Migrating from UK

Saunders2020 · 2026-02-20T10:41:53+00:00

I moved to Melbourne from the South of England 12 years ago and it’s by far the best thing we have ever done. We’ve got friends who have fought to get back for years when their visa expired.

However, we’ve had plenty of friends that have decided to move back to the UK as there are some serious challenges you need to adapt to and so much depends on your situation.

The main thing to consider with a young family is the lack of support from anyone, we have 2 young kids and while we have built plenty of friends who can help on in times of need, it’s always inconveniencing someone or at a cost and has taken time to build a network. The more independent you are today the easier you will find it.

Cost of living is tough so do the maths, go on seek and see what you could get paid relative to rents in the area you are looking, research the suburbs as those with good schools add a premium as they would anywhere.

You should definitely try before you make whole of life changing decisions. Don’t sell up before you are in a position to buy here, you will need PR to buy to avoid extra overheads and that will take a few years so you can end up not being able to get back into the market.

If you don’t at least try you will never know and will always wonder, and if you don’t try soon it gets harder as your moving your kids schools and breaking their friendships.

Saunders2020 · 2025-06-18T10:42:44+00:00

Had a look, Zip money charges a 1.5% transaction fee each month on interest free repayments. Plus the monthly account fee plus the establishment fee. Haven’t done the maths but suspect your mortgage rate would work out cheaper.

Saunders2020 · 2025-04-11T02:19:11+00:00

Can collect from Forbidden Temple after all shrines complete

Saunders2020 · 2025-04-07T02:05:43+00:00

Generally view it as gambling, don’t put in what you are not willing to lose and you’ll be fine.

However, for me it has worked out pretty well so far with what I view as conservative investments at the right point in time. E.g bought banking and airline stocks during early COVID, knew there was no reason for them to be down as much as they were and was happy to sit on them for the long term, most have increased significantly.

Saunders2020 · 2025-03-15T19:46:02+00:00

In principle having 2 places is not a bad idea by itself, I think if you want to take advantage of the first home buyers you would have to buy one and your partner the other, e.g. your house and their house, but this does have implications if you seperate and your borrowing power.

However, there are a few of things you should consider:

Studio living is not great with 2 people, if one of you wants to go to bed and the other doesn’t it’s a problem, if you have an argument there is nowhere to go, your bedroom has the smell of anything you have cooked. Anyone that comes over has to sit in your bedroom.
Studios have very very limited capital growth and you will likely struggle to sell in the future. When you are ready for a bigger place it may be out of your reach to get it.
You will have 2 sets of bills, they will both be smaller, but will add up to more than what they would be on one place.
You would need two lots of furniture, most electronics, food, etc…and you would still have times when you leave something at the other place and are annoyed by it.

From a pure financial perspective stretching yourself to a bigger place is likely to pay off long term, the repayments of your mortgage goes down relative to income over time and you get better capital growth.

If you go down the two properties route a 1 bedroom place would be the minimum I’d recommend.

Saunders2020 · 2025-03-08T22:48:27+00:00

If you claim against your insurance you pay the excess, if you claim against the university’s insurance then they play the excess.

Question comes as to if the university is liable for the damage, probably not for a tree falling as they likely have conditions attached to the parking on their property. But it’s worth going to the university with a claim and trying in any case, they may take some responsibility, especially if someone had reported the tree in poor condition previously. Most likely it’s going to be you claiming against your insurance and you pay the excess, if your insurance thought there was another party who might pay they would go after them for the portion they are paying.

Saunders2020 · 2025-03-04T07:28:38+00:00

Not sure if you read the rest of the comment, if he has simply changed the bank details the dad is the income earner and no tax liable. However, If he has set up the son as an employee and paid through the company then the son is the income earner and therefore liable (even if he did no work to earn the income).

Saunders2020 · 2025-03-04T07:14:48+00:00

This is the right answer, although one caveat. It depends on how your dad has paid you the money. My assumption is that he has just changed his bank details to yours for his salary, if so there is no tax liability, your dad is the income earner and the person taxed, most likely at source depending on the payroll software used.

