Emigration....... Are people serious

Paperweight said:
Just remember the ones who go loudly always crawl back quietly once they realise 1) missing family is a thing 2) you get less with the same amount of money overseas
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Most skilled people who move overseas will earn more money and not be subject to the same levels of inflation as in SA. I am financially better off in the UK. The job market is also far less restrictive making it easier to find the better jobs.
 
I've been in London for 3 weeks now and haven't regretted for a second so far

Personally I decided to leave and only really told my parents and closest friends. I told my work and everyone else once I actually had the visa

I actually think things are more affordable here if you are earning pounds. In SA I would leave PnP with 2 packets after spending R500. Even though London is expensive, I feel you can live quite comfortably on a entry level salary. One of the biggest reasons for me coming was to see the world since I'm only mid twenties. From here I can get a plane to Europe for £30, whereas I would have paid R11000 in SA
 
SoulTax said:
Yes, I totally agree that it is still statistically safer than SA. I am just pointing out that people cannot base their idea of how safe UK living is, from living in the large cities. You have to be in one of the smaller cities or large towns to really start to feel the safety that you expect from the UK.
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??? How do you not feel safer with a 20-30x less murder rate?
 
cguy said:
??? How do you not feel safer with a 30x less murder rate?
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The truth though is those murders occur mostly in townships and informal settlements, not in the suburbs. Cruel & horrible but the truth is the middle class hardly notices.
 
loc said:
I've been in London for 3 weeks now and haven't regretted for a second so far

Personally I decided to leave and only really told my parents and closest friends. I told my work and everyone else once I actually had the visa

I actually think things are more affordable here if you are earning pounds. In SA I would leave PnP with 2 packets after spending R500. Even though London is expensive, I feel you can live quite comfortably on a entry level salary. One of the biggest reasons for me coming was to see the world since I'm only mid twenties. From here I can get a plane to Europe for £30, whereas I would have paid R11000 in SA
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Someone mentioned it in an earlier post, and I think it's what still puts a lot of people off: still thinking in Rands. If you're leaving permanently, yes, you'll still need to convert whatever money you're taking with and you'll have to live off that for a short while. But your plan is to LIVE there, not go on holiday, so you'll be earning the currency soon enough. Then it's no longer R40 for a cup of coffee, but £2. And if you're earning upwards of £2000 a month (depending on what you do, obviously), buy that cuppa and stop feeling guilty!
 
biometrics said:
The truth though is those murders occur mostly in townships and informal settlements, not in the suburbs. Cruel & horrible but the truth is the middle class hardly notices.
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The truth is that the same can be said for almost any city. Even at 30x lower murders on average, there are areas of London that haven't seen a murder in decades and others that are "bad areas", yet have lower murder rates than many good areas in SA. Comparing the best areas in SA to the average of a city of nearly 9m people is not equitable. I.e, The middle class murders are much lower in SA than the poorer classes, but it is still significant, middle class murders in London are much lower still.
 
cguy said:
The truth is that the same can be said for almost any city. Even at 30x lower murders on average, there are areas of London that haven't seen a murder in decades and others that are "bad areas", yet have lower murder rates than many good areas in SA. Comparing the best areas in SA to the average of a city of nearly 9m people is not equitable. I.e, The middle class murders are much lower in SA than the poorer classes, but it is still significant, middle class murders in London are much lower still.
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Yet I still wouldn't ever consider the UK to live in.
 
The Voice said:
Someone mentioned it in an earlier post, and I think it's what still puts a lot of people off: still thinking in Rands. If you're leaving permanently, yes, you'll still need to convert whatever money you're taking with and you'll have to live off that for a short while. But your plan is to LIVE there, not go on holiday, so you'll be earning the currency soon enough. Then it's no longer R40 for a cup of coffee, but £2. And if you're earning upwards of £2000 a month (depending on what you do, obviously), buy that cuppa and stop feeling guilty!
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I agree, I still do this alot, especially since I don't even have a UK bank account yet. But I'm already learning what is and isn't expensive based on pounds

On the weekend I bought a Nespresso machine (albeit on clearance) for our new flat, something I always wanted but never bought in SA. Even though I'm on an entry level salary, it cost me 7.5% of my monthly salary. At the same price it would have been 20% of my SA salary.

So at the original price , it would have been 15% of my UK salary which is quite extravagant, but a massive 40% of my SA salary! Which is why I never bought one
 
biometrics said:
Yet I still wouldn't ever consider the UK to live in.
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Fair enough. Care to share your reasons?

FYI, my key reason for choosing US over UK is that IT salaries are generally much lower in the UK, and CoL is higher, but I mostly prefer the UK lifestyle and can afford to visit whenever I want. Now that I work in finance I may reconsider one day and move to London.

