April 13, 2025 • 47 mins
Review of Our Last Days in County, Packing Up, Selling Everything, and Landing in Auckland, New Zealand. The process leading up to it was filled with highs, lows, and valuable lessons learned. Looking back, we can pinpoint what worked, what didn’t, and what we wish we had done differently.
I believe having a well-thought-out plan, a realistic budget, and an emergency fund for unexpected risks are absolutely essential.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
} { Welcome back to my podcast, everybody. So nice to have you guys back. I hope you had a chance to listen to my first podcast. If you haven't, please go back and listen to the podcast. It's important to me that you understand why I'm trying to do this and also just to get know me a little bit.} {\pard \line \par} {The last thing you wanna do is be listening to somebody talking about immigrating to New Zealand and all these ideas and what works and what doesn't, but. You'd wanna know who's giving this sort of advice and opinion. So really please go back, listen, try to get to know me a little bit better.} {\pard \line \par} {It'll hopefully make yourealize I'm no expert on this. I'm really just talking from my experience what me and my family have gone through. The whole intention is really just to try and help. When we look to immigrate to New Zealand two years ago, there's a lot of information out there on all the different visa options and immigration agents, et cetera.} {\pard \line \par} {But when it comes to this real stuff it was difficult. A lot of the time you were trying to reach out to friends, or people that you potentially, or somebody that knows somebody that lives in New Zealand and try and catch up with them and try and get as much information out of them. But } {\cf2
(01:00):
} { there wasn't a hell of a lot that I could find out online and videos and YouTube to really answer a lot of these questions.} {\pard \line \par} {And some of it is just personal experience and it just happens. And don't you even forget about this stuff, especially in your first, I'd say six to 12 months of landing. You are really in survival mode. So there's so much that goes on. Even me making these podcasts, I'm really having to think back and try to remember all the different things that we went through.} {\pard \line \par} {And it's making me, it's actually reminding me so much stuff that we had on the go and so much that we had to deal with and why thisimmigration process can be so tough. So that's just really the reason we want to share, hopefully make it easier for somebody else. If you're listening to these podcasts, you can learn from us.} {\pard \line \par} {And be better prepared and have a softer landing than what we did. That's the whole intention. Just hopefully it can be easier and so that you can make this work. We are two years in and we are making this work, and it breaks my heart when I see so many people that have come all this way and they give up.} {\pard \line \par} {Or that it just gets too challenging. And I can understand why. Trust me, I really can't understand why. But the whole } {\cf2
(02:00):
} { intention is to try and prevent that from happening for as many people as possible, trying to make this a better experience. And for people just to be a little bit more prepared. And I think that's where I'm going with this podcast today is it's a lot to do with planning.} {\pard \line \par} {When I ended off the last podcast I explained it really got to the point where. I finally got that job offer. And when you get that job offer, it's oh wow, okay, now it's real. And that kicks off so many different streams that you now have to start working on. Yes, the job offer is the one thing that genuinely, or the last thing that you need to start closing off and getting those visas for youand your family and everything done.} {\pard \line \par} {And like I said, I'm not an immigration agent and this is not what this podcast is about, but it gets those streams going. But the other streams you've gotta start thinking about and that stops going through your mind is. Okay. Wow. Now how many weeks until we start getting our visa? So when do we buy air tickets?} {\pard \line \par} {Geez, if you've got a property and you've got a house, we've gotta get that house on the market. If it's not on the market or already, gee, if it is, how quickly can we sell it? How long is it gonna take to get the money out from the house that we can actually use for a lot of the expenses that we are planning } {\cf2
(03:00):
} { and gonna have, and.} {\pard \line \par} {All your cars and vehicles and assets and everything, you gotta get all of those sold and you start thinking about your pensions and your savings and your investments and when do you close those out and when do I open up a bank account overseas and when do I send money overseas? How much do I keep here starting to work out?} {\pard \line \par} {Where do we stay when we first get there? How long do we stay there? When do we get a rental? How do we travel around in the new country? How do we buy a car? So it's all these things that startgoing through that you're trying to plan out, and I. What I found worked for us is we really started putting a project plan together and really trying to work through different streams of tasks that we needed to get done to get us from where we were in South Africa all the way through to Auckland with timeframes as best we could have timeframes for what we knew and keep adjusting those timeframes.} {\pard \line \par} {Continuously and then having a budget that really mirrored that. But not just a budget for all the things that you were trying to get costs } {\cf2
(04:00):
} { on, but also just having a risk budget. If there's anything that's, we definitely dipped into it was a risk budget, having that buffer because there's so many un unknowns and so many challenges that unfortunately just curve balls that come your way.} {\pard \line \par} {And I'll talk through some of our curve balls, but we definitely had to use that risk budget and constantly pivot and change our plan. But the big thing was having a plan and trying to think through as many of these things as possible. Trying to do as much research as possible, reaching out to asmany people as you know as possible, doing research online, trying to gather as much information as possible to try and be as best prepared as possible for this move.} {\pard \line \par} {Geez, I've said possible a lot of times, but it's really what helped us a lot. So maybe let me start off when we got that job offer, so like I mentioned, I got the job offer, it was November in 2019. And the first thing that we had already started doing was putting the house that we had the house on the market, but now just trying to get hold of the agents and saying, Hey, we've } {\cf2
(05:00):
} { got the job offer.} {\pard \line \par} {So now things are gonna, we assumed start moving quickly. So we don't have a definite date yet. It could be a couple of weeks. It could be, a month, two, don't know, but it's gonna be very soon. So we really gotta start pushing and getting that buyer to buy the house so we can try and get it, it sold, transferred, and once transferred, obviously getting the funds out 'cause we were really banking on some of the funds that we had available in the property.} {\pard \line \par} {In our house to be able to use for a lot of the expenses. I also did mention in the previous podcast, one of the bigthings for us was the rent is very weak and we were going to New Zealand, we've got a dollar that was 10 times stronger, so we needed every cent we could get our hands on. So it was really important for us to tie in the selling of the house, not only for the money side, but also what you're trying to work out is.} {\pard \line \par} {We're a family, that's a home. That's where we live. So now you've gotta start thinking, okay, when we get that date and we know when we are gonna be flying and when are we gonna be leaving, we've gotta try and time that as close as possible to moving out the house, handing over the } {\cf2
(06:00):
} { keys so that we don't.} {\pard \line \par} {Spend too much of our money in South Africa, living in hotels. Airbnbs, maybe you could be lucky and you have family and friends that you could maybe stay with, but that's also difficult when you've got a whole family and for how long would you be able to stay with them. So you just gotta think about all this planning and it all comes down to what works for you and your family and your budget and what you've got.} {\pard \line \par} {What we ended up doing is we got quite lucky with the sale of the house. As we got to time it we are pretty much our last day ofhandover. We just had to stay in a hotel one night before we flew out the very next day. So we were lucky to get it timed like that. It wasn't easy. It took a lot of work on the part with our estate agent, who was very good in helping us as well as the buyer being, I think he really wants the home and they were just.} {\pard \line \par} {Flexible. That helped. Which did help. A big thing we had to push for though, is they did have their own home that they were trying to sell. So they were really pushing us that it had to be a subject to sale. So they were really pushing. They would } {\cf2
(07:00):
} { only let it go through the sale of our house, go through based on them selling theirs.} {\pard \line \par} {And that was a big problem for me. So that one was a bit of a. A hard negotiation and push back on, but we had to push back on it and eventually got them to agree. No, no subject to sale. It was just straight clean buy which did help. And that's why we could get it with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.} {\pard \line \par} {Get it to a point where we were actually able to move out, stay in a hotel one night, and then get on a plane and fly out. I think a big thing with the house as well is w we got to, andwe'll talk about a little bit later, about your household goods and everything. When you're trying to decide what do you sell, what do you keep, what do you take a container, what do you take on the container?} {\pard \line \par} {And I'll talk through What we took through is what also helped with the people buying the house is there were certain things furniture and electronic equipment like dishwashers, whatever else that we decided we are not gonna take with and. We threw it in with the sale of the house. They paid a little bit extra, but then they got to keep those things so you could also be } {\cf2
(08:00):
} { negotiable on those sort of things.} {\pard \line \par} {So keep that in the back of your mind. But the house, we were lucky that went through and the timing worked out quite well. What was tough for us timing wise though, is we got the offer in November. So we were really trying to push this over the city season. What I mean by city season was between Christmas and New Year, and that, that actually became a big challenge.} {\pard \line \par} {So I know you can't plan those things. It all depends on when your offer does come through and you just gotta go with, hey, what you get. But just keep it in the back of yourmind if it does happen to any of you out there where you get your offer. And this has all happened to you over that period between the end of November, beginning of December, over January.} {\pard \line \par} {It does get difficult dealing with. All the different public agencies to transfer your houses. It also gets difficult with any dealings of immigration and everything like that as well because a lot of people just go and leave and a lot of public sectors just close down over that period. In New Zealand they work close up to Christmas, but from the 24th of December, right the way up to } {\cf2
(09:00):
} { the 16th, 20th of January, sometimes even the end of January.} {\pard \line \par} {Nothing happens here in New Zealand. It like dies, especially in the public sector. So it's very difficult to try and get hold of people, especially if you're on the other side of the world and get things done. So that was a big challenge for us on our visa side, but also locally in South Africa with dealing with different agencies and doing the house transfers and getting it into the new buyer's name and everything like that, which was delaying us getting it sold to get our money out.} {\pard \line \par} {So that was the only thing was just try to keep in mind withyour house. There's obviously different options. I'm just talking through what worked for us. Okay. I know of other people that they sold their house earlier, they were able to get into a short term rental or they'll get into an Airbnb or they had family help them.} {\pard \line \par} {There's always different ways. I'm just saying talk or talking through what we did, but just reiterating and saying it's important to have a plan and keep to it and keep adjusting and keeping working to your timelines. So House was the one thing. The other thing that we were trying to think about was we had to use our pensions and our savings and } {\cf2
(10:00):
