America on the DSP

[scrub]

Hey guys, I've just applied for indefinite portability/unlimited @ centrelink if my application is accepted I'll be going to either
America, Thailand or Bali for a year or less.
Hey I might even go to all of above before I find a nice place to settle down to or maybe just visit for a few months then return back down under. Let's hope I get accepted I'm sure I'm about 90% to be accepted for indefinite not sure about unlimited.

My question is has anyone here gone to america on the DSP or OAP?
Is it a nice place to visit?
I've never been overseas and I'd like to visit our close allies overseas and see america maybe miami, new york, los angeleas.
and texas over a couple month period.
I'm sure living on the pension @ 808.00 per fortnight is enough to be able to live over there as it's almost half the price living over there.

anyone have any info about america or bali living? if so I'd be gratefully appreciative.

thx - scrub

[Deleted]

scrub why not try to Google ,ex pats living in america,or Bali or where ever, like say ,Australians living in america forum,im sure there will be one, and that way you could join there forum,and chat to people direct, that's what i would do.

[Denis-NFA]

scrub

I would like to see some of the places you mentioned but I would like to see Idaho or Alaska, when the global warming kicks in a bit more that is.

But I know nothing about any of the places you mentioned.

Be aware that there can be a period of time between being granted the DSP and being eligible to leave Australia for a longer period than 6 weeks.

All the best.

[aussieinusa]

America is a much cheaper cost of living now.

For example, I try to keep to a $200/month food budget. Here, that's a challenge. When I was living in the USA, it was soooo easy; I went to a regular grocery store (i.e. no special trip to the cheap one) and bought whatever I wanted to eat. Over here I get my protein from canned tuna and cheese since seafood (I'm not much of a meat eater) is too much, and eat whatever fruit and veg are cheap... no handfuls of cherries or nice tropical fruit here.

If I can scrape cash together to do it, I'll likely buy a block of land in the country town my partner comes from; there's land for sale there for $2,000 for a quarter-acre building block! And his rent was $400 per month!! Granted, he wasn't in New York or San Francisco where rent is a lot more; i.e. almost Sydney rents. Here, I'm trying desperately to find a place to rent for $150/week... I can have a tiny run-down cottage way out of Dubbo if I ask really nice... or try to talk my way into one bedroom of a student boarding house with shared bathroom/kitchen/living area, though since I'm not actually a student, even that would be tough.

And don't get me started on clothes, toiletries, household items etc etc etc; the prices we pay here are obscene.

Though all that said, Thailand is way cheaper still. You'd have less culture shock in the USA, but if you have any need for medical care, you're going to find it really tough. The healthcare system is the one thing that lets the whole equation down, unfortunately.

[maca84]

what kind of AMERICA you talking about? they have a huge inflation and things go up and up. Where you getting your infos from that living is cheaper now in the States.

start looking for asian markets, go shopping at aldi  than you will be surprised how cheap stuff can be here.

for example:

banana 1,50 a kg
huge chinese cabbage 0.99
8 kiwis  for 2 bucks
salmon fresh 20 a kg
2x 500gr strawberries 3.50
5kg potato 3bucks
2kilo onion 3bucks
7lemons 2bucks

you can easy get healthy stuff for around 50bucks a week here. have a look below. that was less than 50 bucks and last more than a week.

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[Banjo]

I mainly lived in the city in Australia and shopped regularly at the markets where food bargains were common.
This year I stayed in a small country town in NQ for 6 weeks and bought fruit and veg at the roadside stalls, stuff like three or four avocados for $3 and cheap mangoes, bananas and pineapples were common.
I think a lot of people on benefits get snowed under by things like rent, fuel and car costs, utilities etc.
Paying kids expenses must be a nightmare.

[maca84]

Correct banjo. Food can be quite cheap if you know where to buy. Stuff for kids will kill you also rent and electric and gas for car.

[aussieinusa]

Sept 7, 2013 20:27:52 GMT 7 maca84 said:

what kind of AMERICA you talking about? they have a huge inflation and things go up and up. Where you getting your infos from that living is cheaper now in the States.

I'm talking about the AMERICA where I was living earlier this year -- yes, I got my 'infos' by ACTUALLY LIVING THERE. This year, even. The America I lived in pre-GFC wasn't so cheap, but since the economy there tanked, things have changed. (Our dollar being worth a whole US dollar doesn't hurt, either.)

