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Cheese please

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Everything posted by Cheese please

  1. 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!
  2. I got my 100 through on 13 August after submitting my evidence on 22 April.
  3. Subclass 100 Eligibility date: 23 April Applied: 22 April Waiting....
  4. 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.
  5. 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!
  6. 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/
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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!
  11. Ah, hooray! Congrats back at you! Maybe a few more grants will be squeezed in before the Xmas break...
  12. 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!
  13. 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.
  14. Yes! I just got this. Felt like it was a bit of a taunt as I'm on tenterhooks waiting for approval. Grrrr.
  15. Any more visas been granted since the 11th Nov? It seems like ages since we had some good news.
  16. From what I can gather from reading on here, they seem to have changed their procedures a bit since we applied back in the olden days - way back in April. Folk that applied after us seem to have got sent off for their health checks after a short time, rather than wait a few months like I did and they're getting more feedback about which one they're getting. I didn't get told anything either, although I assume I'll get the 309 as I only went over the 3 years living together mark just after I put in my application. Can always hope though! I was convinced that us Aprils would get our visa in November, but we're swiftly running out of days!
  17. Still waiting! Hit 7 months since application this weekend, so really hoping it 's going to be this week.
  18. Same here! I promise to report back on here when I (hopefully) get the nod of approval, it's got to be soon...
  19. I'm an April applicant and no, not yet! Great to hear Gooner1976 has had theirs come through - it's the first April applicant on here that I've seen granted. Hopefully not long now...
  20. Hi Chany, I applied on the 23rd April, so please do report back when your visa is granted as I'll be very keen to know. I really hope it is next month!
  21. I had the Lasik Ultra Elite Wavefront surgery. From what I was reading about it at the time, that was the top-notch surgery that this certain company were offering and I snapped up a promotional deal to get a good price. I’d visited another well-known company 6 months before, and hated dealing with them so, when I visited this pace, I was overwhelmed how informative and non-pushy they were. So I’d definitely recommend talking to a few companies and you’re right to walk away if they can’t give you a straight answer. I’m not sure about surgery that corrects across the entire range as I just found out information to do with being short-sighted. It was clearly pointed out to me that my eyes will still age, so I’ll be using reading glasses when I get older, like everyone else. It’s such a big decision to make and one I certainly didn’t take lightly - a few sleepless nights were had. Good luck with your research and I’m very happy, where I can, to answer any other questions. It was only after hearing other people’s personal stories that I felt brave ahead to go ahead with it.
  22. I started wearing glasses at the age of 18 for short-sightedness. I spent my early 20s often going out without my specs as I hated the way they looked, instead I would walk around attractively squinting at everything. I did progress to contact lenses, but I never fully embraced them and would only wear them occasionally. After we made the decision to move to Australia last year, I couldn't help think that it would be horrible wearing glasses and constantly swapping with prescription sunglasses. As I currently live in chilly Scotland, I could cope with wearing glasses, but I hate it when I'm in warmer climes - my geeky specs didn't quite look right with summer dresses! I'd been thinking about it for a while, but in February this year (and after much research and a fair amount of anxiety) I took the plunge and went for laser eye surgery... BEST. THING. EVER! Except for the 5 hours of discomfort post-surgery, it has been completely amazing. Out of habit, I still go to push my glasses up and doing that reminds me and in turn thrills me that I can actually really, properly see now. The place I got it done offered up to 24 months interest-free payments, which made it a hell of a lot easier to manage financially as well. I'd heartily recommend surgery to anyone that was considering it, subject to doing some good research on the company / surgeon performing it all.
  23. I contacted Go Walkabout about this as we're taking some time to backpack for a couple of months on the way to Australia. They responded with the following: Hope that helps!
  24. I got an email from my CO minutes after I posted on here too - bizarre! Good luck with everything, particularly with you wanting to get out there ASAP. I will post back on here any progress so that you and anyone else on a similar time frame can benchmark. I'm now just waiting until August to get my health and police checks done and assuming that I probably won't hear anything more until after they've been sent.
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