} { investments.} {\pard \line \par} {We, we cashed everything in. We knew we were gonna be cashing everything in to, to get us over to New Zealand and to get our family set up again. So we knew it and we knew it'd be starting over again from the age of 40. I'll talk through in other episodes what we're trying to do to play catch up, but that's an episode for a later date.} {\pard \line \par} {But where we were at that point in time was trying to work out, okay, which pensions do you cash in? At what time? What savings? What investments? When do you close them all by? So again, that's all the timing thing, and that ties into what decisions you've made with regards to. What are you selling? What are you keeping?} {\pard \line \par} {What are you buying? What are you trying to do? And what I mean by that is, so a big thing for us was we decided to take a container. It was only a half container, not a full container, but the stuff that we decided to take in our container was not our big furniture and all the rest of it. We decided anything that was irreplaceable, anything that was sentimental, anything that was family heirlooms, anything that was.} {\pard \line \par} {Specific to us and our family that } {\cf2
(11:00):
} { we could never replace. That was the type of stuff that we wanted to take with. So it would be like different pictures. It would be different photos, it would be different hand-me-downs in the family, different family antiques that my wife had. It was all those type of things that we wanted to take with, especially with the kids.} {\pard \line \par} {Also a lot of their toys and a lot of things that, that they knew as familiar and made it feel like home for them. We really wanted to bring a lot of that, that across on the container. It was important for us that once we finally landed on the otherside and we start getting set up. That we'd have a lot of this familiar stuff around us eventually, which could help us settle and help the kids settle and make it feel like home as quick as possible.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's why we opted to take a lot of that across. We were of the opinion that a lot of the bedding, furniture, everything that was replaceable stuff we also lucky the stuff that we had. It wasn't anything that was really Wow, okay. It wasn't bad stuff, but it wasn't Wow. Stuff that I thought, oh gee.} {\pard \line \par} {We spend so much money on this we better make sure we keep it and } {\cf2
(12:00):
} { take it a across with us, for us, it was an easier decision to let a lot of the furniture, bedding all the electronic equipment like I don't know, your fridges, your washing machines, all that kind of stuff. We decided to sell all of that.} {\pard \line \par} {It just becomes a timing thing. 'cause you obviously need it while you're living, so there's certain things you can start clearing out. So we had a lot of house sales and people coming through the house and. Marketplace. My, my wife was amazing at organizing all of this stuff and really trying to push selling stuff.} {\pard \line \par} {She also reached out todifferent organizations where whatever you couldn't sell yourself in that last week, when you finally got your last week's date, they would come in and take those last few things right up until the day you were packing in about to hand over keys, like your beds and stuff like that so you could plan it.} {\pard \line \par} {To a point where whatever you couldn't get rid of, you could try get these companies to come in and take the last bit or we donated a lot of stuff as well and family and friends and whoever you'd give stuff away to. But the, those last few weeks, building up to when you're about to } {\cf2
(13:00):
} { move. It's chaotic.} {\pard \line \par} {You you are really just you. You're trying to work and keep a job down, but at the same time, you are also trying to unpack and get rid of stuff and clear out your house. And especially if you've been married and living in a house from years and years, you'll be amazed the amount of stuff that you actually collect.} {\pard \line \par} {So it's a lot that's going on all at the same time. But getting back to my point that we made here is we needed money to be able to pay for a container. Container is expensive. I don't regret getting acontainer only a half container or shared container because we brought across that stuff and it has helped us settle.} {\pard \line \par} {It has helped us feel like this is home. We are seeing stuff that's familiar. We are seeing pictures that are up on the walls that are familiar. We're seeing our stuff around us, even be it knickknacks and whatever else, ornaments, whatever. It's just helped us settle. It's helped the kids settle. It's.} {\pard \line \par} {It's made this rental though we are renting feeling more like feel more like home and similar to what we had back in } {\cf2
(14:00):
} { South Africa. So I felt we made the right decision on getting a half container and I don't regret that even, although it cost a lot of money. The next thing that you start trying to time is you've got your cars and your other assets.} {\pard \line \par} {Some people have more than others, some people have boats, whatever. You needed to get rid of all of this stuff. We did have a boat. Where we were lucky is the minute we decided we were gonna be immigrating and moving as much as it broke my heart. 'cause I love making memories with the kids going out and waterskiing and everything.} {\pard \line \par} {On the dam is. I really put it on the market and sold it a lot earlier. And I'm grateful for that because then when crunch time came, now we just, in those last few weeks from when we get the offer to now, it's really moving quickly to get out of the out of the country and on a plane and over to New Zealand is, it was one less thing to worry about.} {\pard \line \par} {So I'm glad I sold the boat and a lot of other stuff that was luxury items sooner. As for the cars though, that's when you're trying to work out. Okay. How can you } {\cf2
(15:00):
} { sell maybe one car and just keep one car that you guys share, and then how long can you keep that car before you have to sell it? Because you still need to travel and get around.} {\pard \line \par} {Sometimes the kids are still in school, and that's another question, when do you pull them outta school when they stop? So it is all this planning that you gotta try do. Where we got lucky is we did sell all cars by one that we eventually were just sharing. My wife and I, it was her car that we kept.} {\pard \line \par} {But we did make an arrangement with a dealer. That we were lucky. We had bought other cars from him prior, before, over the years. So he knew us andwe explained to him we were immigrating and he's dealt with other people that are immigrating. And he said to us, what we can do is he's looked at the car, given he's given a fair evaluation, he's given us an estimate prior.} {\pard \line \par} {That he'll give us. But once we got a definite date, he'll come by, give us that last, see if he sticks to the same price or if it changes slightly. But then we could keep the car right up until the day before. So as much as we planned the house where we got it just the day before, so we had only stay in a hotel for one night.} {\pard \line \par} {We did the same with my last car that actually came and fetched her car } {\cf2
(16:00):
} { and that last day as well. So we luckily had transport car to get around. Right the way up until that last. Night before we, we left. So that's how we were able to get the car all sorted and then obviously funds and transferred it really quickly so that, that did help.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's how we sorted out the car, on the boat household stuff, because we were only gonna take the stuff that was sentimental to us. We started trying to get rid of as much as possible. So if there's anything that you weren't taking with that wasn't necessary to live. Trying to sell, just trying to sellmarketplace, whatever.} {\pard \line \par} {My wife had already even started before we knew that we got the offer. 'cause she knew there was stuff that she was gonna clear out. So it could be like old baby clothes, it could be prams whatever you don't need. And you were keeping in the garage, whatever. She was just trying to get rid of all of that.} {\pard \line \par} {So what we started doing is even furniture inside a lot of kitchen u tents what do you call it? Like your KitchenAid and your kitchen stuff started selling that because you wouldn't need it. So she was trying to clear out as much as possible. It did end } {\cf2
(17:00):
} { up that a lot of stuff did get donated as well.} {\pard \line \par} {I know my wife did mention that in the kitchen, two things that she did does miss, even to this day. She had nice B pans and everything like that. She misses her B pans, although we've got. Pretty decent stuff here. It's just not as good as what we had back home. And that she misses, she also explained that there was like a oven dish that she really liked back in South Africa that we've replaced here, but it's just not quite the same.} {\pard \line \par} {So there's those odd few things that you do miss. A big thing forme was my polo. I missed my polo back from South back in South Africa, and in hindsight we used it right up until that last night. I wish I had squeezed in my polo into my luggage and brought it with, or at the very least, put it in the container so it would've been here a couple of months later.} {\pard \line \par} {That's one of the things that I regret not bringing with and my wife, but nothing major. As I said, we brought all the stuff that was sentimental to us, that was familiar to us and the kids, and it made us made home and then we rebuilt on this side with } {\cf2
(18:00):
} { regards to lounge furniture and dining room furniture and TVs and a lot of that stuff.} {\pard \line \par} {So we've built that up over the last two years again. But I'll talk to that a little bit more. But timing wise, it was just. Big to try and do that clean out. Trying to lead up to when you're about to sell the house. Container wise, I don't regret taking the container, but one thing that was important to do with the container was the whole door to door.} {\pard \line \par} {It was great that they were able to help us on that last week before we were moving. So they started packing up all our stuff a couple of days before that last day,before we had to fly out. They actually come in, they label everything, they pack everything, they bubble, wrap it, box it, whatever else, which is great.} {\pard \line \par} {They put it on the truck, they take it off to the shipyards, whatever, put it on the container. And not only on this on the South African side, but then on the other side they pick it up, they drive it right to the house. And even, although our rental, and I'll get into that at another stage it changed a few times by the time that the container arrived here in New Zealand.} {\pard \line \par} {They bring it to your door. They help you unpack at that side. And a } {\cf2
(19:00):
} { funny thing that they help you do is get rid of all your boxes and your polystyrene you think it? Boxes. Polystyrene easy in South Africa to get rid of that stuff in the trash or to chuck away to throw away. But here in New Zealand, they were very particular about recycling.} {\pard \line \par} {And to get rid of polystyrene, you've gotta find certain places where you can take polystyrene and actually dispose of it. And when you've got it in large amounts, that can be a challenge. Getting rid of it as well as boxes. You gotta break it all down, take it to the recycle places. And depending on where you take it,it can be difficult to get rid of a lot of boxes.} {\pard \line \par} {It was good. That didn't, they didn't only do the door to door, but that also took away all the polystyrene and boxes and everything like that, which was big for me. So getting back to it. So we got the offer and the visas and everything are on the go difficult over the Christmas period. The same with the sale of the house.} {\pard \line \par} {But we got to time that, right? The cars and everything I spoke through and how we timed that. So that was good. So we got the money in from that. Pension savings investments. What we started doing is working very } {\cf2
(20:00):
} { closely with our broker in South Africa and just trying to plan out as per our budget items that we needed to pay, how much we were with withdrawing at certain times and spending and paying on this side.} {\pard \line \par} {So like the container for example, we were, we took money and funds out of investments or savings or whatever and paid for that while we were still in South Africa. What we also did talking about cars is we were able to also arrange that we bought a car in New Zealand in Auckland, while we were still inSouth Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {How we managed to do that is we actually relied on our friends. We had friends of ours that were in New Zealand. We phoned them up, we went online, so there's the auto trader, but Fort New Zealand and I could surf and find cars. I would only look at a car that is at a dealership if you're gonna do it without seeing it.} {\pard \line \par} {In New Zealand, there is something that they refer to as Japanese imports, so I'll use a Mazda as an example. You can get a Mazda that is a genuine Mazda that's from a } {\cf2
