Guest Julia13 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 My daughter (16) and I desperatly want to go to live in the UK:sad:. I have been here 27 years , she was born here. I am a single parent struggling to get some money together. I was wondering what other people thought was the least amount of money needed to settle over there, we would be renting, and I would ship some bits back, no furniture, just boxes. any help greatly appreciated. Julia:cute: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest siamsusie Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 My daughter (16) and I desperatly want to go to live in the UK:sad:. I have been here 27 years , she was born here. I am a single parent struggling to get some money together. I was wondering what other people thought was the least amount of money needed to settle over there, we would be renting, and I would ship some bits back, no furniture, just boxes. any help greatly appreciated.Julia:cute: I would have thought Julia as a very wild guess minimum of $20.000 - $30,000 to start yourself up again, depending on where in the UK.. London most certainly whilst you were looking for jobs etc. seeing you have your daughter with you, flat sharing isnt really feasible. Luckily you dont have to pay for schooling, , books etc, healthcare is taken care of and you should be entitled to child benefit if your daughter is still in full time education. Housing would be my concern and if you were lucky to be allocated a council house, then housing benefits and council tax subsistence should be available to you along with other benefits. There are other members that are in the process of going home and they should be able to guide you accordingly but if it was me I would want the above figure as a buffer zone until I found full time employment and housing. Luckily the exchange rate is in your favour right now... I would research as much as possible before you depart and hopefully you will have some emotional support at the other end. Best wishes Susie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest adey Posted February 15, 2010 Share Posted February 15, 2010 we came home in July and we had to pay 6 months rent in advance as we had no jobs or proof of earnings for the UK. It took me 3 months to secure a temporary job and my OH has just managed to secure himself a job as well. The waiting list for a council property may be quite long depending where you are headed and you will have to complete application forms for any financial assistance so make sure you bring or have access to your latest bank statements. It took us 6 weeks to get job seekers allowance and 3 months to get some help with our rent so bring as much as you possibly can as it can eat away at your money quickly when you first arrive. To be honest we find the cost of living much cheaper here and even though we've lived on a much lower income than we did in Oz our money seems to have stretched a lot further. Good luck with your move back our first few months were stressful as we had to find somewhere to live and find jobs but 6 months in we are loving it and glad we made the hard decision to come home. To be honest I'd check the jobseekers website to see what you are entitled to we were only entitled to 5 months as we'd been out of the country for over 2 years and they based our jsa on income which meant we weren't allowed to have more than £6000 in savings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest miajordan Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 in the uk once you work between 16 to 30 hours you will be getting working tax plus child benfit, if your child wishes to stay ons chool she / he can do six form or college being a single mother you will be entiltled to this whilst your child is in education up untill 20 as my son is 19 and i still get this plus council tax and rent you will get a reduction .. but you have to work now once yoru child is 11 years old ... children born around 1999 will stay on school till they are 18 this is a new chnage in education ... the colleges are very helpful and in abudnace .. this year 2010 universitys are over flowing meaning last years students that did not get a place will take this years places .. if you go to the council you can ask for emergency accomadation which means you will be in a hostal for up to a years before you get allocatted housing i guess in london this would be much longer im in the midlands .. i waited a year ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest treesea Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 we came home in July and we had to pay 6 months rent in advance as we had no jobs or proof of earnings for the UK. It took me 3 months to secure a temporary job and my OH has just managed to secure himself a job as well. The waiting list for a council property may be quite long depending where you are headed and you will have to complete application forms for any financial assistance so make sure you bring or have access to your latest bank statements. It took us 6 weeks to get job seekers allowance and 3 months to get some help with our rent so bring as much as you possibly can as it can eat away at your money quickly when you first arrive. To be honest we find the cost of living much cheaper here and even though we've lived on a much lower income than we did in Oz our money seems to have stretched a lot further. Good luck with your move back our first few months were stressful as we had to find somewhere to live and find jobs but 6 months in we are loving it and glad we made the hard decision to come home. To be honest I'd check the jobseekers website to see what you are entitled to we were only entitled to 5 months as we'd been out of the country for over 2 years and they based our jsa on income which meant we weren't allowed to have more than £6000 in savings. This pretty much parallels our experience. We paid six months rent in advance. Council housing isn't really viable, imho. Long waiting lists, and in practice the homeless, e.g. evicted because they can't pay/won't pay their rent, even though they get a full housing benefit to cover it, get first priority. In other words, access is about playing the system. If you are fortunate enough to come back with enough funds to buy a house outright, I would make that a priority, because you don't get any help, or even qualify for social housing, until your funds get below £16K (two children) or around £6K (no children). Also, a lot of cities, e.g. Leeds and Glasgow, have NASS (National Asylum Support Service) contracts with the government, where the government takes back the surplus housing stock and allocates it to asylum seekers and refugees. These units never get released again in practice, because once the initial occupants have finished with them, they sublet them to other people from their communities. Not meant to happen? Sure, but councils are pretty stretched for staff these days, so a lot of things that "aren't meant to happen" do, because no one checks. In Glasgow, NASS took enough council housing to house 10,000 people out of the system overnight. Getting a job might not be that easy. If you can line up something before you come back, that would be the way to go. It's not just the