May 1, 2025 • 37 mins
"Why We Moved – Again"
In this episode, we share the story behind our decision to terminate our lease early and move—again. We talk through the challenges of relocating, what led us to make the tough call, and the lessons we learned along the way. This journey, though unexpected, ultimately helped us find our true first rental home—a place where we could finally begin settling in and creating a space that feels right for our family.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
There are over 100,000 people whoimmigrate to New Zealand every year with
the intention to make New Zealand theirhome, leaving behind everything they
know as normal day-to-day life and havingto learn new ways of doing things, new
norms, new cultures, and different values.
There are many people who struggle withthis transition and find it challenging
(00:25):
to adjust and settle so they cancall and make New Zealand their home.
The purpose of this podcast is for meto share my journey and our challenges
with the hope that you can learn from meand my family and have a softer landing.
There will be good days and baddays, but with time, more good days.
I believe we have made theright choice for our family.
(00:46):
I want to try and help you do the same.
But hopefully with a softer landing.
This is soft landing, and Iam your host, Brett Collette.
Welcome to this podcast, designed foranyone thinking about preparing for, or
who has just immigrated to New Zealand.
Subscribe now so you never miss an episodedrawing from his personal experience.
(01:09):
This series will guide you throughthe process of preparing for your
move and helping you navigatethe challenges of immigration.
Hello world.
So welcome back to my podcast.
I'm really grateful to have youall join me again and listen
to another one of my episodes.
first off, I'd just like to, thankyou, but also if you haven't, listened
(01:30):
to any of my other episodes, this isthe first episode you listened to.
I do encourage you, pleasego back to the first episode.
The way I'm recording these is I'm tryingto share my journey from beginning to
end, so it is just in chronological order.
So it would make sense if you startednumber one and work your way through them.
I'm trying to give tips throughoutour whole journey as they're
coming up, while I'm busy talkingthrough our story and our, journey.
(01:52):
hopefully you'll get some benefit fromit and I do hope that if you can go
back to number one, you'll get moretidbits and ideas and just lessons
learned, from us, from the first one.
so today sitting here,post another cyclone.
I know it's two years on, and,in my first few episodes I was
explaining that we went through a.
cyclone Gabriela when we arrived.
(02:14):
now two years on, we've actuallyjust been hit by another cyclone.
this one was cyclone Tam.
Luckily not as bad.
I don't think it actually got on land,but it did still cause bad weather.
and even out yesterday, while we'reout shopping again, one of those things
that I not used to, we had those alertsgoing off on all your cell phones.
It's like what in the movies.
We, you see those, Warning alerts goingoff on everybody's cell phone in the shop.
(02:38):
It was, it's a little bit eerie.
but this was just a weatherwarning and everything like that,
just reminding us that, there'sgonna be high rains, high storms,
potential, flooding, whatever else.
So just reminding you that,hey, if you can rather.
Stay at home, be carefulof hail, stuff like that.
So I guess it's the positive.
You actually get the warnings.
you will get a lot of peoplehere that will complain about the
(02:59):
warnings and say it was prematureand unneeded and causing panic.
Then you'll get others that are grateful.
So you are always gonna have peoplesitting on both sides of the fence.
I don't think government will ever win.
but anyway, that, which is alittle bit of where we are today.
oh, and it's Easter.
Yes.
we, had the Easter money,visit this morning.
And he left us a lot ofchocolate Easter eggs.
(03:21):
So the kids have had a,
Easter egg hunt had to happen indoors,this Easter because of the really
wet weather outside, so the EasterBunny to rather put everything inside.
So we woke up early to hunting for Eastereggs and having a lot of chocolate.
So that's where we are today.
But getting back to my podcast, whatI wanted to share with you guys is I
(03:42):
wanted to pick up on our journey from.
We, in my last podcast, I told you we hadjust moved up into our first rental post,
staying in, the hotel and the Airbnb,and we'd moved up onto the North Shore.
So pardon, moving up onto theNorth Shore, into the rental.
It was a rental that's not,it wasn't exactly perfect.
It wasn't the exact rental that wewanted, but, beggars couldn't be
(04:05):
choosers post all the floods and thecyclone that we had back two years ago.
there wasn't a lot going.
couldn't.
Be too picky.
And it was just nice to actually bein a rental, specifically because
we've been burning a lot of money,in the Airbnb and the hotel.
So it was good to be into, the rental.
Once we moved into the rental.
(04:26):
I think the first thing that we triedto plan is that, and it was always
our plan is when we moved here.
I was the primary, so I wasthe one that was coming across
with the job and the position.
So I had to start working backin, South Africa back at home.
Both of us were working, so we didhave two incomes coming in, but
(04:46):
we opted that when we moved acrossthat it would be better for my wife
not to start working straight away.
We thought we needed somebody specificallybecause it's also a new country, new way
of doing things and there were so manyother things that you have to consider
that takes up a lot of time, like gettingthe kids into school, getting to know
your area, just, getting them used tothe, I dunno, normal doctor's visits and
(05:11):
just getting into the new way of life.
So we weren't gonna rush into mywife finding a job straight away.
Our original plan was that she wasn'tgonna work for the six, first six months.
How it actually panned out is that shedidn't work for the first 12 months
of being here for the first year.
She just spent her time trying tosettle the family, make a home.
(05:31):
Obviously this is also dependent on yourbudget and how much you are earning.
Okay?
it don't fool yourself.
Moving to New Zealand.
It's expensive.
It's, the cost of livinghere isn't, it's not cheap.
It's a beautiful place to live.
It's beautiful for families.
it's amazing beauty, the actualnature and everything like that.
(05:51):
where we come from, there was alot of violent crime and everything
like that, so we don't have that.
So there's a lot of beauty andreasons why we are here, but.
Don't fool yourself that it's cheap.
It's by no means cheap.
You are an island, literallyon the other end of the world.
So they do have to import a lot of stuff.
and for a number of otherreasons, things are expensive.
what I will do eventuallyis I will share a podcast.
(06:16):
We'll go into a little bit more detailaround how much it actually costs to
live in New Zealand for a family of four.
I'll talk through not only the costof, living for a family of four,
straight off the bat, IE when wejust got here for the first six to 12
months, just living off one salary.
But I'll also talk through how oncemy wife started working in the second
year, what we added on from the,second year when we had two salaries.
(06:39):
I'll talk to you some other tidbitsaround, What you pay weekly, what you
pay fortnightly, what you pay monthly.
having a salary that comes inmonthly versus a salary that
comes in fortnightly or weekly.
a whole lot of things, but that'll bea more specific podcast that I share.
but I'll get into that at the later stage.
But getting back to where we were,we've just moved into this rental now.
(07:01):
and I'm working and my wife is athome with the kids where we moved
into in the rental, probably Istarted traveling into the CBD using
public transport, using the buses.
It was probably taking me aroundabout 40 minutes or so to travel
by bus into CBD in the mornings andthen in the afternoons coming back,
it's taking a little bit longer,just under an hour to get back home.
(07:22):
that was with me taking,connecting buses on the way home.
so there would be one bus that you takeinto from the main bus station into town
and back, but there was a connectingbus from the bus station back to home.
so that.
I don't believe the travel timewas so bad, but I guess it's all
relative to what you used to.
So we were happy with that.
What it enabled was that my wife could beat home with the kids having a car, and
(07:46):
what was important is she needed the carso that she could get around, not only
to do stuff for the kids, but we had tonow get outta home, and start getting it
to get all the stuff that we didn't have.
The way we opted to do things iswe did get a container, which we'd
be waiting for, which takes about5, 4, 5 months to get into country.
was that we, didn't bring acrossthe major furniture like dining
(08:09):
room furniture or lounge suites.
We didn't bring that across.
So that is stuff that we opted thatwe were gonna buy when we got here.
So that was now one of the missionsmy wife was gonna be on, was
to start furnishing the home.
So she would spend a lot of time duringthe week, online looking for stuff or
going to get to know shops in the areaand starting to order that sort of
(08:31):
stuff and get it delivered to the home.
A big thing for us was, what we weretrying to decide now was we'd had a few
days to stay in this new rental, andwhat my wife and I were discussing was.
Is it actually the areathat we want it to, be in?
So now that we had a chance toactually stay there for a bit and
(08:54):
get to know the community a bit.
So while I was at work, she wastaking the kids out and trying
to roam around the community.
She started sharing with me in theevenings, when, I was home, and on
the weekends when we got to go out.
It wasn't quite what we were looking for.
