Our surprise Sydney journey

[Tntaglia]

We are super early in the process but I'm going to use this to document our next few months as we go through the rollercoaster. Welcome aboard!

 

Some background: We're originally from Cape Town and have been living in Johannesburg for 8 years now. "We" being me, husband and 2 girls aged 6 and 9. 

 

We've talked lightly many times over the years about possibly spending some time away from SA but never really pursued it to any serious degree, and I guess our real emigration talks were the typical South African "if XXX happens we're moving for good!" - never put into practice. Ironically I remember one "if Zuma becomes president we'll move to Australia" talk 10 years ago. If we only knew!  For a very long time I've stopped myself from getting negative about South Africa because I assumed we were going to be here in the long term. So I chose to see the positives most of the time, I fully understood why some people would choose to leave but I just never really considered doing it. My husband is more pragmatic so he started conversations about the serious problems the country faces frequently, and I usually just cut him off.  I couldn't bear to let all the negativity in if we're going to have to live in it, so I chose to rather embrace only the positive facts.

 

For context, I work for a South African company with many international branches and opportunities (US, UK, Europe and more recently Oz). Last year I applied for a 2 year secondment to work in Melbourne, made the final shortlist but they ended up choosing someone else. Back then we were pretty excited about it but it wasn't as big a decision, since a secondment would mean we don't pack up everything and leave forever, just a chance to spend 2 years somewhere else. So many of our peers did that straight out of varsity and we somehow just never got around to it. Anyway, when that fell through we put Australia out of our heads again, until a few months ago.

 

In June I was approached by some of the executives in the company asking if I would consider a more permanent move to take a senior role in a new division they're creating in Sydney. It's not fully sure that the new division is going ahead yet so the whole thing could still fall through but they have advertised the position etc and at the moment it looks like if the new venture is going ahead (we should know in the next month, although they said that in June too) the job is mine if I want it.

So right now we're in a weird limbo (the first of many, I guess, if this is going to happen). I've been doing loads of research, here on the forum and everywhere else, and I'm getting REALLY excited. It's weird emotionally - part of the excitement is the fact that I haven't allowed myself to consider the bad parts of South Africa for so long, and having a possibility to get out is absolutely amazing. And to Sydney, of all places. I have never been to Australia but everyone I've talked to tells me I'll fall in love on day one and never come back. But at the same time there is still a possibility that the whole deal falls through and Sydney is no longer on the table, at which point I'll have a much harder decision to make.

 

My husband has been uncertain about the move for a while but the last day or two he's been quite positive, he's been looking at costs and put together a budget for us and as long as the finances work out (we haven't heard about salary yet) he seems very keen. Of course it helps that there are so many articles and references etc out there that says Australia is an amazing country to live in.

 

We have told my in-laws, we are very close with them and they are fairly supportive (but of course sad about the possibility). Kids don't know yet, a few select friends know. So far we haven't encountered any negativity but that is sure to follow once we make the news more generally known!

 

I'll try to update here whenever there is news (or I have to just get my emotions down on paper to get them out of the way!)

 

[RedPanda]

Welcome aboard!
I would immediately advise (with no additional info, kinda blind) that if either of you could qualify for a 189 visa DO IT NOW! Do not wait for a company's maybe next year. Just do it. However if you do need the company for any chance of getting in, then I hope it works out for you. We've only been in Melbourne for 3 months now (and winter at that) and it's been absolutely amazing. The feeling of all that 'constant-vigilance' sloughing off your shoulders is just indescribable.

If your friends and some of your family are unsupportive...come and talk to us. This forum will have someone for you to talk to.

I hope you guys make it  (I'll be cheering you on)

[Tntaglia]

I'm pretty sure I would qualify for a 189, qualified actuary with 13 years experience, it is on the skills list at the moment. I'm just scared of all the costs involved (but I guess I could claim those back if the job offer does come through). So you'd suggest that I get the ball rollling now? I haven't really even thought about doing it that way but it's good advice. 

 

Off to research 189 visa process a bit more...

[RedPanda]

Look, I'm not 100% sure how cost claiming would work, but yes, start now, even if you just get all the admin/home affairs/documents done now.
I've been a voracious reader on this forum and the Number One regret that people have is: I wish I had done this sooner. It doesn't matter if they are 50 years old, or 40 or 30, they all say the same thing: I wish I had started earlier.

