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!

[Eralc]

My DS is about to start at preschool - the one he is going to is a not-for-profit community type place. They take them for 2 days at 3, and 3 days at 4 (the day is 9-3). It costs $44 per day (and is one of the cheapest ones we could find). From what I can work out,some preschools places are subsidised, but only if you are on a residents visa (we are here on a 457, so nothing is). You also get preschools which are part of "long day care" centres - they are more like nurseries, who do longer hours, but follow a pre-school curriculum as part of it (and tend to be more like $70 a day round here)

[thumbwitch]

Hi Eralc! Have you had the new one yet? Can't remember when you were due! Hope you had a good Christmas and didn't find it too hot, ha ha!

[thatsnotmymonster]

mmm don't think the dd's will be going to preschool. Probably won't be able to afford it as we will be saving money for next year's school fees. DD1 will have had nearly 2 years of uk pre-school so she will just have to have some time off before starting Kindergarten in Feb 2012.

I will probably just do playgroups with dd2 (she'll be 3 in May).

[thatsnotmymonster]

Just wondering if any of you would mind sharing what your monthly bills/costs are?

If you'd rather email me you can on [email protected] (or use this to find me on facebook)

I will delete this later.

Am thinking things like
Council tax
Water/sewage rates
Gas/electric
Phone/Internet
Mobile phone
TV
contents insurance
Car insurance
Road tax
Food bills

Very hard to know what we can afford without some idea of these costs!!

[thumbwitch]

Fraid I can't help too much with that as DH deals with all the household bills but it is common knowledge that electricity bills here are massively on the rise. If you can (and I realise this could be difficult) try and rent a place that has solar energy installed - it will help. We have it for hot water only but I keep telling DH we ought to have it for everything.

You don't have to have cable/satellite TV - we thought we would have to but have survived now without for 1 1/2 years, as the free tv has improved somewhat (according to DH).

We don't have contents insurance (which drives me bats) as DH doesn't think it's worth it, his ma never had it (still doesn't) and she's never needed it, so obviously we're never going to need it either

Food is expensive if you shop at Coles or Woolworths - if you can find an Aldi, it's cheaper, but the brands aren't any you'd recognise (and I still think it's more than in the UK)

Clothes are way more expensive, especially children's clothes and ESPECIALLY baby clothes. Try and stock up before you come - K-mart isn't too bad but the quality is worse than Tesco, for e.g. and still more expensive.

Don't know if you're used to having your water metered but it mostly is here - so you have to watch your usage.

[thatsnotmymonster]

DH would NEVER not have contents insurance We have claimed for a camera and a laptop in the last 2 years!

We won't bother with cable/satellite. Presumeably you can watch stuff on iplayer etc anyway?

Water is free in Scotland.

We have Aldi here too so maybe stock similar brands?

[thumbwitch]

Aldi will have the same/similar brands here as there, I should think.

Water definitely needs paying for here!

iplayer doesn't work outside the UK unless you use some interesting sites that give you a UK IP address - because you can't possibly be paying a licence fee if you're not in the UK and therefore aren't entitled to use BBC iplayer. Several of the channels show UK tv quite regularly - in fact I've recently been enjoying a run of Ab Fab and Father Ted!
There is a thread about said "interesting sites" - here it is

[thatsnotmymonster]

Ah yes think I've heard about those sites!

I thought you only needed a licence if you were intending on watching live TV through iplayer. What about the other sites like 4 on Demand, Fiver and ITV player?
Am sure it would be very good for me to watch less tv anyway!

[thumbwitch]

I have been unable to watch channel 4 on Demand as well; and haven't tried the other 2 but no doubt they also create problems.
Have just checked Channel 5 and that's a no go as well so am not even going to try ITV as doubtless it's the same.

