99redballs

We were paying $200 a month for electricity,gas and water. I take it your $400 a week is for a house 20km out of Melbourne ? We looked at house contents in case of being robbed but we couldn't afford it it was $700 a year and that didn't even include being robbed. That was just in case of fire. I think ins depends on where you live, if your in a high fire risk area. Council tax is included in your rent. No tv licence to pay, but I'd rather pay that than watch the drivel on Aussie tv! If your looking at living in Melbourne I would look for a house with a log burner as heating the house cost us $100 a month to heat. And we seldom used it as it was so expensive . If you have thick duvets and electric blankets and throws bring them all! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

we came out in aug last year

i feel your pain , unfortunately its the same in melbounre , I'm finding aussies are very lazy!

oh and we were charged GST too, had to make a fuss to get that sorted.

we had a nightmare with our caravan importing it in. we used ship fromuk.com and paid to have it externally cleaned when it reached the port from our house . we paid to have it loaded onto a tailer from our house , but when they picked it up he came in a van with a tow ball, so it was towed down . when the van finally reached brisbane it got held up in do to it having grass seed and silver birch seeds all over the top and round the leg braces, so they took my money but didn't clean it . so i have to pay a fee to clean it and to get the inspectors back out to inspect it. Once released we applied for a unlicensed vehicle permit at queenlands roads , as it took so long for the caravan to arrive and clear, we had been in brisbane for 2 1/2 months and could find work but hubby had ben offered a job in Melbourne so we had to tow it all the way down from sunshine coast to melbounre in 5 days (never again) using very expensive UVP's all the time. by the time we had driven all that way in a short space of time (with no air con for most of it in 36c heat! as the compressor went) and living in the caravan for 2 months , we decided we had had enough of caravanning lol- plus we couldn't find a house with a driveway big enough to take a van and a car so we had to pay storage fees which we couldn't afford. so we managed to sell it 6 months later- not very quickly i might add. we had a nightmare trying to get it all compliance. the electricians and gas fitters didn't know what needed to be done even though they had been advised that it was a caravan so they could have done their research. in the end , after several gas fitters and electricians we had the van certified and a chain fitted. if we could have stayed on sunshine coast we could have got it all done in one place, however as soon as our caravan was freed we had to 'move on'

if you really wanted to take the risk put it in with your toiletries and cosmetics. they don't look at every box and its not even looked at a customs depot at the port , its all done whoever does the move in australia, they have to look at 20% of the boxes mainly picking out 'shoes' 'tools' marked ones, and in my experience they didn't even take anything out just opened up the boxes looked at the top items and taped it back up again. my guess is that this has been treated and it would be allowed. i spoke to the people that do this in australia and the stuff that i threw away would have been fine.

its costly, and aussies dont tent to do Garlic like us brits do unfortunately

Germoline (antiseptic and anethetic in one) cream lol i cant find a suitable replacement for it . also PROPER CHEESE!. stick it in your hand luggage! it is allowed as long as it's in its sealed packaging . Oz Tasty and Coon cheese is really not cheese. god knows what it is- makes a hell of a mess in the pans and on washing up sponges!

car ins double the price in melbourne compared to sunshine coast!! was such a shock when i changed my address

duck feathers are fine if treated which duvets are. i brought two-one i thought i left at mums cause it is so warm and thick i thought i wouldnt use it. but oh yes i use it more than i did in uk! bloody freezing in melbounre at night- the houses dont have insulation or double glazing!! eeek!

bring your good stuff and leave cheap stuff, or even put cheap stuff to the side if there's room. cheap kettles, toasters, knives and forks are the same price here as in uk. if youve got nice denby set ect bring those as you cant buy denby. ive found theres not a mega difference in price for white goods and the fridge freezers look nicer and cheaper than the one i bought in uk. plus theres the potential for it to get damaged i transit. if you can flat pack sideboards, darwers ect then do, as they push them onto two legs to wrap and they get damaged, also they will have a lot of weight from all the other boxes piled ontop of them.

if i was you i wo uldnt listen to the reps that come out and quote and tell you what yo can and cant take. do your own research on gov sites and ask on here. one old guy told me my table my get pulled as it had a small hole in it from a pin, he said they will think its wood worm and also it didnt look like it was treated. he was talking absolute rubbish, no way would they think it had wood worm-even if they bothered to look at it in Brisbane, and the wood was absolutely no problem passing. so the fact i was up one night til 2am sanding it down and re vanishing two days before packing was a total waste of time. yes you can take wooden articles and even wicker. i was told i couldnt take candles, but i had read that they were fine so i argued with them and the removals men plastered in large letters "candles' all over the box. candles are no problem.

