Introduction

Moving to a new country is not for sissies, but you are reading this because you are at some stage of your journey from moving from South Africa to Australia. I’ve made the move and experienced the joy, pain, and all the emotions in between. I researched my guts out before we made the move, perhaps a little too much, and I was perhaps a little bit too prepared for the move as it went without a hitch. This post is to provide you with a cheatsheet on all the things you need to know before you move, the first few days you arrive, and things to help you move forward in your new life down under. Please feel free to ask any questions or share your story in the comments below.

Things you need to do before you leave South Africa

1. Bank accounts – the big 4 banks in Australia are NAB, ANZ, Commonwealth, and Westpac. You can’t really go wrong with any of these. I personally bank with NAB, Macquary, and Revolut. I’ll go into more detail about why 3 in this post, but important for now is that some of these banks will allow you to open an account while you are still in South Africa. It will be frozen, but you can transfer money from South Africa. When you arrive in Australia, you must go to your branch to show proof of ID, and the account will be unfrozen.
2. Start looking for cars – Assuming you will be buying a car, that is. The easiest place to start looking for cars and getting a feel for what they cost and what options are available is to use the site carsales.com.au
3. Rent a car – This one is pretty much unavoidable; unless you have a family member who will lend you a spare car, you will need to get around when you first get here, and a rental car is the best way. There are major rental companies like anywhere else in the world, and it doesn’t matter which company you use from my experience. We used Alpha Car Hire when we landed and had no issues. We even returned our car early, as I managed to buy a car 4 days after we landed, thanks to the research I had done before we landed. I had already chosen 5 cars to look at before we had even left Johannesburg. By the way, if you have kids, make sure to check local rules regarding car seats and jumper seats. Each state is a little different, so I can’t offer conclusive advice here; I can tell you that South African car seats are not Australian-approved, so leave those behind and buy new ones here. Facebook Marketplace is a good place to find cheap ones.
4. Find a place to stay – this one is hard to answer. Ultimately, you will probably stay at an Airbnb or similar when you land unless you stay with friends or family. Finding a rental property in Australia is incredibly different from city to city. We got super lucky when we arrived; we had booked an Airbnb for 10 days. I had also done the research before we left by looking on domain.com.au, so I had more than a dozen houses lined up to view in the first few days we arrived. I had also spoken to a few agents via email beforehand.
5. Moving your money—I keep seeing so many different opinions on moving your money from South Africa to Australia on the Facebook groups. I ended up just transferring everything via the Standard Bank app directly into our account here. The rate they charged was very similar to all the other places that quoted me, and there was a flat fee for the transfer. Overall, I could get instant quotes via the standard bank app and watch for days when the rate was better, and a lot of the time it was cheaper than using any of the other companies.
6. Scripts for medication—If you need to bring any prescription medication with you, ensure you get scripts from the doctor before to avoid having them taken away if you get stopped at customs. Also, check with government websites to confirm that the medication you are bringing is legal in Australia; a few things that are not legal are very common in America, for example. Myprodol needs a script to bring, as codeine is not something you can get easily in Australia.

Things to do on day 1 and day 2.

1. Sim card – you will need a local number, so you might as well get this first chance. Which one? Well, that’s a longer story for another post, which I will link here when written. The short answer is that I went with Telstra after doing a ton of research. (Time to complete: a few minutes)
2. Bank account activation (or bank account creation) – If you opened accounts online before you left, head into your closest branch and get these accounts unfrozen. If you didn’t open accounts, head into the bank early in the morning and ask to open an account. It’s usually easier in person than online when you are fresh off the plane. Don’t forget to bring a passport, Visa, current bank card, your new cell phone number (they need the number and can help you set up Internet banking), and an address where they can send your cards. This can usually be a friend’s or family’s address. (Time to complete: 30 minutes for the whole family)
3. Medicare – Assuming you are on a permanent residence visa, skip this step. Google the closest place to enrol for Medicare, and budget approximately 1-2 hours to complete it. You can also apply online. For more details, see the government services website https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/enrolling-medicare?context=60092
4. Driver’s License—This is a dream compared to what it was like in South Africa. We arrived, did everything needed, and returned to the car in 17 minutes. Take the same documents you needed for the bank and your current driver’s license. If you have a boat license, take that with you, as it gets printed on the back of your driver’s license.
5. Bus cards—This depends on which state you are moving to. The cards and systems all have different names, but they are available from most newsagents and at most train and bus stations.
6. Food – Oh, the fun you will have trying to figure out what the heck to buy. There are all new brands and things to try, and you will have a mental breakdown because you will convert all prices back to rands. Coles and Woolworths are known as the duopoly in Australia, and the two of them basically control the market. There are, of course, other food shops like Drakes, ALDI’s and the IGA. Coles and Woolworths do home deliveries, so if you didn’t take my advice and didn’t rent a car, then getting your food delivered in the first few days might be the easiest thing to do. By the way, Woolworths is NOTHING like Woolworths back in South Africa, sadly there is nothing like SA Woolworths in Australia.

