rivmum Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Hi All, I am after some advice and direction from some people in the know. My husband has been offered the opportunity to work in the uk for 2 yrs. We are a young family and think it would be a great experience for all of us. It does mean a pay cut though so a little worried about the cost of living, finding suitable accommodation and most importantly a good primary school for our 3 children. I am over 30 so cant apply for the regular working visa that all the young people ged but have an education degree so was hoping to find some casual part time work, not necessarily in teaching. We are very excited about the possibilities but after reading other forums am a little unsure at it sounds like a LOT of paperwork???! We are usure of the location my husband will be working but london and surrounds is all the info we have so far. We have been told the kent area is nice. We would not wish to live in london and happy to commute to work if we could find a good small country area and school for the kids. Any advice at all? Is it something you would recommend with a family of 3 kids aged between 7-10? Are there any other forums i could try that may have some advice? Thank you in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerak123 Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Hi, not sure how much you know about the UK - so sorry if you already know all this. The key thing is obviously trying to narrow down where your husband is going to be working. ' London and surrounds' is not just a big area geographically it's also quite difficult to move around quickly. I lived in zone 3 on the tube map and it used to take me 40 minutes to an hour to get into the centre (on a good day). It seems a bit odd they can't be more specific. Is this his current employer? Having a rough idea of the area is so important otherwise you could end up with a nightmare commute. Kent could be a good option - it has good schools and good rail links. If I was researching where to live in the UK from scratch I would look at http://www.commuterguide.co.uk as a starting point. It also gives you a rough idea of commuting costs - which can be v expensive. I would also use rightmove for property to rent or buy (which will also link through to nearby schools and their OFSTED ratings). You can then work out roughly how much a rental will cost you. I am living in fleet in hampshire at the moment. It has some very good schools and is about 45 mins to London. Good luck with it all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Pom Queen Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Hi and welcome to the forum. I've moved your post to the moving to the UK section as I think you may get more replies. Good luck x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MovingtoTasmania Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Hello @rivmum If you are looking at London and the surrounding areas, firstly commuting is expensive the further out you go and petrol prices and car insurance are high too. Bromley which is a London Borough has good rail links in to Central London and also has areas which are really nice, such as Chislehurst, Green Street Green, Chelsfield, or you could look slightly further afield at places like Halstead, Tonbridge Wells, Sevenoaks, Knockholt, Westerham but you will find that rentals are high and buying a house is even higher. Rightmove will give you ideas of prices. The places I have suggested have schools with very good OFSTED reports and if you utilise the "Map & School" function on Rightmove then you can look for schools, click on the school and click on the link for RM School Finder which will open a new tab with the school stats. One thing to bear in mind is that schools with "Excellent" OFSTED ratings usually have a higher percentage of children who are on free school meals because the school receives additional funding for those children and so have higher staff:children ratio and can afford to have more specialised things in place. The thing to check on is the SAT results. Use trainline.com to get an idea of journey times and fare prices so that you don't get a big shock. Again, bus travel can be a big expense but most companies have a travel pass that you can use on all their buses. Stagecoach Manchester have one for £12.50 per week but of course, you can only use it on Stagecoach and Magic buses not on First or any other bus. In terms of food shopping, ALDI and Lidl are fairly cheap and all the supermarkets do "smartprice" style products which are a lot cheaper. Markets tend to be more expensive, especially Farmers markets. Days out can be expensive if you are going to a Theme Park or similar, but central London museums are cheap or even free, depending on where you are going. In the past few years, prices have been rising enormously in the UK, don't be fooled by people who tell you otherwise and wages haven't really been going up at the same rate. Whilst things such as GP appointments are free, prescriptions can be expensive if you are on regular medication that isn't exempted and if you can't get on the books of an NHS dentist, then dental treatment is expensive. The children will have free treatment. An example of food prices for you from the "average" supermarket. 2 litres of milk £1 Bread can be anything from 50p for a cheap smartprice type loaf to £2/£3 for specialty bread. Warburtons is a nice loaf and averages £1 per loaf. Leg of lamb costs around £7 per kilo Chicken breast is around the same but can be bought cheaper. Pork is around £5/6 per kilo Bacon is expensive I believe Beef mince is about £5.99 per kilo Steak is ridiculous at about £9-12 per kilo for cheap steak, fillet steak is going to set you back £15-20 per kilo and rib of beef is around £22 per kilo. 5kg of potatoes is £2.50 for white washed all purpose Go to cheap shops for kitchen roll, loo roll and toiletries as in supermarkets they are expensive. Hair dye is around £6 per box but can be cheaper. Confectionary is expensive, a Mars Bar is about 65p or something stupid (I say that because I remember paying 16p back in the day lol) Cigarettes are £70 for 190 (they don't do 200 anymore as they took a cigarette out of each pack instead of raising prices again) Alcohol can be around £6 for a nice bottle of wine if you pay on 50% off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 So what visa will you be entering on? Is your husband British? If not, will his employers be organizing his visa including you all as a a family? If your husband has UK citizenship then you can apply for a spouse visa (and your kids may have citizenship by descent in that case.) or if you have a grandparent born in UK you can apply for an Ancestry visa. Youll probably need a bit of a clue about where your DH will be working - People often rent at the end of a tube line leading to work or an overground line terminating near work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penelope Pitstop Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Confectionary is expensive, a Mars Bar is about 65p or something stupid (I say that because I remember paying 16p back in the day lol) Full price for a Mars Bar in Oz is $1.99 !!! (that's £1.10) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerak123 Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 I must say I do find it quite disheartening when someone posts something - you take the time to try and be helpful by posting a reply and they don't reappear and even acknowledge it. I know you don't ever know what's going on in people's lives but I'm not going to bother replying to new people posting messages anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MovingtoTasmania Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Full price for a Mars Bar in Oz is $1.99 !!! (that's £1.10) Thank the stars I don't like chocolate.........65p is what you pay at a cheap shop, I think the supermarket is more like 85p per bar I'm not sure. I tend to shop around a bit because prices are going a bit haywire over here compared with wages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacaranda Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 Bacon expensive?Morrisons recently were selling packs for£2!Have you shopped in Oz MTT? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srh82 Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 If you are relocating to the South East of the UK, live as close as possible to where you will be working. Public transport is good but commuting times are long and depending on where you are going, buses/trains can get very crowded. If you think it is 30 minutes commute on google maps, add at least half that commuting time again. Property is expensive and as others have said you need to do your research for good school catchments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MovingtoTasmania Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 Bacon expensive?Morrisons recently were selling packs for£2!Have you shopped in Oz MTT? I don't eat bacon so I wasn't sure. Compared to a joint of meat, I think the price per kilo looks expensive which is why I said I believe. Sorry to offend you @Melza if bacon is actually the cheapest thing you can buy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starlight7 Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 Well rivmum, what happened- curious about where you decided to go in London? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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