To think we would be silly to turn this move to Australia down?

[wanderingwillow]

Long time lurker, first time poster; i hope it's alright to post here and get some opinions.

DH is a licensed aircraft engineer, I am unlicensed. DH has been contracting for a while, and has been approached a couple of times for work abroad. Most of the time, he's said he wasn't interested and wanted to stay in the UK. The other week, he got a call and was just generally pissed off with life, so he listed to what the job was offering.

It turned out to be rather interesting. The position is in Melbourne for AUD$125,000 a year. They are also recruiting unlicensed positions in the same city for AUD$55,000, which I've had the odd email about, but again never really taken seriously.

I think we could make a go of this. We have a 4yo DS, and I lived in Melbourne (Coburg) for 2.5 years between 1998 and 2001 when I was younger. I loved it, and always wanted to go back.

I think we'd regret not at least trying; we're 25 and 27, no debt, reasonable savings (saving for a deposit) but no mortgage. We've nothing to lose, surely?

Am I being reckless? I've read all the forums I can on the subject, which bemoan the expense of general living, but I can't get a good marker on whether our wage would cause us problems. Every opinion forum I've seen has championed the state education (I remember it being good from personal experience), the lifestyle and the weather.

AIBU and living in a dream land? I think DH thinks I am, but I really think we could do this.

Sorry, meant to say your income looks like its up to £160k, it will be less depending on your earnings split with your partner but probably not less than £120k.

A major factor is the income tax and cost of services such as health and education in Oz as it is your disposable income you need to be reviewing, not your pre-tax earnings and not excluding things like the NHS and education which are not chargeable here.

bear yes, I made an error when I said 5-6x our salary; some of my posts were late last night, so easy to get a but of finger trouble.

Also; our work is short term contract based. It is HARD to find permanent, well paid positions in our sector. So we contract - hop, which can be stressful. The money is good because we are a ltd company; so we are self employed. So we might earn a lot, but it is nigh on impossible to get a mortgage.

So I would happily take a pay 'drop' to move to another country with permanent work, good benefits etc. Also; I'm doing my licences long distance; so once I get my foot in the door, I'd hope to be able to climb within the company.

Does this clear it up a little bit?

You could work on your DH's 457 visa. I don't think you can buy a house though, so you'll have to rent for 2 years minimum until you apply for permanent residency.

Your cost breakdown is pretty good, just a couple of comments:

We ended up buying a car new - second hand cars hold their value much better than in the UK. We could have bought a three year old Mazda 6 for $28k or a brand new Mazda 6 for $32k on finance. We originally budgeted $15k for a car, and ended up spending $14k as a deposit for a new car instead. Cars come with compulsory 3rd party included as part of the rego, which is about $650 a year.

You don't need healthcare coverage as you'll be covered under the reciprocal agreement with Medicare. You will need ambulance cover if you're not in Queensland though.

A brand new unlocked Samsung galaxy s3 costs $400, and you can get a decent mobile package for less than $30 a month.

Maybe I missed the bit where you said you wanted private schooling, but state education in Australia is really very good, and you will only have to pay fees in NSW or ACT. I certainly wouldn't bother with private for prep to year 3 or 4.

It's definitely good to have a contingency though, and the more money you have the smoother it will be. Feel free to pm me if you need any more info.

thy no I believe on a 457 visa I may have to pay to access state schools for my DS, but if I get permanent residency it's free. I've asked the people at Victoria state education for clarification though. Also, if Melbourne fell through and we ended up being elsewhere; I want to be prepared for state school fees on a 457 visa.

With your car; did you end up having trouble getting credit for finance? We have finance in the UK because we are a Ltd company, so are used to it here. Thanks for the heads up though, I'll keep that in mind.

That does clear things up a bit.

I don't know where you can get advice on this but you really need to look into the likelihood of getting a mortgage out there etc.

At 25 and 27 you are both pretty young to have had a military career, studied in a specialised industry and have a 4 year old son. I really don't mean that to sound patronising, it's only to point out that you can't have done any of it for very long and it might put lenders off.

Also, have you ever had a mortgage before? A perfect credit history is less perfect if it doesn't actually contain a lot.

On the face of it, it seems you will reduce your lifestyle to the extent you won't be able to save very much anymore and it depends how important that is to you.

Good luck with whatever you chose to do though.

Not at all. We both joined as AET's in the RN at age 17. DS was born when I was 21 (we married at 20). We both got picked up and promoted to LAET, completed the course when is similar to the civvy qualification you need to get. So when DH left after serving 8 years, the RN (through extended learning credits) had completed a large chunk of the civvy qualification. So is a licenced engineer, and has been for a year (you have to complete a year in civvy street and then type rate before you fully qualify, and you can use 4 years of military experience as evidence for the CAA).

I am not a licences engineer, but am considering. We both completed 7 and 8 years in the RN respectively, DH has been outside for 2 years now, I've been outside less than a year because we wanted to stagger leaving.

We have worked extremely hard, from nothing, to be here today.

Blimey, ignore what I said- you've definitely used your late teens and early 20's far better than many of us did!

Obviously I know that 7/8 years in the military isn't as good as a 10-15 year career, but we've stayed in the same industry. We've both been in the RN, then worked for ourselves. Not a massive amount of chopping and changing I don't think.

You will start your credit history from scratch if you move here anyway. Although when we were looking for a rental a few weeks they were far more keen to sort us a mortgage once they realised we had PR, but for us we only need six months evidence of savings in Oz to apply. Car loans seem to be easy enough to get once you have been working a few months. We just bought an old car for cash, they last for ever over here, and some of the richest people we have met seem to be in the oldest cars.

In terms of your budget it looks pretty sensible in terms of your start up costs although I have a few comments:

1. What about when you first arrive before you get paid and get a rental (can take a bit of time) - you will need a reasonable amount to pay for a serviced appartment/hotel unless the company are paying for that.
2. I assume the company are paying shipping and flight costs as you haven't included those.
3. 10K is not very much at all to furnish a whole flat should you need to. We spent nearly that just topping up our furniture - we brought a full 40ft container's worth but had to buy a fridge, a couple of sofas, a bbq, some outdoor furniture and various other bits and pieces - also do you need to budget for your kitchen stuff, linen and electrical equipment or are you shipping that?

Also, you are budgeting on an exchange rate of 1.6 - it has been under 1.5 until the last few weeks and is only about 1.55 now I think - based on the amount you need to exchange you need to be a bit more conservative I think.