The area we had ended up in wasstill, it didn't have as many.
Parks for the kids to play in.
(09:16):
you really had to drive to get to a park.
You couldn't walk, to, parks nearby.
Yeah, you could walk around theneighborhood, but there wasn't a lot of
playgrounds and parks for the kids toplay in, compared to a lot of other areas.
Also just the community that westarted picking up that was around us.
It wasn't the communitywe were looking for.
I think this leads me back to what I toldyou in one of the other podcasts is yeah,
(09:37):
we were trying to be proactive and reallythink ahead with planning with our rental.
Although the first one got floodedand it didn't work out for us.
We'd still done a lot of investigationsvia word of mouth for the area
we wanted to end up in and whatwe could find online, and we were
only really seeing it firsthand.
Now, for the first time while we werehere in country, we didn't get a chance
to come visit first, and see New Zealand.
(09:59):
We were taking a real.
Chance just getting here asa family and making it happen
without even visiting here.
So we didn't know the areas.
we only went some word of mouth fromfriends and from what we could see online.
And what we were actually picking upis the area that we were in was not
quite the area we wanted to settle in.
So now the challenge that we had is you'retrying to kit out a rental with stuff.
(10:23):
So you are ordering it and it's gonnastart getting delivered, and you're gonna
start unpacking and building out a home.
But is it the home you wanna stay in?
Now the, lease that we hadsigned was, for 12 months.
So we, had just started that lease.
We're only like in the second week or so.
Now, of that lease wehad to make the choice.
Did we want to break the lease?
(10:44):
Did we want to terminate early and didwe want to find another rental or did
we wanna see it through for a year?
Again, this is really gonna comedown to your budgets as well,
because it's gonna cost you money toyou to get out of the lease early.
As well as cashflow with havinganother, bond that you'd have to pay or
deposit that you'd have to pay secure.
Other one, although you willget your deposit back, it's
(11:04):
just timing of getting it back.
But a big decision for us was, and I willdo different podcasts and YouTube videos
on this, is you choose an area, especiallywhen you've got kids based on the schools
that you're zoned for in the area.
And we had chosen the area because ofthe school that was in that area, but.
(11:25):
Now that we were here and seeingit firsthand, we were wondering
if we had made the right decision.
So what we did is we actually reachedout to some friends of ours that
we knew from back in South Africa.
and they'd been here for a numberof years and actually one of them
was a teacher, but she was teachingat a school that was a semi-private
school, but was a little further norththan what we were probably another.
(11:48):
15, 20 minutes drive north.
So we got in touch with them overthe weekend and we actually, they
brought us up to their area and whereher school was that she taught that.
And we drove around that area andstarted looking a bit more and
actually fell in love with the area.
That was way more what we are looking for.
We saw the families walking aroundwith pushing their prams, walking kids
(12:08):
riding on bicycles and push scooters.
And we saw a lot of parks and playgrounds,people riding on bicycles, going for runs.
It was just.
That's what we were looking for.
This was the communitywe were looking for.
what we also found in therental that we were in.
Yeah, we couldn't, wetook what we could get.
It's, it was still a, I don'tknow what you call it, but
(12:31):
it's like a semi-detached.
So we were sharing awall with your neighbor.
We were always used tohaving freestanding.
Again, this also depends on your budget.
it's sounding like we'vebeing really spoiled here.
WWW with choice, but we were reallyhoping to get something that's a w.
A free standing home, a bungalow or atwo-story property, but something that we
didn't share a wall with your neighbor.
(12:51):
So this one that we had, itdid, and it wasn't ideal for us.
It also didn't have a lot ofspace or God for, a garden.
so ideal and you, one of the thingswe laughed about was being in New
Zealand, is it looked like the typicalQE family was a family that always
had a trampoline, in the garden.
(13:11):
That was like the in thingis to have a trampoline.
and this property had nospace for a trampoline.
And not that we were gonna buy thatstraight off the pad, but we, did
have a trampoline for the kids backin South Africa, so it was something
that we would've loved to have.
So we wanted more of a garden.
Also, we like to have barbecuesoutside or Bri, so we wanted
(13:32):
space actually sit outside.
The wrinkle that we had settledor got into didn't have that.
So it wasn't ideal for us.
So anyway, long story short,my wife and I decided.
We are actually gonna break the lease.
so we got in contact with the, no, beforewe got in contact with the agent to break
the lease, we'd obviously just made thedecision that was we were gonna go, we
(13:53):
needed to find another property, but atleast we knew the area we wanted to be in.
Now by traveling up to the area withthe help of our friends, looking
around, seeing the schools that weactually really and we love to get our
kids into, so now we knew the area.
so we had to start looking around fora rental now, W what we did is we, got
(14:13):
onto the real estate website, startinglooking at the rentals that were
available and starting to apply for those.
I will do a separate podcast on howto secure your rental in New Zealand.
It is a process, it is very different towhat we used to back home, but I think
with my wife's help and the way she'sdone it, she's worked out a process
and got templates and everything that.
(14:34):
it, really worked well for us.
the way she's, putted together.
We have now, I think we're inour 1, 2, 3, 4, I think we are
in our fourth or fifth rental.
I know it sounds a lot in twoyears, but we'll talk through that
throughout the journey and the podcast.
But every single rentalthat she has applied for.
We have been blessed and luckyenough to be able to secure, so
(14:57):
there's got to be something inthe way that my wife is doing it.
So I definitely wanna share that in oneof the podcasts, but it'll be a separate
podcast just on the rental process.
What I will also start doing isI have started a YouTube channel
that's, at soft landing nz on YouTube.
So if you wanna sub subscribe,please do and follow me there.
But I'm gonna start creatingvideos, of tutorials of specific.
(15:23):
Stuff that I think is very beneficial.
but you would want to visually see uswork through it, like the rental process,
so we can show you the websites thatwe were looking on for the rentals,
how we worked out the costing forthose rentals, the CV that she wrote
up, how we got the animals approved.
We got two cats approved, toalso come across to, be included
(15:44):
in the rental agreement.
and just sharing all that information.
I think it'll be good to do on a videochannel, not just with talking it through.
That's it.
I will do a podcast, but Ithink the more detailed version
will be on the YouTube channel.
So if you want to find that there,I will start loading up information
onto that YouTube channel.
But getting back to where we were at,we had decided we wanted to get out
(16:04):
of this, lease, for the rental we werein, and we wanted to find a new rental.
in the area that we had just beento, which is a little bit more north,
which was another 15 minutes north.
so we started looking around.
My wife did find a place.
We did go look at it, on the weekend, andwithin a week of her applying, we had been
(16:24):
successful and chosen, for the rental.
What this did mean for us though, itcomes back to your, budget and your,
cash flow, because now the rentalthat we were in, they had the deposit,
which is usually equivalent to aboutfour weeks worth of your rental.
They had that we will get that back.
(16:45):
But to secure the next rental thatwe were gonna move into, they want
four weeks deposit and sometimeseven two to four weeks of your
rental on top of that upfront.
So you have to have extracash available to do that.
So we were lucky with our budget that wehad worked that in, meaning the cash flow.
We had the cash and funds availableso we could move it back and forth.
(17:09):
So what we were able to do wassecure this new rental with a deposit
and the four weeks upfront whilewe waited for the other rentals.
Deposit to be returned to us.
We did have to pay the penalty, though.
The penalty worked out to, and I'm, Idon't know the exact numbers, but when
I do the rental video, I will share theactual figures or when I do the separate
(17:31):
video on living expenses in New Zealand,I'll share the exact figures there, but
I think it worked out to about $700.
So it is a lot of money.
it's, not cheap to break the rental,but we thought, and we agreed.
That long term, it would be betterfor us because we would rather get
it done now, bite the bullet, do themove, get into the area we want to
be in, so that we could then startsecuring schooling for our kids.
(17:54):
It would be in the area that we wanted.
We wouldn't be moving them from oneschool to another or having to travel
far because now they stayed in that theymade friends and they settled in that
school, but we're not living in that area.
Not to mention you probably wouldn't,it would be a whole thing with
zoning and schools and everything.
So we opted.
Pay the $700, get out of the lease.
Let's get into the areawe wanted to get into.
(18:15):
Got that other, rental secured so weknew we could move into that rental
over and above the, cash flow that yougotta consider, as well as the costs
now because it's costing us extrafor terminating early on the lease.
What also cost us money is moving costs.
'cause now you need to actually move.
