GC Matthew

@desreb You can use 3 for more than 2 months in oz, its just the "free go roam" bit that stops working so you will be charged at the international rates - or at least I was with them and that was how it was explained to me, but I chose to switch to giffgaff.com (part of o2) and the reason for that was they have online account management so I can topup by paypal or card on their internet site easily when needed and when going back to the UK you don't get stung with massive payg prices as you just buy a 1 month package for that month as a one off which is good value. Most UK networks just require you to send a text before 6 months so you aren't cut off and you are right that you will need it for security codes etc. Put the 6 months in your diary as you don't get a warning!

I have seen other people confirm that dealers (Toyota/Honda etc) will give loans if you show your work contract and proof of employment even though you are very new to oz, but that they usually charge a higher rate of interest. Its normal to get a big discount on sticker price on used cars here. Go in at least 20% under sticker.

This is one of the heath insurers student policies, or check Bupa or others online. You can see in the details that the maximum payout for medicine with NIB is $300 a year - so even if you did qualify because it is pre-existing the total they will pay equates to max $300 a year for ALL of your medicines TOTAL. You may find other companies pay a bit more, but probably charge a bit more for the insurance. That same website mentions "PBS" who handle most medicines in oz. (pbs.gov.au) It is available in oz - you may want to check http://www.pbs.gov.au/pbs/search?term=Humira I am afraid I do not understand the prices/schedules listed.

$373 a week isn't enough to live on (Australia is not cheap). In addition to food, transport, utilities, rent, earning $373 means you are actually over the tax threshold so will be paying tax. Even if you think your going to share a room with someone rather than having your own room, you will never be saving any money to pay for your next terms course fees, the expensive medical insurance that you will probably be required to get with your visa etc. I think I was required to show evidence of 1 years fees - they did ask for some financial proof before granting my visa. It definitely wasn't 60k though. PS Your 10k will also go a lot lot faster than you think. There were things I hadn't thought to budget for and others that just cost more than expected. Rent bond will eat a chunk. Its a struggle, and work is not as easy to find as you might think.

When you compress them you choose to save them as new files and get an option of how much you want to compress them by (% or low/medium/high). The higher compression you use the smaller the file size will be but the lower the quality will be. Choose Medium. Save it. Close your original file and open up the compressed one and you will see it exactly as IMMI will. It will probably be fine, just slightly fuzzy in some places and not as sharp. If any is not readable open your original again and compress it on a lower one. You might also want to try saving some files in black and white mode when you create the PDF (even if you haven't used colour it will save it as colour and detect slight variations), saving it as black and white (see the properties box when you convert to PDF) will probably half the file size.