We used PSS and had very bad service from one of the removal men, so arrogant and rude. had me in tears and was very rude to my daughter age 15. they also told us NO aerosols, and left behind a cupboard full of stuff. most of items were broken or damaged due to bad packing. had to claim for over £4K worth of loss. removal man told us no need to transport brackets of washing machine, even though we said we have kept them and wont take 2mins to fit. when we got to OZ the machine was making a bad noise and had to be fixed!

im from cambridgeshire, and i can confirm that east anglia is the driest county in uk. if fact when we moved to Melbourne we couldn't believe how much rain we got

wow jeff this does not surprise me ,nobody knows their job, this becomes a very common occurrence here. you can get a UVP (unregistered vehicle permit) online to tow your van for the day , no compliance needed. we did this to get it from brisbane to melbourne. well done on finding a shipping company to take van too, we couldn't find one, so we had to pay a lot more. we really need a sticky on this subject, as finding the imformation is a nightmare. we were also told that we had to pay GST, i had already heard of them trying this on so i was prepared, otherwise i would have paid, as after all they should know their job and I'm new to the country and don't know the rules. let me know what they do for the compliancy. we cant find anyone that will sign off the appliances and put a sticker on them. we have changed the gas reg and the braided hose and the electrical sockets. i have read its an offence to sell a gas product that is not to Aussie standards and has a sticker on them. there is not a requirement to comply the appliances for any other reason . in Victoria we don't need a road worthy certificate and we can get the rego done without the complicity certs too - we have been told , whether thats really is the case we are yet to find out. Queensland has different rules though, so you may have to ring loads of people and pull your own hair out about it. it's certainly been a head ache for us, also the only house we got accepted for to rent does not have room on the driveway , so we now have to pay to store it at $140 a month. if you brought it out with a view to sell it , do so asap , we have been trying to sell it for 3 weeks now and have had no luck. so we will have to drop the price . after all the stress and hassle i don't think it will be worth bringing a van over , unless its part of your family and your going to use it until it dies. vans aren't that much more here, and they do do some lovely ones, which have better suspension and most importantly , which we have already had trouble with is the hight off the ground.theres lots of high curbs and humped roads and steep hills around. if you ask whoever is doing the work on the van for a 'blue slip' this will give you permission to move the van from your place to whoever is doing the work, so you won't need UVP when we moved the van from Brisbane to melbourne we paid out over $300 in UVP fees , and the rego in Victoria is only $56!. how long has it been in the country jeff?

well nearly mortgage free, we took an advance out to come here for deposit for a house, however we have eaten into it. not to worry, still silly amount compared to a mortgage if we stay here, and dammed if i pay out over $2200 in rent a month and have nothing to show for it at the end of 25 years! our house is only 10 miles from whittlesey in Parson Drove. I've had some news! I've got a job interview at aldi this week. even if i got the job we shall still be going home as thats whats best for kids and our secure financial future.shame i can't take melbourne back with me, its nice to have so many things to do on your doorstep. such a pain we have to go trough stringent customs again! I'm going to ask for boxes to pack all my clothes and kitchen ware. even though the head office says they have to pack it all, when the boys come that do the job I'm sure they won't be too fussed if you've packed clothes and kitchen stuff such as tupperware, as it will mean they can go home earlier. i shall pack the lot and if they want to go through it so beit , even if they take it out and put it back in to go through it ,it will still be wrapped and they will have to pack it how i did to fit it in the box. i bet all they'll want to make sure is packed ok is breakables , cause if its broken when not wrapped properly it will be their fault. garden and shoes they may well want to see too. and this time we shall be dismantling the buffet table and tv cabinet, so hopefully it won't get more damaged.im claiming from lepton and percival at the moment , not been very quick, but we have a few items that were damaged. so ill let yo know how we are dealt with

