AIBU to move to Australia for a happier life?

[traveldreamz]

DH and I have been talking about living abroad for years. When we had DS 3, we stopped talking about it and settled down to the daily grind of working, commuting and childcare. Both of us are fed up of it (although who isn't TBF!) and DS has started to get exhausted from being at nursery full time so weekdays have become one big long battle from the time we get up to the time we put DS to bed. We both find it very hard to tolerate the long dark UK winters and apart from our family who we rarely see due to work & childcare commitments we could keep in contact over Skype or email in the same way we do now.

We would both be classed as skilled workers under the visa application process so as long as we can both secure jobs similar to the ones we have now, the sums seem add up and it looks like we should be better off than we are now. The school's look comparable to the UK so DS education would be taken care of.

We love the more relaxed culture, the sun and the nature. The main problem is that our family would be very upset and quite possibly wouldn't talk to us for a long time and would probably never visit.

How do the kids feel about it btw?

Agree with froo.

Watch Wanted Down Under, it will give you lots of ideas about what you need to consider.

My brother and SIL went to live in Perth 20 years ago. They've both done very well there, have fantastic jobs and arw very well paid. However they say it has got so much more expensive there over the years, food and housing especially.
They also miss the uk very much. They visit every 2 years and even mentioned recently that they are thinking about retiring here in a few years.

mimishimmi the commuting vs. rental costs would be a deciding factor, although looking at the train commuting costs they appear to be cheaper than London. Thanks for the reality check though, we would need to investigate the balance the between childcare/rental (initially) very closely.

londonrach the sun really is tempting! Sorry to hear about your cousin. Thanks for the warning, we really would need to look into the areas to make sure we avoid the dangerous parts. I do wonder how many people who emigrate do get homesick.

Mrsstarlord thanks for the benefit of experience, it does sound like the work/life balance and levels of disposable income could be worse depending on the industry and city. It sounds like securing jobs with the right salary would really be the deciding factor.

We have been looking at the South East (Sydney / Melbourne) and West (Perth).

We emigrated to NZ for similar reasons having never been here before.

In the UK I had a 60-90 minute commute each way, dh worked long and unpredictable hours, we barely saw family or friends as one of us was always working weekends.

In NZ I have a 5 min commute (or 10 by bike), a better work life balance and we can live on my salary plus DH working very part time (school hours, from home) - so no childcare costs and the boys have a sahp.

Yes we still have to do the grocery shop, school run, day to day mundanities - but we get to do it with more sunshine, an amazing view (mountains and the sea) and have some of the best sandy beaches on our doorstep. Family and friends come out to visit, we've been back a couple of times since we came out and Skype / email / iMessage / Facebook all help.

It can work :)

Would you need to move so far for the same benefits?

We just moved from the commuter belt to Dorset and I am SO much happier (DH and I are both teachers and DS is 4). I love the beautiful rural countryside and access to the stunning Dorset coastline. Buying bread and milk in a little old village shop is so much nicer that in the soulless mega-Tesco we used to live by. There might not be longer days but there is better light and more space- just feels like there is more air somehow. It is also cheaper!

yes its expensive, but they have an amazing life,

The DH is in mining; he'll be earning shitloads, hence the "amazing life".

I'm Australian, though I've lived in the UK now nearly half my life aft emigrating here to get married. I love my family back in Oz and I wish I lived closer to them. And occasionally I miss the skies and the countryside.

But it is fiendishly expensive to live there now, and commutes are long (generally driving rather than public transport). You might not end up with any time to enjoy the "lifestyle".

My suggestion, if you're really thinking about this, is to consider emigrating first to a smaller town. There is still a visa preference for skilled workers willing to do this, and there are some really attractive, community oriented small towns where you wouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg on accommodation and commuting, so might actually be able to afford a life. I mostly know the towns in SE Qld and Northern NSW but others might be able to advise on nice places to live elsewhere that are not ridiculously expensive.