(18:35):
And what's happening now is wehad started buying some stuff that
had been delivered to this rental.
in total, we actually ended up beingin this first rental for a month.
So it was four weeks.
And in that four weeks, what we hadended up doing was we did start buying
some stuff like dining room, suite, alounge suite, some, ah, just furniture
(18:57):
for the home and everything like that.
So you started kit it out.
But what we opted to do is, although wehad ordered some of the stuff and it got
delivered to the first rental that wewere gonna be moving out of, we didn't
unpack a lot of stuff if we didn't haveto because it would be easier to move it.
In the prepackaged boxingand everything already.
So it meant we were still living ina home that wasn't quite unpacked.
(19:19):
It was boxes everywhere, stuff everywhere.
But we knew it would be better forwhen we moved into the actual rental.
We wanted to settle in, in thearea a little bit further north.
So that's what we opted to do withthe stuff that was getting delivered.
What it also means is youhad to budget for some extra
money for the actual move now.
So we opted with some friends advice,that what you can do when you move here,
(19:42):
you can obviously, if you've got budget,you can, contact people that will help
you with the move and do it all for you.
But that costs money as well.
We opted to do it ourselves.
So what we did is we rented atruck, I think it was a. Two
ton truck that we, rented.
So on your normal driver's license, youcan, they allow you to drive a truck
here on that license and rent one.
(20:02):
so that's the option we went for.
and then we reached out to somefriends that I actually went to school
with many years ago that had beenhere for, a good number of years.
And although he was like, oh, I dunno,half an hour from the area we're in,
he said to me that he wouldactually help with the move as well.
(20:23):
oh, no, I'm wrong.
That was our second removal.
Sorry.
This was a friend of ours thathad actually shown us this area
with, his wife, who was a teacherat the school in the area one bit.
he said he would actuallyhelp me with the move.
But you, you've gotta start being alittle bit like, sometimes it's hard to
ask for help and you can be a bit proud.
You actually just gotta put yourpride in your pocket and realize
(20:44):
you, you need to ask for help.
And we took whatever help we couldget, and they offered to help us move.
What you really need to helpwith is the biggest stuff.
I couldn't get my wife to carry the, bedsand all the bigger furniture and boxing
and everything and put that in the truckand then offload it on the other end.
So that's all I really need help with.
My kids aren't quite big enough yet.
My son was only 11 at that stage, sohe wasn't strong enough to do that.
(21:06):
so that's why I just needed somemuscle to help me pick up some,
bigger furniture and get it moved.
So then we arranged theactual move with the truck.
Some, challenges on moving days.
So I've never driven atwo ton truck before.
This was something that was newfor me, so I was nervous about it.
But when we went to go pick up thetruck in the morning, my wife, drove
(21:29):
me there and, she was then gonnameet at the first rental so that
we could stop packing the car withas much smaller stuff as possible.
And I could start packing thetrack with, as, the bigger stuff
that we wanted to put in it.
the friend of mine was gonna meetme there as well, so we could
start loading up, the track.
The first challengewas driving this truck.
(21:49):
I'm so grateful and it is somethingthat I would really recommend you do.
I took the full covered insurance onthat truck and, why I say I'm grateful
is I actually crashed the truck.
Not bad.
What I ended up doing is because youdon't know the area and you're still
relying on GPS and everything like that.
I was looking up, on, maps on my phone.
(22:12):
And I looked down, yes, it'swrong, but you don't have your
proper cradle and you dunno howyou'd even how to drive the truck.
And I was turning the truck around'cause I'd taken a wrong turn in.
It was like behind a warehouseor something like that.
And I was turning around and becausethe truck's so big, I clipped the
whole left hand side of the truckagainst the side of the building.
(22:32):
So it knocked off the mirror andscraped the door and the side and
the light and oh, it made a big mess.
Truck was still usable.
But I had now dinged or crashed the truck.
So I can laugh about it now, butI can promise you at the time
I didn't find it very funny.
stress was definitely, andanxiety was at a real peak.
We were only now a month in,we'd been through so much.
(22:53):
If you've listened to my other podcasts,you'll hear all the challenges and the
struggles that we had gone through.
And now we are actually finally moving,which is a struggle and it's stressful
in a new country driving a truckthat you'd never driven before, and
then to actually now crash the thing.
I was like, what more can go wrong?
I'm just like, I'm at my wit's end.
So all I end up doing was, luckily becauseit was behind a warehouse and there was
(23:15):
no traffic there, I just stopped thetruck for a bit, started breathing for
a few minutes, p literally put my headdown on the steering wheel and just.
I sat there for a little bit thinking,okay, pull yourself towards yourself.
You can do this.
You're still fine.
Collect yourself.
Took a few minutes, breathed andthought it's not the end of the world.
Luckily, you took the insurance.
Let's just keep going.
(23:37):
Picked myself up and kept going.
Now, I was gonna drive down tothe, original rental so we could
start packing up, meeting up withmy friend so we could pack it.
Got the truck there now inone piece with no mirrors.
Driving on the highway.
no mirrors on the left hand side.
Finally getting to the new, or the rental.
We wanted start and start loading the,furniture and everything with my wife,
(24:01):
packed the car, got smaller thingsin, she opted she was gonna drive up.
'cause now it's about a. 20 minutedrive between this, rental and the
area we actually want to be in.
So she left first with the kids,and took the first whatever
she could fit in the car.
up to that new rental, I startedjust unloading the, or unloading
the house, loading the, truck withwhatever we could with my friend.
(24:23):
A big thing we wanted to now move waswe did have a washing machine and we had
a tumble dryer and we had to disconnectthe washing machine from the water.
We went to the main water.
Source outside on the, pavement,and we turned off the water to the
house before we unhooked the, whatdo you call it, washing machine and
everything, thinking it would be fine.
(24:45):
But what actually ended uphappening is as we unhooked the
washing machine, the water startedspraying out all over in the garage.
Luckily, the water, the washingmachine was in the garage, but
now it's pouring out water.
Now my friend ran to double check thatwe had actually turned off the main water
supply, which we had, so it was off.
(25:07):
I checked the, ran into the house, wentinto the bathrooms and the kitchen.
Tried to turn on waterthere just to double check.
No water came out of those taps, so thewater, the main house was definitely
off, but the water to where the washingmachine was in the garage had not
stopped, and it was pouring out at arate of knots, and we were starting
to flood this garage with water.
Now I tried finding thephoning the letting agent.
(25:29):
They weren't answering.
I was like, I don't, I dunno what to do.
I dunno how to stop thiswater from pouring out
everywhere, all over the garage.
I cannot believe I've now crashed a truckand I'm now flooding the rental I'm in.
And I'm just thinking, allI'm thinking is dollar signs.
I'm going to fix all ofthis and get through this.
I promise you we were, Iwas close to breaking point.
(25:51):
I can tell you I spoke a bit of
creative language to be really honest.
it wasn't my finest moment.
I was really losing for,apologies, but losing my shit.
It was like I'd had enough, mypoor friend that hadn't seen me in
years and was trying to help me wasprobably thinking, oh my goodness,
what have I got myself into?
(26:12):
But anyway, eventually what weactually found was this house,
this rental, they had what?
It was like a borehole and theyhad a separate pump that was
pumping water for just the outside.
taps as well as the laundry for thewashing machine, and water into that area.
(26:34):
So once we found the borehole, wewere able to find the pump and we
were able to turn the pump off,and then finally the water stopped.
But I, I promise you, the waterwas probably running for a good, I
don't know, it felt like forever,but it was maybe like 10 minutes.
But I promise you at the rate itwas running out, there was a ton of
water all over that garage floor.
All I thought was okay.
Again, breathe, pullyourself towards yourself.
(26:55):
You just gotta keep going.
So we thought pack whatyou could in the truck.
Let's get as much stuff aswe can up to the new unit.
Let's get that unpacked and then wecan deal with this mess that we've now
made in the rental with the flooding.
So the rest of the day, we just spentgoing back and forth, with as many
trips as we had to, try and get.
(27:16):
all the stuff out of the, firstrental into the new rental so we
could start moving into that rental.
What we were lucky with is we hadgiven notice on the rental, the first
original rental that we were moving outof, and I had a week available, so I
now had a week available to me to tryclean out, dry out, air out the garage.
(27:38):
And what we were lucky withis in that week I was able
to keep the garage door open.
I was able to get dry out, get.
I, open all doors, whateverwindows and it actually dried
out and we were actually fine.
it was just the garage floor.
for those of you, you also don't knowin New Zealand, their garage floors.
