mallard76

All 4 passports were new - we just got our citizenship. Today, two adult passports were posted, so just one outstanding (16yo child with 10 year validity). Only 2 weeks from applications.

We applied for 4 people without priority. 1 passport (child, 5 year validity) was issued within a week ! Still waiting on the rest.

Approval letter emailed straight away after appointment.

This is my timeline for Moreton Bay in QLD: Applied 28/04/2022 Appointment invite 31/08/2022 (4 months from application) for 06/10/2022, rescheduled to 01/09/2022 Ceremony 03/11/2022 (2 months from appointment)

thank you, rammygirl, this is really helpful !

Crickets... Got the answer to the first question - online application works in Google Chrome, did not work in Edge for some unknown reason. Still unsure if my wife can apply while logged to "my" immi account or if she needs a separate one. First option seems possible as I can insert her name as applicant.

Hi, we are now at a stage where I am looking to start citizenship application. Clicked on "Apply", logged into my immi account, agreed to T&Cs, cliked "Next" and.... nothing happens, application does not progress beyond page 1/36 regardless of how many times I click on "Next". Am I doing something wrong there ? I am on Edge browser. Additionally, I think we have just one immi account in my own name with visa grants for the whole family. I hope most documents can be picked up from the time we got our permanent visas. I believe I can put our kids on my application and their documents will be accessible as well. How about my wife, though ? Does she need a separate immi account and upload all documents (like birth/marriage certificate etc.) again ? Thanks a lot !

OK, here comes our story. It was exactly a year since we landed when we moved into our newly built house north of Brisbane towards the end of April 2019. It was not all plain sailing, though. We started thinking about Australia probably around 5 years ago. By the way, big kudos to all helpful people on this forum - it is a real treasure trove of knowledge about this country on the other side of the world and the complicated process to get there. I can honestly say: we could not do it without you ! Please keep this forum going. Anyway, we had a few hiccups along the way. Back in 2014, I got my qualifications confirmed by CPA as an accountant, however, CPA did not like my work experience for some unknown reason. This first setback was very unexpected and meant that I needed 8.0 in each part of IELTS to keep our dream alive. Unfortunately, I got 7.5 in writing, which was a big let down. I downloaded a lot of material about writing test, spent many late nights learning and tried again at the start of 2015. This time, I got 8.0 or over in each part of IELTS. We were over the moon. In April 2015, we applied for 189 visa with, guess what, 60 points. Our visas were granted in July, yay ! I believe I was quite lucky, probably one of the last accountants admitted on 60 points only. We did our visa activation trip soon after, in August 2015. We landed in Melbourne, rented a car. Stayed 1 week in Melbourne, then drove to Sydney (visited Wagga Wagga with nice zoo and also Canberra on the way). Stayed one week in Sydney, then drove to Brisbane (via Coffs Harbour and Big Banana) and stayed our third week there. This is when we had our hearts set on Brisbane and Queensland in general - what a fantastic place to live ! When we returned to the UK (and the parking company at Heathrow dinged my Mercedes, then parked it in the corner so that I could not see it before I left the airport. You can imagine how annoying that was...), we started our preparations for the move. First of all, we put almost all of our furniture and other goodies on ebay. 90% of these sold over time (2 years), the rest was given away. Then, in 2016, we sold our car and leased another one for two years. The next step was to put our house on the market. At the same time, I was looking for an opportunity to leave my job. In 2017, my position was made redundant, meaning I then had redundancy money to help start new life in Oz. Shortly after, I was offered an opportunity to work as a home-based contractor in a different part of the same business and we found buyers for our house. With the house sold and redundancy money in the bank, we booked our tickets, returned leased car with no charges, and arrived in Queensland in April 2018 with just around 150 kg luggage, nothing else. You can imagine how exciting and nerve-wracking this was. I was incredibly lucky that I was able to continue working from home over the internet as a contractor. Once we landed, we spent 4 weeks in an apartment rented via Airbnb with a 4g dongle for fast internet connection. The apartment was fantastic and very comfortable, including a private pool. During this time, we registered for Medicare, TFN, Centrelink, got Queensland driving licence, advised the bank that we moved permanently etc. We also bought a cheap, but brand new car (a separate lucky story) and basic household items, like kitchen and bedroom stuff. After three weeks, I found a longer term rental, a unit in a complex with pool and gym. Again - I could not dream of anything better. At that point, we were able to buy basic furniture (beds, washing machine, fridge freezer, tv, sofa etc.) with delivery on/after our move-in date. This was my redundancy money completely gone, but I had steady inflow of money from my job. Note: for cheap furniture, go to Fantastic Furniture. The rest you can get from Kmart / BigW. We also like OfficeWorks :) Once our longer term rental was sorted, we started looking into building credit history and managed to get two credit cards quite easily. Point to note - go into the branch, do not try to do it over the phone or the internet, you will have a much higher chance. Branch advisers are hungry for commissions :) Just 6 months after our arrival, we were given mortgage agreement in principle and started looking for a suitable property. We had money for 20% deposit from our sale in the UK. It dawned on us that new house and land packages slightly further to the north of Brisbane were the same price as used, run-down houses near our rental address, so we went for house and land. The location did not matter, as long as NBN was available. We completed on the land in December 2018 and started build in January 2019. Our brand new house was ready in April 2019 and we moved in. It is a very nice area with playground just a stone throw away and all shops within 10 minutes' drive. In March this year, my job also changed from contracting to permanent. I believe this is quite a positive outcome in such a short time. We are now well settled in our new place. Kids had to move schools, but are happy now as well. We are looking forward to getting new family members (dog & cat). Overall, Australia is all it was expected to be and more, and more, and more. We just love it here. We survived through Queensland summer. There were some steamy days, but nothing we could not handle with car and house air-con ;) Now, we are going through our second autumn and the weather is great. Public swimming pool or ocean are easily accessible. To us, it is not "just another developed country", it is a fantastic place to live. Some say "it is all about money here" - perhaps, but that's capitalism for you. If you care only about material things, then you might struggle to be happy anywhere in the world. I feel like our life is a dream come true and long may this last !

