over 45 visa chances?

[ramot]

10 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

So is that £103 per fortnight for a fortnightly clean? I have one cleaner and she is £40 for a 2 hour clean but she doesn’t do the whole house - does main living and kitchen downstairs, my 2 bathrooms and hoovers/mops. She has been with me for 15 years and also occasionally pet-sits for me. She is a life saver. 

Sorry 51.50 pds per clean, and been our cleaners for 13 years, no one has to justify having a cleaner to me, 

[FirstWorldProblems]

1 hour ago, Cheery Thistle said:

I got one for £40 but honestly it’s such a faff getting changed lakeside afterwards. And I think the suit makes me too buoyant, giving me hardly any purchase in the water, so I feel like I’m giving it laldy but literally just treading water hahaha! 

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.   

[Cheery Thistle]

22 minutes ago, ramot said:

Sorry 51.50 pds per clean, and been our cleaners for 13 years, no one has to justify having a cleaner to me, 

Sounds not too far off then. Will probably do our own cleaning until we are settled and I feel I can trust someone! 

[Cheery Thistle]

20 minutes ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

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.   

No, I don’t think it is, I didn’t realise you got different kinds. My boss at work (who does triathlons) informed me of this AFTER I bought the stupid thing. I’m not sure I’m suited to open water swimming in the UK! 

[ramot]

10 hours ago, Cheery Thistle said:

Sounds not too far off then. Will probably do our own cleaning until we are settled and I feel I can trust someone! 

In case I wasn’t clear, the equivalent 51.50 pds is for 2 people cleaning  for an hour and a half, not just one person. 

[InnerVoice]

 

@Cheery Thistle here are our monthly expenses (where comparable), based on the current exchange rate of £1 = AUD $1.95.

Mortgage (4 bed 2 bath Cairns) - $1607 / £824, but will increase to around $2,300 next July when fixed interest rate ends. 

Council Tax / Rates - $180 / £92

Electricity - $0 (if averaged over the year)

Water - $100 / £51

Broadband Internet - $65 / £33

Mobile Phones (SIM only plan x 2) - $15 / £8 

Food and household supplies (no booze) - $1,000 / £513

Home repairs and garden upkeep - $150 / £77

Clothes, shoes and other miscellaneous expenses - $120 / £61

Car depreciation (purchased 5 years ago for $6,000) - $100 / £51

Car Rego, Insurance (fully comp), Maintenance - $150 / £77

Fuel (based on 8,000km/year) - $110 / £56 

Netflix - $11 / £6 

House Insurance - $107 / £55

Gym membership - $65 / £33

Dentist - $20 / £10

Death and Critical Illness cover - N/A

Private Healthcare - N/A

Monthly total outgoings - $3,700 / £1,900

Annual household income - $150,000 ($115,000 + $35,000) / £77,000

On the face of it we seem to be paying quite bit less for most things. I was surprised by how much you are paying over there to be honest, although I guess between Edinburgh and Glasgow is quite an expensive location. Clearly the cost of living has gone up massively in the last few years. Our mortgage is the killer though as that will sky-rocket a year from now, unless there's a significant drop in interest rates (which seems unlikely). Hopefully we'll be able to flog the place off and downsize, so can be mortgage-free in retirement.

[Cheery Thistle]

I just wanted to give people a realistic idea of how much things cost here now. Our council tax is quite heavy, food and drink has got really ££. You will always get someone coming on saying ‘I feed my family of 5 for £50 a week’ but honestly I don’t know what they are eating!! We try to have protein at every meal so I think the meat and fish gets expensive. I cook from scratch all the time - dinners would be things like cod wrapped in Parma ham with cherry tomatoes, roast chicken, warm chicken salad, salmon with potatoes and veg. I make soups and salads for lunch. So we eat well. We do also like a bottle of wine and a couple of beers at the weekend, but don’t overdo that any more - too old now!
Fuel is £1.50 a litre, car tax is £180 a year for the diesel car, insurance is £70 a month. I mean, I suppose we have a ‘nice’ car, but honestly I need something that’s at least reliable - can’t go back to the days of car start roulette lol. Especially with public transport not being great. 
I’m not sure how expensive our area is really. Edinburgh has got really dear - £13 for a glass of wine last time I was out. Specifically where we are isn’t too bad but there aren’t many places to go out any more - most places have shut! Grocery prices are the same nationwide. 
Our mortgage rate is low, around 2%, and amount is relatively low too but we are opting to pay it off over a shorter term. I reckon a mortgage in Aus for us would be in region of $3500. 

