[Travel] Emigrating advice

[OzMike]

You are not emigrating , just having a very long holiday, as you are planning to return.
Have a nice break.
Take thermals as I believe it gets cold.
Keep an eye out for Argie subs as well.

 

[Goldstone1976]

I now feel we’ve been away too long to move back to the UK.

That’s brightened up my Monday morning.

OP: good luck. I hope it works out well for you both.

 

[Worried Man Blues]

Never been and don't intend to.what's their football league like?

 

[middletoenail]

make sure you keep paying your national insurance ‘ticket’. As I’m aware of some our long term expats come back to find nhs and state pension don’t exist for you.

Thanks for the reminder. I've got 7 years of voluntarily NI contributions I need to make!

 

[The Clamp]

Sounds excellent. Good luck. It does sound as though you’re moving for your wife’s job so I would get a job as soon as you can so you can have your own stuff going on. And wildlife photography sounds awesome. I hope it’s a great few years!

 

[Trufflehound]

I presume the contact/whatever is for three and a half years and not a self-imposed time frame? We originally came to Germany with a plan to stay at least a year and then see how we felt. We completely forgot about this and were arranging gigs and travels etc well into the second year…so we figured we were happy and have been here ever since. I now feel we’ve been away too long to move back to the UK.

For the first few years that Mrs T and I lived in the Netherlands, our mindset was always that we went to the Netherlands and home to the UK. Then at some unspecified moment in time it flipped and we found ourselves going to the UK and then home to the Netherlands. It's a small and subtle but extremely significant shift in mindset, and one that I think most if not all expats/émigrés experience at one stage or other if they are out of their home country long enough.

 

[hart's shirt]

Keep an eye out for Argie subs as well.

Yes.

Burnley didn't and paid the price.

 

[Trufflehound]

So in January I am emigrating to The Falkland Islands for 3 1/2 years. (largely to photograph penguins!)
For those people that have emigrated in the past are there any tips or things you wish you knew before you moved?

One thing you will have to brace yourselves for is that on your return to the UK, no one other than you will be interested in seeing your penguin photographs. Once back in the UK you will be "just another Brit".

Several decades ago Mrs T and I spent 2.5 years backpacking around Asia. When we returned to the UK (briefly), ready to regale friends and family with colourful tales of our exotic adventures in far away lands, we had to accept that while we'd been away everyone else had been getting on with their own lives and they were not waiting on tenterhooks eager to find out what we'd been up to. The cold reality was they didn't give a shit.

Two months later we moved (back) to the Netherlands "for a year". That was in 1994. Been living there (here) ever since.

 

[schmunk]

Thanks for the reminder. I've got 7 years of voluntarily NI contributions I need to make!

Note: If you leave the UK for work (employed or self-employed) you can normally pay voluntary NI at the cheaper Class 2 rate (£3.05/week), instead of Class 3 (£15.40/week), and it actually gives you more benefits.

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions

 

[middletoenail]

Note: If you leave the UK for work (employed or self-employed) you can normally pay voluntary NI at the cheaper Class 2 rate (£3.05/week), instead of Class 3 (£15.40/week), and it actually gives you more benefits.

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions

Thanks, I actually know about the details but it's a ball ache! I need to write a letter (won't accept over call/email) to the tax folks asking for permission for Class 2 contributions. Then I need to arrange the catch up payments.

 

[Brok]

Never been and don't intend to. what's their football league like?

A lot better than the Scotch leagues, so I've heard.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

For the first few years that Mrs T and I lived in the Netherlands, our mindset was always that we went to the Netherlands and home to the UK. Then at some unspecified moment in time it flipped and we found ourselves going to the UK and then home to the Netherlands. It's a small and subtle but extremely significant shift in mindset, and one that I think most if not all expats/émigrés experience at one stage or other if they are out of their home country long enough.

I felt that after about 4 years when I was on a flight from Heathrow to JFK and started to feel like a New Yorker.

Advice - invest time meeting and socialising with the locals, some Brits I know in NYC only hang out with other Brits. No offence to any of the Brits in NYC but if I wanted to hang out with them all the time I could have stayed in the UK, majority of my friends are Americans. I did go to the Hash once, that was enough - bloody daft activity in the first place (just join any running club if you want exercise), just full of Brits telling each other what the Americans are doing wrong and how they should be running the country - it's their country and their rules, if you don't like it go back to Blighty.

Good luck in the Falklands

 

[sydney]

If you're white you'll be an expat.
If you're anything else you'll be an immigrant.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I thought you were being paid to photograph penguins but, on reading the rest of the thread, it seems your wife's going to be working there and you are essentially just going to be photographing penguins. If so, then well played - but beware of boredom.

I lived abroad for nearly five years in an old job. Five months in India without the Mrs that nearly ended in divorce, so after that she came with or no trip. A year in Sydney, which I loved but she hated because I could work and she couldn't. I would have stayed forever but she was climbing the walls after a few months of not knowing anyone except my workmates, [MENTION=159]Stumpy Tim[/MENTION] (who was there at the time) and doing site seeing.

So we packed up for Japan and it was so much better for her. She could work and instantly got a job teaching business English. Tokyo is fascinating and we had lots of people to look after us. Would have stayed but for the project I was on getting canned and the Japanese demanding we left.

So onto Taipei which I think the Mrs liked the best because, although she was only volunteering, she had a five day a week "job" in an ex-pat community centre and met all the ladies that lunch through that. A really cracking social circle, precisely because ex pats looked after each other there. Only left because she got pregnant with my son and wanted to have him here.

