3 Years in The Hammer
Aug 13th 2023, 3:04 pm
#1
No beginning to my talent
Thread Starter
Joined: Dec 2017
Location: Hamilton, Ontario
Posts: 357
3 Years in The Hammer
July 2023 marked three years since we moved from Lancashire, England to Hamilton, Ontario. I missed posting on hear for our 2nd anniversary due to life getting in the way. I come back here to BE as often as I remember to see what's happening and see if I can offer helpful advice from the pov of someone who's now lived here a few years, but not as often as I should.
I'm on job #3 since moving to Canada and now hopefully in the one that I'm going to stick with long-term, as the pay and commute are better than the previous two. My wife is thriving as a Marketing Manager at North America's largest pet store. We bought our first house here last year and got a dog in January.
That said, year three has been by far the toughest. The house buying process was incredibly stressful and money has been tight since. I know that owning is almost always better than renting, but our expenses shot up so much that it has been a real balancing act to make ends meet. Our mortgage payments have gone up $650 per month since we bought our house in September 2022 due to the interest rate rises, which pretty much wipes out our ability to do any serious renovation work, but I know they'll drop at some point so we're just trying to ride it out until then. The few months around the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 almost broke us, spiritually and financially. It will take a while for the emotional scars of this to heal, but if we can get through that we can get through almost anything.
Personal life-wise, we're fortunate to still have a decent-sized group of really good Canadian friends. Sometimes I feel I should be more active in the expat community but between spending time with our Canadian friends and the odd Zoom call with friends in the UK, we've never really feel the need to. We have one set of very good British friends (fellow BE members) so we at least have someone with whom we can make references that Canadians wouldn't get. We've only been back to the UK once since living here which was in September 2021 for a wedding. No plans to go back any time soon due to the cost, the fact that several family members have been out to visit, and the fact that we gots to get to Mexico at some point!
So as we head into year 4, our Citizenship applications are almost complete and we're a little more optimistic than we have been for a while. We have a trip to Florida to see some friends planned over New Years and hopefully the toughest of times are now done and we can get back to embracing life here.
Until next year (if I remember...)
I'm on job #3 since moving to Canada and now hopefully in the one that I'm going to stick with long-term, as the pay and commute are better than the previous two. My wife is thriving as a Marketing Manager at North America's largest pet store. We bought our first house here last year and got a dog in January.
That said, year three has been by far the toughest. The house buying process was incredibly stressful and money has been tight since. I know that owning is almost always better than renting, but our expenses shot up so much that it has been a real balancing act to make ends meet. Our mortgage payments have gone up $650 per month since we bought our house in September 2022 due to the interest rate rises, which pretty much wipes out our ability to do any serious renovation work, but I know they'll drop at some point so we're just trying to ride it out until then. The few months around the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 almost broke us, spiritually and financially. It will take a while for the emotional scars of this to heal, but if we can get through that we can get through almost anything.
Personal life-wise, we're fortunate to still have a decent-sized group of really good Canadian friends. Sometimes I feel I should be more active in the expat community but between spending time with our Canadian friends and the odd Zoom call with friends in the UK, we've never really feel the need to. We have one set of very good British friends (fellow BE members) so we at least have someone with whom we can make references that Canadians wouldn't get. We've only been back to the UK once since living here which was in September 2021 for a wedding. No plans to go back any time soon due to the cost, the fact that several family members have been out to visit, and the fact that we gots to get to Mexico at some point!
So as we head into year 4, our Citizenship applications are almost complete and we're a little more optimistic than we have been for a while. We have a trip to Florida to see some friends planned over New Years and hopefully the toughest of times are now done and we can get back to embracing life here.
Until next year (if I remember...)
