Moving to Sydney? - Must know money saving tips

Moving to Sydney? - money saving Tips


So, you are moving to Sydney? - here are a few tips on how to save money on the move.


The first thing you need to know is that Sydney is very expensive, you will chew through thousands of dollars easily without thinking. I cannot emphasize this enough.


There is nothing worse than the empty feeling after you have moved to Sydney to see how you have WASTED money on the move. Everything feels cool, you have some cash in hand and you spend, spend and spend on things you would not have done in your home country.


Things I wish I knew before I moved to Sydney

0) Try these guys for international money transfers - you won't get cheaper


1) Firstly, Sydney is expensive!


Sydney is one of the best cities to live in the world. Its a prized destination city for students and migrants. As always, where there is a high demand the prices are high.


2) Get control of your money long before you go


I cannot emphasize this enough - you need a control mindset. Set up a spreadsheet or notebook and work through everything. spend months doing this. Look after the cents and the dollars will look after yourself.


3) On everything you do get multiple quotes.

Do your diligent effort - get multiple quotes and even then, haggle with the people quoting them, plead poverty, budget, "cant do it". You would be surprized how low people will go for business. It's a dog eat dog world. Make sure you get your slice.


For example.

 I got 5 companies in to do a removal quote to Sydney. Everyone single one of them said I had to go into a forty foot container. Something in me thought I could do a smaller container.

After much effort I found out I could get my stuff in a 20 foot container and saved myself almost $5000 !!!. If I had been lax, I would have lost this money in a heartbeat. Dont feel sorry, or guilty, or like a scrooge. This is life. Take or it will be taken from you. Removal agents want to make a great profit, but they won't want to lose your business if you shave them down. Ask them what you need to do to bring the price down.

4) Haggle on everything to do with you move to Sydney.


Even on your flights. If you are moving pets especially, get multiple quotes. Even then, ask for serious discounts, you never know. Import and export agents are exhorbitant. Make sure you do what you can yourself.


5) Ones goes First!


 If you are a family, let the husband come over first and stay with a friend or family or even get a one month room to rent in a house. Let him get the house ready for the family. No use spending money on temporary furnished accommodation for the whole family - THIS IS A BIG RACKET IN SYDNEY!


6) Getting Temporary Furnished accommodation in Sydney


Even on temporary accommodation, haggle on the price. Make an offer for long stay. So if you find a house being rent out for say weekends - offer them some ridiculous low amount to take it for a month - it may well be accepted


For Example I did this

 I got a house that was normaly about 12k for a month for 40% of that, just because I asked!. I ended up with temporary, fully furnished accommodation, 5 bedroom house, on narabeen lakes(literally) with canoes, nature and privacy at a price less than the cheapest three bedroom furnished apartment in a shady area of Blacktown!

I saved both money and got a better place to stay.

7) Price gouging in Australia.

Please remember there is a lot of price gouging in Australia.
You must fight back. I even ask for better prices in all the shops in the malls. If you don't you will be paying a minimum of 10% too much!


8) Buying a Car around Sydney - haggle and play the dealers off against each other.

Do not be desperate. Never show them the car is lighting you up. Once you have a car in mind go home! Phone 5 dealers with the same car, get a price, then phone each one back as they beat each other on price. I did this and got my "on sale - at lowest price" car down by another $5300 dollers with extra accessories and extra warrenty period.


9) Renting a long term house.


This is my biggest peeve. Rentals are high and landlords in Sydney are alway trying to get the biggest rental they can. With so many stupid(me included) and naive immigrants arriving, they profiteer off this lack of insite to the market. Yes, Sydney is expensive, but at the same time landlords often put their rentals on the market at "above marlet prices".


You really need to understand this next sentence!


The rentals you see on the property rental websites are higher than the market rate! Obviously every time the landlord puts his house on the market he is going to start high. Its perfectly acceptable in sydney to make an offer. Find a house that is not too perfect and then offer them a lower rate. Once again dont show them you are in love with the place!

Explain this to your wife and kids before going. When the agent phones you about your interest in the house,(or as you leave the viewing), say something like - "uhh, I like the house, but its a little overpriced for me, maybe of it was a little less we would take it, ok bye". and be serious - leave the place. The rental agent gets commission to rent the house. They may well jump in and ask for an offer and take it to the landlord.

Dont mess around, geting the price down by 150 per week is 600 per month and $7200 per year.

Your chickenlike complacency will lose you 7000 bucks per year. Own the landlords when you move to Sydney dont be a wuss!


Also make sure anything needs fixing is in the contract!


10) Use Flybuys - it does add up - its like a points card.


11) Get your travel "Opel" card asap, the fares are way cheaper.


Max of $60 per week, even if you jump from bus to train on your journey. On trains, travel outside of peak hours as its cheaper.


