CMT

Sorry, am new to this, should have put this as a new thread here instead of intruding on someones conversation.

I'm basically after some info on the above, my husband has applied for a position in Richmond - obviously we would not necessarily have to live there, there are other areas we could live in surrounding Richmond. We have a rough idea of the cost of houses but have no idea about the general cost of living there and have been told by a friend that it's not cheap as it's pretty near Sydney, yet someone who we know is living there and says that food shopping for a family is much cheaper than in G.B.? We are thinking of emigrating but I have cold feet as I know the position myhusband will be going to will be about 3k less than he earns here in the uk and I wouldn't be in a position to work for a few months while we settle in as we have 2 young children.
Many thanks, any information would be good.

ABCDiamond

Are you talking about Richmond, near Windsor, out North West of Sydney ?

"3k less than he earns here in the uk" could be a really good wage here.

CMT

Hi,
yes, Richmond near Windsor, he will be on about $46240 and the company will pay to relocate us to out there and put us up for a month and pay to take all our furniture out from the U.K. I currently work here too and earn a fair wage but would be unable to work initially although my husband is in a position where he can take volutary redundancy where he's at now and would help us in the first few months, I found a creche which seem sto be much more reasonable than they are here in the U.K. Apparently there is plenty of overtime but I wouldn't want to move to Oz and for him to be working all the time for us to live a reasonable life - I have looked at salaries for types of jobs I could do, it would mean after paying for creche I would probably be left with £200 a month - not sure how far that would go?? I'm a HR Officer here in the UK and deal with recruitment, if I went into that area think the salaries are even better, but not sure how possible it would be for me to get the same type of job in another country. Thanks

Badge

The anecdotal evidence is that AUS46000 is low for a family - in fact it is the average wage depending on your source. I know a PA/secretary that was earning that so a pro could earn in fact far more..

people vary so much in what they spend..

Some people say a family needs 60-80K - and that is in Melbourne. It all depends on housing costs which will of course turn out to be the biggy.

cheers

Badge

CMT

The house wouldn't be so much of a problem, well we would have a deposit of £102 minimum deposit for a house when we were ready to buy so we probably wouldn't have much of a mortgage. I have done PA/Secretarial work before I went into H.R. Thing is as I've got the two kids and am part time in this country I wouldn't want to take on a full time position, and I've found search engines for jobs but majority of the good paying ones seem to want u to be full time and PA positions require alot of flexibility, it's hard to know what to do as we don't want to move from a comfortable lifestyle here (my husband has just found a new job as a train driver which will be good money, in addition to which he is able to take voluntary redundancy which is worth £20k).

MrsDagboy

CMT, to be honest, Im not sure that I would like to try to live on $46K in Sydney. In Brisbane $46K wouldnt be too bad, but from what I know, Sydney has a much higher cost of living (everything from insurance to fuel, although even that isnt so cheap up here in Qld now :scared: ). Rents & the cost of property is skyhigh, however one thing that traditionally has been cheaper down there are cars if thats any consolation .

Anyway, someone in Sydney may be able to give a better idea, IMO it doesnt seem to be enough money.

Ohh & welcome to the forum

NickyC

Hmm. Richmond is past the furthest outskirts of Sydney. It's not a suburb of Sydney but it's a small town in its own right. Large airforce base there.
Windsor is nearby and is nicer than Richmond, with lots of old colonial buildings etc. The Sydney suburbs are heading towards Windsor and will no doubt swallow it up one day.

If you live in that area, you really will be a long way from Sydney itself. It's about 25k further out than the Hills District (and that's far enough). You might get lucky and find a PA/Secretarial job locally, but will probably have to travel to one of the larger centres (Parramatta or Chatswood) to find a well-paying HR job.

It's a long way from the coast so will suffer from heat in the summer. House prices are probably quite reasonable that way, but that's a reflection of the distance to the coast and the CBD. It's also handy for the Blue Mountains. Cost of food, petrol etc would be much the same as anywhere else in the city. If you take housing out of the equation, the cost of living in Sydney is much the same as any other metropolitan area in Australia.