newly laid off you are competing with here. There's lots of school leavers forced into the work place because they couldn't get higher education places. Burger King up on Princes Street had 700 applicants for two trainee positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest miajordan Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 yes having family or good friends helps when you first arrive is a must .. i arrived six years ago from perth thinsg ahev changed apart from what ive stated above working tax ect schools .. jobs are harder to find ...you will need guts of steel when you return ..and everything you have said is so right ... its not going to be easy .. im returning to perth asp .. i came back as my son as learning difficulties .. australia had nothng to offer children with dyslexia ect .. six years on still doesn't .. well good luck to what ever and who ever decides to make the big move ... including myself i have my fingers crossed life is just a journey .. all the best mia xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LukeSkywalker Posted February 21, 2010 Share Posted February 21, 2010 My daughter (16) and I desperatly want to go to live in the UK:sad:. I have been here 27 years , she was born here. I am a single parent struggling to get some money together. I was wondering what other people thought was the least amount of money needed to settle over there, we would be renting, and I would ship some bits back, no furniture, just boxes. any help greatly appreciated.Julia:cute: What part of the UK? What job skills do you have? What education level has your daughter got? What does your daughter aspire to be? How much money CAN you bring? Do you have British passports (get your daughter one ASAP if not) Choose where you go wisely. rents can be high etc. and there are demands made on the deposit front as per the other posters. Go to where finding work will be easiest. If you are stuck PM me and I will do some work for you to see what I can find out in your area/job of choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Julia13 Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 Thank you to every one for their messages, sorry about the time in replying, but have been doing as many shifts at work as possible. I have been doing a lot of research and have come up with the same figure, unfortunatly know idea how I can raise that sort of money in the short term. My work experience is in childcare e.g. special needs assistant in a preschool, nanny, teachers aide and now as a support worker with clients with disibilities, so dont think employment will be a big problem. I am now trying to get a nanny position in the UK, so solving job and renting in one. My daughter nearly 17 is studying years 11/12 via distant ed so not to disrupt her schooling, she then wants to go on to uni studying Human rights Law. British passports beeing order in the next couple of weeks. I am originaly from Essex, but really like the Kidderminster area in Worcestershire, so handy for Birmingham for jobs, but at this stage dont care where we live over there. We have also decided to leave our stuff in storage over here for the time being, then ship it over when we can afford to. Ok gone on enough, once adain thanks to every one, good luck to all who are going back Julia xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woofyhugger Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 Hey Julia. You can make it work on any amount of funds. If you network, really try for any kind of work over there doing anything to get some cash, and check out all the services that are available to you, and be frugal for a while, you can make it on limited funds. You may even be eligible for a crisis loan. It's challenging. I have had several friends move over there on less that £2000 start up funds to cover them until they got work, and all of them made it work. Granted they didn't have kids or anything, but my point is.. if you want something bad enough, you will find ways of making it work, but it may involve going without in some areas, and struggling, but there are services to help people in times of trouble. Cheers Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest chris955 Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 Good luck with the move. I'm not sure you would need $20-30,000 to be honest, you don't want to be penniless of course but that's seems to be a lot just to get yourself on your feet. My preference in the UK is the South (southwest) where there seems to be more work and renting seems affordable. Of course if you could line up a nanny position before leaving then the amount you would need is reduced considerably. Matt got in first and I agree with what he says, if you want it badly enough you can do it on a small amount of money especially as food etc is cheap(er). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest moonsurfer Posted March 14, 2010 Share Posted March 14, 2010 Hi all, Thanks for these comments on money. I have just joined up today after lurking on this forum for almost a year. I've also been in Australia nearly 28 years and have always felt out of place with the culture and the way of life. Thinking it was my 'failure' to adapt and because of the financial security of my job I stayed much longer than I should have and I now regret what I see as wasted years. Now I am in a position to leave but don't know anything about the cost of living in the UK (last went in 2006 but only for a month). Good luck Julia and everyone! It is encouraging to see people giving it a go after so long here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest chris955 Posted March 14, 2010 Share Posted March 14, 2010 Yes I know the feeling :wink: As far as the cost of living you will find that most things are comparable or cheaper, the main exception being petrol but people seem to drive smaller more economical cars. Houses are affordable and things like rates, electricity etc seem to be about the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest moonsurfer Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 Thanks Chris, yes, that's the impression I've got from reading posts on here and another forum. It wasn't always like that - for a couple of decades I found it very cheap to live in Australia, even in Canberra which has (I think) one of the highest costs of living of any city here. But I've noticed in the last couple of years it has got very expensive - I am a single woman on a reasonable salary and don't have much left after bills, food, expenses etc. In Australia it seems everything is geared towards families and if you're not in that situation - bad luck, fit in or ship out. If I am going to go to work just to make ends meet, I'd rather it be somewhere where I love the landscape, culture, history, food, weather and variety! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest chris955 Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 When we returned to Australia after living in the UK life here was VERY cheap but in the last 3 or 4 years especially everything seems to have gone through the roof and the UK seems to have stood still cost wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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