This post is based on my experience of moving to Australia
with less than $5,000. I met one person
who moved to the Land Down Under with just $1,000! There truly is no magic number of savings you need. It all depends on your comfort level. The less money you have, then the more motivated you will be to find work and live cheaply. Although
this is about my move to Sydney, it will hold true for relocating anywhere in
the World. I have lived in Prague, Czech
Republic and am currently residing in Gwangju, South Korea. Since Sydney is known as one of the most
expensive cities in the World, I thought it would be a great example for those
who think they don’t have enough money to travel or move somewhere new. Moving
to a new country is not as difficult as you might believe. Even with the language barrier here in Korea,
it really has been ALMOST as simple
as moving to Australia.
(This proves I am Koalified to blog about Australia)
I had nothing lined up before I left the USA for
Australia, actually I had no clue what I would do for work when I moved to Europe either. Both worked out extremely well though! In Sydney it took me around 2.5 weeks
to find a job; I would spend about 4-5 hours searching at night and all day on
the beach. The unemployment is very low
in Australia, but many companies are hesitant to hire backpackers due to work
restrictions. Don’t let this discourage you;
there are still plenty of opportunities. If you want to find an office job
though, I recommend searching for a temporary contract. Sydney is not cheap, but if you are smart and
have good spending habits, it will be no problem. Drinking is by far the biggest shock, because
alcohol in the store is similar to the price in a bar. So you will learn to pre-drink and get an acquired
taste for goon.
Living in any foreign
country comes with difficulties, but it is an amazing thing to experience.
Hopefully these 16 tips will make your trip easier!
Before you book a flight you should do a few things:
1.)
Open a travel credit card. Doing this allowed me to fly for FREE from
the US to Sydney and I was even able to do a FREE layover in Hawaii for 3 days. Click here for more information on travel credit cards. *Don't forget to notify ALL your Debit/Credit Card companies that you will be out of the country.*
2.)
Start researching visa information. Australia, New
Zealand and Ireland all have easy visa programs for working and traveling. But
Europe is not so easy to find legal work (for Americans). *See bottom for more
visa information
3.)
Dust off the cobwebs from your resume and start
applying for jobs before you leave. CHANGE
your address to local friends or hostel.
Most of the time recruiters will not even look at a resume if you aren’t
living in the city.
4.)
Apply for your Australian Tax File Number (this
is done online and will be mailed to a friend or your hostel). Doing this a
week or so before you leave will save you some time and you NEED this number to
get paid.
5.)
Don’t stress so much, everything will work out
fine. There is only so much you can do
before you actually get to the city.
6.)
Unlock your cell phone. Sprint was able to
unlock to my iphone 5, so when I arrived it was simple to get my phone working. Check craigslist for used cheap phones. The US has by far the cheapest cell phones. Calling the US & UK is FREE for most Vodafone and Optus plans (you get around 200 minutes a month, use them!)
7.)
Most important is to start networking and get in
contact with anyone you know or might be acquainted with. Use sites like
Meetup.com or Couchsurfing.org if you have no network of friends. Couchsurfing is also a great way to meet people and look for a free place to stay.
8.)
Decide on the priorities. I wanted to start working
right away. But if you can afford it I would suggest traveling for a month or
two. This way you get to meet a ton of new people and it will be easier to find
a job. Figure out if you want casual work or full time? Do you want to work at
a bar or in an office? Maybe you just want to work in a hostel to live there for
free. Deciding these things will help narrow your job search and will change
the strategy on finding a job.
Once
you Land in the Country:
9.)
After you land. It is time to head to your
hostel or place to stay. Luckily for me a friend was generous enough to let me
crash at his apartment (Thanks again Digby!) Hostels run around $150-200 per
week and this was similar cost for my apartment in Bondi. It is best to stay
somewhere temporary until you find a job.
10.) Use
your illegal “student discount.” Sydney public transport is expensive, but
necessary depending where you live. The
weekly unlimited pass was around $45, but students get half price. Over 6
months living there I was never checked, nor were any of my friends, but beware
you will most likely get a $200 fine if you are caught due to the fact the discount is only
for local students. BUT in Europe having
an ISIC or any valid student card will get you a ton of great discounts even
for foreigners.
11.) Spend
hours on Seek.com (Australian Monster) and Gumtree.com (Similar to Craiglists) to find jobs. Find a hostel with free internet
(Sydney is very stingy on FREE Wifi, so finding internet can be a hassle).
Hint: All the travel shops on George Street offer free Wifi and Computers.