[LettCat]

On 08/08/2023 at 02:07, Cheery Thistle said:

Well overall apparently there’s not much in it. Uk taxpayers pay higher NI (for health and welfare state) than the Aussie Medicare levy which balances it out. I’m interested to know what those not working in Aus receive. In UK you can be under 25 and receive £1400 per month in benefits. Not to mention free accommodation and paid council tax. How many of us need to work and pay tax to subsidise that??
This is quite good https://www.uktaxcalculators.co.uk/world/tax/compare/united-kingdom/against/australia/

also this https://odinland.vn/australia-vs-united-kingdom-cost-of-living-who-has-it-better/?lang=en

I mean there are lies, damned lies and statistics but we can’t deny that average salaries are higher in Aus, as is GDP. Unskilled work is better paid for sure and the margins are narrowing between the costs of living. I’m happy to post our monthly outgoings if you are? For comparison sake!  

I wouldn't say that the differences are very big. Yes, they are, but not very big. If you compare Australia and Vietnam (or something like that), the differences are more significant.

[LettCat]

On 12/08/2023 at 11:54, Cheery Thistle said:

I just wanted to give people a realistic idea of how much things cost here now. Our council tax is quite heavy, food and drink has got really ££. You will always get someone coming on saying ‘I feed my family of 5 for £50 a week’ but honestly I don’t know what they are eating!! We try to have protein at every meal so I think the meat and fish gets expensive. I cook from scratch all the time - dinners would be things like cod wrapped in Parma ham with cherry tomatoes, roast chicken, warm chicken salad, salmon with potatoes and veg. I make soups and salads for lunch. So we eat well. We do also like a bottle of wine and a couple of beers at the weekend, but don’t overdo that any more - too old now!
Fuel is £1.50 a litre, car tax is £180 a year for the diesel car, insurance is £70 a month. I mean, I suppose we have a ‘nice’ car, but honestly I need something that’s at least reliable - can’t go back to the days of car start roulette lol. Especially with public transport not being great. 
I’m not sure how expensive our area is really. Edinburgh has got really dear - £13 for a glass of wine last time I was out. Specifically where we are isn’t too bad but there aren’t many places to go out any more - most places have shut! Grocery prices are the same nationwide. 
Our mortgage rate is low, around 2%, and amount is relatively low too but we are opting to pay it off over a shorter term. I reckon a mortgage in Aus for us would be in region of $3500.  

At £50 a month? That seems ridiculous. They're probably eating some sort of convenience food that's unhealthy.

Cod and salmon are expensive. I like fish too, but only once a week, on Sundays. But ask me not to eat meat even for money and I will refuse. And it doesn't come out very cheap, but I don't care how much it costs because I can't do my exercise without meat.

[Cheery Thistle]

1 hour ago, LettCat said:

At £50 a month? That seems ridiculous. They're probably eating some sort of convenience food that's unhealthy.

Cod and salmon are expensive. I like fish too, but only once a week, on Sundays. But ask me not to eat meat even for money and I will refuse. And it doesn't come out very cheap, but I don't care how much it costs because I can't do my exercise without meat.

I’m not denying that I eat well - I am trying to get 130g protein a day. I haven’t changed how I eat much but my food bill has gone from approx £75 per week to at least £130 per week in the past few years. 

[InnerVoice]

On 12/08/2023 at 18:54, Cheery Thistle said:

I’m not sure how expensive our area is really. Edinburgh has got really dear - £13 for a glass of wine last time I was out.

If you like wine, you'll love it here - you can buy a lovely bottle for between $10 - $15.