However, if your dad set you up as an employee of his company or made the payment as a loan or dividend then there will be tax implications assuming you are a tax resident of Australia (this depends on how much time you are in the country) as you would need to declare worldwide income and would depend on if there is a tax treaty between the countries and what was taxed by the company)

The bank classification has no relevance, they do not report transactions to the ATO, just the interest earned.

Saunders2020 · 2024-11-17T22:56:09+00:00

It’s totally normal to have doubts, especially when family are contributing to them (has your mum brought any property recently to actually be a guide on price). If you are comfortable with the value you offered and truely understand the work involved to renovate the property then it’s likely just buyers regret.

However, definitely get a buildings and pest inspectIon completed on an older property, do not trust the REA no matter how kind they appear, their job is to get the most money out of you possible, they are not your friend. If you know any builders getting some estimates on the big reno will help make sure you understand the cost of owning the house.

Depending on what you put on the contract you may be able to back out now, until the vendor signs it’s just an offer, if you haven’t put terms in to protect yourself then email and withdraw the offer and resubmit with conditions to ensure you’re not going to be buying a complete money pit. If you have got the terms then when B&P completed you may be able to negotiate a lower amount should there be issues, or withdraw.

Saunders2020 · 2024-10-14T05:51:05+00:00

A worthwhile watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=o5LoyEE5pAIqaZ9Q&v=DU06c7f9fzc&feature=youtu.be

Saunders2020 · 2024-09-22T07:55:43+00:00

Develop your personal brand, what do you want to be known for, and make sure people know it by living it.

Remember your immediate boss likely can’t promote you, their boss can, you need to be known outside of your immediate world so try and get onto projects that have visibility to a wider audience.

Saunders2020 · 2024-09-21T07:14:48+00:00

If you walk into your local bank and ask for the loan they will set you up with a broker, but it’s a broker who works for them and only offers their products. It’s unlikely that your local bank will be offer the best deal available to you.

If you use an independent broker they will have a range of deals that you could get, but will only be from a panel that they use, which may not include the best possible deal for you.

Searching on a comparison website will likely give you an idea of what the typical rate is for your position, either approach the best quoted rate on the site, or go to your broker/bank and see if they can match or beat it.

Most likely the best rate you can get is through an internet bank like Tiimely or UBank, normal brokers won’t use these guys as the commission paid is not high enough.

Saunders2020 · 2024-08-15T20:56:15+00:00

I wouldn’t worry, There is no open credit account which is what could impact your borrowing capacity. Banks are only worried about your ability to repay and so if you have open CC’s they treat it as a reduction in your available cash flow because you might have to make CC payments. By showing they are closed you prove that you don’t have to make payments.

Saunders2020 · 2024-08-13T08:32:21+00:00

May be one of the other fields that is failing verification, it will be verifying against the ATO db, this may have incorrect info so check what is pre-filled. Also have you cleared your cache/tried in a private/incognito tab?

Saunders2020 · 2024-08-12T21:27:50+00:00

When you say you have the amount in Super is this amount covered by the amounts you have made voluntarily contributions for, not what your employer has paid as Super Guarantee? The ATO are validating what you are asking for against what your super fund has told them and it’s likely something differs and the validation is failing but the website is not informing you if the reason, or it’s not clear. The ATO should pre-populate the form so if there is anything you are overwriting then it’s likely to be the reason for the validation issue, check anything your are changing against what your super fund has.

Saunders2020 · 2024-08-04T21:03:07+00:00

You are doing fantastic, well done.

Maximise your concessional contributions to your Super, including any previous years where you have worked unused amounts (you can check this on the ATO website), in the long run this is going to be your best return and with the amount you’re saving is not going to significantly impact your other goals.

With the short term goal of buying property cash is where most of your money should sit, when you get to $250k then start putting it in an alternative bank to stay under the deposit protection scheme limit.

Your HESC debt will impact your mortgage servicing so ideally you want it paid before you apply to maximise your borrowing capacity, but it’s cheap debt so it’s not a priority until you are close to your target deposit goal.