It does depend where you live; New York, LA, San Francisco etc. still aren't exactly budget-priced... although they are significantly cheaper than Sydney. (I've lived in Sydney and NYC; just visited LA and SF.)

But overall, the US economy is set up in a way that makes our dollars go much further there. Minimum wage is $7.50, so retail overheads are way lower, plus there's actual competition (not a Coles/Woolworths duopoly), making things you buy in stores a lot cheaper. The real estate market tanked in a major way, and people are way more spread out (not all clustered in 3 large cities over a whole continent), so housing is generally more affordable. (Though obviously not if you're part-time on $7.50/hour. ) Fuel is still under $4/gallon; a gallon being 4 litres.

If you can find a smaller city or nice country town that agrees with you in the USA (and frankly, there's a LOT to choose from), you can live very well on the $1,500/month our lovely gov't bestows upon us. At some point our dollar will tank or the US dollar will recover, and when exchange rates push it down under $1,000/month, it won't be quite as grand for us. But as of right now, a DSPer could live reasonably well there.

As for the figures I quoted... I have to eat a medically-prescribed diet, so my grocery expenses are higher than that of people who can eat whatever. Here, I struggle to do it for $200/month. When I can stay somewhere that has Aldi, I can just about do it; elsewhere it's been very hard. In the USA earlier this year, I went to the supermarket and pretty much got whatever I felt like eating that week. It was nice. I miss it.

[zorro1]

Absolutely Ozzie you are correct. I lived and worked in Washington DC for 2 years and traveled extensively and the good old USA is dirt cheap, inc,tobacco,booze ,cars,grocery,cheap low interest loans ..well ha ha the last one caused the GFC!
Minimum wage is abysmal and you find mostly black Americans filling the low end jobs.
However USA compared to oz, is no comparison really as most of it is a sh*t hole

[Banjo]

It's hard to tell, you get such mixed messages from movies and the TV.
I read a lot of books set in the US as well, James Lee Burke, Pat Conroy, Michael Connelly et al, and you get a very distinct impression that there are a lot more people below the poverty line than there are in Australia or Europe.

[scrub]

thanks for your responses especially aussieinusa,
I've considered it and am looking to travel to sus out parts of america late next year
if it's a country I enjoy I might stay for a year or two or more.
I did some research and found you can easily live on 1500 p/month in the great states of america in most parts.
with a looser budget than over here in aus but no so much different.
maybe an extra 100-150 p/week.
that includes dinning out, rent, electricity, food, water rates, internet+phone, clothes etc.
I'd be looking at a saving of approx 200-250 p/week after these expenses.
a sure fire difference compared to the $50-100 over here in aus renting privately.
but still fairly tight, I'll sus it out though for sure but I'm sure if I find some where to actually live besides down under it may be Thailand or Bali.
thanks again.
I can leave now to go overseas and sus out places but I'm on an Involuntary Treatment Order
so I can't leave QLD for more than 3 weeks.. without a treatment plan set up.
so I'm hoping for mid/late next year.

thanks again for your responses that's all I needed to know.
you can close thread now Banjo.

[aussieinusa]

Sept 10, 2013 18:17:27 GMT 7 Banjo said:

It's hard to tell, you get such mixed messages from movies and the TV.
I read a lot of books set in the US as well, James Lee Burke, Pat Conroy, Michael Connelly et al, and you get a very distinct impression that there are a lot more people below the poverty line than there are in Australia or Europe.

Yes, that's absolutely true; far more people live below the poverty line in the USA, especially now. I've posted a few times about the number of unofficial 'tent cities' (and tent towns and tent villages) I saw while I was over there; everywhere people could set up a tents to live in, a bunch of them did.

It's one of those sad truths of travel, that wherever you go that seems wonderfully cheap compared to home... that's because there's a whole lotta really, seriously poor people there, so things need to be that cheap.

Which is why the $20K a year we get goes far in so many places in the US; there are a heap of people trying to get by on minimum wage, which over there is $15.5K minus tax, if you're lucky enough to get full-time work (which many can only do by juggling two or three jobs). Here full-time minimum wage is $35K, so $20K DSP = poverty.

