Any Sydney mums around?

[thatsnotmymonster]

I am getting pretty excited as it is looking increasingly likely that dh is about to be offered a job in Sydney (should know by next week). However, whether we are able to accept or not all depends on the salary package, particularly with th school fee issue- has anyone else moved and had the company pay the school fees?

We live in Scotland and so ds is in P1 but he will be 6 in March and dd1 is due to start school after the summer as she will be 5 in July. I don't know whether they should go into Yr 1 and 2 in Oz from when we move or whether they shoud go into Yr 1 and kindergarten. Do most people wait until the year the dc turns 6 or send them the year they turn 5?

The office is in Pyrmont and we are hoping to rent in a nearby suburb- I have been looking at Lilyfield, Five Dock, Drummoyne...can anyone recommend any other nice suburbs in that area or tell me if there are any to avoid?

Anything else I should know? If this happens we will be moving around April.

Thanks!

really? Worse than £600 for the quarter just for heating? eek!

Ok we will come with hats, gloves, jumpers and t-shirts all packed in our luggage

Are any of you on facebook? If you are and you want to add me I will PM you am already friends with a few MNetters.

TNMM - yes I am but I am unsearchable - I can find you if you would like to let me know how, though.

Wow. £600 for the quarter is A Lot, ok. My bill was never that big so I am out of touch. Probably about similar here then - depends on your area and supplier - there is a thing here that some companies are charging according to your postcode, as in they charge supposedly wealthy areas more for their leccy than supposedly less well off. Trouble is, not everyone in a supposedly wealthy area actually is wealthy but they still cop a huge bill! I'm not sure if this is being addressed by the Powers That Be or not - it should be!

Really thumb? I didn't know that about the leccy companies though I am very aware of "postcode pricing" normally. Must look into it. We know never to get a quote from a local firm and generally look for Central Coast people. The guy who built our pool deck said it was quicker to get the F3 down here than it was for him to get to a lot of more "local" jobs, but his quote was about 1/3 less than the Northern Beaches guy the pool company normally use. They were well hacked off with us at finding our own tradies.

We scraped into this area by the skin of our teeth and by accepting a certain amount of road noise. It pisses me off that as soon as I open my mouth you can see eyes lighting up with dollar signs (because all expats are rich you know!). When we needed a new roof I told them they were taking the piss with the quote and to give me one without the North Shore premium. They knocked $10k off without blinking! You need to learn to haggle when you move here TNMM

Lol Thumb- when it is -15C at night and -5C during the day for weeks on end and you have the heating on 24/7 it does add up. If you switch it off or turn it down the pipes freeze and then burst (that happened to us this year), the pipes still froze a few times when we left the heating at 20C overnight but we learned how to defrost them with a hairdryer before they burst. My condenser dryer also freezes in the house when it gets really cold and I can't use it till it warms up a bit. Plus you can't leave the house cos of the snow so need it to be warm

So probably is pretty similar to the excessive heat over there in terms of cost!

Honestly, Scottish folk are weird. When it gets to around 5C here people start going out without coats. I went shopping on Saturday and saw 2 toddlers in buggies wearing ankle socks and dresses (bare legs) and several women/girls in 3/4 length leggings. madness eh?

Sunny, I am useless at haggling!!! I am going to have to go on a crash course

Oh TNMM - you have to learn to haggle, especially when you're buying white goods! I'm pretty sure we said that somewhere near the start of the thread but it is essential or you'll be paying way over the odds!

(I'm shit at it as well, tbh, but DH is very good!)

If you want to buy electrical goods, try and get them all in the same shop as they will give you a lot of discount, (if you ask) !!!
Tnmm, Adelaide a no go, so Melbourne here we come.

Lula- really? Well at least you are closer to us in Melbourne and means we can visit somewhere else

Thumb- yes I do remember that at the beginning of the thread! Will start practicing now!

DH has accepted the job and is handing his notice in today

It's quite hard at the moment though- I had my 2 best friends round last night and they were both crying and then one of them told her dc's who are best friends with my dc's. However children at that age are very adaptable, I'm sure they'll all make new friends very quickly!

Our dd's are continual hobo's. They just go wherever. At least in Melbourne they know people and they should be able to go back to their old kinder. Also I have a job there which makes it slightly better for my career. You will def have to visit, would be great to catch up.

In terms of dress here, a similar thing happens like what you mentioned about the Socttish folk but in reverse: when it gets below 20C the Aussies get out their winter coats - ones with furlined hoods! And the scarves, hats, gloves. In Sydney I haven't needed a coat beyond a big cardy proportions until we went on hol in the Blue Mountains & scarves etc have not been touched since unpacked from the move over.

The paradoxical thing is that it feels cold inside the houses at night/early morning cos there is no insulation & no proper means ofeffectively & efficiently heating them (unless you have "European style" central heating installed). I do miss that cosy feeling & I try not to think about the physics of the heating escaping when we do attempt to heat the place.

Lula are you just going to go and hope that your dh finds a job quickly then? Or will you be ok with just you working?

elvisgirl- haha yes I think I had heard that about the clothes Funny!

So what we really need are cosy slippers/dressing gowns and pj's?? And hot water bottles and electric blankets!

YY to the electric blankets - the shops are full of them at the merest hint of cooler weather & all sorts of plug-in electric heaters. Then you get an obligatory news article from the fire service warning about the risks from electrical fires!

& of course there are the slankets....