[cjdamoo]

we rent so we dont pay council tax or water rates.
Electric is $550 ish a quater
Telephone and internet combined is $99 a month including all calls apart from abroad
Mobile phone I top up $30 a month and thats plenty
TV ive just cancelled foxtel (like sky) it was $89 a month but we hardly ever watched it
Mycontents insurance is $400 a year
My equivelent of road tax and insurance is $1600 a year

Grocerys for a family of 6 is around $300 a week

Hope this helps.

[Astrophe]

oh poo, just wrote a lovely long post then MN went offline and I lost it :(

Preschool/Kindy = 9-3, no food provided, ours is $43/day. Its play based - they do some pre literacy stuff like introduction ot letters and counting games, but no reading as such. mostly running about, contruction toys, gluing, painting, singing, stories etc. You can usually choose 2 or 3 days a week, although some centres (not KU I don't think) offer one day places (ours does, so if you move to north ryde please ask!). Its not connected to school, not complusory (although most 'middle class' children who aren't in day care do go)and, sadly, not free.

Here is the Wooilie home shopsite if you wantt o plug your normal weekly shop in and get an idea of costs.

And, just for balance, in my total of 26 years here I have never even seen a white tail spider, nor a funnelweb, in the wild :)

[Eralc]

Hi thumb - not had it yet! Am due in 4 weeks (and it can't come quickly enough - the humidity is killing me!)

Our bills are very similar to cjdamoo (except we are only a family of three, so our grocery shop is lower - probably around $200 a week, but we could cut down from that if we were more careful, and if we went to the grocers for veg, rather than the supermarket)

And I agree with thumb about the clothes - stock up before you come out - they are so much more expensive for lower quality here.

Astrophe - are you living in North Ryde? If so, you are very close to us - we are in Lane Cove North (but at the Ryde end of it!)

[Astrophe]

yep eralc, in north ryde, off lane cove rd. I love Lane Cove, lived there for 3 years - happy times when DH and I were first married :) Its such a pretty area, and I love Lane Cove village. Are you delivering at RNSH? I had my two girls there. Good luck! This humidity is horrible, hope you have air con.

[sunnydelight]

Oh good, I'm not the only one suffering with the humidity then! I was SO uncomfortable last night. We've just built a pool and I was looking forward to a long hot Summer but instead we have rain and sodding humidity (though Christmas day was nice I have to say!!). I can't believe you're pregnant again Astrophe - I'm sure you were pregnant last time we tried, and failed, to meet up. Only three more weeks of school holidays to go so shall we try again in February?

Sorry for the hijack OP. I paid $60 a day for the preschool attached to my kids' school and found it very much "preparation for school" which was good as DD was at the older end of the spectrum. Our bills are horribly high as utilities are more expensive here and I regularly scream at anyone who spends more than 5 minutes in the shower as water is metered but that's not so much of an issue if you rent. We are in funnelweb central apparantly (Upper North Shore) and have a huge, leafy garden but am happy to say I have never seen one in four years (or anything else nasty either). I arrived totally arachnaphobic and now I wander round the garden baregood like the rest of the Aussies!

[sunnydelight]

Oops, that would be barefoot. Sorry, cleanskin wine is very cheap in Australia and we're still in holiday mode [blush}

[Astrophe]

lol at cleanskins sunny :)

Yes, 12 weeks with number 4 - will be that last! Sick as a dog. Lets try for Feb:)

[Astrophe]

sorry, the last (can't even blame cleanskins!)

[thumbwitch]

Cleanskins are rather fab, aren't they? - they have them in a special section in my local Liquorland, with all the BOGOFs and other specials. Easy target! Am amazed other people don't head straight for it... oh wait, that's because it's Beer Central where I live of course!

[thatsnotmymonster]

Thank you! You are all being very helpful!!

So if you rent what's included in the rental price? I assumed everything on top, like it is here.

Also I have been looking at suburbs like North Ryde and further out like Epping and Baulkham Hills. How long would the commute be to Pyrmont from these places and can you suggest any other nice suburbs that are a bit further out? I am trying to persuade dh that it would be better to live a bit further out as the city is SO expensive to rent in!!

