Any ex-pats on here?
Basically, I want out of the UK. I don't hate the place or anything like that, I'm just a little tired of it all.
I've also always promised myself that I'd live abroad at some point in my life.
I know Boozy and Beanz are Brits living in the US of A, but the place I really want to go to is New Zealand.
Any board members that are Brits living in NZ?
What's the first steps I should take? Are there any decent agencies that can do the grunt work for you??
How much am I loking at spending to secure a Visa etc? Can me and the Mrs both have a Visa to work there??
If I/we get visas what's the process in securing a job? Would I have to move there temporarily and do loads of job interviews??
What's the cost of living like compared to UK?
For me and STeaMette, this is a long term project - we would be looking at making the move in c2 years or so, so we are currently fact finding at the minute.
We are planning a trip out there next year to look around, but we've had reports back from all sorts of people that have been there that know us both and the things we like to do (walking, outdoor holidays etc) and everyone says we'd love it there.
I'd appreciate any good advice, or starting places, on this that anyone can offer...
I've also always promised myself that I'd live abroad at some point in my life.
I know Boozy and Beanz are Brits living in the US of A, but the place I really want to go to is New Zealand.
Any board members that are Brits living in NZ?
What's the first steps I should take? Are there any decent agencies that can do the grunt work for you??
How much am I loking at spending to secure a Visa etc? Can me and the Mrs both have a Visa to work there??
If I/we get visas what's the process in securing a job? Would I have to move there temporarily and do loads of job interviews??
What's the cost of living like compared to UK?
For me and STeaMette, this is a long term project - we would be looking at making the move in c2 years or so, so we are currently fact finding at the minute.
We are planning a trip out there next year to look around, but we've had reports back from all sorts of people that have been there that know us both and the things we like to do (walking, outdoor holidays etc) and everyone says we'd love it there.
I'd appreciate any good advice, or starting places, on this that anyone can offer...
Post edited by STeaM on
Comments
You brought a coat?! But the weather is so lovely today...
Yeh, I`ve never been the same since someone F******g nutted me and then shouted something about following steams advice or something, where are my gloves and scarf ?
Sounds like a great bloke! :grin:
Your mittens are still inside your coat. I've sold your scarf to pay for your taxi fare.
But I was only 23 at the time, so planning wasn't a concern, and there was a big wodge of money coming along with it too. And anyway, it's an opportunity not to be missed. I was actually going first for a training course, and then 3 months of developing a demo for a product we were trying to sell to Royal Mail and the USPS. Then, because we were then the only ones experienced with this code, we needed to stay another 3 months. Then we won the USPS project...and well, 6 years later I was still there.
Towards the end I was offered a green card, but the thing is... well, the thing is we think "the grass is always greener on the other side", and it's not. I may have been paid more in Texas, it may have been sunny, I also (still have!) great friends in Texas (so I go back every year) but... but... it was just too far away from friends I had since I was a child, it was too far from my Dad and the rest of my family, and it was just *too* hot, and Houston was just *too* polluted so I came back.
I'm really glad I did live away for those 7 years. I'd do it again. But at the end of the day, I prefer Britain, and I like being close my Dad (10 minutes walk from my house), I like a good pint of real ale in a real pub, and I like being near Europe.
Like Winston, I feel that the grass isn't always greener and I'm just so used to being close to Europe.
So it seems like the advice is, buy a box or two of lawn feed, and wait a few weeks, that way the grass will be greener on your side of the fence.........................