12.) Beware of the too good to be true sales
jobs. A lot of these are a waste of time
and pay commission only for door-door sales. Luckily I found a great sales job
on Gumtree.com, although it had some minor bumps, it was a lot better than door
to door sales.
13.) If
you are a good looking girl, you can make around $25 /hr working in a bar. $20-25 per hr is about the average pay in
Sydney. About 95% of bartenders seem to be girls, so it’s a good job if you can
get enough hours. If you are a guy and want to make a lot of money, manual
labor is the way to go. Some friends were making $50 /hr working maintenance in factories. Find something that fits your personality and overall goals.
(This was during a work meeting, sales was a good fit for me)
14.) CALL
a temp or recruiting agency. STOP sending emails. Be proactive and give the recruiters a call
or stop by their business. I had little
luck with emails and the bigger agencies tell you to submit online. Find an
average sized agency and arrange a meeting.
15.) Go
crazy on Tuesday! Tuesdays have a ton of specials in Australia, Half price
movie tickets, pizza specials at dominoes, Hungry Jacks deals, and a lot of
places have $10 steaks on Tuesday/Wednesday.
16.) No worries! Have
fun and relax it is the Australian way mate! You are in a new country. By far the best way to land a job is
by meeting people. Go out with the group
in the hostel. Networking is a lot more
important than sending random emails or job applications. Be proactive and ask
hostels for help/suggestions. A lot of job openings are advertised in hostels.
(Australia's most Eastern point with a bunch of friends I met in Hostels)
Remember that once you find a job,
things will not seem as expensive since the average salary is pretty high.
Everything is weekly in Australia, pay and rent are all on a weekly system.
To break down a week
of normal expenses let’s look at my average week expense statement. Income
$1000 per week ($660 after tax the other $340 per week is returned to you when
you file for taxes.) You can apply to be an independent contractor for some
jobs and pay less out of you paycheck.
Rent $170 + Food $100 +Alcohol $80 +Transport (cabs/public)
$45 + Other (cell, etc) $45= Total $440
So that’s a total average of savings around $560 per week. I worked for about 4 months and traveled for
2 months and still had some money left over.
This is just my spending habits, but people have done it for a lot less
and of course more.
Groceries are surprisingly not
that expensive compared to America. The essentials are all reasonable, but some
things are way more. Mainly fruits and veggies (Remember the backpackers
picking these are getting paid $20/hr) so the price reflects that. Not sure
why, but Gatorade and Powerade are extremely overpriced as well.
Average costs of things in Sydney:
Box of Goon wine: $12
Bottle of Vodka: $28-35
Case of beer: $40-50 (always
cheaper to buy a case, 6 packs are overpriced)
Weekly rent: $150-200 for shared
room ($350-400 for private)
Cost of a decent meal $15-20 (lots
of specials on Tuesday like $10 steaks)
Beer at a bar: $4-7
Can tuna at Coles: 5 cans for $4
(lived off tuna for 6 months)
Milk, Eggs, Bread and pasta
noodles can all be bought for around $1 (Coles Brand)
Footlong at subway: $7 (six sub
special)
Eat Kangaroo, it’s cheaper than
most meat and deliciously healthy
The visa process is super easy and can all be done online.
See the link below. It took less than 48 hours to get approved. Applying for an Australian visa I super easy, but there are
a few restrictions. You can only work 6 months for one company over your
yearlong stay. A lot of companies have
separate branches which can be used as a loophole and allows you to work for a
full year under “two companies”. There
are a lot of opportunities for work here in Australia, but I’ll be completely
honest. You will have to work hard to find a good job. I spent 2.5 weeks
sending out resumes and interviewing before I found a good job. Before moving
out here I would at least allow for 4-5 weeks before you find something you
like. Sites like gumtree.com and seek.com are best for finding work, but
nothing beats word of mouth. I highly suggest staying in a hostel when you
first arrive to find out about more opportunities.
Yesterday I visited at the US embassy in Seoul, Korea. It was for a problem I think most people won’t
ever have to worry about. The problem
was my passport was almost full and I still have 3+ years left until it
expires. There were no places left to
put visa stamps. So why is it a problem? When traveling to a new country you
could potentially be denied entry to the country due to no room for a visa
stamp. It seems the US passports are
given a lot fewer pages than most other countries, especially since they are
valid for 10 years. I guess they are not optimistic about us traveling much.
Either way, it cost $82 to get more pages put into my passport book and was a fairly
easy process of making an appointment, dropping off the passport and getting it
mailed a week later. After going to the
Embassy, I started thinking about a few other things that I have noticed about
life as a backpacker. I am sure most
people with a passion for travel have some of these in common. 