What a lot of them do is, I, we'venever done this before, but they
(27:58):
carpet, I. The garage floors.
just to make it worse, it waswet carpet in this garage now.
So that's what we were trying todry out garages back home in South
Africa, they don't carpet garages.
It's a concrete floor, so to dry it offit wouldn't have been a bigger deal.
But here it was in my mind a big deal.
But luckily we were able to driveanything else and that was fine.
(28:19):
Anyway, getting back to it, I'mjust trying to share the challenges.
we then got all moved out of thatfirst rental that we had stayed in for.
Literally a month, moved a little bitfurther north into the new rental.
Now we were finally in a situation.
We thought, okay, we can start settlingand start for the first time making
home after we'd been here for just overa month and we could start unpacking.
(28:42):
That's when we started unpacking a lotof the, furniture that we had bought.
A lot of it was, flat pack.
So I can tell you a lot ofbuilding will be going on.
one thing we did there is we went to, andI will share a bit more, but we went to a
hardware store called MI 10 or Bunnings.
It's the two different hardwarestores here, and bought myself a
little toolkit, which was important,and a little, electric screwdriver.
(29:04):
because you do a lot of flat packin the beginning, there's a lot
of stuff that you end up building.
and putting together furniture wise,so then we could start actually
making that new rental home.
and we could hand over the keys ofthe old one, which was a week later.
So after drying out the, garageand everything, we were a week
later able to hand over to.
The letting agent andeverything was fine there.
(29:24):
We did get our deposit back, whichthen it, canceled out our cashflow
because we had taken, and put adeposit on the new rental and we could
offset the deposit that we got back.
So we were back into a balance situation.
What we did is we ended up usinga credit card from South Africa.
That's where we had alittle bit of extra buffer.
Cash flow.
So in a two, three week period, we couldjust put it on that credit card while
(29:48):
we're waiting for the cash to come back.
So that's the way we, did our buffer fund.
Anyway, we finally gotinto this new rental.
We could finally start calling ithome and start finally settling,
and making it home, which meant thatmy wife could now start looking at
schooling in the area and getting thekids into school on the schooling,
although I'll do a different podcast.
(30:09):
One thing we didn't rush intois my son at that stage was 11.
We were not in a rush to get him intoschool, and we don't regret that.
We weren't trying to get himinto school within the first like
couple of weeks, month, whatever.
I think, and I'll double check itwith my wife timing wise, when I
do the podcast on schooling, I.
I think for the first three monthswe didn't, put my son in school.
(30:31):
So for his first three months here, itwas just spending time with my wife at
home, spending a lot of time going tobeaches, going to walks, getting to know
your new country, your new home, and justsettling him, as well as my daughter.
We also didn't force or push herto get into a kindie straightaway.
She was only.
Three when she got here.
(30:51):
So we went in a rushto get her into kindy.
And even with kindy, they, actually,the government subsidized the first
20 hours a week, of time for a kindy.
So it wasn't even a money issue.
It was more we decided, let thefamily spend time together and settle.
And, we don't regret that.
I think it worked out really well.
Although I was going into work,all the time or a lot of the time.
(31:13):
it was nice for my wife tobe able to settle the kids.
we had really done.
The kids are phenomenal the way they,adjust and they just, they probably
adjust and they adapt probablyquicker than what my wife and I did.
But I do think by not forcing them intoschool straight away and rather delaying
it because we had the luxury to be ableto do that 'cause my wife was at home.
(31:36):
I guess if you're both working, it wouldbe a totally different, scenario for you.
But in our scenario, that worked well.
and it's something I'mglad we didn't rush into.
So my wife could get, a little bit of timeto now start getting the kids registered
at the relevant schools and get them into,
into the school at whichever date we wereplanning on getting them at, into school.
So one of the things that it also does, itgives you a little bit of time to budget,
(32:00):
and put a little bit of money aside everymonth because you do need to buy uniforms
and stationary and there's donations.
So on the schooling, podcast,I'll go into more detail, but
there are costs associated withgetting your child into school.
Even if it is a public school.
There are some coststhat you gotta look at.
a semi-private or private school.
Now that's a totally different ball game.
(32:21):
That is even more costs that you gotta.
Look at, and again, that'll come downto your budgeting and how much you can
afford and what's important to you.
But I'll go into schooling alot more on another podcast.
So my wife could startdoing the schooling thing.
What she could also start doing isnow she could start registering us
with a doctor because you registerwith the doctors in the area.
I'll probably talk through alittle bit more with doctors
(32:41):
and medical and everything here.
I'll do a separatepodcast on that as well.
I can talk through with myjourney and if you heard my
intro and talking about myself.
I, did have cancer, and I was ableto still get into the country,
get visas, get to the point wherewe are actually residents now and
(33:01):
everything, even although I had apreexisting condition like cancer.
So it is possible there are conditions toit and obviously you gotta work through an
immigration agent or through, immigrationNew Zealand 'cause there are a few more
loopholes you have to jump through.
But what I would like to share is notthe visa side and everything, for the,
immigration when you've, got a diseaselike cancer, but just how it worked here.
(33:25):
And I can compare the different tests Ihad to go through the different doctors.
The, process here is a little bit more,it's different to what I was used to back
home in South Africa, but it is doable.
And I still got the treatmentthat I needed and everything
here, so I'll talk through thatin a separate podcast as well.
But getting back to where we were, thisgave my wife the opportunity to start
(33:47):
registering us with doctors, gettingthe kids registered with schools.
I was now starting to get into alittle bit more of a groove with, okay,
I. the extra travel with the buses.
So I was taking a connecting bus to getto the bus station here, probably instead
of taking me 45 minutes to get into CBDnow, it was probably taking me an hour
and 10 minutes to get into C, B, D.
And probably on the way backit took a little bit longer.
(34:10):
would take about an hour and 20 minutes.
Big thing with your buses.
Those, you gotta timethe right, so the AT app.
Was very important.
and trying to check the times because ifyou miss your connecting bus, you could
sometimes wait up to 20 minutes and thenyour commute home could be even longer.
But we were at a stage nowwhere we finally had home.
We were unpacking, we were startingto, Feel like we, we can actually
(34:34):
make this work for the firsttime and feeling like a family.
my wife was starting togo out with the kids.
We were starting to gofor walks in the evening.
There was parks that we could play out.
So now we're really starting to feellike, huh, this is why we did this.
This is why we came here.
So for the first time, we're startingto feel like we could actually settle.
so I think that's whereI'm gonna leave it today.
So that's.
(34:55):
That's where we got to with the journeyand we got to, with our, first rental,
I'm, I'll probably pick it up on thenext podcast, tell you a little bit more
around when, our, container arrived.
I can tell you a little bit morearound why we had to move rentals
again, what the challenges arearound that, and potentially some
other more specific podcasts.
But I'll, I'll sharethose at a later stage.
(35:17):
For now, I just really wanted to thankyou for taking the time to listen to me.
I really hope this isadding value and that there.
just listening to me talk.
Hopefully there's some things thatyou're taking from it that you
can learn from us and do better.
I think the big thing that Ikeep trying to drive home is that
budgeting, cash flow, it's huge.
Planning, huge.
grit, like I spoke about onthe last one, you just really
(35:38):
got to be there for each other.
you don't have that support structure.
Some people are lucky, they dohave friends and family here.
What a blessing.
But there's those of us that don't.
You can do.
It's just a. Keep relying on eachother, having each other's back, never
giving up, and keep going for it.
You can make this work.
even although we've gone throughso much, we are still so grateful
(35:58):
and so blessed to be here.
I hope I'm adding value for you guys.
if I am, please follow, my podcast, onwhatever platform you use to listen to it.
give me comments, likes, please.
it really helps me.
It motivates me to keep going.
I have read some comments on someof them already and I'm so grateful.
Thank you guys.
(36:18):
Just giving me a thumbs upand telling me to keep going.
Also, if there's any particulartopics you want me to talk on,
tell me in the comments so Ican make sure I don't miss out.
And I do some podcasts, potentiallysome YouTube videos on whatever
it is that would help you andinformation that you're looking for.
So please share that.
and.
M maybe go to my YouTube channel, goto at Soft landing nz, on YouTube,
(36:42):
subscribe and, follow me on YouTube.
You'll see that's where allmy podcasts are gonna be.
All my content and all myvideos are gonna be there.
All my tutorials, all the informationI'm gonna share, I'm gonna start
putting onto that platform.
till next time, just thankyou guys for listening.
