Taking stock - 10 Weeks after arriving in Brisbane

[ZPrinsloo]

G'day All,

 

Seeing as though I have relied quite a lot on this Forum for information and moral support in the time leading up to our departure from SA, I though it might be good to take stock and give some account of our experience since arriving in Brisbane, Australia on 5 January 2019.

 

But first, a short history of how we got here...

 

My wife and I got married in 2010 and ever the years whenever big negative events happened in SA (Nkandla, Axing of Finance Ministers, Ratings Downgrades, Load Shedding, SOE Bailouts, Land re-appropriation policy changes, visits to home affairs etc.) would be inclined to think about emigration and we probably seriously explored the idea about 3 times between 2010 and 2016. Then life events happened (Father was diagnosed with Cancer and the premature birth of our first child) which would then stifle our plans and force us to focus more on the situation at hand. That and the estimated amount needed for a PR visa and related costs of R100 000 and R 100 000 to ship a container was a bit of an issue. That all changed drastically and quickly in September 2018 when my wife was approached by an HR person for a local Australian Engineering company and after we debated it, we decided we have nothing to lose by my wife going through the interview process. A few weeks later, my wife received decent job offer with the company offering to sponsor our Visas, relocation costs, flights etc. and we grabbed the opportunity. After jumping through a lot of hoops, selling our property and cars, cashing in all of our pensions and investments, we got on a plane and landed in our new home, Brisbane, on 5 January 2019 with 2 backpacks, 3 suitcases and cautious optimism...

 

Our first hand account of Life in Brisbane...

 

It seems that most immigrants aim to start their new lives in Sydney and Melbourne with Perth and Brisbane probably being viewed as the second or third choice for some. I must say that the fact that living costs and property prices in Brisbane are much lower than Sydney and Melbourne as well as the fact that there are a lot less people living here which means that roads are less congested is a BIG PLUS in my opinion. The City is also quite small with the CBD probably spanning around 2km so you could walk from one side to the other in about 15-20 minutes but it is by all account a world class city with a lot going for it.

 

We arrived at the Brisbane airport at around 11:30 pm due to a 2 hour flight delay in Sydney due to heavy thunder and missed our booked transfer (Connexion) by around 2 hours. The airport was quiet at that time and we thought we would probably need to get an Uber to transfer us to our temporary accommodation. Luckily the Connexion counter was still open and I asked the person at the counter if there is any chance they could still transport us to our apartment. He said hang on, quickly ran to the minibus driver and came back saying we can hop aboard, the driver will drop us off (All of this without even checking the system if we actually had a booking). So off we went and 30 minutes later, we we are checked into our temporary apartment which would be our home for the first month.

 

Around 01:00 we realised that we needed to urgently get milk for our toddler so we quickly took the lift down and walked to the nearest Seven Eleven which was probably 200 meters from the hotel. We felt absolutely safe and confident to walk alone in the CBD and it is as if we just left the fear at the airport in SA. On the way back we saw two police officers on horses patrolling the streets which also gave a nice warm feeling.

 

We were able to open a bank account from South Africa (over the internet) with one of the big 4 banks and between November and December as we liquidated our assets in SA transferred our life savings and Net Asset value into the account. On the Sunday after our arrival the previous night, we decided to explore the City a bit and to find out where the closest shops were and we ended up at the Queen street mall (not a mall like in SA) where coincidentally there was a branch of the bank we had opened an account with and it was open at 3pm on a Sunday. We had to visit the branch in person to activate the account because before activation, you can only deposit but not transact. It was very painless and quick and we left about 20 minutes later with an active bank account and bank cards for both me and my wife.

 

The next admin issue that was high on our list was to get driver's licenses (Technically this wasn't urgent as I think our SA ones are valid for about 3 months after arrival) but I have a bit of OCD and want my affairs in order so on Monday, we went to the closed department of Transport and Main Roads (there were 3 to choose from all within walking distance). We received a ticket at the entrance and were helped within 10 minutes as well as issued with temporary licenses with a note saying that our Licence cards would be delivered after 21 days to our apartment. I must say when one is used to the type of service from government departments in SA, this is a breath of fresh air and it was my best experience ever dealing with a government department. As promised on day 21, low and behold, our actual drivers cards was delivered to our residence (another breath of fresh air when you are used to SA standards).