(21:00):
} { dealer here in New Zealand that's being shipped and specifically. Yeah, shipped and sold in New Zealand, or you could get a Mazda that's been shipped across, but was sold at a Mazda dealership in Japan, and then brought across later secondhand to New Zealand.} {\pard \line \par} {The differences as follows, the one that was original for a Mazda dealership and sold in New Zealand. All the electronics and all the displays and everything like that are all in English and everything like that. The Japanese imports, a lot of those digital computer things are all in Japanese,and then to get them converted can be difficult, although those cars can be cheaper.} {\pard \line \par} {You're gonna have those sort of challenges with the computers and all the electronics inside the car because of the language. Actual physical languages, it'll talk to you in Japanese and the writing will be in Japanese and whatever else. There is places that do conversions and stuff like that, but.} {\pard \line \par} {Yeah, just be careful of that if you're buying. So what I did is I did it online, but I did it through a dealership. So one, I knew that a dealership was less risky. } {\cf2
(22:00):
} { I knew that there would be warranties and whatever else on the car. Again, this all depends on your budget. What I did is got friends of mine to go see the car test drive the car.} {\pard \line \par} {They gave me video footage of the car and everything like that when I was still in South Africa. And what I did is then I then, once I chosen that I was gonna go ahead with the car I opted to, buy it while I was still in South Africa and I arranged for them. What they would do is once I'd done the transferred and paid, and that was from my normal Ned bank account, my normal South African bank account, I just did the transfers.} {\pard \line \par} {I did do itin three separate payments just because of transferred limits for the amount on the car. But I did it in three payments. Once the dealership saw the money and it was all in. All sorted, all I had to do was just put down a deposit, a holding deposit, which I used my credit card for and gave them the credit card details and it works.} {\pard \line \par} {And that was my South African credit card and everything. So it all worked. And that's how I secured the car in New Zealand before we even landed here in Auckland. What I also arranged with a dealership is they were able to, then I told them I'd give them a date for when we were landing } {\cf2
(23:00):
} { and which hotel we'd be booked in for the first night.} {\pard \line \par} {And they even drove the car. To that hotel, gave the keys to the hotel, and the car was in the parking lot for me. So the nice thing was when we landed in Auckland, we took our transfers to the hotel, slept. My car was already there, and I could start driving around the very first day. So I was independent and everything.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's how we were able to plan the car, which worked out really nicely. But just be careful of the caveats around. You gotta know that you have a friend that you can trustthat'll look at the car for, that there are these Japanese imports and everything, so be careful who you buy the car from.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's why I recommended dealerships. But again, it does depend on your budgets and everything like that as well. So that's how we got the car sorted out. The other thing that we try to do in parallel is. We tried to secure a rental while we were still in South Africa. Everybody told us we were mad and there was no ways you're gonna get that done because securing rentals and the rental process here in New Zealand is very } {\cf2
(24:00):
} { different to in South Africa to back in South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {And I'll talk through it later or potentially in another episode. But we were lucky enough, we actually got it right. We got friends of ours again to go look around in different areas. In New Zealand we are specific about the areas. In relation to the schools we wanted our kids to go to because they are zoned for certain schools.} {\pard \line \par} {So you've gotta make sure you get into an area that is for the school that you want your kids to go to. So it's recommended you go think about what schoolyou want your kids to go to before you settle in that specific area. So we were lucky with the friends that we had found the area we wanted to be in.} {\pard \line \par} {They went and viewed certain homes for us that we were looking at on, on trade me and on real estate. And we found a rental that we liked. He went and saw it for us. And then he worked with us and we went through the, rental process of writing up almost like a family CV and a pet cv and why us and why you'd wanna choose us.} {\pard \line \par} {And then logging onto all their different systems to apply for } {\cf2
(25:00):
} { the rental. Which I think I'll probably go through in a different episode because there's quite a bit to it, and I'll get my wife to join maybe on that episode. But we were lucky enough to get to a point where we were actually chosen as the, they chose us as tenants for the rental while we're still back in South Africa. What it did mean is we would have to pay what they call a bond, which is a deposit, and it's usually they pay rentals weekly. Here it was four weeks rental up front that we had to transfer tokeep the unit or secure it.} {\pard \line \par} {And then what we had to do is stop paying weekly until we finally got there. It is expensive. Rental here is expensive. I will do another episode eventually and I'll go through the actual budgeting, the living budget, like your living expenses and budgets, and how much of your salary you should consider putting towards what items to live here day to day.} {\pard \line \par} {But just as an idea, almost 50% of my income goes to just rental and a home for a four, a family of four. So it is very } {\cf2
(26:00):
} { expensive. So it was great that we were able to plan ahead and get this rental secured. But in hindsight, I probably wouldn't have done that one because we are not even in that area anymore.} {\pard \line \par} {We have actually moved to a different area now that we actually prefer. And I'll talk through how we ended up here. It wasn't a hundred percent by choice, but I'll talk through that shortly. But I probably wouldn't do that. I would probably, if there was something I would do differently, it would be.} {\pard \line \par} {Yes, go in a hotel for the first night or two. Either if you've gotfriends that you can stay with, that would be great 'cause it could save you money. But for a family of four living with friends, it can be really difficult. So if you can't do that, then look at some sort of Airbnb or something like that for a couple of weeks while you then here and can look at rentals yourself.} {\pard \line \par} {Even although you've done the homework already, while you're still back in South Africa. By the time you land here, you can just double check that. Yes, this definitely is the area that definitely is the school you want your kids to be in. And } {\cf2
(27:00):
} { then hunt for a rental and try find a place. Then move from the Airbnb into the rental that you've secured.} {\pard \line \par} {The money that we spent for the couple of weeks, because there was delays in getting our visas and everything like that, paying in using Rans to pay a weekly rental amount in dollars. It was chewing through money. It was like burning money and considering we weren't staying in that rental and having to pay it, that, that is something, was a lesson learned for me.} {\pard \line \par} {Probably wouldn't do that with the rental. So yeah, the processwould be probably find Airbnb and then find a place to move into. So getting back to our story, so what happened with us, so we got the housing timed quite nicely. We got. Yeah, we got the rental sorted out and the car sorted out quite nicely.} {\pard \line \par} {Obviously the car sold in South Africa and all the other stuff, household goods. Got the containers so that were pretty much packed on the last night. Got to stay in the house for the last night and then they packed up beds and everything and we stayed in a hotel in South Africa on that last } {\cf2
(28:00):
} { night.} {\pard \line \par} {Once we finally got the dates, and yes, there was delays over Christmas and everything, so we could book our flights because we were over Christmas and it had delayed in getting our visas and everything. It was starting to get to a point where the job I had secured in Auckland, they were starting to get a bit.} {\pard \line \par} {Not worried, but they were, they're putting pressure on us saying, Hey, if you don't get here in the next couple of weeks I dunno if we're gonna be able to keep the position open for you because it had been so long now. So when we finally got our visas and everything come through so that we could book our air tickets and don't book air tickets until you get your visas.} {\pard \line \par} {Okay? So I'm sure your immigration agents. Will probably tell you the same thing, but if you're doing it yourself, do not spend the money on air tickets, in my opinion, until you've actually got your visa, so you know you can actually secure the date that you're gonna fly out. What it meant for us though, is because we had to rush.} {\pard \line \par} {And get here to Auckland. We couldn't find anything in economy. Everything was sold out. Also because of the time of year, lots of people had been traveling over Christmas. They're trying to get back home. So there wasn't a lot available for us in } {\cf2
(29:00):
} { economy. So we ended up flying business class. Yeah, it sounds cool.} {\pard \line \par} {And it was cool. First time we've ever flown business class. My daughter of three years old back then, first time ever flying on a plane and she's flying business class, having this own little pod to her little self. Very cool. Nice. Getting the sleep food was awesome, but I'm not a millionaire, so that, that really hit us hard paying for the business class tickets.} {\pard \line \par} {If at all possible, obviously don't ever have to put yourself in a situation where you're under pressure. Again, some things are out of yourcontrol because it was over that Christmas time, that silly season, we just had no choice and we had to make this work. We had to take this offer that we got and I didn't wanna jeopardize it.} {\pard \line \par} {So we went for the business class, which cost us a lot of money. The other thing with the a tickets that was important was. In hindsight, we landed in Auckland. I don't know, it's like a 27, 30, whatever hours to get you with your changeover. We flew air Qatar and we stopped in Doha for three hours, and then we were in Adelaide for a switchover and then here to Auckland.} {\pard \line \par} {So it's } {\cf2
(30:00):
} { really one hell of a flight trying to get here. But we ended up landing in Auckland. It was close to midnight or something like that. And after flying, even in business class, geez, I can't imagine what it'd been like if it was an economy with the two kids and everything. But anyway, landing here, and then the amount of hours you're standing in queues and you're trying to get through customs and you're just tired, you are exhausted and you just wanna get here.} {\pard \line \par} {Then landing at midnight and some of the challenges that we had, and I'll talk through thoseshortly too. I would rather have tried to get a ticket where I would leave at midnight in South Africa, the country I'm leaving, but land here during their day when everybody was working and is available landing when it was midnight.} {\pard \line \par} {And we had challenges would cause delays, and then our transfers, we miss them and trying to find somebody else, a taxi or whatever else. But at that time of night or early hours of the morning. That wasn't fun, especially with the kids and everything like that. And you're exhausted and you're tired and you haven't } {\cf2
(31:00):
} { had enough sleep over the whole trip.} {\pard \line \par} {The plane trip of like 30 hours or whatever that, that wasn't great. So in hindsight, if you could rather land when it's daytime here, better also if you want trains to pick you up from the airport or whatever, it's just gonna be easier to arrange something when it's. During wake hours, not sleeping hours, early hours in the morning.} {\pard \line \par} {That's even more change. Maybe We've got some good friends that'll wake up at one in the morning, so that's cool. But that is one thing that I probably would've changed. So talking through the whole thing. So we've pretty much gotto the point where we've sold, packed up, everything's gone pretty according to plan in South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {One thing we were also able to do was. We got to open up bank accounts here in New Zealand while still in South Africa. So you can do that. You just cannot access them until you land in country and you have to go physically into the bank, show them your id, show them all the information that they wanted so that they'd say that you are who you say you are.} {\pard \line \par} {And then the account would be open and they'd give you a temp card and you can actually start using the funds. So you could even transfer the } {\cf2