any chance this is the one ? http://www.joomag.com/magazine/nursery-garden-news-may-2014/0389063001405640391?page=17 and http://fernland.com.au/contact-us (two digits are swapped)

I guess it's yearning for adventure for us. We visited various countries in the past and moved around, too. Thing is, when you move every now and then, you don't notice people ageing around you, so you don't worry about it, but carry on living your life (sounds like mid-life crisis ?). I've been with one company for the past 10 years and feel it is time to move on to another challenge. Australia feels like the ultimate end-of-the-world destination sometimes (I was thinking about Mars One, but wife was not impressed...). If it does not work for us, we always have places to go back to.

Ahem, what about other forums, I wonder...

It seems obvious to me that the article is trying to ensure that any "freed-up" savings are invested in stockspot products, so it is not objective. It tries to compare renting with initial mortgage repayments, but mortgage goes down overtime, so the interest amount goes down, too. Our mortgage payments are actually substantially lower than the rent we would need to pay for the same property and mortgage interest is, again, under 50% of the monthly payment. So, there is a whole lot less of "dead money" in buying than renting for us. Yes, we could free up equity in order to invest it, but rent would eat into the savings faster than an increase coming from sensible return on investment (say, 5% pa). It all depends on mortgage size and interest rates.

Yup, we are off to other subforums or even back to the real life preparations for the move.

I guess you convinced me to take the train to central station and then bus 555, if needed.

Thanks Guys. I did not think it would be so bad. I drove to London centre several times and found parking there relatively easy, if you come prepared, but I guess Sydney must be worse then. I will research public transport and walking, but it's not an easy feat with 2 small children who are used to a bit of comfort.