I'm really humbled to know that somany people have already started
listening, and, really grateful.
So thank you guys.
(37:02):
You, must all keep safe and we'll.
Catch up again on my next, episode.
Cheers.
There are over 100,000 people whoimmigrate to New Zealand every year with
the intention to make New Zealand theirhome, leaving behind everything they
know as normal day-to-day life and havingto learn new ways of doing things, new
norms, new cultures, and different values.
There are many people who struggle withthis transition and find it challenging
(00:25):
to adjust and settle so they cancall and make New Zealand their home.
The purpose of this podcast is for meto share my journey and our challenges
with the hope that you can learn from meand my family and have a softer landing.
There will be good days and baddays, but with time, more good days.
I believe we have made theright choice for our family.
(00:46):
I want to try and help you do the same.
But hopefully with a softer landing.
This is soft landing, and Iam your host, Brett Collette.
Welcome to this podcast, designed foranyone thinking about preparing for, or
who has just immigrated to New Zealand.
Subscribe now so you never miss an episodedrawing from his personal experience.
(01:09):
This series will guide you throughthe process of preparing for your
move and helping you navigatethe challenges of immigration.
Hello world.
So welcome back to my podcast.
I'm really grateful to have youall join me again and listen
to another one of my episodes.
first off, I'd just like to, thankyou, but also if you haven't, listened
(01:30):
to any of my other episodes, this isthe first episode you listened to.
I do encourage you, pleasego back to the first episode.
The way I'm recording these is I'm tryingto share my journey from beginning to
end, so it is just in chronological order.
So it would make sense if you startednumber one and work your way through them.
I'm trying to give tips throughoutour whole journey as they're
coming up, while I'm busy talkingthrough our story and our, journey.
(01:52):
hopefully you'll get some benefit fromit and I do hope that if you can go
back to number one, you'll get moretidbits and ideas and just lessons
learned, from us, from the first one.
so today sitting here,post another cyclone.
I know it's two years on, and,in my first few episodes I was
explaining that we went through a.
cyclone Gabriela when we arrived.
(02:14):
now two years on, we've actuallyjust been hit by another cyclone.
this one was cyclone Tam.
Luckily not as bad.
I don't think it actually got on land,but it did still cause bad weather.
and even out yesterday, while we'reout shopping again, one of those things
that I not used to, we had those alertsgoing off on all your cell phones.
It's like what in the movies.
We, you see those, Warning alerts goingoff on everybody's cell phone in the shop.
(02:38):
It was, it's a little bit eerie.
but this was just a weatherwarning and everything like that,
just reminding us that, there'sgonna be high rains, high storms,
potential, flooding, whatever else.
So just reminding you that,hey, if you can rather.
Stay at home, be carefulof hail, stuff like that.
So I guess it's the positive.
You actually get the warnings.
you will get a lot of peoplehere that will complain about the
(02:59):
warnings and say it was prematureand unneeded and causing panic.
Then you'll get others that are grateful.
So you are always gonna have peoplesitting on both sides of the fence.
I don't think government will ever win.
but anyway, that, which is alittle bit of where we are today.
oh, and it's Easter.
Yes.
we, had the Easter money,visit this morning.
And he left us a lot ofchocolate Easter eggs.
(03:21):
So the kids have had a,
Easter egg hunt had to happen indoors,this Easter because of the really
wet weather outside, so the EasterBunny to rather put everything inside.
So we woke up early to hunting for Eastereggs and having a lot of chocolate.
So that's where we are today.
But getting back to my podcast, whatI wanted to share with you guys is I
(03:42):
wanted to pick up on our journey from.
We, in my last podcast, I told you we hadjust moved up into our first rental post,
staying in, the hotel and the Airbnb,and we'd moved up onto the North Shore.
So pardon, moving up onto theNorth Shore, into the rental.
It was a rental that's not,it wasn't exactly perfect.
It wasn't the exact rental that wewanted, but, beggars couldn't be
(04:05):
choosers post all the floods and thecyclone that we had back two years ago.
there wasn't a lot going.
couldn't.
Be too picky.
And it was just nice to actually bein a rental, specifically because
we've been burning a lot of money,in the Airbnb and the hotel.
So it was good to be into, the rental.
Once we moved into the rental.
(04:26):
I think the first thing that we triedto plan is that, and it was always
our plan is when we moved here.
I was the primary, so I wasthe one that was coming across
with the job and the position.
So I had to start working backin, South Africa back at home.
Both of us were working, so we didhave two incomes coming in, but
(04:46):
we opted that when we moved acrossthat it would be better for my wife
not to start working straight away.
We thought we needed somebody specificallybecause it's also a new country, new way
of doing things and there were so manyother things that you have to consider
that takes up a lot of time, like gettingthe kids into school, getting to know
your area, just, getting them used tothe, I dunno, normal doctor's visits and
(05:11):
just getting into the new way of life.
So we weren't gonna rush into mywife finding a job straight away.
Our original plan was that she wasn'tgonna work for the six, first six months.
How it actually panned out is that shedidn't work for the first 12 months
of being here for the first year.
She just spent her time trying tosettle the family, make a home.
(05:31):
Obviously this is also dependent on yourbudget and how much you are earning.
Okay?
it don't fool yourself.
Moving to New Zealand.
It's expensive.
It's, the cost of livinghere isn't, it's not cheap.
It's a beautiful place to live.
It's beautiful for families.
it's amazing beauty, the actualnature and everything like that.
(05:51):
where we come from, there was alot of violent crime and everything
like that, so we don't have that.
So there's a lot of beauty andreasons why we are here, but.
Don't fool yourself that it's cheap.
It's by no means cheap.
You are an island, literallyon the other end of the world.
So they do have to import a lot of stuff.
and for a number of otherreasons, things are expensive.
what I will do eventuallyis I will share a podcast.
(06:16):
We'll go into a little bit more detailaround how much it actually costs to
live in New Zealand for a family of four.
I'll talk through not only the costof, living for a family of four,
straight off the bat, IE when wejust got here for the first six to 12
months, just living off one salary.
But I'll also talk through how oncemy wife started working in the second
year, what we added on from the,second year when we had two salaries.
(06:39):
I'll talk to you some other tidbitsaround, What you pay weekly, what you
pay fortnightly, what you pay monthly.
having a salary that comes inmonthly versus a salary that
comes in fortnightly or weekly.
a whole lot of things, but that'll bea more specific podcast that I share.
but I'll get into that at the later stage.
But getting back to where we were,we've just moved into this rental now.
(07:01):
and I'm working and my wife is athome with the kids where we moved
into in the rental, probably Istarted traveling into the CBD using
public transport, using the buses.
It was probably taking me aroundabout 40 minutes or so to travel
by bus into CBD in the mornings andthen in the afternoons coming back,
it's taking a little bit longer,just under an hour to get back home.
(07:22):
that was with me taking,connecting buses on the way home.
so there would be one bus that you takeinto from the main bus station into town
and back, but there was a connectingbus from the bus station back to home.
so that.
I don't believe the travel timewas so bad, but I guess it's all
relative to what you used to.
So we were happy with that.
What it enabled was that my wife could beat home with the kids having a car, and
(07:46):
what was important is she needed the carso that she could get around, not only
to do stuff for the kids, but we had tonow get outta home, and start getting it
to get all the stuff that we didn't have.
The way we opted to do things iswe did get a container, which we'd
be waiting for, which takes about5, 4, 5 months to get into country.
was that we, didn't bring acrossthe major furniture like dining
(08:09):
room furniture or lounge suites.
We didn't bring that across.
So that is stuff that we opted thatwe were gonna buy when we got here.
So that was now one of the missionsmy wife was gonna be on, was
to start furnishing the home.
So she would spend a lot of time duringthe week, online looking for stuff or
going to get to know shops in the areaand starting to order that sort of
(08:31):
stuff and get it delivered to the home.
A big thing for us was, what we weretrying to decide now was we'd had a few
days to stay in this new rental, andwhat my wife and I were discussing was.
Is it actually the areathat we want it to, be in?
So now that we had a chance toactually stay there for a bit and
(08:54):
get to know the community a bit.
So while I was at work, she wastaking the kids out and trying
to roam around the community.
She started sharing with me in theevenings, when, I was home, and on
the weekends when we got to go out.
It wasn't quite what we were looking for.
The area we had ended up in wasstill, it didn't have as many.
Parks for the kids to play in.
(09:16):
you really had to drive to get to a park.
You couldn't walk, to, parks nearby.
