FirstWorldProblems

It is included. I can break that section down more when I get 10 mins. power is £374 a month

@Cheery Thistle, @BendigoBoyand @InnerVoice started up a cost of living comparison here between Scotland, Victoria and Cairns which I thought was very useful, but might get lost as it's part of a different topic. The higher cost of living in Australia has always been on my mind as I plan my family's migration, and this comparison got me thinking about whether or not the difference is still as large now that the UK has experienced sustained high inflation. I did some spending analysis in 2018 as part of my retirement planning, so I've just compared that to today: UK 2018 vs UK 2023. Avg monthly Family of 5, youngest is 15. Warwickshire £326 vs £266 (123%) Council tax £1020 vs £798 (128%) Groceries £661 vs £331 (200%) Eating out [it's definitely more expensive, but not twice as much, suspect we are doing it more now] £184 vs £161 (114%) Fuel [much less business miles in 2023] £816 vs £673 (121%) House bills [inc. Sky, Netflix] £1,464 vs £920 (158%) General shopping [clothes etc] I've excluded car, mortgage, entertainment, house repairs, holidays, savings etc as that's all very different for everyone and hasn't changed all that much over the comparison years. Clearly there's quite a bit of discretionary spend in our monthly outgoings that could be reduced if we wanted.

I think a cat walked over your keyboard

Thank you. I spent 3 days trying and it kept crashing. I'll give it another go. I ended up calling Swiss and it turns out the flights they have on the website weren't available.

Yep. We first encountered it last year. MIL comes for 8-10 weeks a year. Made her a virtual prisoner in the house as she's not very mobile. She and SIL are here now so we tried again and so far haven't been able to find a way.

very helpful indeed - thank you It's proving much harder to find 5 seats on the same plane than I imagined and for some reason several airlines online multi-city booking facilities won't actually let you book (Swiss, Qantas, Lufthansa), crashing at the final stage. Asiana (who I have never flown) is an option. Stopping at Seoul in January.......brrrrr @Blue Flu mentioned that flights are predicted to reduce in 2024 - Easter is showing as 2/3rds the price of Christmas, so it's looking positive.

You can no longer be added to someone else's insurance as a temporary driver - you have to rent a car.

Thx. Any way of dodging that? Like applying for a replacement U.K. licence because you have “lost” the original?

Looking for pointers on a couple of driving licence related questions please. I understand that PR and citizens need to convert their licences writhing 3 months but I am unclear if the details 1) Can you retain your U.K. licence for when you are back in the U.K. visiting? As of a couple years ago it’s very hard to add a foreign licence holder to U.K. insurance temporarily. 2) My kids will have held full licences for 4 years and 1 year respectively. Both will be under 25. I believe they will have to take the theory and practical tests again and will enter the NSW tiered driving licence system according to the number of years experience they have. Is that correct? thanks.

Is it a swimming wetsuit? Most ppl go a bit faster in a swimming wetsuit. getting it on can be a faff but gets easier with experience. I use a thin plastic bag (like you get in the fruit section at the supermarket). Place it over hand or foot and it glides on.

Interestingly the lake I swim at just posted on their Facebook page that attendance is way way down on last year and asked people for honest feedback about why, so they can take action. There’s a few comments about the weeds, a few about triathletes whizzing around and asking for a lane for people wanting to “bimble along” but the most frequent comment is cost. The price hasn’t gone up. People are feeling the pinch. Such a shame as it’s a wonderful thing to do. Good exercise, peaceful and tranquil and a very friendly vibe. Hot chocolate and cake too.

A false economy too. 80%-85% (studies vary) of a persons health status is nothing to do with the quality of healthcare they receive but rather it’s socio-economic, lifestyle and genetic. Make it harder for people to participate in exercise and you just shift the burden to the healthcare (and mental health) system.

Ahh you are right. The model we paid £999 for in mid 2022 is now near £1,229. Exact same model.

Took me a while because they use different model numbers, but I found the Miele washing machine I bought for £999 on Harvey Norman. $2799. LG TV looks about the same tho. ~10% higher

I think this sounds great! I've long held a romantic notion of being able to do interim work that enabled me to go back and forth between both countries, but didn't really think it would be viable - you seem to have made it work.

Exactly. I found the process so stressful I got shingles from it. It’s remarkable to me that someone can do it so many times. Must be a free spirit and very chilled type of person.

@MrsPOB Your message footer is the greatest!!!

That’s interesting. In what way?

My 309/100 was approved earlier this year so I have some recent relevant experience 1) no, you apply for both together. There's no separate application nor separate cost. Most often in straightforward cases they get approved together. 2) I spent £5,400. The application is the bulk of it. Then medicals, police checks etc. 3) I spent almost 50 hours completing the application. It was approved 6 weeks after submission and might have been quicker if I hadn't sat on my hands for several weeks after being asked to submit medical checks. 3a) you have to travel to Australia within a year to activate your visa. You can literally fly in and fly out if you wish. 3b) 5 years from grant. There might be complications around Resident Return Visa if you haven't lived in Australia for 2 years prior to the end of the 5 but doesn't seem like a material issue. 4) I don't think so. It's a partner visa, not a prospective marriage visa.

Better than sky scanner is Google flights. It’s much more flexible, including having a flight calendar so you can see at a glance the impact of changing combinations of inbound/outbound dates. But the best feature is the ability to enter multiple airports. When I fly I start with google flights and a search for flights from Birmingham, east mids, “all london” and Manchester. You get lots of results. Then I go to the airline I want and book there. I’ve been booking direct with airlines for 20 years without issue.

Yeah me too. They don't make it easy. After sitting down one weekend over the Christmas break to get my application started, I was disheartened to realise I'd spent 14 hours filling in the application (spouse visa) and collecting evidence and it felt like I wasn't half way through. So I started noting down the time spent on it. 49 hours in total. Good luck to you. Hope it works out well and goes smoothly

Apologies for going off on a tangent. But how would the ATO know about a person's UK financial activity? I understand you probably have to answer questions about it on a tax return and it would be a crime to withhold the information and morally wrong etc. But how would they actually know? I'm not suggesting anyone do anything wrong, I'm just curious.

I can only share my own experience. I’m absolutely positive I didn’t submit all my travel. I pieced together what I could from old passport stamps but I didn’t have access to any travel booking info for past employers. I did about 6 work trips a year. No way I remembered then all and definitely not the right dates. I did the best I could and no questions were asked. Visa was approved.

great idea - son and I both used to do Thai Boxing. I stopped not long after receiving a TKO from a 20-something in the first round.....put me in my place!