Anyone made the treechange move?

Been a white collar worker my whole life, other than the odd Summer stint in factories when I was young.

Has anyone (specifically, people in IT/middle management) made the treechange? I'd love to live rural, and having two small kids (almost 3, and 4 1/2), I think it'd be great for them to grow up with a bit of land.

Problem for me is that there's not too many jobs for my experience (and buggered if I want to start removing spyware from people's computers for $30 a hit). I considered doing a trade a while ago, but my body is knackered (arthritis + a lifetime of riding motorbikes = painful to do anything for an extended length of time).

My original career was IT based, and then jumped ship onto a trade, now I'm climbing towerlines and playing with high voltage... But at the time had plans to move north... Career swap was the best thing I ever done, but the treechange never eventuated unfortunately... Still have hopes to some day make it happen though... Everytime we drive to high country for example, gets the juices flowing. "Would love to live here, would love to live there.....".
One day.

Nice! :)

I went out to Emerald yesterday to pick up some rear seats for my GU, and the guys house was amazing. From his driveway, which was still only 3 car lengths long, you could barely see his house because of the forestry between the dirt road and the front door. Made me very jealous :)

I would move to Bright or surrounding areas in a heart beat. Problem is my kids are too old to move, just starting high school. So we are looking at semi rural but its so bloody expensive.
I reckon our tree change move might be when the kids have moved out now.

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Three aspects of the "Tree Move", are that if you get injured and become unable to continue in you current employment, your options are very, very limited.
It is easy to move to the country, but hard to get back into the city housing market.
Family support is diminished because of long distances.
Pretty poor public transport.


The upside is, it is 10 minutes to the doctors, five minutes to the chemist,a 1/4 hour wait and 10 minutes home again.
House prices are way lower too.
Our nearest neighbour is 150 metres away.
I get to live in a very beautiful area.

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Originally Posted by mudski

I would move to Bright or surrounding areas in a heart beat. Problem is my kids are too old to move, just starting high school. So we are looking at semi rural but its so bloody expensive.
I reckon our tree change move might be when the kids have moved out now.

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Same - first it was we were newly married and she wanted to be near our Mums and Dads as I worked up north, on the gas pipeline not the recent mining boom. Then there were kids and school, then there were kids moving out with partners, then grand kids and now bloody great grandies and we are still in Perth suburbs. Good life overall though.

You could work towards a plan.

If your knowledgable with I.T you could lock in a few clients to offer remote support, learn website development, Seo, graphic design, php scripting, flash designing, animation, online marketing and build a solid cliental and if stable you could work anywhere in the world if it has good interment.

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Originally Posted by AB

You could work towards a plan.

If your knowledgable with I.T you could lock in a few clients to offer remote support, learn website development, Seo, graphic design, php scripting, flash designing, animation, online marketing and build a solid cliental and if stable you could work anywhere in the world if it has good interment.

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Yeah, I've thought about that. Done a fair bit of penetration testing, network and server admin work, but I just don't really like IT. Currently working as a Project Manager, and it's fantastic. There's still PM roles in rural areas, but they're often short term contracts from consultants ex-Big City.

We all get just one life. No good thinking ‘wish I’d done it’ when laying on your deathbed.

You don’t need as much money as you think you do ............. unless you want to live city style out in the sticks.

You may need to burn bridges to follow the dream - we could never afford to move back into the city, but we’d never want to. You gotta know what you want.


We made our ‘Tree Change’ over 20 years ago. Both of us worked & then worked harder in the evenings & weekends. Everything was expensive, mainly because we were time poor.

Then I gave up employment, we lived on a single wage & I had the time to do stuff (which I loved) which saved us heaps.

Even though our income was halved our standard of living did not drop, we ate just as well, we still did the things we liked, we just didn’t need to spend as much money to do so. . We grew our own veg, raised our own meat, collected our own eggs, firewood & water.

We lived 30kms from the nearest town & loved the lifestyle. It’s not for everyone but it was great for us. No neighbours in view. Total freedom to live & be as we wanted. Even afforded a few overseas trips - but we were largely happy to stay home. Reality is that property & stock are quite a responsibility & a tie, but if you love it it’s not hard most of the time. When it’ is hard it can be bloody hard, but you get through it. (e.g.. delivering dead calf late at night , by torchlight, in a howling gale). All forgotten when the freezer’s full, the wood’s collected & the fire warm & toasty. Always something to do.

I miss it, but we’ve now had a town change (or at least as close as we are ever likely to get to living in town). We are now ‘blockies’ on a mere 2.5 acres, 10 minutes from town, can see the neighbours house across the paddock & even get a daily postal delivery & a weekly rubbish collection. Heck, we even have a bitumen road to our front gate!

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

I miss it, but we’ve now had a town change (or at least as close as we are ever likely to get to living in town). We are now ‘blockies’ on a mere 2.5 acres, 10 minutes from town, can see the neighbours house across the paddock & even get a daily postal delivery & a weekly rubbish collection. Heck, we even have a bitumen road to our front gate!

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City slicker!!

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Originally Posted by Winnie

City slicker!!