Beer and spirits on the other hand are bloomin' expensive.

[BendigoBoy]

2 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

If you like wine, you'll love it here - you can buy a lovely bottle for between $10 - $15.

Beer and spirits on the other hand are bloomin' expensive.

And let's not forget how dashed lovely it is to just go lounging around for a weekend lunch at the vineyards, either.

It's funny how quickly you adjust and get used to having world class vineyards a short drive (or... for some of us who are putting on far too much weight, a short walk) from your home.

[InnerVoice]

1 hour ago, BendigoBoy said:

And let's not forget how dashed lovely it is to just go lounging around for a weekend lunch at the vineyards, either.

It's funny how quickly you adjust and get used to having world class vineyards a short drive (or... for some of us who are putting on far too much weight, a short walk) from your home.

I have friends who lived on the Mornington Peninsula, so every time I went to visit we'd do a different winery. Not much chance of that up here in Cairns, but we've had a couple of micro-breweries open in the last couple of years, so we have a few more options.

[BendigoBoy]

4 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

I have friends who lived on the Mornington Peninsula, so every time I went to visit we'd do a different winery. Not much chance of that up here in Cairns, but we've had a couple of micro-breweries open in the last couple of years, so we have a few more options.

It's not just that it's a different winery on the peninsular, either; the earth can be *SO* different from one side of the road to the other between wineries that a pinot on one side of the road can have utterly and entirely different properties to the other.  It is a lovely, lovely little area to go awandering.  Especially with that Steinway to play in the Port Philip Estate dining room when you've had one too many over lunch and feel like pummelling out a bit of Les Misérables...

I am a bit jealous of you guys all the way up there, though; the wife can't handle the humidity, but I'd love the true perennial growing for a lot of my foodstuffs.

Edited August 15, 2023 by BendigoBoy

[InnerVoice]

7 minutes ago, BendigoBoy said:

I am a bit jealous of you guys all the way up there, though; the wife can't handle the humidity, but I'd love the true perennial growing for a lot of my foodstuffs.

We can grow all sorts but unfortunately a lot of it gets eaten by the local inhabitants. We manage to grow a few papayas and bananas, as they're a fair distance of the ground are are more resilient to being munched. We've become very adept at foraging over the years, and know where stuff is growing in public places - mangoes, coconuts, tamarind, jackfruit etc. My wife is highly adept at scaling various trees, usually by standing on me first to gain a 2 metre advantage!

[rammygirl]

15 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

We can grow all sorts but unfortunately a lot of it gets eaten by the local inhabitants. We manage to grow a few papayas and bananas, as they're a fair distance of the ground are are more resilient to being munched. We've become very adept at foraging over the years, and know where stuff is growing in public places - mangoes, coconuts, tamarind, jackfruit etc. My wife is highly adept at scaling various trees, usually by standing on me first to gain a 2 metre advantage!

We forage too but in the Adelaide Hills it is for quince and wild plums!  We also check out the share stalls or boxes at the bottom of people’s drives where they put extra produce for people to take.

recently we have had rhubarb, Jerusalem artichokes, and lots of citrus (our trees are yet to produce any excess,).

 

[Toots]

1 hour ago, rammygirl said:

We forage too but in the Adelaide Hills it is for quince and wild plums!  We also check out the share stalls or boxes at the bottom of people’s drives where they put extra produce for people to take.

recently we have had rhubarb, Jerusalem artichokes, and lots of citrus (our trees are yet to produce any excess,).

 

There is a pear tree (huge) on one of my walks which produces very nice fruit towards the end of summer, also wild blackberries and hazel nuts at the same time.

I just swapped a bucket of lemons for a bunch of rhubarb with a neighbour.

