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!

[bunnygirl80]

Looks like I'm a bit late to the discussion!

We live in Balmain at the moment - it's a fab suburb with great parks, quick access to the city and loads of shops and cafes. The only problem is that most rental properties that are affordable are 2 bedrooms, anything with more gets snapped up really quickly.

We're moving to Lilyfield in a couple of weeks, where we managed to get a 4 bedroom house with a garden for the same as we would pay for a 3 bed in Balmain.

I'm also a fan of the North Shore - suburbs like Turramurra give you a lot more space for your money, the downside is a longer commute into the city.

highfibrediet the 100 points thing is a standard way of checking id - banks etc ask for 100 points as well - so I don't think having more helps. Saturdays are pretty much the only day they have inspections, and they can be a complete nightmare wandering around a house with 20 other families. The agent will vet applications, so it's worth trying to make a good impression. For really competitive properties, people will take along a completed application to the inspection (you can usually get the form from the agents website)

thumb I might be heading up your way in a couple of weeks as have promised my parents a trip to the Hunter valley

[thumbdabwitch]

oh cool!
We went out to Wollombi last weekend and found some really interesting vineyards there - Mount Broke were the best-tasting wines, with a bloke there called Mike from Cheshire. Great olives as well!

The most interesting was Undercliff vineyards - a proper little boutique vineyard that does its own wines from scratch, and you can see all the equipment in the tasting shed!! The bloke in charge there is happy to chat about it too.

Of course, Wollombi is off the beaten track for general Hunter Valley visitors, but if you're after something less busy, I highly recommend both of them.:)

[thumbdabwitch]

Sorry, slightly misleading you there - Mount Broke isn't actually in Wollombi but we went past it on the way home.

[thatsnotmymonster]

hi Bunnygirl! Do you mind me asking how much the 4 bed in Lilyfield is per week?

Also how does this points system work?

On the job front- the company is now interviewing 2 more 'locals' that have turned up so we now have to wait even longer. They have told the recruitment agent that we are still definitely in the running and that in the past nearly every job at this level has been filled from overseas...however that doesn't mean that will be the case this time. So it's more waiting for us and dh is also chatting to the other company on Mon evening.

HFD- where will you/your dh be working? did you just take holiday between jobs or did the company give you some time to house hunt/settle in?

What did you all take with you when you emigrated? And would you take the same stuff again?

[thumbdabwitch]

TNMM - we took everything bar white goods and an oven because we moved for life, not for a job. And I'm very glad too! Things are more costly here - you wouldn't believe the price of "cheap" furniture! I ended up buying 2 flat pack bedside tables in Sainsbury's homebase when I was back in the UK this time last year, and paid to have them shipped over here (with a bunch of other stuff that had got missed in the first move and that I was "missing") and it was well worth it. I keep "missing" other stuff that I wish I had brought with me, but couldn't for various reasons. But I am a creature of habit. Not everything is replaceable though - it's worth checking to see what can and can't be bought again here and how much it could cost you.

But if you're only coming for a short time, it may not be so well worth it. Acquaintances of mine came out for a job in October 2009 and used the same company as I had to ship all their stuff - for some reason, I don't know what, it took 4 months for their stuff to arrive (it only took ours 10 weeks, as expected) and they had to cope without it. They have unexpectedly had to go back to the UK at the end of this month due to redundancy; but she has said that if they ever come back, they'll put their stuff in storage, or rent their UK house out furnished and just rent furnished in Australia or buy stuff and sell it when they leave again.

[thatsnotmymonster]

We don't have many things that we are really attached too. Our tv is one of the massive old fashioned style ones so don't think we would bother bringing that. We would probably rent our house out so would have to consider whether to take white goods. I was told that most rentals over there you get nothing in the house but many ads I've looked at have said dishwasher and fridge at least. We love our bed and would bring the girls' bunk beds, and we have a big ikea storage unit...so hard to know!

Lulu- can't seem to get on FB today for some reason but will message you when I can!

