hball
24th May 2009, 09:12 PM
For anyone interested I thought I would post a little about our experience in NZ, perhaps it will offer an alternative to some of the other leaving posts.
We arrived here in 1995. The UK was in a mini recession and we had lost all the equity in our home in Southampton when we sold at a loss. The alternative was to rent it out, but we were by then too exhausted with the emigration process to even consider it. So, arriving in Auckland we had the total amount of $4000, two teenage kids and a Transit Van full of our worldly possessions!
But, hey, all would be OK as Hubbie was a qualified Plumbing and Heating Engineer - that was how we obtained residency.
Yeah right!!!! While he had to have the qualifications to get in to the country once here he was mysteriously UN-qualified! However, six companies offered him work, but obviously not on qualified rates!!! Funny that!!! Lesson number one; welcome to the world of being an immigrant and an outsider.
The $4000 soon went on rent/bond/fridge/beds etc. So we became the Boswells, every Friday, having all obtained jobs, even the kids (Macdonalds and the Warehouse) we chipped in our money to keep our dream going. Both OH and I had two jobs, OH working on the building sites during the day and cleaned pubs in the city from 4 - 6am.
Then the kids decided that they missed their friends and life back in the UK, and so went 'home'. Extreme heartache followed :wah. That left only OH and I, and so to cheer ourselves up we decided to move rentals into a new apartment with fabulous city views, complete with cream carpets and stylish kitchen, not that we could afford it but don't you always say... "Once the kids have gone..."!
And then, DD decided to return after some six months and the luxury apartment went west - hardly the same with teenage girl encaved in the spare bedroom and so another rental move to a more 'normal' 3 bed house.
By now two years had gone by, we had begun to establish ourselves and formed good networks when we found a one bed cottage on a dream site. It took four months to get the deposit and a mortgage of 15%. DD moved in with friends and started flatting properly, while DS was still having a whale of a time back in the UK! (We don't need to go there!!!)
Over the next few years we spent every dollar we earned on building our dream home over and around the little cottage. And then, as pressures eased we were able to take advantage of property growth and purchased some rentals. Now we were truly Kiwis, this being the usual way to save for your retirement here in NZ!
And soon we were bored!!!!!!
Financially secure, nice cars, nice holidays we were truly living the dream we had set out to achieve all those years ago. But we were still ambitious and so we looked for another challenge, finding it in a small resort in Fiji which needed a little TLC and some professional marketing.
And so we are leaving NZ - perhaps not forever, but definitely for a number of years. Our kids are now both here and married with dreams of their own, luckily Fiji is only three hours away - the same number of hours it takes to drive from Auckland to Taupo! Funnily enough, friends who have traveled the same journey as us, having arrived here in the mid nineties, are also talking of new adventures, most considering the more usual step of crossing the ditch.
NZ is a wonderful place. We love it and appreciate everything we have been able to achieve here. Nowhere is perfect, but this place worked for us.
:yes
We arrived here in 1995. The UK was in a mini recession and we had lost all the equity in our home in Southampton when we sold at a loss. The alternative was to rent it out, but we were by then too exhausted with the emigration process to even consider it. So, arriving in Auckland we had the total amount of $4000, two teenage kids and a Transit Van full of our worldly possessions!
But, hey, all would be OK as Hubbie was a qualified Plumbing and Heating Engineer - that was how we obtained residency.
Yeah right!!!! While he had to have the qualifications to get in to the country once here he was mysteriously UN-qualified! However, six companies offered him work, but obviously not on qualified rates!!! Funny that!!! Lesson number one; welcome to the world of being an immigrant and an outsider.
The $4000 soon went on rent/bond/fridge/beds etc. So we became the Boswells, every Friday, having all obtained jobs, even the kids (Macdonalds and the Warehouse) we chipped in our money to keep our dream going. Both OH and I had two jobs, OH working on the building sites during the day and cleaned pubs in the city from 4 - 6am.
Then the kids decided that they missed their friends and life back in the UK, and so went 'home'. Extreme heartache followed :wah. That left only OH and I, and so to cheer ourselves up we decided to move rentals into a new apartment with fabulous city views, complete with cream carpets and stylish kitchen, not that we could afford it but don't you always say... "Once the kids have gone..."!
And then, DD decided to return after some six months and the luxury apartment went west - hardly the same with teenage girl encaved in the spare bedroom and so another rental move to a more 'normal' 3 bed house.
By now two years had gone by, we had begun to establish ourselves and formed good networks when we found a one bed cottage on a dream site. It took four months to get the deposit and a mortgage of 15%. DD moved in with friends and started flatting properly, while DS was still having a whale of a time back in the UK! (We don't need to go there!!!)
Over the next few years we spent every dollar we earned on building our dream home over and around the little cottage. And then, as pressures eased we were able to take advantage of property growth and purchased some rentals. Now we were truly Kiwis, this being the usual way to save for your retirement here in NZ!
And soon we were bored!!!!!!
Financially secure, nice cars, nice holidays we were truly living the dream we had set out to achieve all those years ago. But we were still ambitious and so we looked for another challenge, finding it in a small resort in Fiji which needed a little TLC and some professional marketing.
And so we are leaving NZ - perhaps not forever, but definitely for a number of years. Our kids are now both here and married with dreams of their own, luckily Fiji is only three hours away - the same number of hours it takes to drive from Auckland to Taupo! Funnily enough, friends who have traveled the same journey as us, having arrived here in the mid nineties, are also talking of new adventures, most considering the more usual step of crossing the ditch.
NZ is a wonderful place. We love it and appreciate everything we have been able to achieve here. Nowhere is perfect, but this place worked for us.
:yes