Day 3 and beyond

1. Medical Aid—Even though the healthcare system in Australia is amazing—seriously, just read that again. Of course, people with first-world problems are going to complain about how bad it is, but in our experience, it has beaten private care in South Africa threefold. That said, yes, you probably still need to get private healthcare for things like dentistry and optometry, just to mention two things NOT covered under Medicare. The easiest thing to do is jump onto comparethemarket.com.au and get one of their people to review some questions with you. They will check what medical issues you have, whether you have kids, whether you are planning on having more kids, whether you have back problems, etc. Once they have reviewed all the details, they will then get your quotes and suggest which healthcare company is the best option. We ended up going with Bupa and have had no issues with them. For comparison, we were with Discovery Health on classic comp, and the benefits here kick Discovery’s ass six ways from sunday.
2. Grocery Shopping—here is the short version. For food, it’s Coles, Woolworth, ALDI’s, Drakes, and IGA. ALDI’s is usually the cheapest, but their variety is not as great as the others. Go there first, then buy what you are missing at one of the others. Here are the 2 biggest tips I can give you.
   • Watch for sales – Australia loves sales; everything is always on sale, somewhere. Don’t buy things at full price, especially things like coldrinks. Coke, for example, will cost somewhere in the $40 region for a slab of 36 cans. It’s on special every week somewhere for somewhere in the $20’s
   • STOP CONVERTING TO RANDS! – I know this is a hard one, and even though I did it for a while, you will drive yourself crazy if you do. Sure, initially, it’s interesting to see that some things are WAY cheaper here than SA, and some are horribly expensive in comparison. I’m not saying don’t be thrifty with your money; just don’t get caught up in converting all the time. On average, a trolley load is about 20% more expensive than in South Africa. This has been confirmed by family and friends who have visited in the many years we have been here
3. Electronic goods: Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, and JB Hifi. They all price match, so check online for pricing and get them to match or beat each other. For the record, I have NEVER paid the ticket price for anything at The Good Guys; they are always happy to give a discount.
4. Home goods (like Mr. Price): Target, Kmart, and BigW are your new stores for these items.
5. Online shopping – this is, by far, more advanced than it is in South Africa. As mentioned already Coles and Woolworth offer online shopping for groceries, but I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about Amazon.com.au and Kogan.com.au. I pretty much buy everything I need on Amazon, and it’s usually delivered the next day or the day after. It’s a no-brainer to join Amazon Prime to get free shipping, and it will also include Prime Video, so you can stream a bunch of movies and TV shows.
6. Hardware store – Bunnings, there is not much else to say about that really. Make sure to get your sausage sizzle on your way out on weekends.

Apps everyone should have on their phone

1. Flybuys—download the app and enroll in the program; it’s free. Many stores give you Flybuys points for shopping with them. We collect them throughout the year and usually cash them out at Christmas time. It’s usually around $300 worth of credit we earn during the year.
2. Amazon—you’ll be shopping there often, so you might as well have the app.
3. Dan Murphy’s—Everything alcoholic; if you’re a member, you pay less. Become a member; it’s free. Dan Murphy’s is the biggest liquor store around, and they usually have the best prices and widest range.
4. MyTranslink – this is for public transport in Queensland. Check other states if you are moving to one of them before you decide Queensland is a better place 🙂
5. MyMacca’s: Earn points when buying food at McDonald’s, which is not called McDonald’s here by anyone; it’s Maccas.
6. 7Eleven—The main reason to buy this app is to lock in the fuel price for 7 days at all 7Eleven servos (service stations/petrol stations), which are Mobile fuel stations.
7. Anaconda—Member pricing for members; again, this is another free membership. Anaconda is an outdoor living shop, offering camping, 4×4, Fishing, etc.
8. BCF – The competition to Anaconda. BCF stands for Boating, Camping, and Fishing.
9. Woolworths—to get their everyday rewards program. Coles, by the way, uses flybys, which is why their app is not on my list.
10. Seek Jobs – the go-to app for looking for a job.
11. Carsales – Looking to buy or sell a car, this is the first stop
12. Fuel Spy – Since petrol is not regulated in Australia, the price can be 50 cents a litre, which differs from servos. This app shows you the current price for all servos around you.
13. Domain – For looking for property to rent or buy.
14. Realestate – The other property app.

Now, it will be a nightmare trying to maintain all these membership cards, right? Wrong. The last app on my list is Stocard. It is a single app that stores all your cards in one place. So when you go into a store, and they ask you for your membership card, you just open that one app, and they are all there, in one place.