12) Saving on Grocery shopping in Sydney

In Coles, they mark down many items with a red and yellow sticker. Follow the Sticker. You can get some real bargains on meat especially. Dont be snooty, it works.

13) Eating out in Sydney - a real budget killer!

For a family of 5 getting a meal at MacDonalds or KFC in Sydney is about $60 - $70. 5 of these "outings" a month is $350 - almost a whole grocery trolley!! This is especially hits you when you initially migrate as you are not settled.


As a dad, my answer to this is to make sure I spend much more at the supermarket to ensure there is plenty of food in the fridge. I would rather spend $15 on chicken legs than $70 on KFC. I would rather spend $30 on a leg of lamb, than throw the money at MacDonalds junk food.

Make sure there is all the goodies your family needs in the fridge - frozen meals, whatever, make it easy to NOT got eat out.


Watch out! its easy to go fast food ten times a month, cut it out. Whatever way you can!


14) Power points and adaptors in Sydney.


This might seem small but it chews cash. Buying socket adaptors for you appliances is the easy way, but each electricity power socket adaptor you buy will be from 10 to 25 dollars. Buying 10 of these will chew up 100 to 250 dollars. Go to a hardware store like Bunnings in Sydney, get 20 plugs for $2 each and change your sockets on your appliances. Its cheaper and saves the family from doing musical chairs with the adaptors!




Any way that's it for me for now. Hope you like the tips.
Would really appreciate any tips you have found - leave them in the comments section below!


thanks and have a good one!














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Moving to Sydney? - Work life balance in Australia - what to expect

Work life balance.

A nice term, something I heard when I moved  to Sydney and started working. nice concept....

I had hopes my new company was different, cared, had some nirvana culture...I mean, a new country, I migrated to Sydney, Australia! surely it could be true...

5 years later...

What does it mean? I have never seen it in practice.

I work in IT, I sit near the business, but they treat us like a call-center. IT aren't spoken to unless needed.

Expected to turn up at 7:30 leave at 6pm or 7pm or later - commute an hour each way.

See family one hour - work life balance. more like work work work - eff your life - balance this! 

Is this your life in Sydney? Let us know, leave your experiences below in the comment section.

Later people - grab some of that life balance, before you know it you're old and have never seen your family.

its a cliché, but take the time to smell the roses.


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The crazy big company work culture in Sydney, Australia

Wow, I work in a crazy place. 5 years and seven managers!

Is this weird culture just endemic to Australian employers?

My company expects me to work 11 hour days and weekends. We never get a thank you.

My team does 100 things right, works under continual stress, makes miracles, but only the one thing that goes wrong in 100 right things gets remembered. And gets remembered for ages.

Why is it that only the outspoken, confident or good looking people get promoted? Its not like they are doing a good job.

Its crazy, these upwardly mobile managers are such good bull-shitters, that they do more harm than good, they last a few years and when their teams crash and burn, they move to another company and do the same thing again.

Every time something goes wrong, all the upper management polish their daggers and stab each other in the back.

New managers come in, who know nothing about our workload, processes and challenges and make suggestions and changes which just makes it worse. Then, when things go wrong they blame the team at the bottom. Not one manager tries to spend 6 months understanding the systems and issues.

A couple of conversations and they are on-board, Experts! my ass.

In some cases workers are reporting to multiple managers, why is this, this causes time contention, stress and task thrashing. Please one manager and the other manager is annoyed. In the end you have to lie to both managers to fake that you are working for both of them. Escalate to both the issue and no-one does anything.

Please escalate issues they say, please innovate. Hah, Escalation is always ignored..Always.

Why don't they promote from within, so that those people that know the issues can fix them?

Anyone that speaks the truth or tries to fix things get cut.

Business are increasing profits by cutting staff (aka not really making more revenue) and then firing and hiring because the left over staff cannot cope with the work.

The cycle continues. I mean really.... 7 managers in 5 years!

I have watched teams be consolidated and a year later being broken apart to the same as they were.

If is wasn't so painful it would be funny. but its not.

I work in the Financial industry, is it the same in yours?


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What not to do when buying a car in Australia

I had a rather unfortunate incident recently.

I had just arrived back in Sydney in Australia and needed to buy a car quick.

After driving to a few second hand and new car dealerships we settled on the type of car we wanted - compact SUV - and started to shops around.

I had also acquired some approved finance from Macquarie vehicle finance who were quite good and very helpful, especially as I had just arrived in the country.

Anyway, so once I decided on the exact car (Holden Captiva 5 LT), I called a few dealerships to try and get the best price possible. One of the dealers said he would only go to his manager if I gave him my credit card details as his manager would not want to play a bidding game. He assured me it was not a deal but he needed it to show his manager I was serious. He also assured me no deposit would be taken. I also had some queries for him regarding if he could source the right color car(ie did he have the car in stock).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he did not have the color car I wanted and I went with another dealer.