(32:00):
} { funds to the account once you've opened it from South Africa side. You just couldn't access the funds until you get here. That was pretty easy. Nice.} {\pard \line \par} {'cause we also had the car already, so the next day I could just go through to the closest BNZ bank. Took through all the information. I was able to get hold of my funds that I've moved across, but I kept my South African accounts open. Not all of them. I kept it. I downgraded to just a normal savings account.} {\pard \line \par} {And that savings account is what I could use to transfer funds from NetBank right across to my New Zealand account, which is a BNZ account that I've openedup. I have since opened up added. Banking accounts, which we'll talk through in a banking episode, but it was pretty easy opening that up. When I was talking about a.} {\pard \line \par} {A project plan and planning and getting this all done nicely. One of the big things that you wanted to do was make sure you had a risk budget way. We did that is my wife made sure she kept her overdraft. Although we weren't in it in South Africa, we kept that overdraft and we kept my credit card available in South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {So we had funds that was like emergency fund if we really had to over and above any other savings. And that was a last } {\cf2
(33:00):
} { resort, but we just wanted to think about in. Any situation that if we really needed access to funds, we could at least get it. But the idea was to eventually close those accounts down and get rid of that credit over time once we got here.} {\pard \line \par} {But if we needed it in this transition period, we had it available to us. So we were able to get all the way through here. So let's just then get my thoughts back on track. So yeah, we've packed up now the container in South Africa's being done. It's that last day we hand over the keys to the new buyer of the house and then I got friends and familyto take us through to a hotel that night before we took our plane flight the next morning when we were actually leaving South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {And that went pretty well, and that was all pretty smooth. Got onto the plane flight. That was all good. Obviously I'm not gonna get into the emotional stuff now of all the goodbyes and everything like that, but just the planning wise, we got to the airport and got onto the plane first. Stretch was all fine.} {\pard \line \par} {Getting off at Doha was fine. We had a three three hour layover. The three hour layover because we were now lucky that we had business class. } {\cf2
(34:00):
} { We had a. Specific areas to rest in and lounges to go to with the family and the kids. So we were spoiled with that. So that worked well. The difficult thing was, it was a bit stressful again with the two kids a 3-year-old and a 12-year-old at that time trying to.} {\pard \line \par} {And all the luggage trying to pull it all around to get back onto the flight after that layover. So that was a bit stressful 'cause it was a bit chaotic and it wasn't very clear on where you needed to go in a different countryand you're a little bit unsure. So that was a little bit challenging, but we came right with it.} {\pard \line \par} {But it's just bearing in mind that amount of luggage. So what we did is we had. Suitcases that I think were 30 or 32 kgs each. And there were two of those 30 kg cases per person. 'cause we were a family of four, we had eight of those as well as rucksack. So we had four rucksacks. And I think. Do we only have the rux sack?} {\pard \line \par} {Oh. And we had four carry on little suitcases. So if you } {\cf2
(35:00):
} { think my wife and I, not only the three year old's, not gonna pull her, her carry on bag around, or her ruck sack or her 32, her two 30 kg bags. So that was for my wife and I to carry my son. Yeah, he carried what he could, but again, he couldn't carry everything.} {\pard \line \par} {So just think about all this luggage that's heavy that you've gotta try to lug around between two parents with your two kids. In your transfers. That's tough. I don't regret filling up and taking up the full weigh in of stuff that I could take on the plane. But I'm just saying keepthat in the back of your mind.} {\pard \line \par} {It wasn't easy. What my wife did very well though is all of those bags, she got big printouts with our name, our contact details, everything on all of those big 30 kg bags. So that they were very clearly marked in ours. I say they were very clearly marked in ours. But how it helped us is when we actually, so let's take a step back.} {\pard \line \par} {We got through Doha, we got back on the plane, we got to Adelaide. We had to transfer from over an hour again from Adelaide to Auckland. So that all went okay. Okay. And everything } {\cf2
(36:00):
} { with the bags and stuff was fine, but once we got into Auckland, bearing in mind now it's like midnight, somewhere around there in Auckland.} {\pard \line \par} {And you've been traveling for a long time. Be it, we were blessed and lucky in business class, you're still tired, you're still exhausted, you're still excited, you're still nervous. There's so many emotions going through and you've gotta now go get all your luggage. We were waiting for these eight big bags to come through.} {\pard \line \par} {Yes, we've got our four carry on bags and our four Rx, but now we need these eight big. 30 kg bags, and my wife hadlabeled them literally number 1, 2, 3, 4, right up to eight with all our details on it. What happened in South Africa is a lot of people in a lot of groups said, go buy these type of bags from a certain company.} {\pard \line \par} {It was pep at that stage because they cheap, they begged, they strong, and you can put a lot of stuff in them. What ended up happening is a lot of other people were also immigrating from South Africa at the same time and had the same bags. So the exact same colored bags were going through the conveyor belt at the same time.} {\pard \line \par} {Luckily, we were looking for our big labels } {\cf2
(37:00):
} { that my wife put on. We got all seven of our bags except for one. So we were waiting and waiting until everybody had taken all their bags and there was no more bags left on the conveyor belt, and we still didn't have our last bag. And there was this one bag that was going around the conveyor belt and we then twigged and clicked.} {\pard \line \par} {It was the same type of bag, but somebody else from South Africa. Had by accident taken ours, luckily because my wife labeled it with our telephone number and stuff, they actually phoned my wife and said to her, Hey, we've got your bag.We've gone through customs. We're already outside and we're waiting.} {\pard \line \par} {Can you grab our bag and then go through customs and then outside we can just swap the bags around. Okay, because they accidentally took the bag and it was a South African woman. Whatever else. Now you're tired. And you're not thinking straight and you're like, oh, bugger, I can't believe she's just taken my bag and whatever.} {\pard \line \par} {I was fine. Whatever. We'll take your bag and we'll just go through customs. We go through customs and what happens, they stop us for what they've scanned in her } {\cf2
(38:00):
} { bag and they say, can you please open your bag? What is this jar that they sing in the bag? And that's when you clicked. It's not my bag. I don't know what's in it.} {\pard \line \par} {So now you tell the customs control. It's not my bag. And they say, then why have you got it? And you're trying to explain this story to them and now you're sounding like a mule that is carrying potential drugs or something. It could have been anything. I dunno what was in that bag. We can't declare it.} {\pard \line \par} {It's not even my bag. So anyway, long story short, don'tever take anybody else. And I know it sounds so logical, but we were so tired. But lesson learned, don't do it. Luckily. The guy that we dealt with, we were almost in tears, literally crying and thinking, what have we done? We, my goodness, I'm so sorry and apologetic.} {\pard \line \par} {And we just went and explained it all to him. He was very understanding. He obviously warned us never do this again, which we clearly knew we had just stuffed up. But he said, fine. He walked, got hold of the other lady on the outside that actually had } {\cf2
(39:00):
} { our that was actually the owner of the bag, started engaging with her.} {\pard \line \par} {We met up with her. She gave us our bag. I can tell you I wasn't the friendliest and the happiest the person when I got my bag, but we finally got our bag. The problem we now had is we have all our stuff. We are at the airport, but now it's delayed us terribly. So we missed our transfer bus to our hotel.} {\pard \line \par} {Now you're trying to work out when the next bus is available 'cause you've obviously timed it in your plan. But now because of the customs issues, we are delayed. So we've missed our bus and now it's early hours ofthe morning and you're trying to make another plan and you're tired and the kids are tired.} {\pard \line \par} {You're in an airport, you don't have internet. You do, but it's expensive. If you've got international roaming on your phones, you try going to a shop, you try to get a little sim card, you try buy data, buying data on pay as you go. So it is, as you spend it, it's so expensive here in New Zealand, so it's actually so much easier to.} {\pard \line \par} {Get a contract signed up straight away with a whole lot of data, and that's the way to go. In hindsight, had I known that, had I landed during the day and not at } {\cf2
(40:00):
} { midnight, I would've gone straight to self and shop. Opened up a contract. Got plenty of data which you need for your GPS. Getting around surfing on the internet, trying to figure out what things are.} {\pard \line \par} {It is so important. Don't do pay as you go. That sucked money dry as well. But getting back to us at two, three in the morning, we're trying to figure this out. Running into the airport, getting free wifi, trying to work out what was going on. It was a nightmare. We finally got it all sorted so that we could get a bus and wecould get to the hotel and then just crash.} {\pard \line \par} {'cause we were exhausted. In between all of this, which I haven't spoken about is although we've now finally got to the hotel 30 minutes before we left South Africa and got on our plane, we got a call from back our rental agent, our what do you call it, landlord in New Zealand. 'cause we secured a rental.} {\pard \line \par} {They had terrible flooding the week before we left South Africa to come to Auckland. And the rental got flooded and it was so bad that it's uninhabitable and they were } {\cf2
(41:00):
} { phoning us to let us know, sorry, they'll give us our money back for the bond. But even although we've been paying for all those weeks until it got flooded, we can't move into that rental.} {\pard \line \par} {So when we were getting on the plane on our way from South Africa to Auckland, that's when we first found out we also don't have somewhere to stay. 'cause as per our plan, we were gonna go into the hotel for a night and then we were gonna move. Into the rental, which is clearly not what was gonna happen now.} {\pard \line \par} {So we had to get nothing we could do. I said to my wife, we'll figure out whenwe get to Auckland, let's just get there now. There's no turning back. We'll have to figure it out. And that's when we got to the point of okay. We're all the way in Auckland. We're in a hotel, let's get some sleep and then start trying to work out where to from here.} {\pard \line \par} {Now I know I've already been chatting for quite a bit of time and it's a lot of information I'm trying to share at once. So I think I, I'm probably gonna leave it there and I'll pick up on my next episode and pick up from when we finally landed in Auckland when we were in that hotel and after we've had a } {\cf2
(42:00):
} { little bit of sleep way too from there and what we did next.} {\pard \line \par} {But let me just close off for just. Telling you what I feel is important when you're at this stage where you're got that offer. You're busy packing up at home and you're about to get your on a plane and get to this side. Planning. So research. Talk to as many people as possible.} {\pard \line \par} {Get a plan, but a plan that also works with that's tied to your budget. Make sure you have a risk budget as well. 'cause things are gonna go wrong that you're gonna have to pay for. And stay on top of that plan all the time because it'sgonna keep changing. And just never give up. This can work.} {\pard \line \par} {It is possible. We may we've done it and we did it with a lot of challenges. As I said, our rental got flooded. And I'll tell you in the next episode, when we start talking from here we also were here for not even two weeks and a cyclone and hits. Lots to share, lots of exciting stuff to share with you in our challenges.} {\pard \line \par} {But the point I'm trying to make is, as long as you've got a good plan. As long as you've got you are on top of your budget, you've got a bit of risk or emergency budget worked in. And just } {\cf2