Yeah, you could walk around theneighborhood, but there wasn't a lot of
playgrounds and parks for the kids toplay in, compared to a lot of other areas.
Also just the community that westarted picking up that was around us.
It wasn't the communitywe were looking for.
I think this leads me back to what I toldyou in one of the other podcasts is yeah,
(09:37):
we were trying to be proactive and reallythink ahead with planning with our rental.
Although the first one got floodedand it didn't work out for us.
We'd still done a lot of investigationsvia word of mouth for the area
we wanted to end up in and whatwe could find online, and we were
only really seeing it firsthand.
Now, for the first time while we werehere in country, we didn't get a chance
to come visit first, and see New Zealand.
(09:59):
We were taking a real.
Chance just getting here asa family and making it happen
without even visiting here.
So we didn't know the areas.
we only went some word of mouth fromfriends and from what we could see online.
And what we were actually picking upis the area that we were in was not
quite the area we wanted to settle in.
So now the challenge that we had is you'retrying to kit out a rental with stuff.
(10:23):
So you are ordering it and it's gonnastart getting delivered, and you're gonna
start unpacking and building out a home.
But is it the home you wanna stay in?
Now the, lease that we hadsigned was, for 12 months.
So we, had just started that lease.
We're only like in the second week or so.
Now, of that lease wehad to make the choice.
Did we want to break the lease?
(10:44):
Did we want to terminate early and didwe want to find another rental or did
we wanna see it through for a year?
Again, this is really gonna comedown to your budgets as well,
because it's gonna cost you money toyou to get out of the lease early.
As well as cashflow with havinganother, bond that you'd have to pay or
deposit that you'd have to pay secure.
Other one, although you willget your deposit back, it's
(11:04):
just timing of getting it back.
But a big decision for us was, and I willdo different podcasts and YouTube videos
on this, is you choose an area, especiallywhen you've got kids based on the schools
that you're zoned for in the area.
And we had chosen the area because ofthe school that was in that area, but.
(11:25):
Now that we were here and seeingit firsthand, we were wondering
if we had made the right decision.
So what we did is we actually reachedout to some friends of ours that
we knew from back in South Africa.
and they'd been here for a numberof years and actually one of them
was a teacher, but she was teachingat a school that was a semi-private
school, but was a little further norththan what we were probably another.
(11:48):
15, 20 minutes drive north.
So we got in touch with them overthe weekend and we actually, they
brought us up to their area and whereher school was that she taught that.
And we drove around that area andstarted looking a bit more and
actually fell in love with the area.
That was way more what we are looking for.
We saw the families walking aroundwith pushing their prams, walking kids
(12:08):
riding on bicycles and push scooters.
And we saw a lot of parks and playgrounds,people riding on bicycles, going for runs.
It was just.
That's what we were looking for.
This was the communitywe were looking for.
what we also found in therental that we were in.
Yeah, we couldn't, wetook what we could get.
It's, it was still a, I don'tknow what you call it, but
(12:31):
it's like a semi-detached.
So we were sharing awall with your neighbor.
We were always used tohaving freestanding.
Again, this also depends on your budget.
it's sounding like we'vebeing really spoiled here.
WWW with choice, but we were reallyhoping to get something that's a w.
A free standing home, a bungalow or atwo-story property, but something that we
didn't share a wall with your neighbor.
(12:51):
So this one that we had, itdid, and it wasn't ideal for us.
It also didn't have a lot ofspace or God for, a garden.
so ideal and you, one of the thingswe laughed about was being in New
Zealand, is it looked like the typicalQE family was a family that always
had a trampoline, in the garden.
(13:11):
That was like the in thingis to have a trampoline.
and this property had nospace for a trampoline.
And not that we were gonna buy thatstraight off the pad, but we, did
have a trampoline for the kids backin South Africa, so it was something
that we would've loved to have.
So we wanted more of a garden.
Also, we like to have barbecuesoutside or Bri, so we wanted
(13:32):
space actually sit outside.
The wrinkle that we had settledor got into didn't have that.
So it wasn't ideal for us.
So anyway, long story short,my wife and I decided.
We are actually gonna break the lease.
so we got in contact with the, no, beforewe got in contact with the agent to break
the lease, we'd obviously just made thedecision that was we were gonna go, we
(13:53):
needed to find another property, but atleast we knew the area we wanted to be in.
Now by traveling up to the area withthe help of our friends, looking
around, seeing the schools that weactually really and we love to get our
kids into, so now we knew the area.
so we had to start looking around fora rental now, W what we did is we, got
(14:13):
onto the real estate website, startinglooking at the rentals that were
available and starting to apply for those.
I will do a separate podcast on howto secure your rental in New Zealand.
It is a process, it is very different towhat we used to back home, but I think
with my wife's help and the way she'sdone it, she's worked out a process
and got templates and everything that.
(14:34):
it, really worked well for us.
the way she's, putted together.
We have now, I think we're inour 1, 2, 3, 4, I think we are
in our fourth or fifth rental.
I know it sounds a lot in twoyears, but we'll talk through that
throughout the journey and the podcast.
But every single rentalthat she has applied for.
We have been blessed and luckyenough to be able to secure, so
(14:57):
there's got to be something inthe way that my wife is doing it.
So I definitely wanna share that in oneof the podcasts, but it'll be a separate
podcast just on the rental process.
What I will also start doing isI have started a YouTube channel
that's, at soft landing nz on YouTube.
So if you wanna sub subscribe,please do and follow me there.
But I'm gonna start creatingvideos, of tutorials of specific.
(15:23):
Stuff that I think is very beneficial.
but you would want to visually see uswork through it, like the rental process,
so we can show you the websites thatwe were looking on for the rentals,
how we worked out the costing forthose rentals, the CV that she wrote
up, how we got the animals approved.
We got two cats approved, toalso come across to, be included
(15:44):
in the rental agreement.
and just sharing all that information.
I think it'll be good to do on a videochannel, not just with talking it through.
That's it.
I will do a podcast, but Ithink the more detailed version
will be on the YouTube channel.
So if you want to find that there,I will start loading up information
onto that YouTube channel.
But getting back to where we were at,we had decided we wanted to get out
(16:04):
of this, lease, for the rental we werein, and we wanted to find a new rental.
in the area that we had just beento, which is a little bit more north,
which was another 15 minutes north.
so we started looking around.
My wife did find a place.
We did go look at it, on the weekend, andwithin a week of her applying, we had been
(16:24):
successful and chosen, for the rental.
What this did mean for us though, itcomes back to your, budget and your,
cash flow, because now the rentalthat we were in, they had the deposit,
which is usually equivalent to aboutfour weeks worth of your rental.
They had that we will get that back.
(16:45):
But to secure the next rental thatwe were gonna move into, they want
four weeks deposit and sometimeseven two to four weeks of your
rental on top of that upfront.
So you have to have extracash available to do that.
So we were lucky with our budget that wehad worked that in, meaning the cash flow.
We had the cash and funds availableso we could move it back and forth.
(17:09):
So what we were able to do wassecure this new rental with a deposit
and the four weeks upfront whilewe waited for the other rentals.
Deposit to be returned to us.
We did have to pay the penalty, though.
The penalty worked out to, and I'm, Idon't know the exact numbers, but when
I do the rental video, I will share theactual figures or when I do the separate
(17:31):
video on living expenses in New Zealand,I'll share the exact figures there, but
I think it worked out to about $700.
So it is a lot of money.
it's, not cheap to break the rental,but we thought, and we agreed.
That long term, it would be betterfor us because we would rather get
it done now, bite the bullet, do themove, get into the area we want to
be in, so that we could then startsecuring schooling for our kids.
(17:54):
It would be in the area that we wanted.
We wouldn't be moving them from oneschool to another or having to travel
far because now they stayed in that theymade friends and they settled in that
school, but we're not living in that area.
Not to mention you probably wouldn't,it would be a whole thing with
zoning and schools and everything.
So we opted.
Pay the $700, get out of the lease.
Let's get into the areawe wanted to get into.
(18:15):
Got that other, rental secured so weknew we could move into that rental
over and above the, cash flow that yougotta consider, as well as the costs
now because it's costing us extrafor terminating early on the lease.
What also cost us money is moving costs.
'cause now you need to actually move.
(18:35):
And what's happening now is wehad started buying some stuff that
had been delivered to this rental.
in total, we actually ended up beingin this first rental for a month.
So it was four weeks.