 

Our next new experience was going to buy groceries (our first experience was at a Coles but Woolworths is very similar). When you come from SA, you tend to convert everything back to Rands for a while and when you do that, most things are SUPER EXPENSIVE. Other things are similarly priced or even cheaper than SA. For example, we buy 1 kg of Cheese for around $6, Milk for $1 per litre and sliced bread (like Albany) for $1.25 which is close to SA and even cheaper for some items at R10 to the $. Tomatoes vary between $4-$9 per kg but it is dependent on supply and there is a severe drought in Australia at the moment. When we got to the pay points, there was no cashier and we quickly realised that it is self service. They have terminals and clever scales where you scan each item and place it in the packing area and once all the items are scanned, you click pay and tap your card and you are done. Don't remove items from the packing area prematurely though as the scale flags this and you need an attendant to come and unlock the terminal. This happened a lot during our first go and we probably spent 20 minutes the counter to finish our first grocery shopping. Labour here is expensive, I think the minimum hourly wage is $25 so most places require self service. As a guideline I would say one needs to double your Rand Spending to have the same meaning if you spent R 5000 per month in SA for groceries, you could easily end up spending $1 000 per month.

 

Next we needed to experience and figure our how the public transport system works so with a bit of research we figured our you could buy a Translink card (Similar to a Gautrain Card) at any Seven Eleven so we did that and set off for our first experience using the city public transport. We ended up going to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and paid around $70 for me and my wife (Luckily the baby was free)  to enter and spent about 2 hours there. It was a lovely experience but it felt expensive as I was still converting the price to Rand and going to the Zoo in SA doesn't cost a couple R700 for entry. The public transport in Brisbane is Amaze-balls and you have a choice of using Trains, Buses or Ferry's all with tapping your Translink card on and off. The people in the buses are also generally very well mannered and they get off their seats in the wheelchair areas to make space if they see you have a baby in a pram (Stroller). You also have other options to get around in the city with Bicycles that you check out an and in to designated areas and Lime electric scooters that you unlock and lock with a smartphone app. The city is lively and buzzing with activity and there are shops, convenience shops, coffee shops & restaurants all over.

 

Technically one does not need a car as the public transport is efficient, safe, clean an reliable but we decided to buy a car for leisure and weekends because it is just a lot more convenient if you are travelling with a baby and have lots of peripherals to take along. Also the public transport is not the best choice after doing your weekly shopping as you will have to physically carry all the bags. If you plan on exploring a bit over weekends and want to go around 50km out of the City, having a car is much more convenient and that is why we decided to buy one. We bought a brand new Hyundai Tucson 2.0 TDCi Elite AT for $41 000 which is much cheaper than what you would pay for in SA, when I checked the equivalent in SA would cost about R 580 000. So cars here are a lot cheaper.

 

Fast food and any restaurant food is quite expensive (when you convert it to Rand). As an example, a meal a McDonalds of Burger King that would cost R 60-70 would easily cost around $15. My wife and I do take-aways one night a week and pay about $ 30 for the two of us. Eating in restaurants are a lot more expensive though and you could end up paying $30-40 for a main, around $8 per beer and if you include starters and dessert you could easily have a bill of $120-$150 for two in a nice (not fancy) restaurant.

 

Daycare is amazing here, the staff are very well trained and the facilities is just a big notch higher than what is available in SA. Our child went to Opti-Baby in Highveld and it was a good quality school with good facilities and good staff. But here it is just on a completely different level and we have definitely noticed a marked improvement on our son's development since he started going to daycare here. All of this unfortunately does come at a HUGE cost and Daycare is our single biggest expense, more than our weekly rent and much more than our weekly grocery and living costs. We spend a whopping $147 per day on Daycare which means in a year we would need to foot a bill of $38 000 or close to R 400 000. Now if you convert everything to Rand (like I still do) this is just an inordinate amount to be spending on daycare. In SA we would spend 10% of the per year. Things do get better though, when we get Permanent Residence we would be entitled for a government rebate of $ 10 000 per year for daycare so that helps.

 

Private health insurance (Medical Aid) is a pre-requisite of our VISA and we got the equivalent of Discovery's Executive plan (and they even pay for In-Vitro) for around $600 per month for the entire family. Once again if we get Permanent Residence, we would qualify for the national healthcare (Medicare) and would only need to supplement it a little bit with private health insurance.

