Skip to main content

moving to Australia \\ Q&A

I thought I'd write a quick post to answer a few questions I've been asked since I first told my relatives, friends, and coworkers that we were moving to Australia.

Why are you leaving the UK? Why did you decide to move to Australia?
Tristan and I had discussed moving to Australia but we didn't have a timeline or a specific plan around how or when this would happen. The decision to work towards moving came when I was pregnant with Saskia. I was 6 weeks into my pregnancy and following a four week holiday in Australia, was feeling very overwhelmed and had lots of mixed feelings. I have always felt pretty isolated in the UK - all of my family lives in Estonia and Tristan's family is in Australia. When Saskia was born we knew that this was it - the perfect time to move. I have a few very good friends here (shout out to Marianne and Almu) and Manchester has been our home for almost 10 years now but after weighing all the pros and cons (also considering Estonia briefly), we felt like moving to Australia would be best for our family.

How did you plan your move? 
We decided we would not make any rash decisions and instead wait about a year after Saskia was born to see if we still felt so strongly about moving. If we still felt the same, we would start applying for my partner visa. That also gave us the chance to save our money and gather together all of the paperwork we needed for the application. While waiting on my partner visa to be processed, we were slowly getting rid of unnecessary things, selling stuff, researching lots about moving to Australia and reading lots of moving blogs.

Where will you live? 
We are moving to Brisbane, Queensland. We had a few other places in mind but on our last holiday we absolutely loved Brisbane. When I visited Brisbane the first time, I didn't think much of it. To be honest, it felt quite boring and lifeless but the second time we visited I liked it better than Sydney or Melbourne. Sydney and Melbourne are both beautiful but Brisbane felt very family-friendly, a perfect place to bring up kids.

What visa did you get / what can you do on this visa? 
I am on a Partner visa 309/100. In short, I can stay/work/study in Australia indefinitely, enroll in Australia's public healthcare scheme, travel to and from Australia for 5 years and apply for Australian citizenship. If you are interested in reading more about the visa application process, you can read more about what I went through here.

Do you know how much it will cost to live in Australia? 
Yes, we have done our research and I know the cost of living in Australia is higher than the UK, but the pay is also higher so it kind of evens out.

What and who are you leaving behind?
To be honest there is not much we are leaving behind. We don't own property here, therefore only important/sentimental things are coming with us. I am sad to leave my good friends and job I love but we are moving closer to family. We also have a few good friends living in Brisbane and around the area so I am very excited for new adventures. My friends and family in the UK/Estonia are always welcome to visit and stay with us!



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide - Starting again

The last time I posted about my workout regime was in November last year when I started the Kayla Itsines BBG healthy eating plan and 12 week workout sessions. I think I got up to week 4 before I lost my motivation because of illness and Christmas. My friend Marianne and I started BBG again on the 5th of January with thousands of other girls and joined #thekaylamovement and #kaylasarmy to share our journey along this painful but exciting path.  You can read my first post about the BBG programme here as I am explaining a bit more on how I 'found' Kayla and how the training works.  I have done BBG for 5 weeks now (the first 2 weeks we did pre-training) and I'm feeling quite positive. I've not seen much progress myself - I still have my weak areas like tummy, bum and thighs. I do feel much stronger though! I'm doing all of the workouts properly, I have strength in my legs and arms - it is quite easy to do 10 push ups and continue with triceps and mountain clim...
45 comments
Read more

The Body Shop Manchester Arndale Bloggers Event

I've been blogging for almost two years now but I'd still consider myself a newbie in the blogging world. On Thursday I had the chance to go to my first bloggers event at The Body Shop in Manchester to celebrate the release of an amazing new range on the 5th of May, including new bronzing items and a couple of vitamin C products! I was wearing my butterfly bow-tie brooch to the event and styled it with a white short sleeved shirt. It was a closed door event, so it was a good opportunity to browse all of the products and explore the new ones thoroughly! The event started at 8pm and I was one of the first ones to arrive. We were welcomed with milkshakes, fruit cocktails and lemonade. I went for water - shy and modest! There was also a white chocolate fountain and strawberries we had the chance to enjoy. The event was carried out by Fiona - she is a skin expert at the Manchester store. Everyone was able to get personal skin consult...
57 comments
Read more

Lilla Rose Flexi Clips

  Today I want to talk a bit about my hair and my recent purchase from a company called Lilla Rose . Lilla Rose is a unique hair and jewellery accessory company from the US. They have many different hair items but I was more interested in their beautiful and well-known Flexi Clip. I got myself two of these - Autumn's Delight in size small and Festive Leaf in extra small. Before ordering I made sure of which size would fit best for my flat and thin hair.       Both of my Flexi Clips look stunning. The beaded wire is quite bendable but strong, the sliding pin is adjustable and they feel high-quality. I chose mine in a copper/rust shade but there are also silver and gold shades and so many different styles and colours available. As I recently cut my long hair short, I don't have many options with styling. I usually just wear my hair in a ponytail or a half ponytail. Autumn's Delight fits all my hair between the clip and Festive Leaf is perfect for a smal...
29 comments
Read more