} { Welcome back to my podcast, everybody. So nice to have you guys back. I hope you had a chance to listen to my first podcast. If you haven't, please go back and listen to the podcast. It's important to me that you understand why I'm trying to do this and also just to get know me a little bit.} {\pard \line \par} {The last thing you wanna do is be listening to somebody talking about immigrating to New Zealand and all these ideas and what works and what doesn't, but. You'd wanna know who's giving this sort of advice and opinion. So really please go back, listen, try to get to know me a little bit better.} {\pard \line \par} {It'll hopefully make yourealize I'm no expert on this. I'm really just talking from my experience what me and my family have gone through. The whole intention is really just to try and help. When we look to immigrate to New Zealand two years ago, there's a lot of information out there on all the different visa options and immigration agents, et cetera.} {\pard \line \par} {But when it comes to this real stuff it was difficult. A lot of the time you were trying to reach out to friends, or people that you potentially, or somebody that knows somebody that lives in New Zealand and try and catch up with them and try and get as much information out of them. But } {\cf2
(01:00):
} { there wasn't a hell of a lot that I could find out online and videos and YouTube to really answer a lot of these questions.} {\pard \line \par} {And some of it is just personal experience and it just happens. And don't you even forget about this stuff, especially in your first, I'd say six to 12 months of landing. You are really in survival mode. So there's so much that goes on. Even me making these podcasts, I'm really having to think back and try to remember all the different things that we went through.} {\pard \line \par} {And it's making me, it's actually reminding me so much stuff that we had on the go and so much that we had to deal with and why thisimmigration process can be so tough. So that's just really the reason we want to share, hopefully make it easier for somebody else. If you're listening to these podcasts, you can learn from us.} {\pard \line \par} {And be better prepared and have a softer landing than what we did. That's the whole intention. Just hopefully it can be easier and so that you can make this work. We are two years in and we are making this work, and it breaks my heart when I see so many people that have come all this way and they give up.} {\pard \line \par} {Or that it just gets too challenging. And I can understand why. Trust me, I really can't understand why. But the whole } {\cf2
(02:00):
} { intention is to try and prevent that from happening for as many people as possible, trying to make this a better experience. And for people just to be a little bit more prepared. And I think that's where I'm going with this podcast today is it's a lot to do with planning.} {\pard \line \par} {When I ended off the last podcast I explained it really got to the point where. I finally got that job offer. And when you get that job offer, it's oh wow, okay, now it's real. And that kicks off so many different streams that you now have to start working on. Yes, the job offer is the one thing that genuinely, or the last thing that you need to start closing off and getting those visas for youand your family and everything done.} {\pard \line \par} {And like I said, I'm not an immigration agent and this is not what this podcast is about, but it gets those streams going. But the other streams you've gotta start thinking about and that stops going through your mind is. Okay. Wow. Now how many weeks until we start getting our visa? So when do we buy air tickets?} {\pard \line \par} {Geez, if you've got a property and you've got a house, we've gotta get that house on the market. If it's not on the market or already, gee, if it is, how quickly can we sell it? How long is it gonna take to get the money out from the house that we can actually use for a lot of the expenses that we are planning } {\cf2
(03:00):
} { and gonna have, and.} {\pard \line \par} {All your cars and vehicles and assets and everything, you gotta get all of those sold and you start thinking about your pensions and your savings and your investments and when do you close those out and when do I open up a bank account overseas and when do I send money overseas? How much do I keep here starting to work out?} {\pard \line \par} {Where do we stay when we first get there? How long do we stay there? When do we get a rental? How do we travel around in the new country? How do we buy a car? So it's all these things that startgoing through that you're trying to plan out, and I. What I found worked for us is we really started putting a project plan together and really trying to work through different streams of tasks that we needed to get done to get us from where we were in South Africa all the way through to Auckland with timeframes as best we could have timeframes for what we knew and keep adjusting those timeframes.} {\pard \line \par} {Continuously and then having a budget that really mirrored that. But not just a budget for all the things that you were trying to get costs } {\cf2
(04:00):
} { on, but also just having a risk budget. If there's anything that's, we definitely dipped into it was a risk budget, having that buffer because there's so many un unknowns and so many challenges that unfortunately just curve balls that come your way.} {\pard \line \par} {And I'll talk through some of our curve balls, but we definitely had to use that risk budget and constantly pivot and change our plan. But the big thing was having a plan and trying to think through as many of these things as possible. Trying to do as much research as possible, reaching out to asmany people as you know as possible, doing research online, trying to gather as much information as possible to try and be as best prepared as possible for this move.} {\pard \line \par} {Geez, I've said possible a lot of times, but it's really what helped us a lot. So maybe let me start off when we got that job offer, so like I mentioned, I got the job offer, it was November in 2019. And the first thing that we had already started doing was putting the house that we had the house on the market, but now just trying to get hold of the agents and saying, Hey, we've } {\cf2
(05:00):
} { got the job offer.} {\pard \line \par} {So now things are gonna, we assumed start moving quickly. So we don't have a definite date yet. It could be a couple of weeks. It could be, a month, two, don't know, but it's gonna be very soon. So we really gotta start pushing and getting that buyer to buy the house so we can try and get it, it sold, transferred, and once transferred, obviously getting the funds out 'cause we were really banking on some of the funds that we had available in the property.} {\pard \line \par} {In our house to be able to use for a lot of the expenses. I also did mention in the previous podcast, one of the bigthings for us was the rent is very weak and we were going to New Zealand, we've got a dollar that was 10 times stronger, so we needed every cent we could get our hands on. So it was really important for us to tie in the selling of the house, not only for the money side, but also what you're trying to work out is.} {\pard \line \par} {We're a family, that's a home. That's where we live. So now you've gotta start thinking, okay, when we get that date and we know when we are gonna be flying and when are we gonna be leaving, we've gotta try and time that as close as possible to moving out the house, handing over the } {\cf2
(06:00):
} { keys so that we don't.} {\pard \line \par} {Spend too much of our money in South Africa, living in hotels. Airbnbs, maybe you could be lucky and you have family and friends that you could maybe stay with, but that's also difficult when you've got a whole family and for how long would you be able to stay with them. So you just gotta think about all this planning and it all comes down to what works for you and your family and your budget and what you've got.} {\pard \line \par} {What we ended up doing is we got quite lucky with the sale of the house. As we got to time it we are pretty much our last day ofhandover. We just had to stay in a hotel one night before we flew out the very next day. So we were lucky to get it timed like that. It wasn't easy. It took a lot of work on the part with our estate agent, who was very good in helping us as well as the buyer being, I think he really wants the home and they were just.} {\pard \line \par} {Flexible. That helped. Which did help. A big thing we had to push for though, is they did have their own home that they were trying to sell. So they were really pushing us that it had to be a subject to sale. So they were really pushing. They would } {\cf2
(07:00):
} { only let it go through the sale of our house, go through based on them selling theirs.} {\pard \line \par} {And that was a big problem for me. So that one was a bit of a. A hard negotiation and push back on, but we had to push back on it and eventually got them to agree. No, no subject to sale. It was just straight clean buy which did help. And that's why we could get it with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.} {\pard \line \par} {Get it to a point where we were actually able to move out, stay in a hotel one night, and then get on a plane and fly out. I think a big thing with the house as well is w we got to, andwe'll talk about a little bit later, about your household goods and everything. When you're trying to decide what do you sell, what do you keep, what do you take a container, what do you take on the container?} {\pard \line \par} {And I'll talk through What we took through is what also helped with the people buying the house is there were certain things furniture and electronic equipment like dishwashers, whatever else that we decided we are not gonna take with and. We threw it in with the sale of the house. They paid a little bit extra, but then they got to keep those things so you could also be } {\cf2
(08:00):
} { negotiable on those sort of things.} {\pard \line \par} {So keep that in the back of your mind. But the house, we were lucky that went through and the timing worked out quite well. What was tough for us timing wise though, is we got the offer in November. So we were really trying to push this over the city season. What I mean by city season was between Christmas and New Year, and that, that actually became a big challenge.} {\pard \line \par} {So I know you can't plan those things. It all depends on when your offer does come through and you just gotta go with, hey, what you get. But just keep it in the back of yourmind if it does happen to any of you out there where you get your offer. And this has all happened to you over that period between the end of November, beginning of December, over January.} {\pard \line \par} {It does get difficult dealing with. All the different public agencies to transfer your houses. It also gets difficult with any dealings of immigration and everything like that as well because a lot of people just go and leave and a lot of public sectors just close down over that period. In New Zealand they work close up to Christmas, but from the 24th of December, right the way up to } {\cf2
(09:00):
} { the 16th, 20th of January, sometimes even the end of January.} {\pard \line \par} {Nothing happens here in New Zealand. It like dies, especially in the public sector. So it's very difficult to try and get hold of people, especially if you're on the other side of the world and get things done. So that was a big challenge for us on our visa side, but also locally in South Africa with dealing with different agencies and doing the house transfers and getting it into the new buyer's name and everything like that, which was delaying us getting it sold to get our money out.} {\pard \line \par} {So that was the only thing was just try to keep in mind withyour house. There's obviously different options. I'm just talking through what worked for us. Okay. I know of other people that they sold their house earlier, they were able to get into a short term rental or they'll get into an Airbnb or they had family help them.} {\pard \line \par} {There's always different ways. I'm just saying talk or talking through what we did, but just reiterating and saying it's important to have a plan and keep to it and keep adjusting and keeping working to your timelines. So House was the one thing. The other thing that we were trying to think about was we had to use our pensions and our savings and } {\cf2
(10:00):