reinforced bubble wrap! , sounds like they wrapped them well, they just used thick paper on our furniture

ive not read up much about sending stuff from oz to Uk, but i did read soemthing somewhere that its quicker due to customs in uk. however i dont know how strict they are on stuff like shoes ,garden and wooden items ect. i need to find out . i was hopeing it would be much more straight forward and easy , as moving to here was hell on earth. we've not been here long , we were suppose to be living in brisbane , but despite my friends saying youll get a job when you get here, it just didnt work out that way , so in desperation we moved to melbourne on a confirmed job offer. the job worked out luckily, but we're finding it too expensve to live. house prices are running into the million mark, which would mean (if they would give us a mortgage for at least 600,000, that we would be heavily in debt for the rest of our lives, in uk we will be nearly mortgage free) it's not just the house prices for us, lots of factors are pricing us out. im finding it impossible to get a job with having no experience. ive spoken to local young adults and one girl had 2 part time jobs working in retail, it took her months to get the first job and most of her friends dont have jobs and one of her fiends has never had a job at the age of 21. we've considered everything and our kids would be better off where we lived. if you have kids i would look at spalding as a base as there are free grammar schools there which are very high on the best in the uk. my daughter went there and my son was due to go there last September. luckily i can get them back in in September .

just wondered how its all going suemalls , were moving back in august, to our house we are renting out (just down the road in whittlesey!) we need to get some quotes. would i need to get them out? we've only just moved here and hardly bought anything. it all arrived in 20ft container o it should go back in it , plus ill be packing it , so i know there wont be wasted space and breakable stuff well protected! did you end up around Peterborough?

you must take a drive up mt dandenong, and go to grants birdfeeding park. the drive is stunning . on the way there are quaint tea rooms and villages. also visit sasafrass at the top. we live very close by and its the best place ive found yet make sure you do your research on jobs , its very hard to get a job. if you have no exp, or less than 5 years forgot it. rents are costly and its a nightmare trying to find a house to rent. good luck!

we will be moving from melbourne back home in august and will be looking to do it our selves too. our stuff arrived all damaged and most crockery was broken, not necessarily that it was thrown around, but mainly due to itnot been packaged properly if we did it our selves i could have gaurantted 80% would not have been broken. but we let them do it so we were insured . id rather just get it insured for total loss. we used PSS removals avoid a all costs.

Thanks for your reply Arrows, my husband was trying to find the safety chain info yesterday in case it varied state to state. He found this article from May of this year regarding the legal requirement for rated shackles on caravans after looking on Vicroads and getting no firm info. https://www.caravanworld.com.au/news/1605/rated-shackles-not-legally-required-for-towing. The article says Vicroads only recommend rated shackles but as long as the 'van has a manufacturers fitted safety device (ours has the U.K standard steel cable) then all's good. This has only served to confuse us further....... Any thoughts?

hubby is a printer, I've just found out that he has got the job he has gone down to do a trial at, so we are deffo going now. just me that has to find a job, i haven't worked for anyone in 16 years , so nobody is either willing to give me a chance, or that the job market is very bad, or that my cv is rubbish. probably all of the above. I worked for myself as an eyelash technician and i also used to have a cup cake business.

HI having a stressful time here in QLD with no jobs found after 10 weeks, so we are having to move everything down to sunny warm Melbourne!:huh: we have also shipping over a caravan and we looked for months about how to get it compliant in QLD , but ow we are going to VIC, we have to register it there as they have different regs! helpful! not! does anyone have any knowledge of caravan regulations that my caravan needs done to make it compliant? we are going we can get a temp licence to be about to tow it , if not, how much are the fines?

We had the opposite, so stressful , one of the packers had Me in tears , he actually left parts of our BBQ out out on the decking out side ,and when I showed them this he just put them on top of my faux suede cream curtains! Not in a bag -just straight on top! He was very rude and discourteous . They broke our drawers through overloading it and pushing it onto two side legs. This is the only one we know of as yet. We've not had out stuff delivered yet. We will never get them in again. I will do it ourselves , I nearly did and I wish I had , but I just couldn't find anyone to pick it up Ozzie end from port and deliver.