To be honest, I don't know that I'd move all the way to Australia, to live somewhere like Windsor or Richmond. There are much better areas here with more to offer.

new horizons

Hi,
$46000 isnt a lot of money in Aussie particularly Sydney although you are on the outskirts of Sydney and the housing prices are much more reasonable. Look up www.realestate.com.au -type in richmond and check the surrounding suburbs box. This site will give you a good understanding of the area. The area is outer NW sydney and a growth part of outer sydney and well favoured by families.
To put the $46000 in perspective, that wage is the starting salary for say teachers, police officers, nurses etc so you would expect to earn more as incremental and promotional raises became available. Train drivers are a much sought after profession here and very very topical - by all anecdotal accounts they earn about 80 - 90k a year with overtime, penalty rates etc. Check out the State rail authority website www.staterail.nsw.gov.au They are certainly recruiting madly as there simply are not enough train drivers in Sydney. Remember when you look it up that the train drivers in sydney are employed by the NSW State Govt NOT the Australian federal govt. Good luck in your decisions.

CMT

My husband would be working on the RAAf base in Richmond, I know the starting salary is $46000 but not sure what the structure is from there onwards, will have to find out. I will work eventually and am prepared to traavel to get work, but bearing in mind I will have to put both children in a creche and only want to work part time, I worked out for a basic secretarial role (which is probably the lesser wage) I'd be left with $500 per month after paying my creche fees, but it's better than nothing and once the kids would go to school obviously I'd get that money then. So the reality would be that my husband would be earning 46k intitially and me just 500 per month, we would have money to help us through the first year or so but after that nothing, and we would have £100k deposit for a property. Does anyone know roughly prices for an average family shop per week, for example here in uk we spend £100 per week on shopping for 2 adults and 2 kids. What about taxes, gas/elec bills etc. I am going to find out what the pay structre is too to see if it goes up and if so to what etc. The main attraction obviously is the climate and the fact that the kids coul have mroe of an outdoor life with us.

Badge

Frankly, I have heard bad reports about Windsor and Richmond, but I am sure they are from snobby city dwellers. It gets bloody hot in summer and cold in winter, its far away...yadda yadda. Bible belt even?

I reckon you would be up for something like 2x your UK spend. We spent 50quid MAX ? a week in UK for 2, now it is 80bucks - I think the Tim Tams and junk increase it a tad(!). Maybe you will spend 200 bucks then a week. It never ceases to amaze me how much families spend - until I see the huge amounts of junk they buy...(!)

BM

ABCDiamond

Hi
My wife used to work in Windsor when we lived in St Clair, about a 20 minute drive (& 2 fixed speed cameras) south of Windsor.
The St Clair itself is very handy for work in Penrith, Parramatta and the increasing distribution trades area of Minchinbury. House prices closer to Windsor were, and should still be, cheaper than that area.

I have some figures of our all expenditure when we lived down there, and I can dig it out later, but send me a PM to remind me !

A couple of example costs are:
Rates $ 925 - for the current year
Water $ 680 - 12 months to Aug 2004
These are current costs as we still have a house down there.

There are people who can get by on the sort of wage you are talking about, but it does depend on what standard of living you really want.

Four of our actual electric bills in our last year there were:
27-May-02 $151.56
23-Jul-02 $318.10
1-Oct-02 $339.75
19-Dec-02 $173.38
No Gas in the houses in that area.

I agree with Badge on the heat and cold. It's much nicer up here in "my part" of QLD Not as cold in winter, and not as hot in summer !! (I also agree on the food buying comments)

Jaykay

Hi Badge

We spend on average about $150 per week. That's for 2 adults and a 5 year old child. We don't buy any junk at all apart from some Twisties or such to put in Alana's lunch.
Other than that it's all fruit, veg, cereals, bread, meat from the deli, milk, yoghurt etc.
Then on top of that it probably costs us $60 per month for meat at the butcher.
I have to say though that we do eat much healthier here than we did in the UK. I find that I like to cook from scratch here, whereas in the UK it was mainly frozen meals and frozen veg!!

Regards

pphillips

Hi,

Me and my wife and two children live in Richmond, NSW. We spend about $220 p/w on food alone which is just enough for two adults and two young kids. For 100,000 pouunds you could get a 2-3 bedroom house but don't expect it to be upmarket or large. If you are going to purchase a house, you will also need to pay for Rates (about $821 p/y), Water etc just like the UK. Also you will have to pay for doctor's fees but you will get half of that back (though you can get it free but the doctor's don't that good. For electric I pay around $150 p/m as we have two A/C units.

Paul.