Retired and hoping to move to Perth

[weaver]

I am hoping to move to Perth to live with my daughter and son-in-law. I have already visited and love the city but would like to ask if there are othere pensioners here who can tell me what living in Perth as a golden oldie will be like. I have many questions. It seems a very young city so I am concerned about finding friends and I also worry about the cost of health care. Can anybody here ease my worries a little?

[ali]

Can't answer your specific question, but we do have some more mature members who are moving over and I'm sure will be happy to answer your questions.

[Lou8670]

My MIL is currently applying for a visa so I can't comment from her point of view but my SILs in laws migrated about 10 years ago. They bridges whilst their aged parent visa was being processed and so they did incur costs for health insurance as they were only covered by the reciprocal health agreement which I believe only covers you for a limited time. If you arrive with a fully approved visa then you can rely on Medicare although most Aussies take out additional health cover the cost of which depends on the extent of the cover. If you have a look at Bupa in Australia they estimate the cost of cover based on your age etc so it'll give you an idea.

 

The crippler for my SILs in laws was what thy received from their UK pension as the exchange rate went against them so they were worse off and then the UK froze their pensions so they didn't benefit from any pension increases. In addition the cost of living in Perth increased.

 

Lou

[weaver]

Thank you Ali and Lou. I will need to take all that into account when deciding what visa I require and I will obviously have to do a lot of studying of health care costs. there certainly seems to be a lot of research required, but I am ever hopeful.