I informed the original dealer courteously by email that I had found the car elsewhere and that's when the s h i t  hit the fan. I got about 20 phone calls and follow up messages in the space of about an hour! Numerous texts and also very aggressive, condescending voice mail messages.

1) they tried to tell me that giving them a credit card constituted a contract.
2) they then sent me a invoice and contract and informed me that as they had emailed me a contract it meant it was also a deal (I had not even seen it I my email...not to mention signing it)
3) the car dealer, had taken $500.00 off my credit card even though he assured me he would not. This happened directly after he got of the call.
4) I was threatened with 5% contract value of the full value of the new car!
5) I was threatened with legal action

When the guy saw I was not going to roll over and put my legs in the air for him, he started to realize I knew my rights.

He then tried to get me to write him an email explaining that I had agreed to buy the car but now had changed my mind, and in the email it should ask to be let out the agreement.

This really got my back up as I had not entered into any agreement to actually buy a car as we were still at the "do you have stock stage". I believe he was trying to trick me into writing written proof that I had agreed to buy the car. needless to say - I did not write any email.

Watch out, car dealers are super friendly when selling a car! they are not your friends! They want you to believe this. In reality they only want your money. Once you have signed, the super gracious treatment will stop and they will move on to the next possible client.

Treat them hard, shop around, get prices from multiple car dealers and phone back telling them all the lower prices, make them drop their prices.

Do not feel guilty, this is their job, they do this for years every day. Turn the tables on them, they will make you believe you have just robbed them but in reality you probably could have got a better price.

Amazingly, the more dealers I phoned, the lower the price went. Some dealers even told me they were selling me the car at a loss. (yeah I believe that...not)

Anyway good luck with your move to Sydney



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Can I drive in Sydney, NSW if I have a Philippines drivers license ?

If you are on any temporary or provisional visa, you can drive on your Philippines licence as long as it is still valid.

If your licence is not in English, you must also have an International Driving Permit (IDP) and must carry it and your licence at all times when you are driving - IDPs can only be obtained in the country in which you obtained your license.

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/licensing/visi... Information for visitors and temporary residents

If you have a permanent residence Australian visa, you then have 3 months in which to obtain a NSW license - after that, you will be considered to be driving unlicensed.

Because your licence was obtained in the Philippines which is not a recognised country for licensing purposes, you will be required to undergo a driving and a driver knowledge test.

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/licensing/newt... NSW licence for international drivers

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/licensing/newt... Recognised countries


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Can a Philippines drivers license be swapped for an Australian drivers license?

Hi guys and gals, if you are moving to Australia and are from the Philippines, you will unfortunately not be getting an Australian drivers license off the bat,

Short answer is NO. Unfortunately due to the fact that you can literally(under the counter) buy a Philippines drivers license, it is not recognized by Australian authorities.

For Sydney, NSW,  if you have a Philippines drivers license, and are a permanent residence (PR visa) it is NOT recognized in NSW Australia for a straight swap.

You need to do all the tests and it varies by age group.

For over 25's you only have to do the Australian theory and practical test in order to get the license.

BUT!!!

If you fail any of the test's, you will only be allowed to apply for a learners license! So don't fail it.

Probably worth getting some driving lessons. The Filipino way of driving will not pass an Australian test.


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South Africans in Sydney, Australia - part 2

..continued from South Africans in Sydney - Part 1


Hi, I am a South African living in Sydney. I have been here for some years. Here are some facts as I see it.


Q. What do I like about Sydney?

Well, it reminds me of home - wide roads, parks, sea and beaches and the lifestyle is similar to my home town of Cape Town. Good weather, blue sky (I lived in the UK for a bit ). There are large amounts of forests, beaches and mountain ranges to drive to on the weekend.

Q. What are the negatives of Sydney.

Number 1 - its very expensive.
It can be boring - especially in the established, non eclectic suburbs, neighbors are strangers. Nothing is familiar. Sydney is huge, takes about 5 hours to drive around it.
Australia can have a lot of rules and regulations. If you are not working - it can be very lonely.
See the posts on this blog - why do people leave Australia

Q. Is Sydney Safe?
Well, compared to South Africa its totally safe, although one needs to be wary as there is a seedy side. There are large amounts of youths that seem to be affiliated to gangs and drugs.

Q. What about the cost of Living?

House rentals are extremely expensive, finding something reasonably prices for rental entails a lot of searching, living further out from Sydney and perhaps not being in the best location.
Food prices are high - its wierd as I would have expected it to be lower. Electronics are similar to Asian countries and in some cases lower  - e.g. mobile phones are not exorbitant.