[Astrophe]

try the transport website for travel times - I really don't know. There is a bus from here (north ryde) that goes to the city (Wynyard) which takes 35-45minutes, but you'd need another connection to pyrmont. I think it would take a while. There is probably a bus that goes the other way though - ie crosses the harbour/river and then head into the city...check the site.

Baulkham hills is really woop-woop (far) from the city.

If you want/need to go a bit further out maybe look at Ashfield (which, tbh, is not that pretty a suburb), maybe Concord? They are on the same side as the harbour as Pyrmont. Problem is, there are not so many nice suburbs on that side once you get away from the inner city ones, whereas on the North side the nice suburbs to extend out further.

btw, we pay $600 per week here, 4 bedrooms, big garden. Its not a new house, but has a pretty new kitchen and two newish bathrooms.

[thatsnotmymonster]

On the map Baulkham hills is about 27km away-at the moment we live 26 MILES away from dh's office and it takes about an hour to commute in rush hour (sometimes a lot longer as there are often crashes and bad weather). Would it be similar do you think?

What do you think about Epping, Carlingford, Killara and Chatswood? All ok?
I'm not really sure what our budget will be as we haven't had the offer yet but I think we would be looking for anything between $600-$800 per week.

It's pretty awful up North with all the flooding, now wondering if Brisbane would be a wise choice and whether we should stick to Sydney even if it is more expensive.

[thatsnotmymonster]

oh and that's good to know about the spiders, astrophe!

[thumbwitch]

At the moment, I'd say stick to Sydney. The fallout from the flooding in Brisbane is going to be ongoing for some time so rental properties could be hard to find, apart from anything else.

I don't know much about the different suburbs but I would look into being able to commute by train, not car. The main routes into Sydney are dire, and you could well end up taking an hour to travel 27km. Horrible roads. Horrible. Baulkham Hills is ok - I have a family friend who lived there a while - but it wasn't very exciting or pretty from what I remember.

I quite like the look of Roseville, one stop further out than Chatswood - it looks nice and villagey and there are trains every 15mins into the city centre (takes about half an hour). I tend to drive in as far as Roseville, park in the carpark and train it in the rest of the way as the road by then is just vile.

Mind you, DH has just said that everything on the Chatswood/Roseville etc. train line is quite expensive; if you know SW London/NW Surrey area, he's comparing it to Weybridge and Esher

Carlingford (according to DH) is a very Asian district but it's up to you whether or not that bothers you.

[Astrophe]

Public transport is really not that good here tbh. If you live on a train line - walking distance to the station - its ok, but connections between busses and trains are slow and cumbersome and each connection will waste 15 minutes. The problem is that Pyromnt is not in 'the city' as such - its Circular Quay, Town Hall and Wynyard Stations that are the best serviced. If you end up going to Wynyard on the train and then changing onto the monorail or a bus, I think that will take more than an hour tbh.

Epping is quite a nice suburb, Carlingford not as nice (but ok - not really rough or anything/, Both have high Asian (read - chinese - Asian has a different meaning here!) populations so has a multicultural vide, lots of yummy food, Killarra is nice (very leafy, more white middle class), chatswood also nice, closer and better serviced by trains, also high Asian population. In that area Lane Cove is lovely, although not on the train line.

It really depends very much on your local bus. If you found that Balukham hills had a local bus that goes all the way in to Pyrmont (I have not idea - its not likely I don't think), then you'd be fine. Butswapping onto different busses will kill you.

When we lived in lane Cove, about 5-10 minutes walk from the highway (good busses straight to the city), my DH workds about 10 minutes walk from the bus at his end, and the whole commute would take him 45-60 minutes.

[Astrophe]

Not sure if this will work, but when yoiu put Baulkham Hills and Pyrmont into the trip planner on the transport info site, it says 1 hour 28 minutes

Link