Cheese please

The status of my application didn't change until after it had been finalised, so I never knew that it was being processed until the morning I got an email saying I had my permanent visa. Hope you receive some good news soon!

I got my 100 through on 13 August after submitting my evidence on 22 April.

Subclass 100 Eligibility date: 23 April Applied: 22 April Waiting....

I work in web content management and am finding the wages over here a lot more pleasant. When I was in the UK there was a massive difference between mine and my partner's wages - he was earning over double what I was. Now we're living in Sydney, there's not such a gap - he's just on slightly more. So for him in a sales / account management role, it's not so great this side of the globe. In Edinburgh, I was earning 20.5k pounds per year in 2014 - that was after taking a drop of over 5k after moving to Scotland from Leicester in 2010 (obviously I moved for love not career). In Sydney, I'm currently earning $40 per hour plus 10% super (contract role). I'm starting a permanent role for a different organisation soon and I'll be taking home similar but I'll also get a better 17% super contribution and less hours per week.

It was my first time too and I had to do a paper submission. My online account was created and linked successfully, it just wouldn't accept a submission and speaking to ATO bods confirmed this. I received my tax refund within the tail-end of that 50 day timeline. It was a very straight forward submission, so certainly didn't need a tax agent in this case!

I am also doing my first tax return - this very moment, in fact! It took a couple of phone calls to get my mygov account to link with ATO, and when it finally did, it still wouldn't allow me to do my tax return online. The paper version is available to print out here: https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Tax-return/2014/In-detail/Publications/Tax-return-for-individuals-2013-14/

I arrived into Sydney under similar circumstances (Aussie partner, decent savings behind us and no kids) just under three months ago and if it helps you to hear, things are going well for us so far. We budgeted for three months in Sydney without either of us working (six months out of work in total, as we took the opportunity to travel on the way over to Australia), as we were hopeful that at least one of us would be able to pick up some sort of work in that time. I work in the Digital Comms sector and I knew it was a bit more buoyant out here compared to the UK, but I was very surprised to pick up a long term temporary contract within a month and that was despite of having a couple of initial lazy couple of weeks after arrival staying with the mother-in-law. My partner then secured a permanent role as a sales manager a month after me. I really don’t think you’ll struggle if you’ve got some good experience behind you in IT. As my work isn’t permanent, I still get the daily job emails and there really is quite a lot out there in that sector at the moment. Happily, I’m earning a lot more than I was in the UK, but then I was in Edinburgh not London, so you might not be as impressed as I was. The fact that you’re on a subclass 100 is a benefit. I’m on a 309 and that’s considered a temporary visa still, so some places, particularly government departments, won’t employ you on a permanent contract. As far as renting, we had a similar area identified to you, but found that after a first sweep we needed to reduce the area we were looking as there’s just too much distance to cover when you’re squeezing in all the viewings on a Saturday morning. Plus it all gets rather overwhelming. We ended up in Randwick, a decision that we’re really happy about as it’s got all the transport links, has lots of amenities and is a 20 minute amble to Coogee beach. It may be an issue for you to secure a rental before either of you having secured a job. We had to be a bit creative about what we said about that…. let’s say that having in laws that have their own business came in handy. We also offered to pay six months rent up front, which was accepted as we didn’t have evidence of recent income. We got a great reference from our letting agency back in Scotland and that was most definitely accepted. Good luck with your journey. It’s a very exciting, scary and crazy time. Happy to answer any more questions you have.

I can't make this meet up on Sunday, but would be really keen to pop along to any future gatherings. I moved to Sydney a couple of months ago on a partner visa. My husband is originally a Sydneysider but has been in the UK for most of the last 10 years, so we're both keen to get out and about and meet some friendly folk. Cheers.

We didn't have a good experience with MoveCube either. Ours left Edinburgh late January an arrived at the end of May - probably on the same ship as yours, Savitar. The pick up was a horrible experience. The local guy that was meant to come and collect our stuff called in sick, so they sent someone up from Newcastle. This meant that we had less than 3 hours to get everything in, as apparently the driver would be stacking up too many hours on the road coming to and from England to wait around any longer for us. Had we had known we would have had this restricted time we would have been a bit better organised. We would have enlisted some help too, as we were hauling our stuff down from a seventh floor apartment block. We also found that the website was very unhelpful in tracking our cube, and it was only through persistence and nagging that we finally got an answer to what was actually going on - the ship got unexpectedly delayed in Singapore, apparently. We'd backpacked in Thailand on our way over to Oz, so just had a few items when we arrived and had to go and purchase lots of things to get by in that first month. Thankfully we have all our stuff now. We too got 'prioritised' when it arrived into Melbourne and by the last part SS were a lot more responsive with us, so things happened when they said they would. I would find it hard to sincerely recommend them due to the stress and hassle. But our things did arrive in reasonable nick and we didn't have any issues with customs, which was a massive relief after rushing through the forms on pick up.

Our Movecube left Edinburgh on the 27th January and we've still not got it. We know it's now in Australia, and we're hoping we'll get it this Thursday. The delay has been massively inconvenient for us as we took the opportunity to backpack for 3 months in south east asia on the way, so only arrived here with what we had in our very compact backpacks. I can't say I've been impressed with the service from Seven Seas!

Ah, hooray! Congrats back at you! Maybe a few more grants will be squeezed in before the Xmas break...

I have got it!!! I've finally got the email through today granting me my visa - a week shy of 8 months. Happy Christmas to me!

Yes, this seems to have confused a fair few folk. We've also been discussing it on the SUMMARY: Spouse Visa Processing times OFFSHORE-UK thread.

Yes! I just got this. Felt like it was a bit of a taunt as I'm on tenterhooks waiting for approval. Grrrr.

Congrats, that's super news! Man, I hope mine's next...