Q. How have you found the locals to be?

On the whole Australians are friendly and probably friendlier than the UK. I think they are less pretentious than South Africans, as South Africans seem to put a lot of emphasis on image - large cars, houses etc. etc.

Q. What was the first thing you did when you arrived in Australia?

Rented a car, bought a mobile Sim card and also a dongle for internet access. I bought chunks if 3 gig at a time.
I think I treated myself to a spanky new laptop. You have to have this, to do your research for home rentals etc.
Within a few days I  bought a car with finance, you need one I think, especially if you have family. Transport is great, but walking 10 minutes to a bus stop etc. etc. is not my idea of fun.
Also figured out where to do my shopping.
Then I reported in for work and started the house hunt.

Q. How did you get to work?

Used the train, I drove to the nearest station and parked there.


Q. Where did you stay at first?

Well I actually moved to Sydney twice now. the first time I went a month ahead of my family and rented a room in someone's house in Baulkham hills. Was cheap and that's all I needed while I set things up fro my wife and kids. The good part was that there were other people who were staying in the house from whom I extracted a lot of information.

The second time I found a nice furnished house near Narabeen lakes - cheaper and better than the expensive 3 bedroom short stay apartments which hit you for AUD $1500 a week. I was lucky I looked for weeks and then we chanced upon it, we also did some haggling to get the price down.


Q. What is the transport like in Sydney

Sydney has a large network of bus routes that get you from anywhere to anywhere!
There is also a mature rail way network with modern spacious trains that don't seem to get anywhere as crowded as other places. Its not like South Africa where you have to have a car.
Taxi's are available but not all over the place, a last resort and can turn up late!
Of course the road system is totally first world. Very annoying is the large number of toll roads!

Q. Do you miss South Africa ?

Yes and no. As a family we long to return to South Africa and sometimes make plans to do it. Finances or circumstances always seem to get in the way. Sometimes we miss it so much that we don't even care about the negatives in South Africa. On the other hand I have lost most of my ties to South Africa now and I am not too fussed. I miss feeling like I am "home". I think I am always more daunted by Australia. - when getting work, applying for anything etc. I seems to stress more in Australia at work as I feel lightly less confident, I am losing this sort of inferiority complex though.















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South Africans in Sydney

Hi everyone,

as I am a South African who has moved to Sydney(and has a blog about living in Sydney), I thought I would try and do some research on South Africans in Sydney as of right now, end 2014.

I am personally an English speaking South African(my Afrikaans is not too bad - depending on who you ask!). I was born and bred in Hillbrow, Johannesburg and believe it or not, I can remember green parks and waterslides and swimming pools in that area... Not so much the same now unless things have changed radically since I left.

I am well qualified in talking about Sydney as I have migrated there TWICE now and its been an up and down roller coaster ride with highs and some very dark lows. (very effing lonely and very effing expensive living there.. did I mention how expensive Sydney is...?)

Personally I think almost all white South Africans in Sydney, especially the adults will have left South Africa due to social ills and fear. -Fear about South Africa's future, fear about infrastructure and I guess fears about crimes and job availability. (in a nutshell (lets call it as it is)).

Please note - no blame here. Apartheid in South Africa over the last 80 years has basically ruined the country. (some people wont like that..anyway that's my opinion, no use blaming the current government without blaming the existing government) Just imagine what could have happened if the old gov. had skilled up the whole population and not just 10% of the population. Very very very short sighted.

OK so on to South Africans in Sydney

So, how do I categorize it. There are a RICH bunch of South Africans that moved to Sydney, and there are the working class that moved, and then there are the rest, who are either youngsters with enough points to get a visa or Kids of South African immigrants.

These are further divided into English speaking and Afrikaans speaking South Africans.

There is a very large and seemingly very affluent South African Jewish Community in St Ives and the surrounding areas. They have a Jewish school and synagogue there. I know because I drive past it often and there are security guards.

There are some very active online forums - SA Australia being one. I am trying to start a forum, but its very difficult as the big boy forums are already out there. And its getting spammed a lot.  (Please join up and help me get it running!!)

When I lived in St Ives - about 20 minutes by train north of Sydney (very upper class) I bumped into South African mothers all the time as kids came to visit our kids etc. I must admit, they were very friendly on the whole.

The pool guy in St Ives was also a very old fashioned, old afrikaaner(about 60) who cleaned our pool once a week. I think he had problems being a "laborer" his attitude was very bad and in the end we swopped him out for another service. You have to be a south African to understand this. Most White South Africans do not do "manual labor", they get people to do it for them. I know this is a generalization, but in the past this was how it was, it may have changed a bit. No maids in Sydney ne people! minimum wage is AUD $16 per hour, not so affordable to have a house keeper..