Look, regardless of how you do it in the end, you will still need to get: unabridged birth certificates, IELTS, Skills assessment(requiring IELTS and academic transcripts, or whatever the requirements may be for your profession), marriage certificate. With home affairs in the horrible state it's in these things can take a surprisingly long time to materialise.
Also, consider if you would want to take a container or not, and if you do want one, start slowly reading up about the companies.

You have children, people say that the younger a child is the easier it is to adapt.

Take an active role in choosing your future, while you have a choice.

[Tntaglia]

Wow. Thanks @RedPanda - that is really great advice. I'm going to start on that immediately. I haven't really thought about it this way but it absolutely makes sense (and luckily it's not like applying for those docs will ever really be a waste).

[loucatpayne]

Hi there @Tntaglia, 

I agree 100% with @Redpanda, start with the 189 permanent residency visa.  We started our application in march 2016 and should have our 189's in September 2016. So my advise is simply this.  Forget the costs involved.  Those costs are securing your future.  We are with an excellent immigration company called Migrate 2 Oz - And i think all in all we have probably spent in the region of 140K - The biggest expense is the actual visa's.  But like i said.... i look at it as the best investment i can do for my family. One thing the immigration company advised me to do was to enjoy the process, and i really have.  Yes it's pretty stressful as we had to go through a skills assessment, pretty sure you wont have to do all that.  Other than that its just alot of paper work but its the conversations you have with your spouse while you are doing it.  The new dreams you dream up together, the laughs, the tears... this is a new adventure for the whole family.  It will bring you closer together.  It will open your eyes on another level.  You will start thinking differently.  Like one thing i am so excited about is a working post office, to customer service.... haha i know its silly.  But there is a whole other world out there.  I also think there are such valuable lessons that you are teaching your children.  Start the process.  Message me if i can be of any help & good luck!!

[Tntaglia]

OK - I've started the process. Hectic. Freaking out just a little bit... 

[RedPanda]

8 hours ago, Tntaglia said:

OK - I've started the process. Hectic. Freaking out just a little bit... 

You go! (And just keep breathing)  

[Tntaglia]

My situation (up to 7am this morning anyway) was basically that I don't have any firm confirmation that the job is going ahead or that I definitely have the job if the role exists. When my superiors originally pitched it to me they said we're going to have to advertise the role and the advert hasn't been put out into the market yet - although they did say it will be for a very specific skillset which is pretty rare, so in all likelihood there won't be many people who qualify. The last official communication I had was that the legal process is still under discussion and it might all still fall apart.

 

Then 7am this morning I get into work, open my email and there is an email from our CEO addressed to the new CEO they have hired for the new company we're creating, telling him to get in touch with me since I'll be relocating to Sydney to join his team. Cue freakout. Stuff just became real all of a sudden.

 

Looks like we're meeting tomorrow night and then we'll see...

[Dora]

Thst is awesome news. You are so blessed to get a job from here and basically fast track the whole process. All the best with the rollercoaster drive ahead 

 

Liz

[Husky]

Wow, that is amazing. Good luck with the next steps.

[JonathanR]

Awesome

[RedPanda]

 best news you could have gotten! (Now it might even look good that you've already made a start on your visa 'homework')

[Tntaglia]

It's really awesome to have some cheerleaders here on the forum. At least you guys can be universally positive about the whole moving-to-Oz thing! My husband is very supportive but has reservations (he's at least a bit more excited now than he was a few weeks ago but I think it will still hit him hard when we get to actually say goodbye...) And once this becomes real we'll have to deal with anxiety from the kids, my parents, friends etc... NOT looking forward to all of that.

 

One positive I guess is that I have clarified for myself that I really want this. I'm freaking out because it's sudden and might move quickly and it's gone from dream to potentially-very-real VERY quickly. But if I consider how I would feel right now if this morning's news had been that the whole thing is off the table and not going ahead, I know that I'm really glad it's moving in the right direction.

[Guest]

I can only agree with everyone else's comment's. This is a wonderful opportunity for you and your family, there are people on this forum who would love this to happen to them.

 

See this as a new adventure for you and your family. Trust me that when you get to Australia you will not regret it. Yes you will miss family and friends and there will be emotional times but when you watch your kids playing in the park without fear then it will really hit home.

 

Redpanda is absolute spot on though, if you can qualify for a 189 then get that going now.