[Daffyduck]

On 12/08/2023 at 18:24, Cheery Thistle said:

I just wanted to give people a realistic idea of how much things cost here now. Our council tax is quite heavy, food and drink has got really ££. You will always get someone coming on saying ‘I feed my family of 5 for £50 a week’ but honestly I don’t know what they are eating!! We try to have protein at every meal so I think the meat and fish gets expensive. I cook from scratch all the time - dinners would be things like cod wrapped in Parma ham with cherry tomatoes, roast chicken, warm chicken salad, salmon with potatoes and veg. I make soups and salads for lunch. So we eat well. We do also like a bottle of wine and a couple of beers at the weekend, but don’t overdo that any more - too old now!
Fuel is £1.50 a litre, car tax is £180 a year for the diesel car, insurance is £70 a month. I mean, I suppose we have a ‘nice’ car, but honestly I need something that’s at least reliable - can’t go back to the days of car start roulette lol. Especially with public transport not being great. 
I’m not sure how expensive our area is really. Edinburgh has got really dear - £13 for a glass of wine last time I was out. Specifically where we are isn’t too bad but there aren’t many places to go out any more - most places have shut! Grocery prices are the same nationwide. 
Our mortgage rate is low, around 2%, and amount is relatively low too but we are opting to pay it off over a shorter term. I reckon a mortgage in Aus for us would be in region of $3500. 

Glasgow, was the same before we left. Price of things was just getting insane, that and the taxes kept creeping up. Couldn't believe it when I paid nearly 7 quid for a pint in town....

We've been here a while now and I genuinely don't think it's that much more expensive, some things are but other things are actually cheaper here. What amazes me is how clean and tidy everything is here, I know Glasgow ain't Edinburgh but Glasgow was looking like an absolute midden when we left, here is utterly spotless and tidy by comparison.

[Cheery Thistle]

11 hours ago, Daffyduck said:

Glasgow, was the same before we left. Price of things was just getting insane, that and the taxes kept creeping up. Couldn't believe it when I paid nearly 7 quid for a pint in town....

We've been here a while now and I genuinely don't think it's that much more expensive, some things are but other things are actually cheaper here. What amazes me is how clean and tidy everything is here, I know Glasgow ain't Edinburgh but Glasgow was looking like an absolute midden when we left, here is utterly spotless and tidy by comparison.

Thank God someone who finally agrees with me lol. Glasgow is so grim these days and it actually makes my heart sad. My first grad job was based there and in the drinks industry in the early 2000’s when Glasgow was quite a trendy place to be with great shopping and nightlife. I saw the inside and behind the scenes of most of the cool bars and clubs, attended many launch parties etc, was great fun! My boss hired the party fire engine for our Christmas do one year and I was fireman lifted in and out of every pub hahaha! Would be frowned upon now I’m sure. 
Now it’s a case of dodge the zombie on the way to work. And yes, it’s filthy, as are many of the trains in and out (despite that fact that it costs me over £20 for a return journey of 45 minutes). How and when will this ever change I’m not sure. 
Edinburgh is more my home town as it’s where all my family are from and most of them live. It is better and when I can work from the office there I do that. Even Edinburgh is not what it was pre-Covid though. 
As for tax, I believe we are now paying the second highest level recorded since WWIIhttps://www.economist.com/britain/2023/04/11/britains-tax-take-is-getting-bigger-but-not-better

Scunnered lol. 

 

[InnerVoice]

On 05/09/2023 at 09:05, Daffyduck said:

What amazes me is how clean and tidy everything is here, I know Glasgow ain't Edinburgh but Glasgow was looking like an absolute midden when we left, here is utterly spotless and tidy by comparison.

I remember clearly the day I collected my girlfriend (now wife) from the airport on her first visit to Australia, and her exclaiming how clean everywhere was. She said "Australians must be very good a cleaning!" and I said "No, not really - there just aren't that many people here to s**t everything up."

[Marisawright]

17 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

I remember clearly the day I collected my girlfriend (now wife) from the airport on her first visit to Australia, and her exclaiming how clean everywhere was. She said "Australians must be very good a cleaning!" and I said "No, not really - there just aren't that many people here to s**t everything up."

....which probably explains why Melbourne, by comparison, is so covered in graffitti

[InnerVoice]

1 minute ago, Marisawright said:

....which probably explains why Melbourne, by comparison, is so covered in graffitti

It's a long time since I've been to your neck of the woods and I'm sorry to hear that's the case. There are some graffiti collages here in a few public places, which I assume were commissioned by the council and haven't been vandalized yet - fingers crossed!