I can put you into contact with a c64 user I know who lives there now if you want specific advice
BUT he does miss getting his c64 stuff.. as obv. the import tax etc is crippling
http://www.visabureau.com/newzealand/default.aspx
Was great watching the details of the last election over there, and being able to really not give a monkeys about it all. Was a good move for me. If you go for it... good luck :)
www.britishexpats.com
NZ and AU have similar-ish immigration regs currently, both are clamping down on visas given
I moved from Wales to oz back in late 2006 on a skilled visa - did a degree in comms and also had the proceeds from my house sale - around 30k.
at the time, I was a bit fearful of the whole process and paid global visas way too much money to do everything for me....that was a waste of money really as skilled visas are very easy to process yourself and pay someone a hundred quid or so to check all the paperwork! (which is all that global visas seemed to do)
so, in summary,
if you have a degree, are under 35, medically fit........you'll have no problems doing it yourself
it's a long-ish process of a couple of years though
Your first port of call should be Immigration New Zealand to check out your EoI (Expression of Interest) points total. If you get above 140 (the rules may have changed since I did this) then you are in a good position, if you can get a job (and aren't an axe-murderer) then you can be quite confident.
The best forum for info is EmigrateNZ, it's a very good community on there.
It's currently the equivalent of December here and I'm sitting the the back garden in a t-shirt typing this. The weather is better, no question (don't forget I came from Scotland though, it'd be hard to be worse!)
Cost of living is high, wages are low. I had to buy a new washing machine, it cost me ?400 (and that was with ?100 off) at the current exchange rate. The exchange rate is currently extremely low (lowest ever just recently) due to the UK economy being shit and the pound being a leper. Historically you'd get about $2.70 - $2.90, recently it was at ?2.03. When you're talking house-sale proceeds that can translate to well over $100K. You need to consider this carefully. Expect to have less money, less luxury, more freedom and a better overall quality of life.
Anyway, gone on long enough. Check out the forum and feel free to PM me for any more info.
And as a last point, it cost us about ?10,000 overall (full house move, 40ft container). Yes, that is a lot of moolah.
Hehheh yeah but I dont tell them that... top of the "subjects to avoid" list :D
I second you on that, Winston.
I'd come out with the [former] girlfriend in 2004, and she had a job offer - I didn't have anything apart from a 6 month visitor's permit, so I was pretty much winging it.
I finally found a contracting job and got a 3 month work permit. The company I was contracting with then offered me a permanent job, so I was able to apply for a 14 month work permit, then followed by a year long work permit.
Having valid work permits really helped when applying for residency as a de-facto relationship [i.e. together but not married]. We did have to prove that we were in a long term relationship, so UK mortgage documents did the trick. We didn't use an agency to apply for residency, just did it ourselves - and finally got it at the start of 2006.
Getting a job can be difficult - the burden is on the NZ employer to prove that the role cannot be filled by hiring a kiwi, and it's the immigrant that has the necessary skills and qualifications.
The majority of job agencies here advertise on www.seek.co.nz, but they have a standard disclaimer - something along the lines of:
"NOTE for Overseas Enquiries and Non NZ Residents: Whereas we welcome international enquiries, only applicants that are legally entitled to work in New Zealand and can make themselves available for interviews in New Zealand will be considered for advertised positions. Others may not necessarily be responded to."
Best of luck!
I left the UK about 2 and a half years ago I moved to Ireland when I got fed up of the mess that has become Great Britain.
As I had recently qualified with an A+ qualification, it made sense to take advantage of the glut computer related employment opportunities.
Its very similar to the UK in that they drive on the left, speak English and have a very similar attititude to us Brits.
In fact, its like Britain 20+ years ago...
On the cons, its very expensive car wise (though fuel is cheaper than the UK) and some tradesmen can extort vast sums of cash. (A scrapyard tried charging me 100 Euros for a car door, in the UK I would have paid 20 quid tops.)
The Irish (North and South) are lovely, intelligent and friendly people who respect hard work and civil behaviour.
In short, I love Ireland. :smile:
Not the first time abroad either.
Lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for two years and Doha, Qatar for another two years. (At this time, I would avoid the Middle East myself...)
There is of course a different way to approach this which gives you more "backup" if your not 100% sure of what you want to do.
For about 15 years I took UK expat status while keeping my house in the UK. This involves being out of the country for the vast majority of the year and, depending on how long you spend IN the UK it gives you various benefits.
In my case I stopped being liable for UK income tax, NI and similar but retained the ability to move back at any time at (nominally) no cost.