} { investments.} {\pard \line \par} {We, we cashed everything in. We knew we were gonna be cashing everything in to, to get us over to New Zealand and to get our family set up again. So we knew it and we knew it'd be starting over again from the age of 40. I'll talk through in other episodes what we're trying to do to play catch up, but that's an episode for a later date.} {\pard \line \par} {But where we were at that point in time was trying to work out, okay, which pensions do you cash in? At what time? What savings? What investments? When do you close them all by? So again, that's all the timing thing, and that ties into what decisions you've made with regards to. What are you selling? What are you keeping?} {\pard \line \par} {What are you buying? What are you trying to do? And what I mean by that is, so a big thing for us was we decided to take a container. It was only a half container, not a full container, but the stuff that we decided to take in our container was not our big furniture and all the rest of it. We decided anything that was irreplaceable, anything that was sentimental, anything that was family heirlooms, anything that was.} {\pard \line \par} {Specific to us and our family that } {\cf2
(11:00):
} { we could never replace. That was the type of stuff that we wanted to take with. So it would be like different pictures. It would be different photos, it would be different hand-me-downs in the family, different family antiques that my wife had. It was all those type of things that we wanted to take with, especially with the kids.} {\pard \line \par} {Also a lot of their toys and a lot of things that, that they knew as familiar and made it feel like home for them. We really wanted to bring a lot of that, that across on the container. It was important for us that once we finally landed on the otherside and we start getting set up. That we'd have a lot of this familiar stuff around us eventually, which could help us settle and help the kids settle and make it feel like home as quick as possible.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's why we opted to take a lot of that across. We were of the opinion that a lot of the bedding, furniture, everything that was replaceable stuff we also lucky the stuff that we had. It wasn't anything that was really Wow, okay. It wasn't bad stuff, but it wasn't Wow. Stuff that I thought, oh gee.} {\pard \line \par} {We spend so much money on this we better make sure we keep it and } {\cf2
(12:00):
} { take it a across with us, for us, it was an easier decision to let a lot of the furniture, bedding all the electronic equipment like I don't know, your fridges, your washing machines, all that kind of stuff. We decided to sell all of that.} {\pard \line \par} {It just becomes a timing thing. 'cause you obviously need it while you're living, so there's certain things you can start clearing out. So we had a lot of house sales and people coming through the house and. Marketplace. My, my wife was amazing at organizing all of this stuff and really trying to push selling stuff.} {\pard \line \par} {She also reached out todifferent organizations where whatever you couldn't sell yourself in that last week, when you finally got your last week's date, they would come in and take those last few things right up until the day you were packing in about to hand over keys, like your beds and stuff like that so you could plan it.} {\pard \line \par} {To a point where whatever you couldn't get rid of, you could try get these companies to come in and take the last bit or we donated a lot of stuff as well and family and friends and whoever you'd give stuff away to. But the, those last few weeks, building up to when you're about to } {\cf2
(13:00):
} { move. It's chaotic.} {\pard \line \par} {You you are really just you. You're trying to work and keep a job down, but at the same time, you are also trying to unpack and get rid of stuff and clear out your house. And especially if you've been married and living in a house from years and years, you'll be amazed the amount of stuff that you actually collect.} {\pard \line \par} {So it's a lot that's going on all at the same time. But getting back to my point that we made here is we needed money to be able to pay for a container. Container is expensive. I don't regret getting acontainer only a half container or shared container because we brought across that stuff and it has helped us settle.} {\pard \line \par} {It has helped us feel like this is home. We are seeing stuff that's familiar. We are seeing pictures that are up on the walls that are familiar. We're seeing our stuff around us, even be it knickknacks and whatever else, ornaments, whatever. It's just helped us settle. It's helped the kids settle. It's.} {\pard \line \par} {It's made this rental though we are renting feeling more like feel more like home and similar to what we had back in } {\cf2
(14:00):
} { South Africa. So I felt we made the right decision on getting a half container and I don't regret that even, although it cost a lot of money. The next thing that you start trying to time is you've got your cars and your other assets.} {\pard \line \par} {Some people have more than others, some people have boats, whatever. You needed to get rid of all of this stuff. We did have a boat. Where we were lucky is the minute we decided we were gonna be immigrating and moving as much as it broke my heart. 'cause I love making memories with the kids going out and waterskiing and everything.} {\pard \line \par} {On the dam is. I really put it on the market and sold it a lot earlier. And I'm grateful for that because then when crunch time came, now we just, in those last few weeks from when we get the offer to now, it's really moving quickly to get out of the out of the country and on a plane and over to New Zealand is, it was one less thing to worry about.} {\pard \line \par} {So I'm glad I sold the boat and a lot of other stuff that was luxury items sooner. As for the cars though, that's when you're trying to work out. Okay. How can you } {\cf2
(15:00):
} { sell maybe one car and just keep one car that you guys share, and then how long can you keep that car before you have to sell it? Because you still need to travel and get around.} {\pard \line \par} {Sometimes the kids are still in school, and that's another question, when do you pull them outta school when they stop? So it is all this planning that you gotta try do. Where we got lucky is we did sell all cars by one that we eventually were just sharing. My wife and I, it was her car that we kept.} {\pard \line \par} {But we did make an arrangement with a dealer. That we were lucky. We had bought other cars from him prior, before, over the years. So he knew us andwe explained to him we were immigrating and he's dealt with other people that are immigrating. And he said to us, what we can do is he's looked at the car, given he's given a fair evaluation, he's given us an estimate prior.} {\pard \line \par} {That he'll give us. But once we got a definite date, he'll come by, give us that last, see if he sticks to the same price or if it changes slightly. But then we could keep the car right up until the day before. So as much as we planned the house where we got it just the day before, so we had only stay in a hotel for one night.} {\pard \line \par} {We did the same with my last car that actually came and fetched her car } {\cf2
(16:00):
} { and that last day as well. So we luckily had transport car to get around. Right the way up until that last. Night before we, we left. So that's how we were able to get the car all sorted and then obviously funds and transferred it really quickly so that, that did help.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's how we sorted out the car, on the boat household stuff, because we were only gonna take the stuff that was sentimental to us. We started trying to get rid of as much as possible. So if there's anything that you weren't taking with that wasn't necessary to live. Trying to sell, just trying to sellmarketplace, whatever.} {\pard \line \par} {My wife had already even started before we knew that we got the offer. 'cause she knew there was stuff that she was gonna clear out. So it could be like old baby clothes, it could be prams whatever you don't need. And you were keeping in the garage, whatever. She was just trying to get rid of all of that.} {\pard \line \par} {So what we started doing is even furniture inside a lot of kitchen u tents what do you call it? Like your KitchenAid and your kitchen stuff started selling that because you wouldn't need it. So she was trying to clear out as much as possible. It did end } {\cf2
(17:00):
} { up that a lot of stuff did get donated as well.} {\pard \line \par} {I know my wife did mention that in the kitchen, two things that she did does miss, even to this day. She had nice B pans and everything like that. She misses her B pans, although we've got. Pretty decent stuff here. It's just not as good as what we had back home. And that she misses, she also explained that there was like a oven dish that she really liked back in South Africa that we've replaced here, but it's just not quite the same.} {\pard \line \par} {So there's those odd few things that you do miss. A big thing forme was my polo. I missed my polo back from South back in South Africa, and in hindsight we used it right up until that last night. I wish I had squeezed in my polo into my luggage and brought it with, or at the very least, put it in the container so it would've been here a couple of months later.} {\pard \line \par} {That's one of the things that I regret not bringing with and my wife, but nothing major. As I said, we brought all the stuff that was sentimental to us, that was familiar to us and the kids, and it made us made home and then we rebuilt on this side with } {\cf2
(18:00):
} { regards to lounge furniture and dining room furniture and TVs and a lot of that stuff.} {\pard \line \par} {So we've built that up over the last two years again. But I'll talk to that a little bit more. But timing wise, it was just. Big to try and do that clean out. Trying to lead up to when you're about to sell the house. Container wise, I don't regret taking the container, but one thing that was important to do with the container was the whole door to door.} {\pard \line \par} {It was great that they were able to help us on that last week before we were moving. So they started packing up all our stuff a couple of days before that last day,before we had to fly out. They actually come in, they label everything, they pack everything, they bubble, wrap it, box it, whatever else, which is great.} {\pard \line \par} {They put it on the truck, they take it off to the shipyards, whatever, put it on the container. And not only on this on the South African side, but then on the other side they pick it up, they drive it right to the house. And even, although our rental, and I'll get into that at another stage it changed a few times by the time that the container arrived here in New Zealand.} {\pard \line \par} {They bring it to your door. They help you unpack at that side. And a } {\cf2
(19:00):
} { funny thing that they help you do is get rid of all your boxes and your polystyrene you think it? Boxes. Polystyrene easy in South Africa to get rid of that stuff in the trash or to chuck away to throw away. But here in New Zealand, they were very particular about recycling.} {\pard \line \par} {And to get rid of polystyrene, you've gotta find certain places where you can take polystyrene and actually dispose of it. And when you've got it in large amounts, that can be a challenge. Getting rid of it as well as boxes. You gotta break it all down, take it to the recycle places. And depending on where you take it,it can be difficult to get rid of a lot of boxes.} {\pard \line \par} {It was good. That didn't, they didn't only do the door to door, but that also took away all the polystyrene and boxes and everything like that, which was big for me. So getting back to it. So we got the offer and the visas and everything are on the go difficult over the Christmas period. The same with the sale of the house.} {\pard \line \par} {But we got to time that, right? The cars and everything I spoke through and how we timed that. So that was good. So we got the money in from that. Pension savings investments. What we started doing is working very } {\cf2
(20:00):
} { closely with our broker in South Africa and just trying to plan out as per our budget items that we needed to pay, how much we were with withdrawing at certain times and spending and paying on this side.} {\pard \line \par} {So like the container for example, we were, we took money and funds out of investments or savings or whatever and paid for that while we were still in South Africa. What we also did talking about cars is we were able to also arrange that we bought a car in New Zealand in Auckland, while we were still inSouth Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {How we managed to do that is we actually relied on our friends. We had friends of ours that were in New Zealand. We phoned them up, we went online, so there's the auto trader, but Fort New Zealand and I could surf and find cars. I would only look at a car that is at a dealership if you're gonna do it without seeing it.} {\pard \line \par} {In New Zealand, there is something that they refer to as Japanese imports, so I'll use a Mazda as an example. You can get a Mazda that is a genuine Mazda that's from a } {\cf2
(21:00):