[aussieinusa]

Sept 12, 2013 10:12:32 GMT 7 scrub said:

thanks for your responses especially aussieinusa,
I've considered it and am looking to travel to sus out parts of america late next year
if it's a country I enjoy I might stay for a year or two or more.
I did some research and found you can easily live on 1500 p/month in the great states of america in most parts.
with a looser budget than over here in aus but no so much different.
maybe an extra 100-150 p/week.
that includes dinning out, rent, electricity, food, water rates, internet+phone, clothes etc.
I'd be looking at a saving of approx 200-250 p/week after these expenses.
a sure fire difference compared to the $50-100 over here in aus renting privately.

Good luck, scrub!

Just be sure to budget for medical expenses over there, too; they run a lot higher, even compared to paying full (non-Medicare/-PBS) prices here.

If you're on any regular medications, it's usually much cheaper to buy all your meds here and take them with you. Every medication I've had to buy over there cost about four times the full cost here (or in Europe, for that matter), which is outrageous. There's something your doctors here can do for you, called a 'Regulation 24' prescription, which allows you to get three months' worth of your medications dispensed at once. You can only do it once every two years though (off the top of my head; double-check it with your doctor or pharmacist), so don't do it unless you're going away for more than three months.

The other thing some people need to know about traveling to the USA with disability issues, is that many pain medications are very hard to get there; or at least, are hard to get through the proper legal channels (doctor, pharmacist etc.) The legal situation there is very different, with the DEA actively going after pain doctors because they can strip them of the entire proceeds of a long career in medicine, including the nice family home, cars etc. as 'proceeds of crime' and get the money added to their own budget! So even if you are clearly in agony, with a big file of diagnostic tests and surgical reports that all say 'agonising medical condition', doctors will still try to put you on literally anything but opiates, whether it works or not.

Luckily there's now a flip-side: go to the right state and you can get medical cannabis legally, which many people find great for pain, as well as a bunch of other issues. (I tried it over there, and it worked great for me; really wish we had it here in Australia.)

It is possible for people with pre-existing medical conditions to get health insurance there now, thanks to Obama-care, but you'll have a 12 month waiting period before you can claim anything related to a pre-existing. But even with cover, you have to budget a lot more for medical care there. A $200/month insurance policy often still leaves you liable to pay the first $5K/year of your medical costs yourself, before they'll kick in a single cent. Frankly, I suspect that even if I manage to live over there again, I'll still have to come back here every few years for my operations, whether I have health cover there or not.

And start looking for good, affordable doctors early; most of the New York doctors I saw charged $500ish for an appointment. It's a nutty system over there, where uninsured people paying full cost up-front are charged way more than Medicaid patients and people with insurance, since the government pays a set rate and insurance companies negotiate huge discounts (often 70% off the stated fee).

So just be warned: depending on the nature of your condition and the treatment you need, your medical spending in the USA can easily eat up all the savings on other living expenses, and then some.

I'm not telling you all that to discourage you; America is a great country, and in most regards, is way cheaper than Australia these days. But you do need to be ready for their medical system, and figure out what your costs will likely be before you go. There are ways to make it more affordable, but finding them out by trial and error is costly business. Been there, done that!

[maca84]

And what you gonna do when the aussi dollars tanks again around 60 cent like before?

[aussieinusa]

Sept 14, 2013 22:06:51 GMT 7 maca84 said:

And what you gonna do when the aussi dollars tanks again around 60 cent like before?

Sorry for the late reply, maca.

Honestly, looking at the stuff going on in the US atm, I don't think it'll happen any time soon.

That said, it will happen at some point, so DSPers living in the USA do have to plan for it. My suggestion would be to keep basic living expenses to half the pension (tight, but doable if you've picked a cheaper rural area to live) and use the rest for setting yourself up well there, plus the odd little luxury. If you can, putting away some savings also gives a buffer when the exchange rate tips against us -- which, inevitably, eventually, it will.

The US is not as cheap as somewhere like Thailand, so anyone moving there is valuing other things (English-speaking country, familiar culture, friends or family there, etc.) above how far their money goes. But even the supposedly 'wealthiest country in the world' is a far cheaper place to live than Australia these days! Only place I've been that seemed expensive after years in Sydney, was Switzerland.