And, yes. I've just repeated my travel stories on here AGAIN. But the point is, if you'd asked us before we left, we'd have both said that we'd probably have stayed in Oz and never left. Actually, being just another white face but not having a social circle made Mrs GB incredibly lonely, whereas living somewhere absolutely mental but with lovely locals and a big ex pat community was brilliant.

I hope you like penguins because it's a long trip back.

She played no part in it then?

 

[Pinkie Brown]

I felt that after about 4 years when I was on a flight from Heathrow to JFK and started to feel like a New Yorker.

Advice - invest time meeting and socialising with the locals, some Brits I know in NYC only hang out with other Brits. No offence to any of the Brits in NYC but if I wanted to hang out with them all the time I could have stayed in the UK, majority of my friends are Americans. I did go to the Hash once, that was enough - bloody daft activity in the first place (just join any running club if you want exercise), just full of Brits telling each other what the Americans are doing wrong and how they should be running the country - it's their country and their rules, if you don't like it go back to Blighty.

Good luck in the Falklands

Agree. Sound advice. Where I live there aren't that many Brits anyway compared to the likes of Berlin and around the former BFG enclave of Paderborn/Gütersloh/Bielefeld where a lot of ex military have stayed after leaving the services. I try to avoid 'ex-pat' cliques. Those who spend their time reminiscing about good old England and how rubbish Germany is and their way of doing things. If it's so awful here they have options.

 

[Klaas]

I felt that after about 4 years when I was on a flight from Heathrow to JFK and started to feel like a New Yorker.

Advice - invest time meeting and socialising with the locals, some Brits I know in NYC only hang out with other Brits. No offence to any of the Brits in NYC but if I wanted to hang out with them all the time I could have stayed in the UK, majority of my friends are Americans. I did go to the Hash once, that was enough - bloody daft activity in the first place (just join any running club if you want exercise), just full of Brits telling each other what the Americans are doing wrong and how they should be running the country - it's their country and their rules, if you don't like it go back to Blighty.

Good luck in the Falklands

Wow. I've lived in a couple of countries where English isn't the first language and so inevitably mono-linguists get stuck in a group. But when you can speak the language of where you live fluently and STILL hang out in your expat community?? Weird.

 

[CoolTed]

Mrs Ted and I have spent a couple of periods abroad. A few important things that I would have been better off knowing before we went . . .

Understanding the tax implications relevant to your situation and the need to establish non-resident tax status - living and working abroad doesn’t mean you are automatically non-resident in HMRC’s eyes. It’s more complicated than I thought it should be - RDR3: Statutory Residence Test (SRT) notes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

When transferring money, I was obviously aware of the need to carry out the necessary diligence on any organisation used. But, if large sums are involved, it’s safer to use the ‘big banks’, certainly ones that are internationally recognised as being compliant with Funds Transfer Regulations. (We sold our house in the UK, took the proceeds to NZ and back. When we bought a house back in the UK we had to show the unbroken trail between recognised banks. We had been tempted to use a currency house to get a better exchange rate – had we done that, the trail would have been broken and we wouldn’t have been able to prove that the money was ‘clean’.)

As others have said, keeping on top of NI contributions is important, as is being aware that making them when out of the country could well be cheaper than plugging gaps later. To qualify for a full state pension, contributions for 35 years are currently required but you don’t get a bigger pension if you pay in for more than 35 years. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe you can stop contributions while you are working, unless you are over state retirement age. Therefore, it makes sense to keep an eye on the rolling ‘score’ to avoid ending up either under or over. It’s possible that a gap now may ultimately be irrelevant.

I hope you have a great time.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Mrs Ted and I have spent a couple of periods abroad. A few important things that I would have been better off knowing before we went . . .

Understanding the tax implications relevant to your situation and the need to establish non-resident tax status - living and working abroad doesn’t mean you are automatically non-resident in HMRC’s eyes. It’s more complicated than I thought it should be - RDR3: Statutory Residence Test (SRT) notes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

When transferring money, I was obviously aware of the need to carry out the necessary diligence on any organisation used. But, if large sums are involved, it’s safer to use the ‘big banks’, certainly ones that are internationally recognised as being compliant with Funds Transfer Regulations. (We sold our house in the UK, took the proceeds to NZ and back. When we bought a house back in the UK we had to show the unbroken trail between recognised banks. We had been tempted to use a currency house to get a better exchange rate – had we done that, the trail would have been broken and we wouldn’t have been able to prove that the money was ‘clean’.)

As others have said, keeping on top of NI contributions is important, as is being aware that making them when out of the country could well be cheaper than plugging gaps later. To qualify for a full state pension, contributions for 35 years are currently required but you don’t get a bigger pension if you pay in for more than 35 years. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe you can stop contributions while you are working, unless you are over state retirement age. Therefore, it makes sense to keep an eye on the rolling ‘score’ to avoid ending up either under or over. It’s possible that a gap now may ultimately be irrelevant.

I hope you have a great time.

Keeping your NI contributions whilst abroad is very wise; I pay peanuts per year but get a full year added to my contributions, and in turn my state pension.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Wow. I've lived in a couple of countries where English isn't the first language and so inevitably mono-linguists get stuck in a group. But when you can speak the language of where you live fluently and STILL hang out in your expat community?? Weird.

I see what ewe did there

 

[Miami Seagull]

Good luck out there. I served for 6 months there in 84, albeit mostly at sea, and then got to visit annually from 99-2012. I really enjoyed it there and made many friends. People are friendly, although everyone knows everyone else's business. Great place for kids for sure. Biggest initial surprise for people visiting is just how large it is. The local air flights mean you can visit most places fairly easily. Some really great places to go. Try to get to South Georgia as well if you can.