 

I wish you all the very best in your new adventure ?

[Dora]

@Tntaglia: I am cringing as I think about what I'm about to write, but if your husband is not 100% on board yet - as in seeing this as a very quick turn of events thats going to have a huge impact on your family...see this as a huge opportunity that came your way and don't view it as a permanent move yet. But do take it!!! I assume that your move i.e container / flights will be paid for, so the financial risk should not be that big.  If you don't like it in a few years you can always come back. But if you don't grab this opportunity and the ship sails....then who knows if you will get another chance? In order for Australia to work for you as a family, both of you have to be on the same page, because if one is not happy there, life will be miserable.

 

That said: it is exactly what we did, and now we are on our way back. Off to Aus part 2.

[Dora]

And whatever you do, do stay long enough for your Citizenship. With that blue passport the world is your oyster 

[WayneAndMel]

@Tntaglia I have to strongly agree with @Dora. Your husband needs to be on board fully but at the same time you mustn't pass up the opportunity of the job transfer. The move may be physical but the psychological is a huge factor.

 

I reiterate it as we've knew a family where the one spouse was not on board and it was a poorly planned move. Things eventually fell apart for them.

 

However you already have work lined up and will be helped financially make the move, unlike them.

[Tntaglia]

I don't think we'll make a full out move before hubby is 100% on board... but I hope we can set up the process to give us enough time to get there. When my employer first pitched this to me they said I can initially work from Johannesburg, then travel to Sydney and back frequently until at some point it won't make sense for me not to be there full time anymore, and then we make the final move. This would actually suit me great, especially if he can come with me for one of the trips at some point to get a feel for the place and so on. 

On the other hand since my mind is pretty made up I would also not mind if things move super quickly and I can just pack up and go. Does that make me sound crazy?

 

I am having dinner with my likely new boss tonight. Fancy place in Pretoria. I'm a bit nervous about meeting him, hope I can make a brilliant impression. It sounds like he's not the one to choose if I go or not, but still would be good if he's excited about working with me. I've found his CV online, he seems like a pretty impressive guy on paper. 

[RedPanda]

It could be really difficult to make a success of the move if hubby is not happy about it. There is a difference between: I'm scared of change, but I understand that this is the best plan; and I do not want to go, end of story. So maybe talk it through a bit. It might also help to have a serious discussion about how the two of you see the next 5-10 years play out in RSA, realistically. Think about the economy, think about the political situation, think about infrastructure, education, the likelihood that a degree earned at an RSA university in 10 years time will be internationally recognised (the chance of affording the fees if you need to send your children overseas to study).... Sit down together and write a list of all the things that are important to you in life, the things that you think make you happy, or will make you happy, and make a list of the things that you want your children to have in life. Those two lists should help you to make a decision. You have this opportunity, you have to know what you are weighing up on both sides.

If it helps you to get your foot in the door, make the deal that this move is only until you have Aussie citizenship, if you don't like it after 4 years, that is an informed decision.

My personal opinion: Please do not pass up this opportunity just because you are too scared that you might miss your family too much. (Yes I know hubby is the one attached to his family...)

But it's difficult, because if your husband is going to go over with feelings of resentment, or even just a vaguely uncooperative attitude, then chances are that he won't adjust to work, might not even make it through interviews, and could end up extremely unhappy. This would of course lead to missing family even more, and if he feels like he was 'dragged over the sea after you' then he will probably resent you for his unhappiness. (please note, I'm saying this without actually knowing either of you, so it could also be widely off the mark...apply personal discretion)

What I actually mean to say is that this is a stupendously wonderful opportunity, but it will be very hard to make it work if your partner doesn't want to. (So I hope he thinks about it and changes his mind.   )

And no, you are not crazy, a move like this is terrifying (and if it's not, you're not taking in the full scope), but for many families it has been the best thing they ever did. You won't know if you don't give it a go.

Edited August 24, 2016 by RedPanda
(Edited: Appalling grammar)

[Tntaglia]

At the moment we're talking about putting a minimum timeframe down, maybe 3-4 years (not sure about the citizenship requirements but obviously it'll be stupid to leave just before that becomes viable!) and seeing what happens. We're both very excited about the opportunity for me, and since I've always been the breadwinner it does mean he could feel that his choices aren't as important - so I just hope that we can get to where he is really excited too. As far as I'm concerned he can veto the whole thing if he is REALLY not happy about it, but he's also super pragmatic and he's been the one in the past saying we need to talk about our future in SA, and I used to shut the conversation down. So I definitely don't expect him to refuse to go. But I want him to be really excited, for himself, know what I mean?