We gave in and bought electric blankets last Winter (our 4th on Oz). WHAT a difference! Yes, think fleecy pjs, socks and a whole stack of cosy rugs to wrap around yourself for extra warmth while you're watching tv. Unfortunately you do acclimatise - a cardie was fine for my first Winter, ok for my second, but now I am so regretting giving my best friend in England my favourite coat before I left.

The Good Guys (big electrical shop) is the best place to haggle and get bargains.

Tnmm, we are waiting for my visa for Melbourne and Th Adelaide job didn't say no or yes, just to wait a couple of weeks to know more about their companies structure and what they want to do.

As for cold, the house we rented in Melbourne was pretty cold but the heating worked well but just went very cold as soon as you turned it off. It makes you realise how good central heating is.

The amount of dilemmas when making this move are many. You have a dilemma about going to Oz and then you have a Dilemma about where to go, then about what suburb and on and on and on!!!!!

I know- so many dilemmas!!

Next one...should we take out additional private health insurance to cover dental/optical and loads of other stuff for $80/month? Sounds good to me as I assume you have to pay for children's dental treatments/check ups over there?

Also, are there good children's shoe shops? DD was just measured in Clarks and her feet are so narrow they don't have a measuremnet small enough. It's pretty hard to get her shoes here...what's it going to be like over there? Same/better/worse?

I would say yes and make sure you have ambulance cover. Who is paying your health insurance? When you apply for the visa they will tell you that you either have to 1- get health insurance for everybody or 2- enrol in Medicare before you go, which cannot be done, I emailed Medicare they said no or 3- provide proof of travel insurance. We just booked a years travel insurance for £70 and they were quite happy with that. Ours visas were granted today. All in all from start to finish 1 month .

Oh and shoes we found ok. Dd1 has very narrow feet and ankles and we ended up just buying crocs in summer and boots in winter. Pretty easy.

Lula- the company is paying BUPA health insurance for the whole family but we can choose to pay for the optional extras if we want at an extra $80/month so I think it's worth it. We need to fill in the form asap so we can get started on the Visa application. WOW 1 month from start to finis- that's good going!! Congrats! When will you be flying out?

I have friends here who are trying to get things sorted for moving to Australia too. The DW is a nurse and is currently applying for registration in Australia. Do you have any tips for them, regarding nursing and doing your own visa applications?

I suspected the shoe thing would be fine. I suppose we will just have to face the school shoe challenge when we come to it, given there is usually only 1 pair of shoes in the shop that fits

I've booked a couple of shipping companies to come and give quotes too!

It will be a PITA for the nursing application. They have just changed to National registration instead of state and are way behind. My renewal from december is still pending!
Tell her to be patient and not swear at them on the phone. Tell her to contact the nmc and they will send her a pack on how to get all the info she needs.

We bought all our school shoes from The Athlete's Foot as I was told they always measure kids' feet well, and in the run-up to school starting again they have podiatrists around to check out their feet too. Ds1 has very wide feet so we've often had problems getting good school shoes for him (in the UK) and certainly don't like Clarks very much. But he had two well-fitting shoes from The Athlete's Foot (normal school shoes plus sports ones). It wasn't cheap but I'd rather pay more for shoes that will fit him properly.

You also get a very slight tax discount if you have private health insurance - don't forget to tell your accountant you've got it.

Do you Ninedragons? Not heard anything about that and we still have to pay the medicare levy of 1.5% It's through the company so surely they will know about the tax implications??

Will pass that on Lula.

HFD- that's good to know about the school shoes too

The medicare levy is deducted, surely? I have to admit to not having been all that attentive last tax time but I thought the whole point was to funnel people into private insurance.

TBH my experience with private insurance is that it's not really worth having if you are youngish and healthy (do get ambo cover, though). State care is superb - way better than the NHS. Our plan abruptly cancelled most coverage dental and obstetric care - what else do thirty-somethings use? So we are subsidising old gippers' hip transplants and physio until DD2 arrives and is healthy (touch wood) and then I'll probably cancel it.

Crikey, prepare for a bit of sticker shock when you get here, though. I was just reading the "inflation watch" thread and apart from petrol, kept thinking hmmm, I would stock up at those prices. My ILs were here from the UK recently and were agog at prices. Do yourself a favour and don't convert back into GBP or you'll give yourself a coronary.

The problem with coming on a 457 visa is the reciprocal Medicare only covers you for emergency treatment so if you are admitted you are stuffed.

Lol at giving yourself a coronary if you do convert Aussie prices to GBP - it does hurt! I still do it though, can't help it, it's the only way to get a handle on whether I think something is relatively cheap or expensive (wonder when that stops?)

I was just looking at ticket prices back to the UK in July - that hurt a massive amount!

Re. private health - it's a tricky one, depends on your DC as well, I think. A lot of the plans have delayed cover for certain things - for e.g. most of them have a 12m delay on any obstetric cover. We do have a family plan through DH's work (although we have to pay for it but we wouldn't be able to access it without his work) and so far it's paid out a fair bit on new glasses for both of us, which was nice. I think I can get osteopathy expenses covered now as well (which will help!). If the company are paying for most of it, it's probably worth it to have the extra just in case. But then I'm very much a "just in case" sort of person; DH is much more of a "it'll never happen" sort of person (which is why we STILL don't have house contents insurance, despite me whinging about it!)

You have to have the private insurance for the visas and the compnay will pay the basic family policy anyway. I think the 'extra' bit is worth paying for though as it covers dental/optical (dh has contacts/glasses), physio, osteopathy, speech therapy, homeopathy, pharmacy etc

Will need to check ambulance cover!

So what things are more expensive? Every time we have looked at prices online (BigW etc) everything seems cheaper to us...