[InnerVoice]

On 05/09/2023 at 09:05, Daffyduck said:

We've been here a while now and I genuinely don't think it's that much more expensive, some things are but other things are actually cheaper here.

Whether you find the cost of living cheap or expensive will depend greatly on your income and lifestyle. We all have different salaries and spending habits so while one person may find a place cheap, another will find it expensive. What I've noted from this thread is that if I ignored my housing costs, my monthly outgoings in both countries would be roughly about the same. My energy bill is zero, my grocery bill is twice as much as it would be in the UK, and other costs are pretty similar so it balances out overall.

Unfortunately, I can't ignore my housing costs. My mortgage is currently 45% of our total outgoings, and by this time next year it will have increased to 55% as our fixed rate will have ended. That's unsustainable in the long term given that I'll need to keep working until I'm 83 to pay it off. If I was back in the UK my mortgage would be zero because I have enough equity in my Australian home to buy a similar home in (regional) UK outright.

Forget climate change and AI, affordable housing is the challenge of our time - not just in Australia, but in all developed nations where population growth is exceeding the rate at which new homes can be built.

[Daffyduck]

On 05/09/2023 at 20:11, Cheery Thistle said:

Thank God someone who finally agrees with me lol. Glasgow is so grim these days and it actually makes my heart sad. My first grad job was based there and in the drinks industry in the early 2000’s when Glasgow was quite a trendy place to be with great shopping and nightlife. I saw the inside and behind the scenes of most of the cool bars and clubs, attended many launch parties etc, was great fun! My boss hired the party fire engine for our Christmas do one year and I was fireman lifted in and out of every pub hahaha! Would be frowned upon now I’m sure. 
Now it’s a case of dodge the zombie on the way to work. And yes, it’s filthy, as are many of the trains in and out (despite that fact that it costs me over £20 for a return journey of 45 minutes). How and when will this ever change I’m not sure. 
Edinburgh is more my home town as it’s where all my family are from and most of them live. It is better and when I can work from the office there I do that. Even Edinburgh is not what it was pre-Covid though. 
As for tax, I believe we are now paying the second highest level recorded since WWIIhttps://www.economist.com/britain/2023/04/11/britains-tax-take-is-getting-bigger-but-not-better

Scunnered lol. 

 

 

Same, I'm old enough to remember Glasgow in the 90's before they cleaned it up and made it somewhere you actually wanted to spend time, sad to see it sliding rapidly backwards. Used to spend many a night out in town in the 2000's, lot's of good memories of the Garage, Cat House, Shack etc. (even went into Bonkers one time!), nothing but empty units, junkies and homeless now. Almost couldn't believe how busy Rundle Mall was when we got here, reminded me of Buchanan street back in it's good days.

The tax thing is great, I always get a laugh when my Aussie colleagues complain about tax rates here. Try 42% tax plus NII and your pension coming out of salary rather than being on top!

[Parley]

10 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

Whether you find the cost of living cheap or expensive will depend greatly on your income and lifestyle. We all have different salaries and spending habits so while one person may find a place cheap, another will find it expensive. What I've noted from this thread is that if I ignored my housing costs, my monthly outgoings in both countries would be roughly about the same. My energy bill is zero, my grocery bill is twice as much as it would be in the UK, and other costs are pretty similar so it balances out overall.

Unfortunately, I can't ignore my housing costs. My mortgage is currently 45% of our total outgoings, and by this time next year it will have increased to 55% as our fixed rate will have ended. That's unsustainable in the long term given that I'll need to keep working until I'm 83 to pay it off. If I was back in the UK my mortgage would be zero because I have enough equity in my Australian home to buy a similar home in (regional) UK outright.

Forget climate change and AI, affordable housing is the challenge of our time - not just in Australia, but in all developed nations where population growth is exceeding the rate at which new homes can be built.

Are houses expensive in Cairns. I thought they would be cheap?

At least a lot cheaper than the capital cities.