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Yeah. :( but only temporarily until we become swaggies.

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

I miss it, but we’ve now had a town change (or at least as close as we are ever likely to get to living in town). We are now ‘blockies’ on a mere 2.5 acres, 10 minutes from town, can see the neighbours house across the paddock & even get a daily postal delivery & a weekly rubbish collection. Heck, we even have a bitumen road to our front gate!

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And the occasional forum visitor!

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

We all get just one life. No good thinking ‘wish I’d done it’ when laying on your deathbed.

You don’t need as much money as you think you do ............. unless you want to live city style out in the sticks.

You may need to burn bridges to follow the dream - we could never afford to move back into the city, but we’d never want to. You gotta know what you want.

We made our ‘Tree Change’ over 20 years ago. Both of us worked & then worked harder in the evenings & weekends. Everything was expensive, mainly because we were time poor.

Then I gave up employment, we lived on a single wage & I had the time to do stuff (which I loved) which saved us heaps.

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Ooh, feeling inspired!

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Even though our income was halved our standard of living did not drop, we ate just as well, we still did the things we liked, we just didn’t need to spend as much money to do so. . We grew our own veg, raised our own meat, collected our own eggs, firewood & water.

We lived 30kms from the nearest town & loved the lifestyle. It’s not for everyone but it was great for us. No neighbours in view. Total freedom to live & be as we wanted. Even afforded a few overseas trips - but we were largely happy to stay home. Reality is that property & stock are quite a responsibility & a tie, but if you love it it’s not hard most of the time. When it’ is hard it can be bloody hard, but you get through it. (e.g.. delivering dead calf late at night , by torchlight, in a howling gale). All forgotten when the freezer’s full, the wood’s collected & the fire warm & toasty. Always something to do.

I miss it, but we’ve now had a town change (or at least as close as we are ever likely to get to living in town). We are now ‘blockies’ on a mere 2.5 acres, 10 minutes from town, can see the neighbours house across the paddock & even get a daily postal delivery & a weekly rubbish collection. Heck, we even have a bitumen road to our front gate!

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That sounds bloody awesome.

My wife hates bugs, and convinced her parents to build a house a few blocks from us, so that's another hurdle to get over - not the end of the world though.

Have you thought of moving to a country area with a big industrial site eg the Hunter Valley where you may get an IT job in a coal mine but can still live out of town. I think of country areas with mines/abbatiors/steel works etc Maybe somewhere near a power station. The other option would be to look for an IT position with a regional council. I'm sure there are heaps of options if you really want to do it. As cuppa said above, you only get one life... Make it happen.

Well a few years ago my wife and I moved from Brissy to Cairns as a tree change ... pleased to see the back end of the city ...it was a big jump to leave the security of a good job etc but after being up here in Cairns for a while you really see how regional areas have there plus and minuses I got a job related to my trade but it just didn't work out for me so we ended up buying a takeaway shop of all things, while that's going ok ...we just bought a Patrol so eyes are now looking for the next step

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Originally Posted by AB

You could work towards a plan.

If your knowledgable with I.T you could lock in a few clients to offer remote support, learn website development, Seo, graphic design, php scripting, flash designing, animation, online marketing and build a solid cliental and if stable you could work anywhere in the world if it has good interment.

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☝🏼️I didn't understand a word of that 😝

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Originally Posted by Sprock

☝🏼️I didn't understand a word of that 😝

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My Babel Fish translated it as "look out, AB is on the Piss and a PC at the same time"

We moved from Brisbane to the Kimberley almost 3 years ago. I managed to find a great job in my field and have managed to continue to grow my experience. Small towns can provide surprising opportunities if you are willing to take a risk or two. Life is so much less stressful!

i went the other way... would like to get out of the city again...

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Originally Posted by AB

You could work towards a plan.

If your knowledgable with I.T you could lock in a few clients to offer remote support, learn website development, Seo, graphic design, php scripting, flash designing, animation, online marketing and build a solid cliental and if stable you could work anywhere in the world if it has good interment.

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better not rely on good internet in the country then,

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

we’ve now had a town change (or at least as close as we are ever likely to get to living in town). We are now ‘blockies’ on a mere 2.5 acres, 10 minutes from town, can see the neighbours house across the paddock & even get a daily postal delivery & a weekly rubbish collection. Heck, we even have a bitumen road to our front gate!

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Now that's my dream. We are working towards it but not quite there yet.

Not quite a tree change but close enough. Gone from cram packed Mill Park, listening to traffic, burnouts and sirens 24/7 to living in leafy Eltham North. The noisiest thing here is the birds. And I’m not on top of my neighbors. Next step is to move out further.
It’s not news to the crap I’ve been through since moving here but I would do this 100 times over rather than living in Mill Park again.

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I've been in the "IT trade" since before it was called "IT". I'm now recently retired. Lived in Wollongong and Sydney for many years and moved to the Albury / Wodonga area nearly 30 years ago. Best decision I ever made.

This area has all the big city advantages with a country lifestyle. Lots of business and industry here so I would think an IT job would be relatively easy to find.

Also - the High Country is 30 minutes away!