Also the taxes are much higher for a majority of IT workers.
 
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loc said:
I agree, I still do this alot, especially since I don't even have a UK bank account yet. But I'm already learning what is and isn't expensive based on pounds

On the weekend I bought a Nespresso machine (albeit on clearance) for our new flat, something I always wanted but never bought in SA. Even though I'm on an entry level salary, it cost me 7.5% of my monthly salary. At the same price it would have been 20% of my SA salary.

So at the original price , it would have been 15% of my UK salary which is quite extravagant, but a massive 40% of my SA salary! Which is why I never bought one
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I know you are trying not to speak in absolute terms and give you salary information away, but looking at those percentages and what I expect a Nespresso machine to cost on average it sounds like you are washing dishes there and you were maybe supervising the dishwashing when down here.

Or your numbers are whack because R3000 Nespresso machine @ 40% translates to a R7500 salary...or you are using the GBP price against the ZAR salary value instead of the ZAR price against the ZAR salary value which is really what you should be doing with percentages.

And if you are only making R20 000 in the UK in converted terms...then I'm quite happy staying here thank you very much.


*****

Besides all that...how is your priority getting a coffee machine before a bank account? I love my coffee too, but not that much. :)
 
SauRoNZA said:
I know you are trying not to speak in absolute terms and give you salary information away, but looking at those percentages and what I expect a Nespresso machine to cost on average it sounds like you are washing dishes there and you were maybe supervising the dishwashing when down here.

Or your numbers are whack because R3000 Nespresso machine @ 40% translates to a R7500 salary...or you are using the GBP price against the ZAR salary value instead of the ZAR price against the ZAR salary value which is really what you should be doing with percentages.

And if you are only making R20 000 in the UK in converted terms...then I'm quite happy staying here thank you very much.


*****

Besides all that...how is your priority getting a coffee machine before a bank account? I love my coffee too, but not that much. :)
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Ya was worried about making a mess of those numbers.

Not actually that fussed about info so:

SA:
Earn R15000
Nespresso R6000
40%

UK
Earn £2000
Nespresso £300
15%

Basically it just seems more affordable here,but maths is not my strong suit

I've been trying very hard to get a bank account, it's not that easy until you have proof of residence, and not easy to get that without a bank account! I should have it sorted this week. One thing I will say, I think FNB has many of the big banks here beat in terms of service. To open an account at Lloyds I have to wait 1-2 weeks for an appointment, which they cancelled without telling me
 
Yeah I also prefer working with ratio's to determine what's comparatively expensive and cheap. A good example of this would be a Nando's quarter chicken. Let's use the example of an SA salary of R30k net. A Nando's quarter chicken in SA is R32.50. That's 0.11% of net SA salary. In London, a Nando's quarter chicken is GBP 4.35. That means, for the ratio to hold true (so that a quarter chicken in London = 0.11% of your net salary), you would need to earn GBP 3955 per month.
 
loc said:
Ya was worried about making a mess of those numbers.

Not actually that fussed about info so:

SA:
Earn R15000
Nespresso R6000
40%

UK
Earn £2000
Nespresso £300
15%

Basically it just seems more affordable here,but maths is not my strong suit

I've been trying very hard to get a bank account, it's not that easy until you have proof of residence, and not easy to get that without a bank account! I should have it sorted this week. One thing I will say, I think FNB has many of the big banks here beat in terms of service. To open an account at Lloyds I have to wait 1-2 weeks for an appointment, which they cancelled without telling me
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Sounds like you were ripped off by your employers in SA.
 
loc said:
SA:
Earn R15000
Nespresso R6000
40%

UK
Earn £2000
Nespresso £300
15%
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Okay so you were using the ZAR/ZAR pricing against the GBP/GBP pricing which is really just what I wanted to be sure of.

I think (depending on model I guess) that your Nespresso price in SA is way off though. They are not R6000 in general, but maybe we should get model specific to be absolutely sure.

But if I was in your position earning R15k and therefore presumably quite young still I would be more keen to see the world.

Actually let me rephrase, I'm not at all against seeing the world as a motivation. My problem is with "escaping" from problems.

If an opportunity presents itself to me I would seriously consider it, but having a family and a pretty solid position locally I'm not about to go looking for it if that makes sense.

I have spent a bit of time in the Netherlands, UK and also Kenya for some perspective as well, so it's not like I am clueless either.
 
@loc - I managed to open a natwest offshore bank account before moving over to London, with the help of the company I work for. I do agree with your though, from a retail banking perspective, SA is miles ahead! I lol @ these card readers we have to use (similar to digitags) to make payments to new recipients - they haven't reached the OTP security milestone yet :)
 
On the plus side, the more skilled people leave the more we can charge in SA. I wouldn't take a job for less than R70-R80k in SA.
 
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