wiki
30th September 2009, 09:26 AM
Hoping a few folks around here remember me?
Not logged in for about five months - but just spent a very nice 20 mins catching up on the house-building threads. They look lovely!
But I wanted to post as we've been back in the UK for one year exactly, today.
WARNING VERY LONG POST AHEAD!!
A quick background for those not familiar with us:
I'm a Kiwi (from Te Anau/Invercargill) who lived in the UK for 10 years and got curious about life back home in Southland.
My OH got a visa after we applied for a medical waiver (quite easy, in retrospect, but pretty fraught during the process) and I secured a really good paying job back in Invercargill before we arrived in NZ in late Sept 2007. We're both in our early 30s and have no kids - nor plan to.
We had a really good year in NZ - apart from the coal range in our rental exploding and an infected spider bite for OH that was super painful - and my family loves OH and there was heaps we really enjoyed about NZ. But we both felt a strong pull to be back in the UK.
So when my old employer offered me my old job back we leapt at it, and came back to Yorkshire a year ago.
Well hindsight is a wonderful thing but overall... we're very, very glad we came back to the UK.
This country suits us better for many reasons: OH is a trained archaeologist, so we knew moving to a country with little history would be a push. But what we both missed most was having all of Europe on our doorstep.
NZ just felt very isolated to us, despite us being quite "homebody-ish".
Even though I'm now facing redundancy at work *wah* (it's a 50/50 chance) I'd still rather have the chance to fight for my UK job than stay in my NZ job. I'm one of the few who found NZ working more stressful and less rewarding.
One thing that might have tipped the scales in NZ's favour was if we had cash to buy a no-mortgage/low-mortgage house out there. We were renting in the UK/renting in NZ/and back to renting in the UK and the cost of moving to NZ put a big dent in our house-buying fund.
But in retrospect, that was a good thing as we would have bought at the back end of 2007 if we'd stayed in the UK, and that was at market peak.
We lived comfortably on my $60k wage and OH working part-time/freelance but didn't have much space for saving at all - and that's in Invercargill, one of the cheapest places in the country. I'd be very wary if I was going to a bigger city on that wage without a house deposit in my back pocket and a reasonable contingency fund.
We do miss the people of NZ and the laid back nature. Even in our smallish Yorkshire village there's a noticable air of up-tightness which is just "British".
We also hugely miss my family - OH's UK family isn't much fun and we didn't miss them at all - but my family is pretty ace and they're probably the only thing we'd go back for.
So the plan now is to stay in Yorkshire - save what we can, win the lottery (haha) and be in a position where we don't need to work and then apply back to NZ and get a nice beach house overlooking Curio Bay in the Catlins.
The chances of this happening are tiny... but it's a nice dream. :D
The best thing about going to NZ and coming back?: We both learnt so much more about each other (Despite being together for five years before we went)
We understand what makes each other tick so much better. We know what we can cope with, what we rely on each other for and just how strong our relationship is.
Going to NZ might have cost us several thousand in moving costs and airfares... but we wouldn't have traded that time for the world.
Best wishes to everyone settled in NZ, unsettled in NZ and still dreaming of NZ... I hope you all get the outcome that's best for you - we did!
Not logged in for about five months - but just spent a very nice 20 mins catching up on the house-building threads. They look lovely!
But I wanted to post as we've been back in the UK for one year exactly, today.
WARNING VERY LONG POST AHEAD!!
A quick background for those not familiar with us:
I'm a Kiwi (from Te Anau/Invercargill) who lived in the UK for 10 years and got curious about life back home in Southland.
My OH got a visa after we applied for a medical waiver (quite easy, in retrospect, but pretty fraught during the process) and I secured a really good paying job back in Invercargill before we arrived in NZ in late Sept 2007. We're both in our early 30s and have no kids - nor plan to.
We had a really good year in NZ - apart from the coal range in our rental exploding and an infected spider bite for OH that was super painful - and my family loves OH and there was heaps we really enjoyed about NZ. But we both felt a strong pull to be back in the UK.
So when my old employer offered me my old job back we leapt at it, and came back to Yorkshire a year ago.
Well hindsight is a wonderful thing but overall... we're very, very glad we came back to the UK.
This country suits us better for many reasons: OH is a trained archaeologist, so we knew moving to a country with little history would be a push. But what we both missed most was having all of Europe on our doorstep.
NZ just felt very isolated to us, despite us being quite "homebody-ish".
Even though I'm now facing redundancy at work *wah* (it's a 50/50 chance) I'd still rather have the chance to fight for my UK job than stay in my NZ job. I'm one of the few who found NZ working more stressful and less rewarding.
One thing that might have tipped the scales in NZ's favour was if we had cash to buy a no-mortgage/low-mortgage house out there. We were renting in the UK/renting in NZ/and back to renting in the UK and the cost of moving to NZ put a big dent in our house-buying fund.
But in retrospect, that was a good thing as we would have bought at the back end of 2007 if we'd stayed in the UK, and that was at market peak.
We lived comfortably on my $60k wage and OH working part-time/freelance but didn't have much space for saving at all - and that's in Invercargill, one of the cheapest places in the country. I'd be very wary if I was going to a bigger city on that wage without a house deposit in my back pocket and a reasonable contingency fund.
We do miss the people of NZ and the laid back nature. Even in our smallish Yorkshire village there's a noticable air of up-tightness which is just "British".
We also hugely miss my family - OH's UK family isn't much fun and we didn't miss them at all - but my family is pretty ace and they're probably the only thing we'd go back for.
So the plan now is to stay in Yorkshire - save what we can, win the lottery (haha) and be in a position where we don't need to work and then apply back to NZ and get a nice beach house overlooking Curio Bay in the Catlins.
The chances of this happening are tiny... but it's a nice dream. :D
The best thing about going to NZ and coming back?: We both learnt so much more about each other (Despite being together for five years before we went)
We understand what makes each other tick so much better. We know what we can cope with, what we rely on each other for and just how strong our relationship is.
Going to NZ might have cost us several thousand in moving costs and airfares... but we wouldn't have traded that time for the world.
Best wishes to everyone settled in NZ, unsettled in NZ and still dreaming of NZ... I hope you all get the outcome that's best for you - we did!