Where do South Africans live in Sydney?

Firstly, there are about 50000 South Africans living in Sydney which is only about half a percent of the Australian population. (Actually that's quite big)

Of course South Africans don't move to Sydney to be with other South Africans but if you are interested here are some breakdowns.

Here is a breakdown within Sydney.
Eastern suburbs - 6398 (2.6%)
North Sydney - 7728 (2.1%)
Baulkham Hills - 3168 (1.5%)
North Beach - 3017 (1.3%)
Central Coast - 1369 (0.4%)

Lets focus on Eastern Sydney
Dover Heights - 555 (14.1%) --- So many, and such a high percentage?
Rose Bay - 868 (9.2%)
Vaucluse - 563 (4.7%)

A few of the prominent Suburbs in North Sydney with South Africans
St Ives - 1742 (11.2%)
Cherry brook - 565 (3%)

Latest statistics put South Africans as new comers to Australia with an average stay of 10 years so far compared to others who have averages of 40 to 50 years.
South Africans are only 8th on the list of migrants coming to Australia though.

Dover heights is very expensive, you would need a couple million to buy up there. So not for the average Sydney migrator?



The density of migrants within Sydney suburbs by percentage (not just south Africans though)




see part 2 of South Africans living and moving to Sydney



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Immigrating Sydney - Where do people shop cheaply online in Australia ?

Hello again!

I though I would down some points about online shopping in Australia. As an expat we don't really know where the shops are and whether the shops are well priced. Online shopping is very competitive so I know the prices are ok and I really hated driving around hoping to find suitable shops fro what I wanted.

Before coming to Australia, we were living in the UK for a number of years and in the UK the online shopping scene is highly mature. We got so used to the joys of shopping online.

In fact it got to a point where we did ALL our grocery shopping from the PC and that the only times we went to one of the big supermarkets was for snacks or small top-ups. You can even choose the two hour slot it will be delivered in and re-use you previous orders to save time.

In Australia it is not there by a long way! The broadband is quite slow, and bandwidth is limited so you pay for X amount of data  per months and then your speed gets restricted. Its growing fast though.

Slowly I started to online shopping (we were in Sydney). We started buying some pc parts and also started to do online shopping for various household items.

I just cannot waste my time travelling to various spread out shops to find out what's what - rather just spend 20 minutes online and spare myself the drive, the petrol and the time. (Sydney is a big place)

My favorite online store I found (because it was generally cheaper and delivery is free) was this wholesale store called Simply Wholesale.

If you need reliable, cheap car rental the you can use Budget car rental  or Avis Australia Rental Cars and Car Hire Services

If you need to safely book some accommodation in Sydney, I found Booking.com to be the best and the prices are normally as good as or better than the other sites out there. I used these folk when I needed some temp accommodation on arrival in Sydney. I had some issues with the hotel I stayed at and booking.com sorted it out and organized me some discount as well.

For Sydney online shoe shopping there is Clarks who are well known and I trust the shoes there. Especially good for reasonably priced school shoes as well.

And finally for clothing ladies, an old favorite - especially for South Africans who have moved to Sydney Australia, we have Queenspark to shop at online.




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Immigrating to Sydney - ISIS, radicalism and the ginger terror teen

Wow, I just saw the news about the "Ginger Jihadi" or "Terror teen". This is a young Australian kid, who has travelled off to ISIS and joined up. Now he is there, he cannot come back right? He kows to much, is under as extreme peer pressure as you can get and is now an outlaw in Australia.

It seems that the radical, I don't care about anything or anybody, muslim jihad ideology is taking hold everywhere that people can read about this stuff.

I don't know how anybody could sell God or the ideology of a loving God as someone who condones war and murder. It just does not add up any way you look at it.

At first I just read this with interest and even amusement but slowly realized that this kid who is 17, has probably just thrown his whole life away. He is at an age when he is not really a man, basically a stupid teenager, easily influenced, wont listen to anyone,  who has slowly (or quickly) become radicalized.

The sad thing is that he probably just some Australian kid who thinks he is doing good or right by the world. Its seductive right - you get a brotherhood, friends, security - you get to travel and do high excitement stuff.

I believe the authorities should be reserved and compassionate if he should want to come back. If he was 22 or older when I believe men have finally become adults then its a different story, but right now this is just a dumbass kid and as far as I am concerned, and just makes these radical terror groups look stupid as well as murderous

Just my thoughts, I hope and pray he somehow leads a normal life again one day.

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Movng to Sydney, Australia - Preparing for the IELTS - English Language test?

Hi

If you are applying for one of the many visa's available to you for your migration to Australia and English is not you or your countries first language, you will be required to prove you are English speaking or pass an English test.