By doing this I was able to live all over the world without breaking all my UK connections.
You can rent out your UK property (take care and use a reputable agent) and have the proceeds of that paid tax free to your overseas account. Do that on short roll over leases (say 3 - 6 moths) and your sorted if you decide you have made a mistake. Of course if your happy you can then sell at a later date and not cop any tax like capital gains.
If you do this correctly you can in effect not have to pay any tax at all which is nice. You do this by making sure that in your adopted country you don't fall into there tax regime. How you do this depends on where you are with some country's more than happy to just let you do that. For example most country's in the middle east are happy to pay you with no deductions at all which gives a massive boost to your disposable income. That was the reason I got my place in Malta to avoid coming back to the UK during down time and getting pulled back into the "system".
While I was living in Holland I was working for a very big, American based, multi-national oil and arms company and we all got sacked every 5 months and 3 weeks on the Friday and taken back on the following Monday. This ensured we didn't get dragged into the Dutch tax system because that needed 6 moths continuous employment before foreign nationals got pulled into it.
The Chinese gov were happy not to deduct any tax on the condition that our basic wages were paid into Chinese based bank accounts so we had pocket money paid there and "bonus" payments were made into offshore accounts of our choice.
The HK gov (when it was still a UK dependency) were happy with no deductions so long as you spent no more than 60 continuous days in the colony, so we either went to the horse racing in China or went over to Macau every couple of months. This, in effect, renewed our work visas for another 60 days and wiped out any tax liability.
In Nigeria the gov there allows (allowed ?) the compounds (where all the foreign oil workers live) to exist as semi autonomous states with there own tax laws. They tax the companies and not the individual.
Everywhere I have worked has had some sort of allowance for expats so its well worth considering if you want to try living abroad.
A half decent accountant (normally supplied by either the agency or the company) will explain all this far better than I can as the rules change all the time.
I haven't had to bother with this crap for a few years now but http://www.expatnetwork.com is very useful until you get into all this tax avoidance.
Funny I saw feckin' hundreds of them outside a McDonalds in Dublin!
Or am I mixing my chavs up with Pikeys here? ;)
They all look alike to me.
racist!!
And you took their blood money did you. You have blood on your hands i tell you blooooood!!.:o
Just kidding.:D But didnt it feel a bit dodge working for an arms firm.
i work for the NHS, we kill more than any poxy arms firm. :lol:
There are a number of arguments....
Many people would say "isn't it a bit dodgy working for an oil company?."
I probably saved more lives than I cost with my arms work.
I am qualified as a mechanical, production and civil engineer. Thus I can design and build both weapons and targets - efficiently.
Would you rather it be your blood or somebody elses?.
Knowledge is very useful - especially when your grovelling round rigs / refineries / pipelines looking for explosive booby traps which are aimed to kill you.
I have only ever worked on "defensive" weapons. (I know, it still hurts if your caught in the area at the time)
My personal morel values have stopped me working on some projects.
When you get up in night for a pee and stagger to the head in your skiddys the golden rule is never forget your personal side arm. This tends to change your general outlook on life.
If you have hundreds of wellhead fires to put out your sympathy tends to run thin.
Having deliberately caused 99% of those fires your opinion of politicians sitting on there arse saying the world is wonderful tends to get a bit strained.
Its a very different world which I would never wish to change my experience of but I would never expect other people to understand.
I will defend nearly everything I have done but the old adage that ones mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter is very true. Western history says, today, that I was in the right but other peoples interpretation no doubt says I was wrong. I can live with that.
I can fully understand and appreciate why somebody would have problems with both the oil and arms trade but trust me, I have done far more immoral things on "normal" projects. For example where does your moral compass spin if, hypothetically, you were paying large numbers of your work force in hard drugs?.
When I started getting too close to the edge of my morel values I stopped doing big engineering and moved into working in IT. Many people would say that as a sysadmin my outlook on people is worse now.
I can sleep at night.
I will think kindly of you the next time a copper is using a tazer gun on me for blinking in a one way street.;)