} { dealer here in New Zealand that's being shipped and specifically. Yeah, shipped and sold in New Zealand, or you could get a Mazda that's been shipped across, but was sold at a Mazda dealership in Japan, and then brought across later secondhand to New Zealand.} {\pard \line \par} {The differences as follows, the one that was original for a Mazda dealership and sold in New Zealand. All the electronics and all the displays and everything like that are all in English and everything like that. The Japanese imports, a lot of those digital computer things are all in Japanese,and then to get them converted can be difficult, although those cars can be cheaper.} {\pard \line \par} {You're gonna have those sort of challenges with the computers and all the electronics inside the car because of the language. Actual physical languages, it'll talk to you in Japanese and the writing will be in Japanese and whatever else. There is places that do conversions and stuff like that, but.} {\pard \line \par} {Yeah, just be careful of that if you're buying. So what I did is I did it online, but I did it through a dealership. So one, I knew that a dealership was less risky. } {\cf2
(22:00):
} { I knew that there would be warranties and whatever else on the car. Again, this all depends on your budget. What I did is got friends of mine to go see the car test drive the car.} {\pard \line \par} {They gave me video footage of the car and everything like that when I was still in South Africa. And what I did is then I then, once I chosen that I was gonna go ahead with the car I opted to, buy it while I was still in South Africa and I arranged for them. What they would do is once I'd done the transferred and paid, and that was from my normal Ned bank account, my normal South African bank account, I just did the transfers.} {\pard \line \par} {I did do itin three separate payments just because of transferred limits for the amount on the car. But I did it in three payments. Once the dealership saw the money and it was all in. All sorted, all I had to do was just put down a deposit, a holding deposit, which I used my credit card for and gave them the credit card details and it works.} {\pard \line \par} {And that was my South African credit card and everything. So it all worked. And that's how I secured the car in New Zealand before we even landed here in Auckland. What I also arranged with a dealership is they were able to, then I told them I'd give them a date for when we were landing } {\cf2
(23:00):
} { and which hotel we'd be booked in for the first night.} {\pard \line \par} {And they even drove the car. To that hotel, gave the keys to the hotel, and the car was in the parking lot for me. So the nice thing was when we landed in Auckland, we took our transfers to the hotel, slept. My car was already there, and I could start driving around the very first day. So I was independent and everything.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's how we were able to plan the car, which worked out really nicely. But just be careful of the caveats around. You gotta know that you have a friend that you can trustthat'll look at the car for, that there are these Japanese imports and everything, so be careful who you buy the car from.} {\pard \line \par} {So that's why I recommended dealerships. But again, it does depend on your budgets and everything like that as well. So that's how we got the car sorted out. The other thing that we try to do in parallel is. We tried to secure a rental while we were still in South Africa. Everybody told us we were mad and there was no ways you're gonna get that done because securing rentals and the rental process here in New Zealand is very } {\cf2
(24:00):
} { different to in South Africa to back in South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {And I'll talk through it later or potentially in another episode. But we were lucky enough, we actually got it right. We got friends of ours again to go look around in different areas. In New Zealand we are specific about the areas. In relation to the schools we wanted our kids to go to because they are zoned for certain schools.} {\pard \line \par} {So you've gotta make sure you get into an area that is for the school that you want your kids to go to. So it's recommended you go think about what schoolyou want your kids to go to before you settle in that specific area. So we were lucky with the friends that we had found the area we wanted to be in.} {\pard \line \par} {They went and viewed certain homes for us that we were looking at on, on trade me and on real estate. And we found a rental that we liked. He went and saw it for us. And then he worked with us and we went through the, rental process of writing up almost like a family CV and a pet cv and why us and why you'd wanna choose us.} {\pard \line \par} {And then logging onto all their different systems to apply for } {\cf2
(25:00):
} { the rental. Which I think I'll probably go through in a different episode because there's quite a bit to it, and I'll get my wife to join maybe on that episode. But we were lucky enough to get to a point where we were actually chosen as the, they chose us as tenants for the rental while we're still back in South Africa. What it did mean is we would have to pay what they call a bond, which is a deposit, and it's usually they pay rentals weekly. Here it was four weeks rental up front that we had to transfer tokeep the unit or secure it.} {\pard \line \par} {And then what we had to do is stop paying weekly until we finally got there. It is expensive. Rental here is expensive. I will do another episode eventually and I'll go through the actual budgeting, the living budget, like your living expenses and budgets, and how much of your salary you should consider putting towards what items to live here day to day.} {\pard \line \par} {But just as an idea, almost 50% of my income goes to just rental and a home for a four, a family of four. So it is very } {\cf2
(26:00):
} { expensive. So it was great that we were able to plan ahead and get this rental secured. But in hindsight, I probably wouldn't have done that one because we are not even in that area anymore.} {\pard \line \par} {We have actually moved to a different area now that we actually prefer. And I'll talk through how we ended up here. It wasn't a hundred percent by choice, but I'll talk through that shortly. But I probably wouldn't do that. I would probably, if there was something I would do differently, it would be.} {\pard \line \par} {Yes, go in a hotel for the first night or two. Either if you've gotfriends that you can stay with, that would be great 'cause it could save you money. But for a family of four living with friends, it can be really difficult. So if you can't do that, then look at some sort of Airbnb or something like that for a couple of weeks while you then here and can look at rentals yourself.} {\pard \line \par} {Even although you've done the homework already, while you're still back in South Africa. By the time you land here, you can just double check that. Yes, this definitely is the area that definitely is the school you want your kids to be in. And } {\cf2
(27:00):
} { then hunt for a rental and try find a place. Then move from the Airbnb into the rental that you've secured.} {\pard \line \par} {The money that we spent for the couple of weeks, because there was delays in getting our visas and everything like that, paying in using Rans to pay a weekly rental amount in dollars. It was chewing through money. It was like burning money and considering we weren't staying in that rental and having to pay it, that, that is something, was a lesson learned for me.} {\pard \line \par} {Probably wouldn't do that with the rental. So yeah, the processwould be probably find Airbnb and then find a place to move into. So getting back to our story, so what happened with us, so we got the housing timed quite nicely. We got. Yeah, we got the rental sorted out and the car sorted out quite nicely.} {\pard \line \par} {Obviously the car sold in South Africa and all the other stuff, household goods. Got the containers so that were pretty much packed on the last night. Got to stay in the house for the last night and then they packed up beds and everything and we stayed in a hotel in South Africa on that last } {\cf2
(28:00):
} { night.} {\pard \line \par} {Once we finally got the dates, and yes, there was delays over Christmas and everything, so we could book our flights because we were over Christmas and it had delayed in getting our visas and everything. It was starting to get to a point where the job I had secured in Auckland, they were starting to get a bit.} {\pard \line \par} {Not worried, but they were, they're putting pressure on us saying, Hey, if you don't get here in the next couple of weeks I dunno if we're gonna be able to keep the position open for you because it had been so long now. So when we finally got our visas and everything come through so that we could book our air tickets and don't book air tickets until you get your visas.} {\pard \line \par} {Okay? So I'm sure your immigration agents. Will probably tell you the same thing, but if you're doing it yourself, do not spend the money on air tickets, in my opinion, until you've actually got your visa, so you know you can actually secure the date that you're gonna fly out. What it meant for us though, is because we had to rush.} {\pard \line \par} {And get here to Auckland. We couldn't find anything in economy. Everything was sold out. Also because of the time of year, lots of people had been traveling over Christmas. They're trying to get back home. So there wasn't a lot available for us in } {\cf2
(29:00):
} { economy. So we ended up flying business class. Yeah, it sounds cool.} {\pard \line \par} {And it was cool. First time we've ever flown business class. My daughter of three years old back then, first time ever flying on a plane and she's flying business class, having this own little pod to her little self. Very cool. Nice. Getting the sleep food was awesome, but I'm not a millionaire, so that, that really hit us hard paying for the business class tickets.} {\pard \line \par} {If at all possible, obviously don't ever have to put yourself in a situation where you're under pressure. Again, some things are out of yourcontrol because it was over that Christmas time, that silly season, we just had no choice and we had to make this work. We had to take this offer that we got and I didn't wanna jeopardize it.} {\pard \line \par} {So we went for the business class, which cost us a lot of money. The other thing with the a tickets that was important was. In hindsight, we landed in Auckland. I don't know, it's like a 27, 30, whatever hours to get you with your changeover. We flew air Qatar and we stopped in Doha for three hours, and then we were in Adelaide for a switchover and then here to Auckland.} {\pard \line \par} {So it's } {\cf2
(30:00):
} { really one hell of a flight trying to get here. But we ended up landing in Auckland. It was close to midnight or something like that. And after flying, even in business class, geez, I can't imagine what it'd been like if it was an economy with the two kids and everything. But anyway, landing here, and then the amount of hours you're standing in queues and you're trying to get through customs and you're just tired, you are exhausted and you just wanna get here.} {\pard \line \par} {Then landing at midnight and some of the challenges that we had, and I'll talk through thoseshortly too. I would rather have tried to get a ticket where I would leave at midnight in South Africa, the country I'm leaving, but land here during their day when everybody was working and is available landing when it was midnight.} {\pard \line \par} {And we had challenges would cause delays, and then our transfers, we miss them and trying to find somebody else, a taxi or whatever else. But at that time of night or early hours of the morning. That wasn't fun, especially with the kids and everything like that. And you're exhausted and you're tired and you haven't } {\cf2
(31:00):
} { had enough sleep over the whole trip.} {\pard \line \par} {The plane trip of like 30 hours or whatever that, that wasn't great. So in hindsight, if you could rather land when it's daytime here, better also if you want trains to pick you up from the airport or whatever, it's just gonna be easier to arrange something when it's. During wake hours, not sleeping hours, early hours in the morning.} {\pard \line \par} {That's even more change. Maybe We've got some good friends that'll wake up at one in the morning, so that's cool. But that is one thing that I probably would've changed. So talking through the whole thing. So we've pretty much gotto the point where we've sold, packed up, everything's gone pretty according to plan in South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {One thing we were also able to do was. We got to open up bank accounts here in New Zealand while still in South Africa. So you can do that. You just cannot access them until you land in country and you have to go physically into the bank, show them your id, show them all the information that they wanted so that they'd say that you are who you say you are.} {\pard \line \par} {And then the account would be open and they'd give you a temp card and you can actually start using the funds. So you could even transfer the } {\cf2
(32:00):