Annoyingly, I remember taking the oral part of the IELTS and that they played out a tape recording with questions.  I think it was the overseer who kept coughing at exactly the wrong times! Although I passed quite easily and so did my wife, I missed a good couple of questions because I could not hear them. Please remember, as it's a replayed recording, there is not second chance, you need to focus and focus immediately. The recording churns on and does not wait for you. If you miss a question just focus on the next one so you don't miss anymore.

I recently spoke to someone who is an experienced teacher of 2nd language English speakers and who has been teaching in Australia for 28 years now.  He has actually focused only on exam preparations for IELTS and Cambridge advanced for the last few years.

His advice for the Australian IELTS is :
The reading test of the IELTS is quite difficult. Time is your enemy. Some people spend ages reading the text and run out of time when answering the questions. Native English speakers might be able to read the whole text in detail, but most cant as it takes to much time. (I did this)
Here are some bullet points

1. SKIM the text only looking for the main idea of the text by checking the heading, pictures and their captions. Always look at the firsts sentence of each paragraph. The first sentence is likely to be the topical sentences, telling you what is in the actual paragraph. This is called locating where the information is in the text. Do this in three to five minutes. This will set you up to come back for answers as you go through the questions.

2. For each question note or highlight the key words. You will be please to see that you can already answer a lot of questions already as a result of the initial three minute browse through the passage.

3. Work your way through each left over question by scanning the passage text the correct answers. Please remember that time is the killer here. Rather get the 80 to 90% of answers you know quickly and then when you have time left over go for the hard ones.

4) Once finished, CHECK your work. Those possible questions you answered incorrectly could be the difference. Keep checking until the time is over. Stay calm and focused. DO NOT flip your sheet over feeling satisfied as soon as you hit the last question. Check the hard ones. Sometimes we make the silliest mistakes.

5) In the True, False and Not Given or Yes/No/Does Not Say sections, don't be a clever dick and use your own knowledge, logic or common sense. Since these are  reading tests, the examination is on precisely what is in the text - EVEN if it wrong.

6) Watch out for "bold" defining words like "all, every, no, none, always and never" : These are not quite always true, as there will be exceptions or tricks.

7) DO  NOT skip a hard question, especially in the multiple choice sections. Come back, try to answer it, and then GUESS. Marks or points are not subtracted for wrong answers! Give yourself a chance!

8) Always make sure you read the instructions carefully.
For example -- "Write no more than two words and/or a number". Don't exceed this! Anything else will be wrong. Its a clue to the answer.

9) Check all your pages. Make sure you have not skipped any questions. There are normally 40 questions. check the back page.

Check check check - nothing more painful than doing it again when you could have passed it the first time.

10) Don't be nervous. The stress we went through preparing and at the test was not equivalent to the test itself. This is no university English, just standard English. The Oral tester was very friendly, they are not there to be nasty or trick you, just to see if you can communicate.

I think both my wife and I had a nice conversation with the Oral tester and had a bit of a laugh too. Nerves will kill you, be honest, communicate as clearly as you can. Think about the tester you are talking too, he will ask questions. Talking is communicating so ensure you give him the info he needs to feel his questions are being answered.

Good luck people. Hope it goes well!
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Best suburb for a family in Sydney

Thought I would do some research on the best Suburb for a family on Sydney.

One recent set of Research put Forestville as the highest ranking Suburb in Sydney.

Its very safe, with lots of bird life and bush walks. Its not a trendy place, rather a very stable , affluent upper class suburb. Its a 20 minute drive to the beach or to Sydney Waterfront from here. Kind of boring for a young couple wanting to move to Sydney to experience some night life. You wont find it here.

It is situated 15km north of the Sydney CBD and falls into the Warringah council area. Its known to be both in the Northern beaches and also the "Forest" area.

The only negative is that there is no train line to jump onto, although there are bus routes. I notice that a lot of people have complained that there is a lack good public transport to Sydney for  working people. A little bit over at St. Ives there is a train in Gordon that takes about 15 minutes to get to Sydney center.

Forestville if close to the top forested areas of Sydney and as such dopes not have massive malls. There are a lot of smaller shops, do it yourself, gardening and nurseries. it really is a well to do area and as such the type of shops reflects this.

The following factors  were taken into account - property prices, size of land, average number of bedrooms, proximity to schools, shopping, health care and capital gains over time.

Forestville is actually only ranked 25th on the whole of Australia. The Blue Mountains came up really high with a lot of suburbs in the top 20. (affordability and plot sizes kicked these up.)

There are a choice of three primary schools in Forestville.

• Our Lady of Good Counsel,
• Forestville Montessori School,
• Forestville Public School.

The nearest high school is Killarney Heights High School. There are some other high schools nearby - Forest High School in French's Forest and Davidson High School in French's Forest.

some of these are the best high schools in the northern areas.

