Johnny

Good decision - grab the opportunity and go. Good luck. The pound has taken a hit because of the increasing possibility of UK leaving the EU. Might be a good time to change those dollars.

The whole "aussie thing" had worn off with us and had got very "old", so moving to another city or state would not have made us feel any different. Once the seed is planted for leaving, it's pretty much a one way ticket out. sooner or later.

I had a sort of "gut" feeling even after a short while. We had seen mostly everything Perth had to offer within the first few weeks of getting there and quickly realised that that we'd moved to the biggest retirement village on the planet. !! So glad to be back home now, and feeling "alive" again.

Indeed, money cannot buy health you are so right. You did the right thing for you both, and at least you gave it a shot and are no doubt a much better person for it. If you don't like a place then you simply don't like it, you don't need to put up with anything if you feel unhappy and are able get out. Happiness and health are everything. I know how happy we felt in the taxi going out to the airport on the day we left, and all the way back home too.

Some people make a quick assessment on their situation and get out while they can at any cost if it isn't ticking the boxes for them. We put most of our cash into a house in South Perth quite quickly after arriving as we had already gone and sold off our ex-council house in UK before we left, so there was absolutely no option for us to return home or we just may have done it too. Even if we wanted to sell up was very hard to shift property in those days.

Same here, we wanted out after a few years but really couldn't do it. But they day came when it was "madness not to" and we did it, the conditions were right for us. You planned your move back - well done. Failure to plan, is planning to fail. What I would share here is that moving home can be just as unsettling as migrating. A lot can change in a few years and some things which were once familiar are not really that familiar anymore !! It is totally possible to feel a bit strange in your own country some days, and it does take a while to get into the swing of it again, make no mistake.

You just answered your own question - its a forum for "Moving Back to the UK" I don't post in other forums where there are excited newbies waiting to get their visas and head off on the plane to live the dream. That's where I would expect the "We did it, we love it here and it worked out for us, life in the sun is great " brigade to be posting and egging them on to go for it, not lurking around a "Moving Back to the UK " forum. Bitter absolutely not, Australia was VERY kind to us and I only hope it can be kind to anyone moving there too. But the reality is the economy is tanking big time down there and as the papers report, people are selling up and bailing out of Australia right now by the plane load. I will tell it how it is, if that rattles cages or touches nerves, I am not going to make apologies for it. If you are settled and happy there or gearing up to go there, this is not the forum to be reading and snapping at people.

No bitterness whatsoever. We got out before it all went "pop" you could say. Aus was VERY good to us, perhaps not job wise but, "hey-ho" as they say, we're loving our life in the UK now.

There's no shame in it. They probably figured out pretty fast how things were going to pan out for them and got out fast while they had the resources to do so. Once your in the system and loaded up on debt while the economy is heading for a long slow downturn, then you are pretty much snookered. Its not a hard formula to grasp really. But hey, you can always "stay open minded and stay positive", if that works for you despite all the writing being on the wall, then great. Those guys that got out fast were smart. It may not seem so right now, but touch base with them in say, 2 years and compare notes.

It didn't work out and I am bitter - you couldn't be farther from the truth. Of course they rubber stamped you when you told them you would sweep the streets. They're trying hard to boost their population and import more tax payers, what did you expect.

Right now with a somewhat "fragile" global situation, a fast shrinking Australian economy and strong possibility of a big global stock market downturn, its not a very clever time to be upping sticks and throwing caution to the wind. But hey if none of that matters and you're still determined to live the "surfy beach lifestyle" then go for it. You can always "suck it up for a few years until you get established" like you say. Sounds like you've been watching too much "Wanted Down Under". I was a new sun seeker, I would wait for the panic & fear to set in on the housing market over the next few years first.

That's pretty spot on. Sometimes its more than a step back for some, sometimes its falling to the bottom of the heap and putting up with many tedious and painful years of trying to "prove yourself" all over again after having earned yourself a track record, respect and a name in your field early on in your career back in the UK. To find yourself rolling your career back 10 years working with yesterdays technology alongside lower educated backward lazy insular people can be tiresome to say the least. Some folk are smart enough to get out fast because they only realise then just how good they had it back home. Then again, someone who came from a very mediocre job with no promotion or career path and then getting another mediocre dead end job in Australia would be happy as the proverbial pig. from a life of debt and struggling in UK to another life of debt and struggling elsewhere is hardly progress. Just an illusion of a "step up in lifestyle" which many buy into and feel they "made it" because of a bigger house and living close to a beach.

Sorry to hear that , I feel for you. Hope you find a way to get out eventually.

Some folk didn't know their bread was already buttered in UK. Some work it out within weeks of getting there and know turning round fast can sometimes be the best option

That's quick ! That said, within a few days of arriving, we had made a pretty fair assessment of what we may be letting ourselves in for...and we were bang on. We did 8 years of groundhog day !

Great advice there and a sure one way ticket to mediocrity.