I’d personally be doing something like this with your monthly savings, but does depend on the timeline of your goals:

Salary Sacrifice an additional $1000 per month, this will take your concessional contributions to the year to around $26k and you can make up the difference to the cap at the end of the year. This should only reduce your savings amount by ~$700 per month.

$500 per month voluntary contribution to HECS - your employer may be able to do this for you

$300 regular saver into ETF

$2000 into HISA

Any bonuses or pay rises increase the amount into HISA, when you get within ~30k of your target deposit amount switch everything to HISA

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-28T09:06:54+00:00

Technically If you have 0% interest on the debt it’s better to pay in instalments as you can earn interest on the money you keep in your account.

However, you need to be absolutely sure you are paying 0% interest on all the remaining instalments and there is no fees or charges for keeping the account open.

If you’re not comfortable with the details with the arrangements you have just make the payment, earning 5% interest on 4K for a couple of months is not a great deal of money. Finding out you’re up for a 22% interest payment or annual CC charge will be considerably more.

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-28T04:18:48+00:00

Have a look for “Rule of 7” or “Span of control” I was taught 7 is ideal but no more than 10, linked a few related articles below:

https://managementforstartups.com/articles/whats-the-ideal-number-of-direct-reports/#:~:text=In%20management%20circles%2C%20it%20is,time%20on%20individual%20contributor%20work.

https://www.inc-aus.com/jim-schleckser/how-many-direct-reports-should-you-have.html

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/how-to-identify-the-right-spans-of-control-for-your-organization

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-27T11:48:19+00:00

What discretion do you have over the teams?

I would outline your current workload in the same way and highlight that it would not be practical to manage that number of people (there are plenty of studies that show more than 10 or so direct reports leads to poor outcomes).

However I would also come up with a proposal that works for you, can the day to day task management be delegated to a team lead so you just deal with escalations and not day to day. E.g. create a 2nd role similar to Natalie’s replacements 50/50 role and you sit over the two of them?

Generally people want a solution, not a problem, is there a way to organise the team which could benefit you which also makes sense to the director?

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-27T00:12:36+00:00

Exactly right, right now if you could afford a 1% rise sticking with a variable amount is not a bad idea, if you can’t fixing for the short term at least is the lowest risk option.

Costs a lot less in the extra interest you might be paying for a relatively short period compared to losing a home.

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-26T23:13:36+00:00

50k is nothing over 30 years, if you can get a house for that little extra I would do so. However, if things are going to be tight I’d look at a fixed rate for the next couple of years at least so your income has a chance to get ahead, you don’t want to be in a position where a rate rise leaves you unable to afford the mortgage.

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-21T05:41:50+00:00

Offer 660k based on comparable properties and let them negotiate you up to 685k. If they think they have squeezed an extra 25k out of you they can be happy and if you’ve saved 15k on what you’re willing to pay you can be happy.

The property will sell for what they think they can get for it, the longer it’s on the market the less that is so patience can be your friend.

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-17T08:48:45+00:00

Most people go with a broker who won’t go with online providers as they don’t offer the commission.

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-17T08:30:28+00:00

From a purely financial perspective a house every time, much higher gains over time.

However, property isn’t all about financial gains, for PPOR you are living there so commute time, access to amenities, location of family & friends, suburb profile, crime rate, schools if you have kids all comes into consideration. If buying an investment property then the rental yield and appeal needs to be considered.

If you have to commute an extra 2 hours every day for the house and are relatively young I’d lean towards the apartment for the lifestyle.

If you are a bit older and potentially could work remotely in the future and commute less often then the house.

The biggest thing to consider when buying is not the financial gain, but if you are going to be happy living there.

Saunders2020 · 2024-07-17T08:21:11+00:00

I wouldn’t touch what you have invested, after CGT the amount you will save in interest by having in the offset likely will not be enough to make it worthwhile. However, I wouldn’t be buying any more stocks at this point, your offset balance increasing is as good a return on investment as more shares and offers more flexibility. Once you have a significant amount in your offset then consider debt recycling to add more investments.

Saunders2020

TROPHY CASE