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High cost of living


brightonbee

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The high cost of living in the Antipodes is denting its popularity as an expat and student gap year destination.

Lloyds TSB’s latest expat survey reveals that whilst the Antipodes are still highly rated for quality of life, with 77% in Australia and 79% in New Zealand feeling their living standards are better, these two countries are not as highly ranked for happiness, with 64.7% of expats in Australia and only 50% in New Zealand saying they were happier than in the UK.

Such a shift in satisfaction suggests that other factors exert an influence on expats’ general happiness. In particular, the survey shows up that both countries rate poorly when judged by cost of living, with only 35% of those in Australia and 29% in New Zealand saying their living costs are lower than in the UK.
 
Financial well-being is an important consideration for expats and expats’ offspring many of whom choose the Antipodes as their location of choice for gap year adventure and exploration.

Given the rapidly rising costs experienced by expats in these locations, we asked the currency experts at HiFX to respond to a query we’ve received about the best and cheapest way a gap year student daughter could have access to cash whilst she was travelling across South East Asia and onto Australia.

Mark Bodega provides this prompt reply:

I’d suggest that they give their daughter a pre-paid card along with a small amount of cash for emergencies. Prepaid cards do exactly what they say on the tin; you load cash onto one, and then it can be used in shops, restaurants and cash machines ust like a debit or credit card. While not quite as cheap as the specialist credit or debit cards, the vast majority are accepted across either the Visa or Mastercard/Maestro network both in the UK and abroad.

Their big advantage over cash is if you lose your card, for a fee of around £10 most providers will replace it, with all the funds in tact. Lose a wallet of Dollar bills in Times Square and it's gone for good. Prepaid cards have a variety of different charges, but the two top cards keep these to a minimum.

The top ones are the FairFX card, available in sterling, US dollar and euro, and the CaxtonFX card denominated in either US dollar or euros. As she’s going to Cambodia and then on to Oz, I’d suggest they also look at the Moneycorp multicurrency card which will enable her to access US Dollars and Aussie Dollars.

More currency advice is available from HIFX.com www.hifx.co.uk

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I've got a good friend in London whom I keep inviting to stay with me here but all he does is whinge about the FX rate. He is as rich as Croesus too. I suppose if you are really worried about the FX rate you can always wait a decade or so and see if it changes. Ten years ago the Poms had the advantage when it was nearly $3 to a quid. Now it's the Aussies who are crowing about cheap holidays in The Third World i.e. the UK and USA.

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