Also, TV and newspapers and radio are DIRE. Live entertainment from classical music to pub rock to theatre is world class in the cities but again bloody expensive.

Moving to a country is very different to visiting. You will still have the daily grind of working, commuting and childcare.

We came the other way - and I wouldn't go back. Don't underestimate the UK. It is an amazing place. OK the winternights are long, but the summer afternoons are amazing. It is crowded - but you can be anywhere in Europe in a few hours. It rains - but you wouldn't have the incredible gardens and the Lake District if it didn't.

I don't know if you can still do it, but my teacher friend did a job swap with an Australian teacher for a year.

The whole family went over; they swapped houses too. They loved it so much they did actually emigrate and have been there 12 years now.

The teaching system is different as far as I am aware though. Education authorities move teachers around to where they want them. Very different to UK.

Alligatorpie But if you've lived in six different countries without visiting first I imagine you've moved for work or your partner's work? I have a friend who's a banker and he and family have lived in Japan, America and Canada without visiting first as he was posted there. Quite different to OP.

Forget to add of my three cousins only one can buy as the houses prices are worse than London prices. Remember ive not been there just listened to my uncle, aunt and cousins. My uncle is now having to help two of my cousins with the cost of renting from his pension. When he visited us last he was telling u s how expensive food was. He also said the distances were huge between towns, inner of Australia is pretty much empty and everything at the coast and there are alot of social problems with some parts of Sydney a no go. Please be careful where you go. (Remember my uncles view as someone who lived there since 1950-60s). Uncle just moved out to the blue mountains. (He didnt want to stay in sydney as my aunt died). Others are right visit, remember holiday is different to daily grind (all my cousins work long hours) and research, research and more research. Good luck. Its a big decision!

Thanks for all your responses, sounds like we have a lot of research and thinking to do.

We have one 3 year old son (Think I used DS in the wrong way).

mimishimmi & Alligatorpie The living overseas and bobinoz references look really useful.

The next step sounds like a few weeks in oz after doing some more research and planning for a year or two. We have a mortgage over here and wouldn't want to sell our house until we were sure we wanted to move permanently. Luckily our home should be reasonably easy to rent out so if we downsize to begin with, we could use the money from that to help.

froomeonthebroom Wanted down under is one of our favourite programs (and a lot of time I wonder why they don't vote for australia!) - we'll have to re-watch

wheresthelight thanks for warning, I did check and luckily my qualification is valid in australia too so that would be one less thing to worry out

Mumm300 thanks for tips - especially the sleeping/childminder issue, DS does have a nap during the day but it doesn't appear to make much of a difference at the moment. Hopefully it is just a phase but in terms of moving, it is a long term dream so I think if we dismissed without trying we would really regret it.

Patterofaminion Of course you can !. Glad to hear your friends liked NZ! We were hoping to move 20 miles down the road (until we realised that it really would be the same old thing just 20 miles further out) but the family didn't like that either, so I suppose we might just have to hope that they come round to the idea.

MomDirection We will be doing more research but we have both travelled quite a bit before and loved quite a lot of the places that we have travelled to so I don't think it's that unrealistic that we could consider it. Thanks for the advice though.

sandgrown thanks for the warning - hope that doesn't happen to us!

We went for a year to see whether we could live there.

I LOVE Australia and know it very well.

I was 60/40 against, so we didn't emigrate. It's a beautiful place, but it's also very limited in lots of ways. I found it a frustrating and 'vacant' place to live. I missed my cultural references, humour, access to Europe, good newspapers, quality clothing and goods generally. I missed the seasons, the long summer evenings (it's dark by 8.20 in Sydney even in mid summer).

The houses were poorly built, the windows rattled. It was cold in Winter (3 degrees at night on occasion) with no central heating. There were huge cockroaches that fly IN THE HOUSE and that was quite normal. My clothes turned green in the wardrobe from damp in the winter.

There were lots of rules, and rules about rules. People at work had NO sense of humour.