} { funds to the account once you've opened it from South Africa side. You just couldn't access the funds until you get here. That was pretty easy. Nice.} {\pard \line \par} {'cause we also had the car already, so the next day I could just go through to the closest BNZ bank. Took through all the information. I was able to get hold of my funds that I've moved across, but I kept my South African accounts open. Not all of them. I kept it. I downgraded to just a normal savings account.} {\pard \line \par} {And that savings account is what I could use to transfer funds from NetBank right across to my New Zealand account, which is a BNZ account that I've openedup. I have since opened up added. Banking accounts, which we'll talk through in a banking episode, but it was pretty easy opening that up. When I was talking about a.} {\pard \line \par} {A project plan and planning and getting this all done nicely. One of the big things that you wanted to do was make sure you had a risk budget way. We did that is my wife made sure she kept her overdraft. Although we weren't in it in South Africa, we kept that overdraft and we kept my credit card available in South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {So we had funds that was like emergency fund if we really had to over and above any other savings. And that was a last } {\cf2
(33:00):
} { resort, but we just wanted to think about in. Any situation that if we really needed access to funds, we could at least get it. But the idea was to eventually close those accounts down and get rid of that credit over time once we got here.} {\pard \line \par} {But if we needed it in this transition period, we had it available to us. So we were able to get all the way through here. So let's just then get my thoughts back on track. So yeah, we've packed up now the container in South Africa's being done. It's that last day we hand over the keys to the new buyer of the house and then I got friends and familyto take us through to a hotel that night before we took our plane flight the next morning when we were actually leaving South Africa.} {\pard \line \par} {And that went pretty well, and that was all pretty smooth. Got onto the plane flight. That was all good. Obviously I'm not gonna get into the emotional stuff now of all the goodbyes and everything like that, but just the planning wise, we got to the airport and got onto the plane first. Stretch was all fine.} {\pard \line \par} {Getting off at Doha was fine. We had a three three hour layover. The three hour layover because we were now lucky that we had business class. } {\cf2
(34:00):
} { We had a. Specific areas to rest in and lounges to go to with the family and the kids. So we were spoiled with that. So that worked well. The difficult thing was, it was a bit stressful again with the two kids a 3-year-old and a 12-year-old at that time trying to.} {\pard \line \par} {And all the luggage trying to pull it all around to get back onto the flight after that layover. So that was a bit stressful 'cause it was a bit chaotic and it wasn't very clear on where you needed to go in a different countryand you're a little bit unsure. So that was a little bit challenging, but we came right with it.} {\pard \line \par} {But it's just bearing in mind that amount of luggage. So what we did is we had. Suitcases that I think were 30 or 32 kgs each. And there were two of those 30 kg cases per person. 'cause we were a family of four, we had eight of those as well as rucksack. So we had four rucksacks. And I think. Do we only have the rux sack?} {\pard \line \par} {Oh. And we had four carry on little suitcases. So if you } {\cf2
(35:00):
} { think my wife and I, not only the three year old's, not gonna pull her, her carry on bag around, or her ruck sack or her 32, her two 30 kg bags. So that was for my wife and I to carry my son. Yeah, he carried what he could, but again, he couldn't carry everything.} {\pard \line \par} {So just think about all this luggage that's heavy that you've gotta try to lug around between two parents with your two kids. In your transfers. That's tough. I don't regret filling up and taking up the full weigh in of stuff that I could take on the plane. But I'm just saying keepthat in the back of your mind.} {\pard \line \par} {It wasn't easy. What my wife did very well though is all of those bags, she got big printouts with our name, our contact details, everything on all of those big 30 kg bags. So that they were very clearly marked in ours. I say they were very clearly marked in ours. But how it helped us is when we actually, so let's take a step back.} {\pard \line \par} {We got through Doha, we got back on the plane, we got to Adelaide. We had to transfer from over an hour again from Adelaide to Auckland. So that all went okay. Okay. And everything } {\cf2
(36:00):
} { with the bags and stuff was fine, but once we got into Auckland, bearing in mind now it's like midnight, somewhere around there in Auckland.} {\pard \line \par} {And you've been traveling for a long time. Be it, we were blessed and lucky in business class, you're still tired, you're still exhausted, you're still excited, you're still nervous. There's so many emotions going through and you've gotta now go get all your luggage. We were waiting for these eight big bags to come through.} {\pard \line \par} {Yes, we've got our four carry on bags and our four Rx, but now we need these eight big. 30 kg bags, and my wife hadlabeled them literally number 1, 2, 3, 4, right up to eight with all our details on it. What happened in South Africa is a lot of people in a lot of groups said, go buy these type of bags from a certain company.} {\pard \line \par} {It was pep at that stage because they cheap, they begged, they strong, and you can put a lot of stuff in them. What ended up happening is a lot of other people were also immigrating from South Africa at the same time and had the same bags. So the exact same colored bags were going through the conveyor belt at the same time.} {\pard \line \par} {Luckily, we were looking for our big labels } {\cf2
(37:00):
} { that my wife put on. We got all seven of our bags except for one. So we were waiting and waiting until everybody had taken all their bags and there was no more bags left on the conveyor belt, and we still didn't have our last bag. And there was this one bag that was going around the conveyor belt and we then twigged and clicked.} {\pard \line \par} {It was the same type of bag, but somebody else from South Africa. Had by accident taken ours, luckily because my wife labeled it with our telephone number and stuff, they actually phoned my wife and said to her, Hey, we've got your bag.We've gone through customs. We're already outside and we're waiting.} {\pard \line \par} {Can you grab our bag and then go through customs and then outside we can just swap the bags around. Okay, because they accidentally took the bag and it was a South African woman. Whatever else. Now you're tired. And you're not thinking straight and you're like, oh, bugger, I can't believe she's just taken my bag and whatever.} {\pard \line \par} {I was fine. Whatever. We'll take your bag and we'll just go through customs. We go through customs and what happens, they stop us for what they've scanned in her } {\cf2
(38:00):
} { bag and they say, can you please open your bag? What is this jar that they sing in the bag? And that's when you clicked. It's not my bag. I don't know what's in it.} {\pard \line \par} {So now you tell the customs control. It's not my bag. And they say, then why have you got it? And you're trying to explain this story to them and now you're sounding like a mule that is carrying potential drugs or something. It could have been anything. I dunno what was in that bag. We can't declare it.} {\pard \line \par} {It's not even my bag. So anyway, long story short, don'tever take anybody else. And I know it sounds so logical, but we were so tired. But lesson learned, don't do it. Luckily. The guy that we dealt with, we were almost in tears, literally crying and thinking, what have we done? We, my goodness, I'm so sorry and apologetic.} {\pard \line \par} {And we just went and explained it all to him. He was very understanding. He obviously warned us never do this again, which we clearly knew we had just stuffed up. But he said, fine. He walked, got hold of the other lady on the outside that actually had } {\cf2
(39:00):
} { our that was actually the owner of the bag, started engaging with her.} {\pard \line \par} {We met up with her. She gave us our bag. I can tell you I wasn't the friendliest and the happiest the person when I got my bag, but we finally got our bag. The problem we now had is we have all our stuff. We are at the airport, but now it's delayed us terribly. So we missed our transfer bus to our hotel.} {\pard \line \par} {Now you're trying to work out when the next bus is available 'cause you've obviously timed it in your plan. But now because of the customs issues, we are delayed. So we've missed our bus and now it's early hours ofthe morning and you're trying to make another plan and you're tired and the kids are tired.} {\pard \line \par} {You're in an airport, you don't have internet. You do, but it's expensive. If you've got international roaming on your phones, you try going to a shop, you try to get a little sim card, you try buy data, buying data on pay as you go. So it is, as you spend it, it's so expensive here in New Zealand, so it's actually so much easier to.} {\pard \line \par} {Get a contract signed up straight away with a whole lot of data, and that's the way to go. In hindsight, had I known that, had I landed during the day and not at } {\cf2
(40:00):
} { midnight, I would've gone straight to self and shop. Opened up a contract. Got plenty of data which you need for your GPS. Getting around surfing on the internet, trying to figure out what things are.} {\pard \line \par} {It is so important. Don't do pay as you go. That sucked money dry as well. But getting back to us at two, three in the morning, we're trying to figure this out. Running into the airport, getting free wifi, trying to work out what was going on. It was a nightmare. We finally got it all sorted so that we could get a bus and wecould get to the hotel and then just crash.} {\pard \line \par} {'cause we were exhausted. In between all of this, which I haven't spoken about is although we've now finally got to the hotel 30 minutes before we left South Africa and got on our plane, we got a call from back our rental agent, our what do you call it, landlord in New Zealand. 'cause we secured a rental.} {\pard \line \par} {They had terrible flooding the week before we left South Africa to come to Auckland. And the rental got flooded and it was so bad that it's uninhabitable and they were } {\cf2
(41:00):
} { phoning us to let us know, sorry, they'll give us our money back for the bond. But even although we've been paying for all those weeks until it got flooded, we can't move into that rental.} {\pard \line \par} {So when we were getting on the plane on our way from South Africa to Auckland, that's when we first found out we also don't have somewhere to stay. 'cause as per our plan, we were gonna go into the hotel for a night and then we were gonna move. Into the rental, which is clearly not what was gonna happen now.} {\pard \line \par} {So we had to get nothing we could do. I said to my wife, we'll figure out whenwe get to Auckland, let's just get there now. There's no turning back. We'll have to figure it out. And that's when we got to the point of okay. We're all the way in Auckland. We're in a hotel, let's get some sleep and then start trying to work out where to from here.} {\pard \line \par} {Now I know I've already been chatting for quite a bit of time and it's a lot of information I'm trying to share at once. So I think I, I'm probably gonna leave it there and I'll pick up on my next episode and pick up from when we finally landed in Auckland when we were in that hotel and after we've had a } {\cf2
(42:00):
} { little bit of sleep way too from there and what we did next.} {\pard \line \par} {But let me just close off for just. Telling you what I feel is important when you're at this stage where you're got that offer. You're busy packing up at home and you're about to get your on a plane and get to this side. Planning. So research. Talk to as many people as possible.} {\pard \line \par} {Get a plan, but a plan that also works with that's tied to your budget. Make sure you have a risk budget as well. 'cause things are gonna go wrong that you're gonna have to pay for. And stay on top of that plan all the time because it'sgonna keep changing. And just never give up. This can work.} {\pard \line \par} {It is possible. We may we've done it and we did it with a lot of challenges. As I said, our rental got flooded. And I'll tell you in the next episode, when we start talking from here we also were here for not even two weeks and a cyclone and hits. Lots to share, lots of exciting stuff to share with you in our challenges.} {\pard \line \par} {But the point I'm trying to make is, as long as you've got a good plan. As long as you've got you are on top of your budget, you've got a bit of risk or emergency budget worked in. And just } {\cf2
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