[Astrophe]

There is ikea here - comparable prices (although with the dollar to pound conversion it relatively expensive here...but you will be earning in $...), and also ebay and gumtree. I guess it depends how long you think you'll be here. Once you are shipping some stuff, its relatively cheap to send some more, so you might find its worth sending the basics so that you have enough to set up house, and then you can aquire extra things as you see them on ebay or on sale throughout the year.

I wouldn't send white goods if I were you, they don't really like being transported anyway and it would be a shame for your fridge to arrive not working properly. You can always rent fridges etc for a month or so until you decide what to get. White goods don't resale very well, so you might get a bargain on ebay.

[bunnygirl80]

tnmm our 4 bed house is $880 per week

The points system is how they categorise various forms of id over here - so you generally need 100 points to do stuff like open a bank account - passport, driving licence, medicare card have a points value assigned to them.

We took everything except the white goods when we moved, but only because my DH's company paid for shipping but not purchase of new stuff. If it hadn't been paid for I'd have just bought new furniture here. It took 3 months for our stuff to arrive, so we had to hire furniture for that time period.

I really wouldn't bother bringing white goods. There are strict regulations about bringing refrigerants in so your fridge could well get turned back at the border. I think we had to fill in a form to say there were no fridges etc in our shipment.

[thatsnotmymonster]

Again all really useful info- thanks! we have spent the weekend compiling a massive Oz budget spreadsheet so now I feel better about costs etc. Ha ha check me out and we don't even have an offer

Am just slightly obsessed at the moment!

Oh and the company would pay for shipping so we would probably take quite a lot of our stuff I suppose. It's just that most of it we don't even really like that much!

[HighFibreDiet]

Initially we were planning to rent out our UK home furnished and only bring over essentials, but all the agents in the UK said it would be better to offer it furnished, so we ended up shipping a load of stuff over. It seemed silly to do it in half measures iyswim - once we'd decided to bring all the furniture we thought we might as well bring everything! I am half worrying that when it finally arrives I'll look at it and think 'what a load of junk' and just have a huge garage sale. But I'm glad we are shipping the furniture, as stuff is expensive here and dp and I are really seriously going to have to budget to make sure we're not overstretched.

However, we have been looking in very desirable (expensive) areas - dp is going to be working in the CBD and wants a short commute to work; we both want to be a walk away from a beach so that rules out loads of places. Oh and the 3, soon to be 4 kids make a difference!! There are far more 2 bed apartments up for lease than 4 bed houses!

We didn't ship any white goods but saw a place yesterday which was completely unfurnished so we would have to buy washing machine and fridge. Dp and the boys were still very keen on it though so we may submit an application. There were only one other couple at the inspection as well as us, and at the other place no-one else turned up. I think the rentals are pretty quiet at the moment because of the summer holiday. We may even get a holiday rental for a little longer to wait for the number of properties offered to go up a little - although by Feb dp will be working again so I'm going to have to call on my friends to occupy the kids if I'm going to do loads of inspections myself. I do not think that turning up with all three will help to give the agent a good impression.

Oh and wrt the jobs, dp was sick to the teeth with his old job and gave in his notice before he even had any offers either here on in the UK. So he ended up with 3 months not working in the UK and the company here said it wasn't worth starting until the end of Jan which is giving us a few weeks to do the house-hunting and beach visits together, even if it doesn't help financially!

[HighFibreDiet]

Another thing: I wish I'd bought more summer/beach clothes before coming out as I knew I didn't have many, but thought 'oh I'll buy some when I get there'. Firstly, it's hard shopping for clothes with all the kids around (even if it is clothes for them) but secondly it all adds up. I don't want to be paying $35 plus each time I buy them a pair or shorts and I am definitely going to hunt for the secondhand clothes markets that sunnydelight mentioned a while ago.

[thumbdabwitch]

I agree re the clothes - I may have already mentioned it upthread but it is seriously more expensive here, especially for children's clothes, and the "cheap" end quality isn't even as good as, say, Tesco
Baby popper vests, for e.g. - pack of 2 from the cheapest place here was $8 (currently standing at ~£5) - I could get at least 5 for £5 in Tesco.