There is also Aspect Vern Barnett School for children with autism spectrum disorder.

There are a bunch of sports and recreation facilities - Tennis, Netball, rugby.

The population is not high with only about 8000 residents and the average is a touch over 40 years of age. A about 1500 people are over 60! Mainly European ancestry (UK ancestry)

Orange a region in New South Wales, ranked as the number one area for families in NSW. The median house prices sitting at $333 000, a large plot size of 851 square meters and large houses with more than three bedrooms. House prices have increased by 16% over the last 5 years and there are good sets of amenities. Unfortunately Orange is three to four hours drive from Sydney, so if you are working in the Sydney area its a no go.

Forestville's average house prices are at a touch over 1 million AUD so its not a cheap option.

Forestville's average rentals are also sitting at $840 (3BR is at an average of $780, 4 BDR is averaging $900) per week so it is really a high end Suburb.

Only 12 percent is young couples with family.

If you want to check out St Ives which is close by and with a better train route go here
Good family Suburb - living in St. Ives, Sydney
A Good Sydney family Suburb - St Ives, Sydney - general tips about schools, trains and shops

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Bringing Pets To Australia

Wow, its a lot of work to bring a couple of pets to Australia!

We have two beautiful little dogs and a cat who are so totally part of the family. I have literally spent thirty to forty hours researching, faxing, emailing and phoning importers and kennels and vets and the moon.

Its crazy how you can ask some companies for a quote and they don't respond for days. Others are so expensive its just crazy.

I am currently moving my three pets to Sydney from a country that is not on the "allowed list" to Australia. This means that my pets must first go to an acceptable country for 6 months where they can be tested by "trusted" vets and then only can they be imported to Sydney where we will live.

The whole journey will take about seven months as there is state vet quarantine in both South Africa and Australia. read $$$$

I am exporting pets from the Philippines to Australia.

Firstly, the Philippines is not the easiest place to get things done. A lot of the exporters are fly by night, and when they hear you are a foreigner or expat they load the quote. Seriously? We are not dumb mister Filipino!

After going through a list of the main removal companies who all quoted very high, I ended up phoning the airlines myself and got put through to the airlines Cargo office, who, because its the Philippines, don't actually have their own offices so I got put through to a recognized agent.

I got put through to Aero international Freight forwarding they quoted me about USD $2050 to pickup and fly three small animals using Singapore Airlines via Singapore to South Africa. This is not including the IAT approved pet crate Kennel things I have to buy. They were Friendly and helpful and were the cheapest by far. The others were all at the USD $3300 mark.

They tried Emirates but this was not an option as they go via Dubai and they wont take pets in transit on their planes unless the have a special RNATT rabies test three months prior to leaving. Luckily other airlines don't require this.

Going via South Africa is also much cheaper than going six months in Malaysia which is expensive despite being closer and flights are shorter and cheaper. I got a quote for USD $30000 - seriously people! - they just sit in a  Kennel and eat kibbles!

Ok to get from the Philippines to South Africa there are number of things to be done.

So to get out of the Philippines all your rabies and other Vaccinations have to be up to date and your vet/shipper has to get a export certificate from somewhere in Manila before they can fly.

Also, in order for your pets to go to South Africa, you have to do the following :

Dogs will go into quarantine in South Africa for 6 to 14 days.
You need to apply for an import certificate for quarantine.
You need to deposit some money into a SA state vet bank
You need to send the application and deposit by fax to south Africa quarantine - to book a place.
They send it to the import permit place to get an import permit made.
You then need to phone them a few times to manage it along.
You need to organize a courier to pick up the docs and bring them to you in the Philippines.

Also. For dogs, blood needs to be drawn and couriered (chilled) to the Onderstepoort state vet for a number of tests.
You will have to pay for the local Philippines vet to do the blood, the fedexing and facilitation. I was charged 16000php.

You need a vet to do this. Allan at Vets in Practice, Alabang has done this twice now and has been very helpful.

The SA state vet will create a second Vet import permit that also needs to accompany the dogs.
In order to get this permit you need to deposit about Rand1500 per pet in a South African bank and the deposit slip needs to accompany the OVI Master Permit application with the blood to Onderstepoort.

When the dogs finally are in quarantine in Johannesburg they will be re-tested for some 5 items - which you will pay for - about Rand 1400 each.

Cats need a separate application for a non-quarantine import.
They do not go into quarantine.

They dogs need to be picked up from quarantine once the state quarantine staff are happy with them. South Africa quarantine Kennel costs are about Rand 32 per day (as apposed to AUD149 per day in Sydney (Rand1500)) Really Australia!?. You are going to crash with your prices!

Private Kenneling ranges from about 80 to 120 per day per animal.

