tahm563

They live near M5. They get rebates for M5 use - so not much. My brother works from home mostly and wife works locally, so don't need to go on motorway.

Is the $3,956 for one person or your family?

What's MLS? And how much is it? Is this NI equivalent contribution for medicare there? We pay 13.8% on NI currently.

Thank you everyone for your helpful comments. Currently we spend 4,000 pounds/month in London excluding rent/mortgage. We paid up for our house luckily, so have no mortgage. Things have shot up considerably recently and our costs have gone up at least 1K/month in the last year or so (and our lifestyle has not changed at all). The only thing that changed is we now have private health insurance after waiting for months for NHS treatments and never getting it. Our health insurance does not cover dental and optician, but we don't have to pay anything out of pocket for hospital treatment/consultant fees. Even under NHS, we always had to pay for dental costs. It's only free if you are on low income or under 18. And we also pay for glasses and for optician appointments (these things are not covered by NHS anymore unless you are a child/elderly/low income/special health conditions). At least this is the case in London. Last month our utility was £160 despite having solar and batteries as heating is by gas (this is after being stingy with heating and using it as sparingly as we can). Gone are the days when we could keep the heating on all day and it would be £70-80. My four siblings live in Sydney. One with kids same age as mine says he spends 6,000 aud per month including mortgage. This seems to be on the low side comparing to what I am hearing on this forum. He lives a good lifestyle (not lavish, but same as me in London). He doesn't have private health insurance and he said healthcare is fine. He is in a similar career to me and earns 30K more (with similar experience level). My parents don't have health insurance, my mum had a sudden heart issue a few months ago for which she had to be hospitalised for 2 weeks and the care was absolutely topnotch (I went over to for 2 weeks to look after her). Had all her procedures done swiftly, nurses and doctors always had a smile on their faces. Did not pay a penny. Compared to the NHS, service and facilities were AMAZING. Dare I say, it was even better than the private hospital facilities I experienced here when I had a surgery last year. I probably won't go for health insurance there just yet (might reconsider when I am older and really need it). The veg and fruits were so much better there, even the meat and fish seemed more fresh. All these things are making us consider moving back to sydney. Re house, I do feel they are par London, but you get a much bigger living space there. But Sydney is a large place, so prices vary greatly. Where my family lives, there are brand new decent 4 bed houses for sale for circa 1.3 million aud (sydney south west). I know it's not a great place to live in sydney standard, but feels much nicer, safer and cheaper than London. Maybe I am just thinking the grass is greener on the other side. I go home every 2 years but never really felt the pull to move back so strongly until now. With the rising costs, London has very little to offer now. I can't see how my kids will ever afford to buy a place here with the meagre salaries they offer.

Hello all, For those living in Sydney, what would you say the monthly living cost would be for a family of five EXCLUDING rent? We have 2 teens, one in primary and husband and wife. We cook all our meals from scratch usually, get takeaway once a week. Here in the UK, I have a cleaner every week (£45/week) - would love to have that there too. We don't drink. How much should we budget for to have a comfortable life? Thanks.

Hi, I am an Australian married to Brit, have been living in the UK last 18 years. Now thinking of moving back. We have three kids who will be 18,16 and 10 when we move back (hopefully all will go well). My family lives there and kids visit frequently. They are happy to move so far. Eldest will start uni and 16 year old will start in year 11. I wanted to ask others how hard/easy was it for your older kids to make lifelong friends there? Most of my friends who I kept in touch with back home (in sydney) are from high school. Not really in touch with uni friends. When I look at my siblings, most of their lifelong friends are also from high school. That makes me feel worried about whether the older kids will be able to make good lifelong friends since they are starting their there as almost adults. Just don't want them to be miserable there. Would love to hear your experiences of older kids.

Hi Jay, If you have already gone through the process, can you please share the cost?

Thanks @bluequay. That's reassuring to know. We have 3 kids together and no health issues/criminal convictions. However, we don't own a property together (he owns one in his name and I own one in my name). Is that likely to be a problem? We don't have joint accounts either because we prefer to keep our finances separate. Please let me know.

Thank you so much. Is there any point getting a migration agent or is it a quite straighforward application? When I did my British application, I remember I had to submit so many proofs. Is the process similar for Australia?

Just curious to know if you moved back yet and whether your kids settled well. We are thinking of doing the same, moving to sydney for University however kids never lived in Australia (frequently visited however)

I am an Australian married to British. We have been married for 18 years and have been living in the UK since marriage. We now want to move to sydney and settle there (as my parents are getting older and DH's parents passed away). We want to move in 2026 because of kid's schooling (waiting for eldest to finish A level). My question is should we apply for DH's visa from the UK? If yes, how long does it take usually nowadays? Once we get the visa, is there a time by which we must enter AUS? Also, would DH get PR straight away or would he be on a temporary visa first? Thanks for your help.