And in that four weeks, what we hadended up doing was we did start buying
some stuff like dining room, suite, alounge suite, some, ah, just furniture
(18:57):
for the home and everything like that.
So you started kit it out.
But what we opted to do is, although wehad ordered some of the stuff and it got
delivered to the first rental that wewere gonna be moving out of, we didn't
unpack a lot of stuff if we didn't haveto because it would be easier to move it.
In the prepackaged boxingand everything already.
So it meant we were still living ina home that wasn't quite unpacked.
(19:19):
It was boxes everywhere, stuff everywhere.
But we knew it would be better forwhen we moved into the actual rental.
We wanted to settle in, in thearea a little bit further north.
So that's what we opted to do withthe stuff that was getting delivered.
What it also means is youhad to budget for some extra
money for the actual move now.
So we opted with some friends advice,that what you can do when you move here,
(19:42):
you can obviously, if you've got budget,you can, contact people that will help
you with the move and do it all for you.
But that costs money as well.
We opted to do it ourselves.
So what we did is we rented atruck, I think it was a. Two
ton truck that we, rented.
So on your normal driver's license, youcan, they allow you to drive a truck
here on that license and rent one.
(20:02):
so that's the option we went for.
and then we reached out to somefriends that I actually went to school
with many years ago that had beenhere for, a good number of years.
And although he was like, oh, I dunno,half an hour from the area we're in,
he said to me that he wouldactually help with the move as well.
(20:23):
oh, no, I'm wrong.
That was our second removal.
Sorry.
This was a friend of ours thathad actually shown us this area
with, his wife, who was a teacherat the school in the area one bit.
he said he would actuallyhelp me with the move.
But you, you've gotta start being alittle bit like, sometimes it's hard to
ask for help and you can be a bit proud.
You actually just gotta put yourpride in your pocket and realize
(20:44):
you, you need to ask for help.
And we took whatever help we couldget, and they offered to help us move.
What you really need to helpwith is the biggest stuff.
I couldn't get my wife to carry the, bedsand all the bigger furniture and boxing
and everything and put that in the truckand then offload it on the other end.
So that's all I really need help with.
My kids aren't quite big enough yet.
My son was only 11 at that stage, sohe wasn't strong enough to do that.
(21:06):
so that's why I just needed somemuscle to help me pick up some,
bigger furniture and get it moved.
So then we arranged theactual move with the truck.
Some, challenges on moving days.
So I've never driven atwo ton truck before.
This was something that was newfor me, so I was nervous about it.
But when we went to go pick up thetruck in the morning, my wife, drove
(21:29):
me there and, she was then gonnameet at the first rental so that
we could stop packing the car withas much smaller stuff as possible.
And I could start packing thetrack with, as, the bigger stuff
that we wanted to put in it.
the friend of mine was gonna meetme there as well, so we could
start loading up, the track.
The first challengewas driving this truck.
(21:49):
I'm so grateful and it is somethingthat I would really recommend you do.
I took the full covered insurance onthat truck and, why I say I'm grateful
is I actually crashed the truck.
Not bad.
What I ended up doing is because youdon't know the area and you're still
relying on GPS and everything like that.
I was looking up, on, maps on my phone.
(22:12):
And I looked down, yes, it'swrong, but you don't have your
proper cradle and you dunno howyou'd even how to drive the truck.
And I was turning the truck around'cause I'd taken a wrong turn in.
It was like behind a warehouseor something like that.
And I was turning around and becausethe truck's so big, I clipped the
whole left hand side of the truckagainst the side of the building.
(22:32):
So it knocked off the mirror andscraped the door and the side and
the light and oh, it made a big mess.
Truck was still usable.
But I had now dinged or crashed the truck.
So I can laugh about it now, butI can promise you at the time
I didn't find it very funny.
stress was definitely, andanxiety was at a real peak.
We were only now a month in,we'd been through so much.
(22:53):
If you've listened to my other podcasts,you'll hear all the challenges and the
struggles that we had gone through.
And now we are actually finally moving,which is a struggle and it's stressful
in a new country driving a truckthat you'd never driven before, and
then to actually now crash the thing.
I was like, what more can go wrong?
I'm just like, I'm at my wit's end.
So all I end up doing was, luckily becauseit was behind a warehouse and there was
(23:15):
no traffic there, I just stopped thetruck for a bit, started breathing for
a few minutes, p literally put my headdown on the steering wheel and just.
I sat there for a little bit thinking,okay, pull yourself towards yourself.
You can do this.
You're still fine.
Collect yourself.
Took a few minutes, breathed andthought it's not the end of the world.
Luckily, you took the insurance.
Let's just keep going.
(23:37):
Picked myself up and kept going.
Now, I was gonna drive down tothe, original rental so we could
start packing up, meeting up withmy friend so we could pack it.
Got the truck there now inone piece with no mirrors.
Driving on the highway.
no mirrors on the left hand side.
Finally getting to the new, or the rental.
We wanted start and start loading the,furniture and everything with my wife,
(24:01):
packed the car, got smaller thingsin, she opted she was gonna drive up.
'cause now it's about a. 20 minutedrive between this, rental and the
area we actually want to be in.
So she left first with the kids,and took the first whatever
she could fit in the car.
up to that new rental, I startedjust unloading the, or unloading
the house, loading the, truck withwhatever we could with my friend.
(24:23):
A big thing we wanted to now move waswe did have a washing machine and we had
a tumble dryer and we had to disconnectthe washing machine from the water.
We went to the main water.
Source outside on the, pavement,and we turned off the water to the
house before we unhooked the, whatdo you call it, washing machine and
everything, thinking it would be fine.
(24:45):
But what actually ended uphappening is as we unhooked the
washing machine, the water startedspraying out all over in the garage.
Luckily, the water, the washingmachine was in the garage, but
now it's pouring out water.
Now my friend ran to double check thatwe had actually turned off the main water
supply, which we had, so it was off.
(25:07):
I checked the, ran into the house, wentinto the bathrooms and the kitchen.
Tried to turn on waterthere just to double check.
No water came out of those taps, so thewater, the main house was definitely
off, but the water to where the washingmachine was in the garage had not
stopped, and it was pouring out at arate of knots, and we were starting
to flood this garage with water.
Now I tried finding thephoning the letting agent.
(25:29):
They weren't answering.
I was like, I don't, I dunno what to do.
I dunno how to stop thiswater from pouring out
everywhere, all over the garage.
I cannot believe I've now crashed a truckand I'm now flooding the rental I'm in.
And I'm just thinking, allI'm thinking is dollar signs.
I'm going to fix all ofthis and get through this.
I promise you we were, Iwas close to breaking point.
(25:51):
I can tell you I spoke a bit of
creative language to be really honest.
it wasn't my finest moment.
I was really losing for,apologies, but losing my shit.
It was like I'd had enough, mypoor friend that hadn't seen me in
years and was trying to help me wasprobably thinking, oh my goodness,
what have I got myself into?
(26:12):
But anyway, eventually what weactually found was this house,
this rental, they had what?
It was like a borehole and theyhad a separate pump that was
pumping water for just the outside.
taps as well as the laundry for thewashing machine, and water into that area.
(26:34):
So once we found the borehole, wewere able to find the pump and we
were able to turn the pump off,and then finally the water stopped.
But I, I promise you, the waterwas probably running for a good, I
don't know, it felt like forever,but it was maybe like 10 minutes.
But I promise you at the rate itwas running out, there was a ton of
water all over that garage floor.
All I thought was okay.
Again, breathe, pullyourself towards yourself.
(26:55):
You just gotta keep going.
So we thought pack whatyou could in the truck.
Let's get as much stuff aswe can up to the new unit.
Let's get that unpacked and then wecan deal with this mess that we've now
made in the rental with the flooding.
So the rest of the day, we just spentgoing back and forth, with as many
trips as we had to, try and get.
(27:16):
all the stuff out of the, firstrental into the new rental so we
could start moving into that rental.
What we were lucky with is we hadgiven notice on the rental, the first
original rental that we were moving outof, and I had a week available, so I
now had a week available to me to tryclean out, dry out, air out the garage.
(27:38):
And what we were lucky withis in that week I was able
to keep the garage door open.
I was able to get dry out, get.
I, open all doors, whateverwindows and it actually dried
out and we were actually fine.
it was just the garage floor.
for those of you, you also don't knowin New Zealand, their garage floors.
What a lot of them do is, I, we'venever done this before, but they
(27:58):
carpet, I. The garage floors.
just to make it worse, it waswet carpet in this garage now.
