How do you uproot your whole life, everything that you’ve ever known, and start all over again? How do you create a new life in a country you’ve never even been to before? What sort of things do you need to do to prepare for this? Migrating to a different country begs a lot of questions because as much as it may promise a great future, it also comes with many uncertainties.
Moving to Australia wasn’t an easy decision to make. It’s more than just applying for a visa and buying a plane ticket. It took a lot of planning and preparation; not just for what was to come but also for what we were leaving behind.
How We Decided to Move to Australia
My husband is an Australian guy who moved to the Philippines to be with some of his family. He stayed there for years. When we got married, my husband started to think of not only his future but ours and our future kids’. This was when we decided to migrate to Australia. The thought of moving to Australia was exciting yet intimidating. For my husband and I, this move meant better opportunities and a brighter future. On the other hand, this also meant new challenges along the way. Challenges that we probably wouldn’t experience had we chosen to stay.
Preparing For The Move
Money
For us, the process of moving to Australia took around two years. During this time, we had saved up as much money as we can to help us through the transition. We wanted enough savings to survive off of if we weren’t able to get a job for a year. This was specially helpful because we migrated around the time COVID-19 hit as it did make our experience a little bit trickier than it would’ve been in “normal” times.
Properties
In our case, a big part of migrating was deciding what to do with our properties. We have decided to sell them so we could use the money from the sale to help us with our move. It also made it easier for us to deal with the paperwork while we were still there. In our experience, this step was what took the most time. Once we’ve sold everything, we were basically set to leave. As for the little things such as furniture, we’ve decided to just give them to family.
Applying For My Visa
Migrating to Australia would have been impossible without a visa. What suited our situation best was for me to apply for my visa when everything else had been dealt with. We lodged my visa on our own since my husband used to work in an Australian migration agency. While waiting for my visa to be approved (this took around a month), my husband and I had rented a place to stay in but eventually spent the rest of our time in the Philippines at my family’s place.
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Learning More About Australia
I didn’t really know much about the life in Australia. I basically knew just as much as most people knew. There’s my husband’s stories but at the time, he was a little bit out of touch since he’d been out of Australia for almost a decade. So, in a way, we were both starting from scratch. We thought it would be a good idea to look into which town we’d live in, the job market, driver’s license, tax, healthcare, and the average cost of living. I also looked more into the Australian culture, their accent and slang, as well as a Filipino or multicultural community around where we would be living. This has come in handy and has sort of guided me as we were starting out.
Securing a plane ticket
Securing our plane tickets was such a nightmare. Even though we booked our flight as soon as we heard that my visa has been granted, we had to re-book/repurchase our seats when COVID-19 hit. Flights kept on getting cancelled and were so in demand. Luckily we were still able to fly to Australia through one of the repatriation flights.
Saying Goodbye to Loved Ones
As soon as we booked our flight to Australia, everything really started to feel final. Like that was it, we were really leaving soon. So, I thought of my family. To be honest, I have been avoiding the thought that I would be far from my family when we migrate to Australia. But by this point, I could no longer avoid it. To me, this is the most difficult part that people who are in the same situation as me, face. My family had always been around me. Even when I moved out after getting married, they weren’t far away. Migrating to Australia meant that I could no longer be physically with my family as often as I would like. Missing my family is honestly harder than I thought it would be.
Starting a Life in the Land Down Under
Starting is always difficult and that’s specially the case when starting out in another country.
Accommodation
As I have previously mentioned, we migrated to Australia during the time of COVID-19 so a lot of my first experiences here would be vastly different from other’s. We had to be quarantined in a hotel for two weeks. Once that was over, we stayed at my mother-in-law’s house, while we were looking for our own place. We gave ourselves some time to have a look around our beautiful town first before we started looking for jobs. As soon as we found employment, we rented our own place.
Jobs
It was a bit challenging but we just took whatever job we could. After having gone through like three jobs each in the span of five months, my husband finally found a job that he enjoys and pays well enough and I, even though I’m still just working part-time, I am studying to get a Certificate III which would hopefully up my chances of getting better employment.
Other Important Things To Deal With
There are a few other important things that we needed to organize during the first few months of our arrival. These are as follows:
- Driver’s Licenses
- Getting our own car
- Medicare
- Further visa requirements
- Bank accounts
- Organize a Tax File Number for me
Conclusion
I have been charmed by Australia even before setting foot. I have realized how lucky I am to be able to consider it my home when I saw its beautiful land and beaches while still in the plane overlooking Australia. Yes, migrating to Australia hadn’t been easy but that’s just how life is. The way I see it, it’s actually like getting a second chance at building a future. It requires hard work but Australia’s totally worth it. Moving here is by far, the best decision we have ever made!
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Disclaimer: All content and information in this post is for purposes of sharing my experiences only, does not constitute professional advice and does not establish any kind of professional-client relationship.
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