 days. Then settlement in 60 days for us- collect the keys 9th May. just then need to move in and sort out breaking our lease, which is a whole other rabbit hole.

The website is pretty unusable, but the spreadsheet of the data is quite an interesting read.

as others have said, air freight is expensive - particularly for heavy items like books. We use parcel monkey to try and find the best quotes for shipping stuff by air. Do you have enough to justify a small movecube? Small: Height 1.871m Width 1.114m Length 0.964m Volume 2.01m³ might be a cheaper option.

As above. good wash with soapy water then rub down the tires etc with neat jeyes fluid. it stinks but will do the job. I boxed my bike up and it wasnt touched. The wheels and tires i wrapped in cling film and left near the front so they could take a look if they wanted to and again they werent touched (as far as i can tell) the tires had some ingrained dirt marks that wouldnt come off, but with the level of jeyes i through about, customs didnt appear to be that fussed

We arrived with $30k for setup/get going costs back in August. We've got about 8k left, but then i had a job to come to, and started the day after i arrived, so didn't miss a single pay packet. That covered 2 cars, rental bond, furnishing a house - inc sofas, beds etc etc. $20k should cover those kinds of costs and then its just the monthly living costs until you get a job to cover.

Bear in mind the academic year timings if you want to see/speak to Unis/Colleges etc, December is the start of the summer holidays so most staff will be out the door pretty quick..

A rise can change your situation pretty quickly though Thats why the mortgage we just signed for is fixed rate and just over 25% of net income.

$650 - obviously you get what you pay for, thanks guys, i'll give this one a miss i think.

Anybody flown Garuda Indonesia? Looking at a way of travelling back at Christmas on the cheap, and can get a free business class flight with Qantas to Singapore. Current cheapest Changi to Heathrow is with these guys but never heard of them. Usually travel with Singapore Air but they are twice the price. Wife and kids are going back with Grandma 2 weeks before, so trying to align flights and times and seats without having to book a lot of single flights... proving to be a bit of a headache. Thanks for any help

although the prices are creeping up. Thats why we've just bought in Langwarrin, close enough to drive to the beach and station in 10mins, but far enough out that prices arent getting silly.

I started with a spreadsheet, but it quickly became a bind to keep it up to date. It was easier to have a sheet of paper and pen next to the ever growing pile and just transcribe that into the sevenseas paperwork. Everything should be listed, but we didnt do quantities, so crockery / kitchen utensils / pillows rather than 6x dinner plates, 2 fine china tea cups, 4 forks etc etc

Easily - assuming that the sofa bed doesnt exceed one of the internal dimensions of the cube. I fitted in, ikea sofa (in bits), american fridge freezer, bikes, about 40 boxes, plus a load of other crap we probably didnt need and still had space left over. As mentioned above, mark out the dimensions and stack everything up if you have the space. On the day, you just start at one end and replicate the stack in the cube. Also, as others have said, keep the 'more likely for inspection' bits at the front so they dont have to pull everything out if they want to take a look. christmas decs, outside items(furniture, shoes, garden tools, bikes etc etc - i cleaned the lot in neat jeyes fluid which stank, but when the open the box the smell will hit them and its more likely that they'll assume you taken some care making sure stuff is clean

Not OCD detailed, so we had a list by box like: box 44 - tools, inc drill, saws, spanners box 1 - shoes/boots box 17 - crockery box 20 - Christmas decorations and then had a matching sticker / label on the box itself. We approached it more from our sanity than anything else so we knew what boxes when in each room when we unloaded, pretty much like any other housemove, other than you have a corresponding list. You should be fine. As long as there is not stuff that you havent listed in some form you'll be fine.