So that's what we were trying todry out garages back home in South
Africa, they don't carpet garages.
It's a concrete floor, so to dry it offit wouldn't have been a bigger deal.
But here it was in my mind a big deal.
But luckily we were able to driveanything else and that was fine.
(28:19):
Anyway, getting back to it, I'mjust trying to share the challenges.
we then got all moved out of thatfirst rental that we had stayed in for.
Literally a month, moved a little bitfurther north into the new rental.
Now we were finally in a situation.
We thought, okay, we can start settlingand start for the first time making
home after we'd been here for just overa month and we could start unpacking.
(28:42):
That's when we started unpacking a lotof the, furniture that we had bought.
A lot of it was, flat pack.
So I can tell you a lot ofbuilding will be going on.
one thing we did there is we went to, andI will share a bit more, but we went to a
hardware store called MI 10 or Bunnings.
It's the two different hardwarestores here, and bought myself a
little toolkit, which was important,and a little, electric screwdriver.
(29:04):
because you do a lot of flat packin the beginning, there's a lot
of stuff that you end up building.
and putting together furniture wise,so then we could start actually
making that new rental home.
and we could hand over the keys ofthe old one, which was a week later.
So after drying out the, garageand everything, we were a week
later able to hand over to.
The letting agent andeverything was fine there.
(29:24):
We did get our deposit back, whichthen it, canceled out our cashflow
because we had taken, and put adeposit on the new rental and we could
offset the deposit that we got back.
So we were back into a balance situation.
What we did is we ended up usinga credit card from South Africa.
That's where we had alittle bit of extra buffer.
Cash flow.
So in a two, three week period, we couldjust put it on that credit card while
(29:48):
we're waiting for the cash to come back.
So that's the way we, did our buffer fund.
Anyway, we finally gotinto this new rental.
We could finally start calling ithome and start finally settling,
and making it home, which meant thatmy wife could now start looking at
schooling in the area and getting thekids into school on the schooling,
although I'll do a different podcast.
(30:09):
One thing we didn't rush intois my son at that stage was 11.
We were not in a rush to get him intoschool, and we don't regret that.
We weren't trying to get himinto school within the first like
couple of weeks, month, whatever.
I think, and I'll double check itwith my wife timing wise, when I
do the podcast on schooling, I.
I think for the first three monthswe didn't, put my son in school.
(30:31):
So for his first three months here, itwas just spending time with my wife at
home, spending a lot of time going tobeaches, going to walks, getting to know
your new country, your new home, and justsettling him, as well as my daughter.
We also didn't force or push herto get into a kindie straightaway.
She was only.
Three when she got here.
(30:51):
So we went in a rushto get her into kindy.
And even with kindy, they, actually,the government subsidized the first
20 hours a week, of time for a kindy.
So it wasn't even a money issue.
It was more we decided, let thefamily spend time together and settle.
And, we don't regret that.
I think it worked out really well.
Although I was going into work,all the time or a lot of the time.
(31:13):
it was nice for my wife tobe able to settle the kids.
we had really done.
The kids are phenomenal the way they,adjust and they just, they probably
adjust and they adapt probablyquicker than what my wife and I did.
But I do think by not forcing them intoschool straight away and rather delaying
it because we had the luxury to be ableto do that 'cause my wife was at home.
(31:36):
I guess if you're both working, it wouldbe a totally different, scenario for you.
But in our scenario, that worked well.
and it's something I'mglad we didn't rush into.
So my wife could get, a little bit of timeto now start getting the kids registered
at the relevant schools and get them into,
into the school at whichever date we wereplanning on getting them at, into school.
So one of the things that it also does, itgives you a little bit of time to budget,
(32:00):
and put a little bit of money aside everymonth because you do need to buy uniforms
and stationary and there's donations.
So on the schooling, podcast,I'll go into more detail, but
there are costs associated withgetting your child into school.
Even if it is a public school.
There are some coststhat you gotta look at.
a semi-private or private school.
Now that's a totally different ball game.
(32:21):
That is even more costs that you gotta.
Look at, and again, that'll come downto your budgeting and how much you can
afford and what's important to you.
But I'll go into schooling alot more on another podcast.
So my wife could startdoing the schooling thing.
What she could also start doing isnow she could start registering us
with a doctor because you registerwith the doctors in the area.
I'll probably talk through alittle bit more with doctors
(32:41):
and medical and everything here.
I'll do a separatepodcast on that as well.
I can talk through with myjourney and if you heard my
intro and talking about myself.
I, did have cancer, and I was ableto still get into the country,
get visas, get to the point wherewe are actually residents now and
(33:01):
everything, even although I had apreexisting condition like cancer.
So it is possible there are conditions toit and obviously you gotta work through an
immigration agent or through, immigrationNew Zealand 'cause there are a few more
loopholes you have to jump through.
But what I would like to share is notthe visa side and everything, for the,
immigration when you've, got a diseaselike cancer, but just how it worked here.
(33:25):
And I can compare the different tests Ihad to go through the different doctors.
The, process here is a little bit more,it's different to what I was used to back
home in South Africa, but it is doable.
And I still got the treatmentthat I needed and everything
here, so I'll talk through thatin a separate podcast as well.
But getting back to where we were, thisgave my wife the opportunity to start
(33:47):
registering us with doctors, gettingthe kids registered with schools.
I was now starting to get into alittle bit more of a groove with, okay,
I. the extra travel with the buses.
So I was taking a connecting bus to getto the bus station here, probably instead
of taking me 45 minutes to get into CBDnow, it was probably taking me an hour
and 10 minutes to get into C, B, D.
And probably on the way backit took a little bit longer.
(34:10):
would take about an hour and 20 minutes.
Big thing with your buses.
Those, you gotta timethe right, so the AT app.
Was very important.
and trying to check the times because ifyou miss your connecting bus, you could
sometimes wait up to 20 minutes and thenyour commute home could be even longer.
But we were at a stage nowwhere we finally had home.
We were unpacking, we were startingto, Feel like we, we can actually
(34:34):
make this work for the firsttime and feeling like a family.
my wife was starting togo out with the kids.
We were starting to gofor walks in the evening.
There was parks that we could play out.
So now we're really starting to feellike, huh, this is why we did this.
This is why we came here.
So for the first time, we're startingto feel like we could actually settle.
so I think that's whereI'm gonna leave it today.
So that's.
(34:55):
That's where we got to with the journeyand we got to, with our, first rental,
I'm, I'll probably pick it up on thenext podcast, tell you a little bit more
around when, our, container arrived.
I can tell you a little bit morearound why we had to move rentals
again, what the challenges arearound that, and potentially some
other more specific podcasts.
But I'll, I'll sharethose at a later stage.
(35:17):
For now, I just really wanted to thankyou for taking the time to listen to me.
I really hope this isadding value and that there.
just listening to me talk.
Hopefully there's some things thatyou're taking from it that you
can learn from us and do better.
I think the big thing that Ikeep trying to drive home is that
budgeting, cash flow, it's huge.
Planning, huge.
grit, like I spoke about onthe last one, you just really
(35:38):
got to be there for each other.
you don't have that support structure.
Some people are lucky, they dohave friends and family here.
What a blessing.
But there's those of us that don't.
You can do.
It's just a. Keep relying on eachother, having each other's back, never
giving up, and keep going for it.
You can make this work.
even although we've gone throughso much, we are still so grateful
(35:58):
and so blessed to be here.
I hope I'm adding value for you guys.
if I am, please follow, my podcast, onwhatever platform you use to listen to it.
give me comments, likes, please.
it really helps me.
It motivates me to keep going.
I have read some comments on someof them already and I'm so grateful.
Thank you guys.
(36:18):
Just giving me a thumbs upand telling me to keep going.
Also, if there's any particulartopics you want me to talk on,
tell me in the comments so Ican make sure I don't miss out.
And I do some podcasts, potentiallysome YouTube videos on whatever
it is that would help you andinformation that you're looking for.
So please share that.
and.
M maybe go to my YouTube channel, goto at Soft landing nz, on YouTube,
(36:42):
subscribe and, follow me on YouTube.
You'll see that's where allmy podcasts are gonna be.
All my content and all myvideos are gonna be there.
All my tutorials, all the informationI'm gonna share, I'm gonna start
putting onto that platform.
till next time, just thankyou guys for listening.
I'm really humbled to know that somany people have already started
listening, and, really grateful.
So thank you guys.
(37:02):
You, must all keep safe and we'll.
Catch up again on my next, episode.
Cheers.
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