Family emigration to Australia
Peter, Joanna and Rebecca Douglas – emigrated to Australia
Why did you decide to move to Australia?
Having just retried, my wife and I were attracted by the low cost of living compared to the UK. Our children are both married with families of their own so we felt the time was right.
What’s your favourite way to spend a weekend at home in Australia?
We’ll generally rise early, and take our dog for a walk on one of the beaches and go for a swim. We sometimes visit the country towns nearby, sampling wine in the Yarra Valley and fishing for trout in the Yarra River. Along Victoria’s coast there are amazing places and you can find a different environment every day of the week.
What advice would you give to anyone thinking of moving overseas?
Speak to a specialist tax and pensions advisor about the most cost effective way to move your money. It is worth considering that if you migrate just after the start of a tax year you could effectively work tax free for a month or two as you will still have your full year's tax allowance. It is possible to move your pension fund and if you are already drawing your pension, HIFX can set up a regular payment.
Once you have migrated try not to work out the comparative price of things to Sterling. You will be earning in local currency and so therefore the cost of living will be in local currency - the fact that things may be more/less expensive in the UK is interesting but irrelevant!
Stepping off the plane into your new home country can be quite daunting. Be prepared. Book accommodation and any cars you may need in advance. Better still some countries/states offer migrants a welcome “meet and greet” service. They may provide a place to stay and a tour of the town, showing you where the supermarkets, doctors surgery and any amenities are, have a look on the town/state/countries website for more details.
How did HiFX help you, and what would you recommend about our services?
Once you finally make the decision to emigrate, there are one hundred and one different things to think about which makes it quite a stressful time!
Thankfully our Visa agent recommended we speak to HiFX early in the process. If they hadn’t, we’d have left the currency part of our move to the last minute and used our bank. I must admit I was extremely impressed with the quality of service and the friendliness of your staff. Having never used a currency specialist like HiFX before we were somewhat nervous about using you to transfer our money. The team took the time to explain our options and kept an eye on the market for us for over 6 months! Having taken the time to understand my particular situation, a member of your Private Client Team walked us through the various currency options (Spot, Forward, Market Orders etc.) Being risk averse, we decided to take your buy now, pay later option (a Forward Contract) because it gave us the security of knowing exactly how much money we’d be taking with us to Australia.
In the end we worked out using HiFX saved us over £12,000, enough to buy us a car when we arrived!