See, I really do love Australia - and not being able to get there is a huge source of sadness because It's so far away and we have two children now. But I always knew that I was British at heart and would one day want to come 'home.' The risk of having my children out there, having them grow up Australian, was that one day I would want to return to the UK and I'd face leaving them behind. I wouldn't leave them so I'd be stuck.

Sure - they might emigrate themselves - nothing is certain - but for me, that was the absolute deal breaker.

I had relatives out there who regretted going to live there in the 1960s. At the point we lived there, they had a nice house, car, boat by the sea south of Perth. If they had sold up, they'd have had £100k to spend in the UK. They couldn't come home for financial reasons, and they regretted that always. The financial thing has probably turned around now, but I remember the sadness of being 'stuck' somewhere and I thought probably, if it was going to work, we should have gone in our twenties, not our late thirties.

I had never been here until the day I stepped off the plane as a resident! I have absolutely no regrets as I think that the opportunities offered here to us and our family outweigh the negatives - but I won't lie to you, it's really hard some times!

It is 'only' a 24 hour flight, but that 24 hours are a nightmare, squashed into tiny airline seats with bored, over tired children. I swore I was never making the trip again when I got off in Sydney.

You will miss the family support - we have relatives over here (cousins and an uncle) and it broke my heart when I saw them cuddling up to their grandparents and I realised that my children had lost that.

Social media makes it easier to keep in touch, but it also shows you what you are missing and that can be quite hard - Skype isn't a substitute for a gossip and a cuppa.

You will find yourself feeling tearful in the supermarket when you hunt in the international isle for the things you miss.

Australia is enormous!! If you're not living in a big city you might find that it's a long journey for decent shopping and if you are living in a big city then you will pay the price for it.

Life here is expensive, credit is pretty hard to get - you have to prove that you can afford it. We found it pretty hard to buy a car on finance before we'd been here for 6 months and ended up spending $13000 on a 10 year old shed (as cars are expensive here) as we had to pay cash. Wages are higher but so is the cost of general living.

Education is not free, even if you qualify as a resident and don't pay for schooling you are still expected to provide everything your child needs in the classroom right down to glue sticks, the school will provide you with a book list at the end of each school list for the following year.

If you qualify for medicare (depends on your visa), then visits to places like the ER are free but you will have to pay a co payment to your GP unless you can find one who bulk bills. You have to pay for all prescriptions.

There are no long evenings (well not where we are) even in summer it's dark and the mosquitos are biting buy 8.30PM.

People are friendly! I can strike up conversation anywhere (and I'm usually quite shy!)

Don't expect to suddenly become an outdoors person and move 'for the outdoors life style', if you're a couch potato in the UK that won't automatically change as you pass through immigration!

Not every Australian home has a pool, there isn't a spider/snake hiding behind every corner to kill you and some nights it too bloody hot to sleep

Wanted down under is totally unrealistic. Hilariously so.

Teachers don't have half the amount of pressure on them that they do in the UK. It's very hard to get a classroom teacher job where I am (melbourne). The place is awash with teachers and I think it's the same in all the cities. It's hard to get a job over a candidate who has trained here.

The places with the shortages are the regional schools. You have to have done a four year degree in Victoria where I am.

www.education.vic.gov.au/hrweb/careers/pages/advacssch.aspx

Here is the jobs page for Victoria.

Remember that wherever you go, its pretty much the same. You still have to work, pay the bills, send your DC to nursery, then school. You sound fed up with the daily grind, but you will probably find its the same in Australia, unless you have earn significantly more there doing the same jobs.

I lived OS in three different countries and all were amazing experiences, but its just life, wherever you live it, and things like family and friends who've known you forever aren't replaceable. I agree that you should go and visit. Do that looooooong flight and then think whether you really want to go and live so far from home and have to do that looooooong flight back every time.

