Bringing Money - How Much???

[Guest Tricky71]

It looks like we'll take a £20,000 hit on the sale of our house. We were hoping to come over with £35 - £40,000 and now realistically it looks like £10 - £15,000. Do you think this will be enough to settle and set up???

:sad::sad::sad::sad:

[Guest joksand]

Hi

 

Well, that's a difficult one. I suppose if you want it bad enough you'll cope, but I'll be honest and say it won't be easy.

 

Are you shipping all your household stuff or starting from scratch? My advice would be to bring as much as you can - jam that container full of everything you own as you'll never know when you'll need things. You can guarantee that the things you leave behind will be the things you'll end up buying once you get here - I've learnt that lesson!!

 

If you've already got a job lined up that will help settling in of course, what sort of trade are you in?

 

Where are you heading for? My knowledge is only of WA, but I can give you an idea of the cost of things, if it helps:

 

Rent: $320 per week for large 4bed 2 bath house in Port Kennedy. The bond we had to pay was $1280 and we had to pay 6 months rent upfront as we had no references having never rented before.

 

Food Shopping: this was (and still is) a bit of a shock to me. Foods not cheap and they don't do 2for1's like in the UK and the two main supermarkets have a bit of a monopoly- I've just done the weekly shopping tonight and spent about $160 - this is a normal amount and I'll spend more throughout the week. Food prices are going up worldwide though, so I guess it may be on par with the UK.

 

Fuel: Petrol prices are on the up (as in the UK) it's about $1.57 a litre approx - get a Gas car if you can, we have - gas is only about 59-65c a litre in WA

 

Word of warning - if you have kids and are coming to WA make sure you get ambulance cover as soon as you can - we didn't and got stung for $520 when my 6 yr old stuck a bit of lego up his nose and I had to call one! It costs about $80 for a family for 1 year, but I think you can get some of that back.

 

What's cheaper than the UK? All the fun stuff - the beach is always free and there are plenty of parks and cycle paths, if that's your sort of thing. Public transport is clean, reliable and really cheap. Houses aren't cheap to buy, but you do get more for your money in most cases.

 

 

I hope I haven't put you off - just wanted to be honest so you don't get any nasty surprises!!

 

Bye for now

 

Jo

[Guest Tracey Adams]

Hi Tricky71

 

We to are going to going out there with about 10,00 pounds, which realistically will be the equivelent of mine and the OH salary for 3 months. We were initially worried however, I agree with the other member bring as much as you can afford to ship, look around for cheap holiday accomadation for two to three weeks which will allow you to look around for permenant rentals and allow for the process of renting to be completed. If you have no job to go to like my OH, he is a chef, he has contacted several agencies and they have said that he will be able to get a job as a chef as soon as he gets off the plane. Obviously he is not keen on that and will take a few weeks off first, then will set to work, if you want it enough working as soon as you can will definatly help out with the finances. If you have no previous rental references get charecter references from your employer, mortgage lender etc, these references have been used before by other people and will let you be able to put the normal bond of 4 weeks down on a rental agreement an so cut your initial outgoings.

 

We have looked into it in great detail being on a tight budget, we are heading for the Gold coast and have researched suburbs etc, and ajacent schools and have a good idea of the area we want to settle in and the cost of rental and eventually house prices.

If you want any further help on costings, do a search on the threads as there are many which give you detailed outgoings etc.

 

Regarding your house you are at the same stage as us, and housing market may recover by the time you go to sell. We are going to put the hous eon the market as soon as the visa is granted and tehn rent for 3-6 months to build up some more capital as rent will be considerably cheaper than the mortgage we are now paying as we have come of a fixed term rate.

 

Hope my reply has alaid some fears there are many of us who aim to go out on a budget without the thousands others have managed to accumalate.

 

Good luck!!!

[Guest laura_barrett]

My partner & myself are in the same boat were taken £10k, the way I look at it is, if we have to rough it for abit thats ok coz were be were we want to be lovely OZ!!!!!!

 

:jiggy: