[LilAmy]

Hi Moondust,

Welcome to the forum. You sound like most of us before we made the move. All your thoughts and feelings are natural. Going into the unknown always is. The amount of times Stu and I thought nah too much hassle and money lets just leave it...I am so glad we didnt tho. We've now been here 7 months and loving it!

It is tough to start with finding a job, place to live etc but then where ever you move to is.

On the plus side we've seen a lot of NZ looking for right places and moved around a bit as well.

The lifestyle here and ethics are different. Much more relaxed and chilled out. If we had upped stix and moved back in Scotland with no jobs and money I would have had a nervous breakdown I think. Here, doing it all was much more relaxed. Once you meet a few people everyone is bending over backwards to help you settle in and find jobs and places to live. Well that was what happened for us anyway.

Everyones experience is different and you just have to follow your heart. If you want to make the change then do it. All that will happen is in 5yrs time you'll look back and wonder 'what if'. My motto is only regret the things you didnt do in life!

Now onto finances...we only took a couple of hundred pounds with us and used that to put deposit down on rental appts here and just use our dollars to live off. We are in a slightly different situation where we're only here for 23months working holiday visa (WHV). We plan to go for residency but dont want to change our pounds into $'s just yet. We know we'll need to go back to the UK at some stage and would rather have pounds to spend than dollars. Remember you can always keep your bank account open back home and withdraw money here with a small charge with each transaction. Some people bring the full whack out of their accounts as well. I think it's all up to the individual. I suppose we're just being cautious incase things dont go to plan and we have to go back for one reason or another.

Well I think I've blabbed enough. As Missvee said any other questions just ask away - I'm sure yoou'll get a few essays back like mine tee hee ;D