 

Housing here is SUPER EXPENSIVE and a very average house which would not be anything near to a descent house in South Africa could easily cost $ 700 000 with houses of $ 1200 000 being nothing to write home about. We had a very entry level house in Midstream, South Africa that we sold for R 3 million. For $ 300 000 you will be getting a dump, fix me upper with a lot of work. Gardens here are also very basic and not as nice as in SA because one simply could not afford garden services or an Amos to work in your garden one day a week. The same goes for house cleaning, a cleaner would cost around $30 per hour so it is just affordable to have someone spend a day a week to clean your house and do the washing. That being said, we were spoilt in SA with a cleaning lady that came two days a week and garden services that came once a week all for around R 2 500 per month. Here you do almost everything yourself and although it is something to get used to, it is fine and very possible, everyone does it. We won't be buying a house anytime soon so in the meantime we are living in an apartment in the City that is easy to keep clean and in proximity to most attractions.

 

If you are a professional, you can expect a very decent salary and even if you are not, you can make a good living in Australia doing low skill jobs. If you are married and both of you are working, you can have a very good quality life and would even be able to save and go on plenty of holidays.  My wife was obviously sorted with a job when we landed as that is how we got here. I have however also been very fortunate to find a good jobs that pays well within two weeks of landing here so I really can't complain. Now that we are earning in Dollars, we tend to convert things less into Rand and everything doesn't seem that expensive anymore, it is the new standard. I also feel that everyone her has an equal opportunity to land a jobs and there is absolutely no prejudice or preference given to certain race groups when applying for positions. If you have the required skill set and experience that matches a job requirement, you do stand a good chance of landing the job. Also the red tape is cut down to a minimal when starting a new business and work gets awarded fairly not based on any BEE credentials or Nepotism. Everyone has a fair chance to succeed. Also unemployment is like 4 % which really help and I believe is the one thing that SA's government would need to fix before there is any chance of a turn-around in SA.

 

The one caveat of being here is missing the family and at times one does feel very lonely but if you come over as a family, you can give each other comfort knowing that you are in a stable country with a stable economy where your children will have a bright bright future and criminals are actually caught and prosecuted. There is not that constant fear that your life is in danger whenever you leave your house/office and you don't wake up at night when you hear noises expecting the worst. We try and set up regular Skype/Whatsapp calls with our people at home and although it is not the same, this is becoming the new normal for us. 

 

I don't regret our decision one bit, we do miss our family and friends but I honestly believe this is the best decision we could have made for us. It is a very personal decision that everyone that is considering to uproot their life in SA should think about, it is not easy, you will go through stages of depression and loneliness but time heals everything. It is possibly the biggest decision you will make in your lifetime so take the time to really consider the pros and cons of staying in SA or leaving and starting a new life. Be very clear about your reasons for leaving if you do decide on that. But when you commit to a decision, commit fully and just do it without regrets and without looking back. Close the old chapter behind you and be open to embrace the new experience that lies ahead.

 

I am grateful for this excellent platform (SAAustralia) as there is a wealth of information and people genuinely make an effort to assist and answer questions would be emigrants might have.

 

If anyone is in the same position where we were 5 months ago and need some guidance or advice, please feel free to reach out to me, I will gladly assist.

 

Thanks everyone, and take care.

 

ZPrinsloo

[RAINKINGx1]

Thanks so much for giving back. Many of us are waiting on Visa's and are nervous about the unknown. Any information is helpful. Did you do a LSD trip , or was this your first time going there ?

[ZPrinsloo]

Hi there,

 

No we just winged it, we have never been to Australia before. We did however do a lot of research and read about other people's experiences and figured that so many South Africans cant go wrong...

 

Kind Regards

 

ZPrinsloo

[stefans]

@ZPrinsloo.

Advice on finding work in Brisbane please.

[ZPrinsloo]

Hi Stefans,

 

I used LinkedIn, Seek.com.au and Adzuna to network and start applying for positions. What is very important is to make sure you have an "Australia Format CV" and Seek is a good resource with examples. You can also try to look for agencies that specialise in your field of expertise. I have heard good things about Michael Page but personally haven't used them. I was fortunate to land the 2nd job that I was interviewed for and this was through a recruiter called C3 Talent. 

 

Kind Regards

 

ZPrinsloo

[rozellem]

Z, 

before you get "attached" to any food or cleaning product brands, move over to Aldi.  They are muuuuccchhh cheaper, and in my opinion, good quality. Even the clothes are great.  I am lucky to live near a small shopping centre with both Aldi and Woolies, so the technique is to start at Aldi and then walk over to Woolies, for anything you couldn't get at Aldi. 

Happy shopping. 

[TamTam]

Great post - I am glad to hear you are enjoying Brissie - it's lovely here.

 

I have a toddler and if you need any advice for baby/toddler friendly places etc etc just send me a PM.