 

I think a big part of the uncertainty is that we have no idea about salary yet. I should start hearing some details that way by end of next week. Hubby is really not happy to accept a scenario where we can't afford to come visit once a year, and preferably he wants to be able to help pay for his parents' flights out to see us also once a year. I'm not sure if that will be possible at all, but we won't know until we know salary. My boss said "market related" but there is such a range on the salary surveys that I've seen that it's hard to know what that is. Plus my specific field of expertise is rare so it is almost never mentioned on the salary surveys explicitly anyway. I'm hoping to negotiate hard when the time comes (that's going to be really difficult...)

 

If I had to guess I think he's probably scared about getting excited and then we find out that we couldn't afford to live comfortably in Sydney anyway so we can't really go. I think that's highly unlikely (we both know we'll have to go for smaller house etc which is good since we have to clean it ourselves!) I've looked at flight tickets for the two of us just to go for a week and look at the city, to help him get excited about it etc but we haven't pinned anything down.

 

But in the end I think if this opportunity is really offered to me at a salary level that allows us some comfort and the ability to still save a bit we will definitely go. 

[WayneAndMel]

It sounds more positive then @Tntaglia , judging by your description of your husband's approach to the subject matter.

 

I mention this as I myself was initially the one that was holding things up when it came to emigrating. Eventually the penny dropped and now I wish I'd faced the matter sooner, but your husband does sound more open than I myself was much earlier on.

 

With respect to the worry over salary I'd say don't get too worked up as it's a more a short term concern for maybe a year.  The reason is the opportunity can give you that one year Australian work experience which, if combined with a 189 visa you can obtain with some after hours effort, will make you more employable later on and more able to go after higher pay with another employer should you decide to do so or if you find this role is not as satisfying as you'd wanted.

 

Don't forget you can also use the opportunity to establish personal bank accounts offshore to move funds into (if you haven't already done so through other means) to potentially protect your existing personal asset base. 

 

 

[Tntaglia]

Today is a good day. 

 

Had some very good chats with my husband the last couple of days, and narrowed down his reluctance: He works for an NGO at the moment and feels that he does such good here - they are very involved with the school feeding scheme for low income schools, and so he knows that there are thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of very poor kids in SA who have a hot meal every day because of the work that he does. (The feeding scheme feeds something like 1.5 million kids every day). So apart from all the other worries about whether this is the right thing and money and all of that, he feels that it's wrong to move from doing this kinds of work to a country with literal "first world problems". 

 

Anyway, so today he found a company that is about to open a branch in Sydney (they're currently in other cities in Australia) that works on similar social issues and they're hiring. I think that goes a loooong way to making him feel that he can continue to do the good work that he does even if we move. 

 

I had a mini freakout Wednesday after meeting my likely new boss for the first time, but I've calmed down now. He seems like a really good guy (South African  but lived in Oz for the last 15 years) and I think we'll work together well. So the uncertainty is still hard for me but today I'm feeling good about the whole plan.

[Tntaglia]

Ugh. Limbo.

 

So the job is STILL not real. But highly likely. But not definitely. And timeframes still unsure. And no idea on salary etc.

I know that I'm luckier than most in that a real, well-paying job is likely to be on the table soon so I feel bad to complain, but at the same time I'm getting SOOOOO excited and I want to know what's happening!

 

The good news is hubby is officially on board. He says he feels now that he'll be really disappointed if the job doesn't come through - huge shift from a couple of months back. I guess Zuma's antics with Pravin is helping in that respect at least... Also drives me nuts that our money may well be worth 30% less in a few months. And until I know dates, it doesn't make sense to open a bank account and start transferring money.

 

There's a decent chance we'll hear news this week still, and next week I'm in a workshop with the team from Sydney all week (they're coming here) so that will give some clarity anyway. But I want to have something on paper and I don't know when that will happen. Grrr. I'm grumpy today.

[RedPanda]

Limbo it an awful feeling. Hope they come through for you.

..Oh, and very happy for you that hubby joined the party!  

Edited August 31, 2016 by RedPanda