We've lived in Aus (Sydney) for 6 years now and yes, some aspects of life here are amazing. BUT it rains more than you'd think (and it's freezing indoors in winter as there's no central heating), living well is very expensive, there are 2 year+ waiting lists for nurseries as demand far outstrips supply in the desirable areas and TV and popular culture in general is as appalling as PP have said. We love many aspects of life here but are moving back soon so DC can grow up in the UK and have a British education. I disagree that education's as good in Australia as at home - and the universities definitely aren't a patch on ours for most subjects.

CharlesRyder also makes a really good point. Does it have to be Australia? Couldn't you find a better work/life balance by moving to another part of the UK? I think you might be surprised by the difference in quality of life you could find in a less busy, expensive, crowded area of the country. I can totally see why you want a different life - it sounds very stressful both of you working such long hours with a tired little boy to cajole out the door every morning, but moving to Australia is never the only answer.

I think it would be a huge risk to move somewhere because you are tired of the daily routine of commute, work, childcare etc. I take it you work full time?

You could move to a cheaper area of the UK if you aren't that close to your family and not have to work full time, maybe both of you could go part time and have a better quality of life.
I work three days and H works compressed hours. I feel we both have plenty of time at home and with DS and he isn't is childcare other than breakfast club twice a week. Our outgoings are low, £1000pm inc mortgage as our house is large but cheap. We live within 25 mins of two large cities and have a good life.
I've lived abroad in two different countries and that was with the comfort of my stepdad working for a large multinational company and paying for our accommodation, school fees, regular flights home etc and it was still hard at times. The countries we lived in didn't have a high cost of living either.

I live in NSW and have been here for 5 years. Most of the time I love it but when it's 44C and 98% humidity I really miss the UK.

For my children the schooling has made the move worthwhile - the electives at high school level are much more suited to them than the ones offered at the local UK high school.

We pay about £250 a week to rent a brand new 4 bedroom house in an area that equidistance from the vineyards and the beach. It's a really nice place to live but no where near as expensive as other states or nearer the big cities.

I'm glad we made the move but having just said goodbye to my mum after a visit and knowing it'll be at least another 18mths till I see her again I wish we were closer.

I think relocating overseas as to have more of a 'pull' than a 'push', so you are moving because you want to live in that particular place rather than to escape the negatives of another.
We found Oz phenomenally more expensive than our previous residence which was a major European city, so not cheap. Our food bill doubled and rents were very high. Also, I really did miss quality TV, newspapers etc as PP have mentioned.
There are lots of lovely things about Oz, but you still have to work, pay the bills etc. I think it's definitely more fun as a holiday destination.

has to have.. not as to have... pffff

For those of you who live in Oz already, how do you manage things like doing the housework and ironing in the heat & humidity? Also, is it hard to have to go off to work when it's bright sunshine & blazing hot? I think I would just be hankering after the beach or pool the whole time!

I've had thoughts of moving to Australia myself.
i've been there twice before - and one of those occasions was for a full year.
a couple of things worth noting include:

• the heat. oh lord, the heat was unbearable in summer. and its getting hotter year on year due to global warming.
• the climate is very humid in all parts of australia, which can make life quite miserable.
• you need aircon on at all times, day and night in summer, and that costs a fortune.
• the bugs were something else. enormous cockroaches that were impossible to keep out of the house. and there are all sorts of other nightmarish creepy crawlies that i found quite sickening.
• mosquitoes will eat you alive.
• australia is very expensive - food, rent, mortgage, clothes, alcohol are all vastly overpriced. the economy is badly in need of a recession to bring down the cost of living.
• all australian cities get a bit sameish after a while and they lack the huge diversity of european cities.

however:

• the outback is spectacular if you are into it (i am); the open spaces and vastness of the country are majestic.
• beaches such as those at broome, ningaloo reef and cape le grand are like a dream.
• good standard of education and quality of life.
• very outdoors orientated.
• an interesting culture and history that i found fascinating.

good luck with whatever you decide, i would visit first before committing to anything.