Although we didn't bring any big white goods, we did bring the kettle, iron and toaster, and several multi-socket plug extension leads. This saves on having to change the plugs over here; and means I only have to have a couple of UK-->Australia adapters, which are pretty expensive and not always easily available - it's almost worth getting travel adapters in the airport rather than buying them here.

We also brought our DVD player. Because Australia is Region 4 and the UK is region 2, many DVDs won't play on an Aussie DVD player (and Aussie ones won't play on our UK DVD player either). We have both plugged in, and just have to remember which place we bought which DVD from. Although there are ways of "cracking" the DVDs, someone who has tried this (and I don't know which brand with) says her DVD player only switched regions 4 times and then got stuck on the last one - so frankly, having 2 DVD players is a lot easier.

Another point to make is that over here, bargaining with the retailers of homewares, especially electrical goods, is normal and expected. If, as we were, you are buying several items at once, you can really drive the prices down and get a good deal. So far, we have found Good Guys to be the best for this - DH nearly made the salesman cry because he took him down to the limit and then asked for a free DVD player to be thrown in!! He got it for $10, I think. But they also all do competitive pricing - so if you find a better deal in another shop, you can make them match it. DH did this with Harvey Norman for our TV.

It doesn't really work with any other type of shop though...

TBH, if the company is paying for your shipping, you might just as well bring as much as you can. You can always junk it when you get here if you decide not to keep it, but you might find it hard/expensive to replace so it's worth having it here in the first instance. When I went back to the UK the first time after moving out here, I sent another shipment by sea of all the heavy small stuff that had got missed from the first pack, or that we had needed in the UK and couldn't allow to go - it cost me another £140 but it was well worth it! And still cheaper than re-buying it all here.

[thumbdabwitch]

Note - I may have the regions the wrong way around on the DVDs - I know one is 4 and one is 2 but I might have switched them

[Livinginoz]

We brought everything except our fridge, and were really glad we did. We ended up buying a fridge from gumtree for $80 and also a tv to keep us going until our shipping arrived.
If you are using a shared container to ship your stuff out, be prepared to wait longer - we ended up waiting 4 months for ours because the other people who we were sharing with decided not to come and for some reason the shipping company didn't hurry to find someone else!

We found an expat group in Manly (where we are) and it has been an absolute godsend - we've just spent the afternoon at the local pool with a few friends from the group - and its been great having the support, especially over xmas.

Would second buying lots of clothes from Asda/Tesco/Primark before you come, especially for kids. The stuff here is no better quality and is ridiculously expensive. My mum had to send out some long sleeve popper vests when we arrived in July so I could dress DS in his t-shirts.

[HighFibreDiet]

Livinginoz that's a terrible story about the shared container. I have been reading your old threads and wondering why it took so long for it to arrive. I am glad you've rejoined this thread as I also wanted to ask how you like it in Manly? I know lots of people see it as better for singles so it would be good to hear what it's like to live there as a family. Dp really likes the idea of commuting on the ferry (his company is only a short walk from Circular Quay) and we were all impressed by the beach when we visited. But I don't want to live there if I'm having to drive out of the area for all the kids' activities. (We have 3 boys aged 8, 6 and 2 1/2.)

[thumbdabwitch]

That's what happened to friends of friends of ours as well, LivinginOz. Took 4m for their stuff to arrive too.
We used the same company and it only took our stuff 10 weeks - in fact, it arrived before we did because my visa took so bloody long!

[bunnygirl80]

thumb I'm not sure how much of an issue DVD players are any more. We bought one here as our UK one was about 1000 years old, and when I researched online before we got it it seems that many companies now just sell multiregion ones.

Ours is an LG one, and it plays whatever we put in it.

[thumbdabwitch]

I've noticed that some new DVDs will play on both and some won't; but when we tried to get a multi-region DVD player here, we were thwarted by the salespeople's insistence that there weren't any. Well done for managing it! :)

Doesn't matter to me anyway - I have both, and I have a new British one as well just in case!