So now your dogs are in South Africa.

So once they are in South Africa and out of quarantine, a 6 months Rabies regime starts, along with all the other normal Vaccinations, kenneling and flights and import permits to South Africa.

In Johannesburg I found three main kennels which people talk about on the forums

Keringa kennels - offer the full suite - kenneling and vet and import and export.
Paws Resort - kenneling and vet - they use another company for import and export.
Animal Travel do the whole gambit as well.

Keringa are the most expensive. they also omitted where the animal would stay - as they have three classes of kennels.

Paws resort seem reasonable with kennels with gardens. they were helpful and seemed to be less of a money grab.

I will follow up with more detail once I am further in process.

Feel free to post comments below and ask me questions in the comments.



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What is the job market like in Sydney?

Hi,

probably everyone who immigrates to Australia probably has employment as uppermost on their mind. Of course if you are sponsored by a company it is no a big issue, but once you are out of the company that brought you over its going to be a new, possibly difficult playing field.

As someone who has migrated to Sydney Australia and has lived here for some years, I thought I would do some research and also share my own experience.

For me it was fairly easy to get a job in Sydney. the credit crunch in 2009 hit. I was living in Europe and my contracts dried up.

I applied for two jobs in Sydney by phone from the UK. After a few calls I had one job offered immediately (well after a few interviews of course) and that was the impetus for me to get there. I had a job - very safe - it did not pay so well(for me anyway).

After I was in Sydney for two months - the other company came back to me with a much better offer and I jumped to them. (sorry first company, but to be fair it was a much better offer)

I was in a niche skill set. There were not a lot of others around and I guess I ticked all the right boxes in terms of skill and experience.

I started in a great place - came with good experience - came in at the right price.

Ok,

The flip side. I met a guy from Europe, who was doing some packing on a removals truck - really low skilled labor.  He could barely speak English. Please note he was such a nice guy - decent hard working, good nature. But! he could barely speak English. I asked him how long he had been in Australia. "6 years", he told me.

SIX years - and he could not speak English even half proficiently.

I know this will make some people mad!

But! Australia is English speaking. I think its possible to learn English in that time? At least to convince an employer you are not unable to communicate?

A lot of people on this blog, post about their struggle to find employment on this blog and I have noticed the same thing on forums. I stick by what I say, make sure your skills are current and that you can bring something to the job.

Come in at a lower wage (not ridiculously low) and make it worth their while. Once you have a track record, find new opportunities.

My son does websites to make a living. He bumped into a lot of people starting new businesses (as they needed websites..) A lot of people were starting off as carpet cleaners, getting small franchises, pool cleaning and care, pet care and even running fitness courses for kids in schools.

One guy had built a whole fleet of guys doing carpet cleaning across wider NSW.

Some mothers were finding jobs at their kids schools in the canteen and so on. Find a way and get by.

There is a lot (a LOT of money) of money in Sydney, you can find ways to make it there.

Sydney, and Australia as a whole is affected by the global recession and downturn in the markets - same as everywhere else. Don't expect it to be a simple game.

A very unfortunate fact about IT employment in Australia.

I know for a fact (as I work in one of these) is that all the big financial service companies - e.g. banks and insurance houses are and have moved 80% of their IT to cheap wage locations like Manila in the Philippines and Gurgaon in India. Several thousand people have been hired by just two banks in these cheaper areas of cost and all of those jobs have been lost in the home location - Australia. This is a stone cold fact. This is why, in order to compete you need to make sure you bring the best skills to the table. You will need to compete with the best - who are the core of the company left over in the "expensive" cost-to-company location - Australia.

The pressure of the global recession is forcing companies to really change the way they do things in order to survive.


Ok so what do they statistics say?

People in Australia are working longer hours - more than 40 per week.

Of young adults who worked full-time in 1976, more than half (59%) worked 40 hours per week and around a quarter (25%) worked more than 40 hours per week. In 2011 however, less than a third (31%) worked 40 hours per week, and over 38% worked more than 40 hours per week

 The 2011 Census reported that over one in four of Australia's 22 million people were born overseas.

November 2013 growth forecasts for this year are 2.5 per cent

Houses are becoming unaffordable - getting out of reach of dual parent incomes

Commutes of an hour at least are the norm.

 Australia Sydney, NSW - 354 in the work in affordability for houses
 Australia Sydney, NSW- average house price  $722,700
 Australia Sydney, NSW median house hold income $80,500  (you cant buy the above house on that....)


Good luck to everyone out there with your job search, please drop a few comments on how it went for you?

Please don't hesitate to ask specific questions below in the comments section. I would be happy to try and reply based on my limited experience in Sydney.




Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/state-of-the-australian-economy-in-15-charts-20140110-30lw4.html#ixzz39uEIt3hN


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