[leosus]

I am creating a poll since this is a somewhat private/ touchy matter, but I want to know for my own reference. Anyone who cares to divulge anything additional is greatly appreciated. Things such as "I planned on bringing this much because, and ended up bringing this much..." OR "You will need at least this much to survive..."

All opinions welcome as always on this lovely forum.

Susan

[Nicola]

Much much less than we thought. When we sold the house it seemed that we would have a nice amount to buy outright over in NZ. But by the time the mortgage was repaid, credit cards cleared, estate agent paid, solicitor paid, flights etc booked, container shipment. Plus putting aside the money for the car in NZ, renting until we buy and various bits and pieces like a fridge, mattresses etc. There is not as much as we thought left, so we will have to take on a mortgage when we get there.:( But it is so nice to know at the moment we have no loans or debts to pay. And we still have money in the bank.

[Diny]

Oh I can second that !!! The knowledge that we don't owe a single person a single penny (or cent) is blooming wonderful.

It's actually not a straight forward answer as far as our story goes. All we have done is transfer $40,000. This has been for the usual 'set up' expences - cars, rental bond, mortgage deposit, a few sticks of furniture to tide us over until the container arrives, living expences etc (don't worry - all that didn't come to $40k) - we still have cash in our NZ account but more importantly, the 'bulk' of our money has stayed in the UK and will continue to do so until the exchange rate gets better.

We actually have an offshore account in Jersey (which really doesn't take that much of an investment to set up) ....... we plan to leave our 'dosh' there (away from the sticky fingers of the tax man) until as and when we require it.

One thing I do have to add though, when we did all our 'calculations' before getting here regarding how much we'll need for 'everyday' things, we were way off the mark. The money seems to melt away over the first few weeks you're here.

I'm no financial whiz but I do have abit of info which may be of use to others. Because of the c**p exchange rate at the moment we didn't want to bring our money over here to pay for a house. We only really need a much smaller mortgage than we've actually taken out but we were advised to take the maximum mortgage at the moment (we've only paid $15k deposit). We have taken a variable interest rate mortgage. This means that when/if the exchange rate gets better we can then transfer a lump sum over to pay against the mortgage. The ins and outs of this arrangement cause me to glaze over, I'm very much the kind of person who just likes to know what I have to pay and then pay it, but it's worth bearing this 'arrangement' in mind when taking out a mortgage over here. It could be a case of 'swings and roundabouts' but it's working well for us at the moment.

Diny

[jubjub]

We initally sent hubby with around $16k to get a car, rental deposit, other set up costs etc, and ended up having a bit left to put towards my car when I arrived.

We then bought over a further $160K for the house.

We also have a "back up/emergency" fund in the UK, its just about enough to get us back should everything go to sh*t here, without putting us into debt.

It is about the amount we thought we would have after paying everything/everybody off, but did not quite get us the house we thought we could get, as the prices went up from when we started looking last year to when we got here, and our money supply stayed the same:( , but we got a nice house, that has been modernised, although not heated (its got under floor insulation & a wood burner though)

I reckon you do need about $10k more than you plan for to cover for all the silly things you just had not thought of.....

[leosus]

Fast results, wow. Pretty diverse numbers, very interesting, thanks for voting everyone! Can't wait to see how it pans out...

[Avalon]

aT first we didnt bring anything over as such. My parents had a few thousand here from our previous trip, so lent us that to cover the first month till the pay came in. Our first week we paid on our UK credit card as it was basically a holiday anyway.

We didnt start shifting money over till june, when we found a house.and we have actually no broght over £55k in total all at about 2.55 on the rate. 135k of that for the house - the rest for car and setting up the house (insrances etc, as well as setting aside a $5k slush fund for emergencies here)

We still have some money in the UK, in a current account for a few bills, a savings account and Isas.