Wanted Down Under

[jollyjester]

I'm stuck on the sofa under a sick child so binge watching Wanted Down Under.

Current couple have a budget of £950k for a house. His salary was going to stay about the same as was hers.

How do they know how much they can spend on a house when they don't have jobs in Australia, still have a house in the UK etc.

Am I just naive as to how much people have in savings etc?

The last couple had a budget of £350k and uk salaries of £30k ish each and their own house was valued at £50k less than they thought.

[nancy75]

at the bbq, Dp cooks on our Barbie all year round - he just wears his coat in the winter ( I think his need to bbq is a genetic thing )

[Samcro]

Thanks to this thread I watched today.
Lovely family. But odd that they didn't seem to care about the other son they were leaving behind h.

[TillyMint81]

I love it! Dh would have emigrated before we had kids. The only one that sticks in my head was one where the young couple had a young son who she wore in a sling on her back whilst ironing. Out of the ones I've seen that ones been on several times. I sort of knew her through a sling forum pre fb. I think they did go in the end. Would love to know how they were getting on.

[KateGrey]

I love this show but do think some of them are unrealistic and it’s interesting to know that almost half of people who go come back. Sadly we’d never be consider as two of our children have autism so we’d unlikely be accepted in.

[ChesterGreySideboard]

Just catching up on today’s.
They son they are leaving behind hardly gets a mention.
The house on the side of a hill seemed to be all stairs and nothing else.

[Proseccoagain]

Lived in Darwin for a couple of years; didn't mind the spiders, it was the cockroaches....And never saw a snake outside of the wildlife park or snake farm thank goodness. Beautiful beaches up there but could never go in the water because of venomous jellyfish and crocodiles.

[jollyjester]

Anyone fancy applying for next year? Here is the link!

[BooksAreMyOnlyFriends]

I love WDU. It brightens up the crappy winter mornings.

The ones I remember are the young couple with the guy who had a bad motorbike accident. They were absolutely lovely, there were lots of tears. They made the move, I believe they moved into one of the houses they viewed but I may have got mixed up there.

Also the family with the woman who told her unsure husband that she would leave him and take the kids if he didn't emigrate with them. The poor guy looked gutted. I think they actually did split .

I love the update shows. Its always nice to see an update even if they stayed in the UK. Quite often a change of job or home is all they really needed.

[FancyForgetting]

Ooh - a new series of WDU Revisited starts tomorrow!

Two of my favourites are the woman who really wanted to ‘improve’ her family’s life (whether they wanted it or not!), including a student daughter who simply didn’t want to go, but the mother insisted she wouldn’t leave behind. It was a non-starter really, they stayed in the UK and she was very happy writing romance novels which she self-published on Amazon 😃 I think she just wanted to do something different with her life - and who can blame her?

And another where the guy had an aunt who was vehemently opposed to them going, he was in absolute bits over it, weeping and wailing, but they did move to Australia. The aunt stoped speaking to them and on the revisit programme it was all ‘oh well, never mind’ - so strange!

And we need bingo cards for watching!

[KateGrey]

I love the revisited. I’ve loads left to watch that I’ve recorded.

[dontevenblink]

I find it strange that they don't have a section telling them how much it is actually going to cost them to move, rather than just the costs when they get here. It's quite a long time since we emigrated but, for NZ, you first have to go into an expression of interest pool which you pay to go into, then wait to see if you are selected to apply for a visa. If selected, the skilled resident visas are about £900 per person plus compulsory medical and x-ray which are done privately so cost around £400-600 per person.

Then shipping all your belongings - our 20ft container cost around £5000. They also take about 3 months to get to NZ so you have to live out of suitcases for that time or buy things this end. Then you have to have temporary accommodation for about a month to allow you to find somewhere to live, so can soon get expensive.

We were lucky and had everything paid by DH's company as he is very specialised and was coming out to help with the rebuild after the Christchurch earthquake. I think that's pretty unusual though as immigrants not expats.

I have been watching these on YouTube and finding them quite funny from how unrealistic a lot of it is!

[mumsastudent]

its not just spiders - outside bbq in the evenings is a signal for the fighter bombers -aka mosquitoes - to centre in on you & boy do they have fangs! & the other insect wildlife is certainly interesting - (which is why anybody who has lived in Australia is useful for getting rid of insects/spiders in the house as previously said. Re hate & crime Australia sadly is not free of it - one of their political parties (I think Pauline Hanson is a case in point) is horrendous & in some cities the drug culture is bad/sad - like here its where you live & who you mix with & what you know of. Its a lovely country but I think its very much grass is greener - UK is still beautiful

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

Haven't watched it for ages but I often used to think there were often vague problems in the marriage, which they imagined would magically disappear if only they had a pool in the garden and barbies 4 times a week.

I dare say people often get a shock at the cost of housing now. I gather food is often more expensive than in the U.K. too - I know we had a bit of a shock on a visit a few years ago.

A relative has recently gone for a year long placement. Very nice having the beach a short drive away - except that it's baking hot and they can't go in the sea at all because it's full of 'stingers'.

[PregnantSea]

I agree. You can't know anything for sure.

My husband and I emigrated a few years ago and the costs weren't really possible to properly estimate. We just saved as much as we could. There's loads of stuff that you don't even think about because you don't really know how another country works until you start living there.

[Handsoffmysweets]

Although it does make me laugh, I do think it’s an incredibly selfish thing to do. I also wonder what some people are running from. Moving so that you can have more BBQs? Ridiculous! And don’t get me started on the selfish fuckers that leave children from other marriages/relationships behind even though the children are absolutely heartbroken. Talk about cruel.

[Handsoffmysweets]

getting I definitely agree it’s obvious in some that there are marriage problems.

[nancy75]

I might apply for next year - we could have a free holiday to see the in laws!
We could do a big he wants to go home/she doesn't want to go story & I could practice my sad face for the cameras

[evaperonspoodle]

The family that went to the animal farm/petting zoo last week were delusional; even the child said 'we'd never be able to do this back in England, we don't have any time!' Yes, that's because when you're on your holidays you aren't working.

I remember on one of these threads a poster who moved to Aus said that family/friends were really shocked that she wore a business suit to work, they thought she'd permanently be in shorts and flip flops because of the 'laid back lifestyle'

[Degustibusnonestdisputandem1]

Spouse visa cost is ridiculously high for Oz too, just over 7000AUD for DH 🤬

[KioreWahine]

I just watched the Goodwin Barker episode and I don't think the figure really added up the way the show suggested. They'd both be on about 60k NZ which works out about 52k each after tax - so 2k per week. But rent would likely be 700 a week and full time childcare for two kids would be about the same. Food would be at least 250 a week.

I wonder if they moved.

And two of the houses they showed them were 'leaky homes' - built when the building code in NZ was rubbish and which are likely to need substantial work to stop the frames from rotting - in the region of NZ200k. I hope the family were not misled.