Why don't you stay and do your degree in UK first and give it a proper go. A degree will open more doors for you than you can imagine. You are still so young and the world is your oyster, really. Don't throw away this chance you have.

Some may be well and truly stuck down there with no chance of ever getting out and that must feel awful.

if you have the money to get out of that backward slow place isolated from the rest of the world, do it and get your life back on track. Your kids can have a far more advanced education, better career opportunities and the chance to attend world class universities when they grow up. The whole "aussie thing" is just a very expensive illusion.

Do you mean it has downfalls for you personally ? I can honestly say Scotland/UK has been very good to us since we moved home.

You hit on a lot of true stuff there. I am hoping to do some more stuff at college and its easy to get into here. Living at the centre of the world and feeling "part of it" and not feeling isolated is a big thing for us as we travel a lot on the cheap flights out of Edinburgh over to Europe. For my hobbies, I can order spare parts online, get them in a couple of days instead of ordering overseas paying excessive postage and being ripped off with custom charges Food is choice so much better over here, cheaper and far better quality and there are 3 big modern supermarkets in our nearest town open all hours 7 days a week. All have cafe's attached so you can get a cheap meal or a cuppa after your shopping. One of my "winter fav's" is the Carvery- huge roast dinners with jumbo Yorkshire puds for £5.99 or unlimited cooked breakfast tea & toast £3.99 If there are "howls of outrage" its because you are hitting nerves and a lot of the stuff we enjoy in UK is near on impossible to have down there because its so backward. This is a forum on moving back to the UK after all and not a forum for people to snap back in shock at anyone who dares suggesting moving back. I question those who claim to be "settled and happy" yet lurk around a forum snapping at people who have anything positive to say about Britain. You can have a big modern house in UK too and you can have a great lifestyle here too - for some that may be incomprehensible, but you totally can.

You are spot on there We didn't realise just how much we DID have at home, until we left it to go 20 years back in time to Perth. Singapore was the nearest kind of civilisation with any proper shops, not that we are into shops but my wife does still have a chuckle about the sorely outdated clothes shops in Perth's small town centre (about half the size of Dundee town centre). Now we are home we love everything about the UK like we rediscovered it all over again, and we revel in it still. We have so much stuff not just on our doorstep but in the nearest town and anything else just a short drive away. Life is definitely far more colourful and varied here and you feel far more alive.

For those of us who came in the early days with a strong pound in our pockets, when houses right in the city centre could cost less than the equivalent of £80,000 and houses miles out of town could cost £50,000, ie those us who "got in on the act early" will have done very well out of it and I do accept many people are well set up now with their homes paid off and possibly an investment portfolio of properties to boot in some cases. Kudos to anyone who has already "made it" and are reaping the rewards and loving it - that is the real Aussie dream. Well done but put yourself in the place of someone thinking of migrating today - forget the rosy stuff like "big houses and beaches" for one moment. Today China doesn't consume gas, oil and ore's like it used to. Their construction industry is in tatters, there are ghost towns and areas of cities where thousands of shiny new apartment blocks are lying empty, many half constructed and many abandoned concrete shells with not a worker or machine to be seen. It was a bubble that grew too big too fast. However what gets me are those advising potential migrants to totally ignore the big picture, the writing on the wall, ignore the fact that possibly the biggest ever global financial crisis is on the horizon and to just "come and give it a go, she'll be alright" New migrants are never going to get the chances to grow their wealth like migrants got 15-20 years ago that is a fact, the money has gone, work is drying up everywhere, the mining boys saw the writing on the wall, threw in the towel and bailed out, and people in the last few years in some places have to face the fact that they paid far too much for their properties thinking the gravy train was always going to be there. In these times, I would say to anyone who has a stable, secure job, a home, money in their pockets to spend, and a reasonably happy family life in the UK to think long and hard, look at the big picture and assess the risks fully. I appreciate that this side of the coin is very prickly and the facts will hit a few nerves and rattle a few cages but I don't believe in glossing over things or filling people with false hope either. Just looked at a few agents websites today out of interest and they are still peddling the same old dream albeit with a slightly more devious, less "in your face" sales pitch than the glossy brochures we were fed back in the day.

By the same token, any sensible person can feel within a year or less that for some people the place can be too isolated, deadbeat, doesnt live up to the hype in the agents glossy brochures or websites, damaging for their career, expensive, is depleting their savings, making them poorer, and treats them as an outsider. Sadly for some, that is just what they experience. The risk is even greater now that we are entering a shaky global economy and a real possibility of a global financial crisis. If its not working, get out while you still can afford to. Last thing you want is to be stuck permanently in a place you don't want to be without the resources to leave and lumbered with a house which could be depreciating in value. You gave it a go, if it didn't work, no problem at least you tried which is more than what most people ever do. No point flogging a dead horse just so you can save face or brag to people at home that you've got a big house on the beach.

This is very sound advice and any potential new migrants would do well to listen to what's being said here.