[thatsnotmymonster]

ok so we will bring everything bar the fridge and buy lots of extra clothes Got it. We will bring our dvd as it is a home cinema system and the wii and ps3. Actually the ps3 plays dvd's too so maybe that's multiregion. Otherwise we will just have to get dvd's sent over.

We have friends who live in Manly and love it- they have one 2yo. They say it is very outdoorsy there and great beach but expensive.

HighFibreDiet- sounds like we are in the same position as you were- dh has totally had enough of his job here too and is pretty miserable. He wants nothing more than to hand his notice in but we would be pretty stuffed if he couldn't get another job! Were you fairly confident your dh would get an offer in Aus? What does he do? I have a 6 yo boy too and a 2.5yo dd and one in the middle. My 6yo is addicted to wii starwars lego game at the moment!

Thumbdabwitch- good tip about haggling for electrical goods, I would never have though of that. I do use gumtree a lot here too so will probably check that out in Aus too.

Are you all still on summer holidays? Do you ever go away on holiday? Where do you go?

[Livinginoz]

HFD Manly is amazing for families! DH is a SAHD and he has loads of things to do everyday. There are quite a few toddler groups and the Surf Life Saving clubs would be great for the older ones.

I really love it here - but we do live in a two bedroom box! However it overlooks the water, one minute's walk to the beach and we managed to squeeze all our stuff in!

[thumbdabwitch]

Yep, on summer hols here until the beginning of February. But we haven't been away anywhere this holiday so far, and probably won't because while DS is under school age we can go whenever we like, so why go when everyone else is?

We have been on a few short breaks - we went to Dubbo, to the Western Plains Zoo and spent 3 nights away; and we went up to Brisbane back in OCtober (thank goodness we went then!), driving in easy stages, so we were away for 5 nights. Plus DS and I went back to the UK twice last year. We will all go this year, possibly around April/May time, I have to work out when is going to work for us.

[thatsnotmymonster]

Ah yes if you have pre-school children no point in holidaying in the holidays! How much to you generally pay for flights back to uk? We are budgeting in savings to allow us to get flights home maybe once a year...don't know how possible this is though!

[thumbdabwitch]

Flights from here are more expensive than from teh UK. I am still spitting a bit that I used my return last Jan and then only took a single back here; meant I had to buy tickets in Australia and I was extremely lucky to get them at similar price to the UK, this rarely happens. If you think you will be using the return ticket within the year, I'd get a return. If not then you'll have to shop around - the last tickets I got home averaged out at $1750 each for me and a 2.5yo DS (so am not sure exactly how much the adult ticket was)

[Astrophe]

The South Coast is lovely for holidays - really pretty beaches, sweet little towns - its much quieter and more tasteful than the North coast (although there are some good places north as well - Foster is a good one).

We go to the blue mountains a lot because my folks have a holiday house there, but tbh its better for slithtly older children (say 6+) and not as good for toddlers.

We are looking at going back to the UK at Easter and return flights for 2 adults, 2 kids and infant will be $5600!!! Cheap! Its about 3500 Pounds at the moment, becaus ethe exchange rate is so good here :) Its not normall that cheap though.

[HighFibreDiet]

wow those flights are expensive. We paid about £700 each for single flights but then we don't plan to go back within about 2 yrs. And we flew on New Year's Day which lowered the price a bit .

I'm pleased that you like Manly, LivinginOz. I think we're prepared to squeeze ourselves into a smaller place than we had before if it means we are right near the beach.

tnmm I think dp must be quite good at marketing himself as he had a few offers over here and made sure he had one in the UK as well so we didn't feel forced into the decision. He works in management consultancy, doing procurement. I think (but I'm not sure) that he has had to take a more junior position than he would have in the UK, simply because he hasn't yet built up the Australian contacts. But I got the impression that the company were prepared to promote him if he proved his worth.

And that Lego StarWars game completely dominated my older boys' life for quite a while. I am hoping that the outdoor lifestyle will loosen the hold that computer games seem to have on them. And I'm very pleased that since we've arrived they have watched zero TV.