verystormy

It depends a lot on lifestyle and will vary a lot for the individual.

I have a mate who find it is more like x5. I have another mate who finds it more like x1.5. I find it about x3.

Personally i have found over the years that x2.5 is a good average for most people. But there is no way of knowing until you are here and living the life.

Buzzy--Bee

Whether it be 2x, or 2.5x, or 3x, what I can tell you is that it is definitely much more than 1.4x, which is what your calculations work out to.

You will be able to buy considerably less for $850 than you will for £600.

Having said that $850/day is a good salary in Melbourne. But I reckon it is equivalent to about £350/day, which in my opinion is a good salary in London!

BB

LeeWillo

I've just looked it up.
London average pint of lager price - £3.60
Melbourne average pint of lager price - $7.00 (I was pretty accurate!)

So going on the OP's £600 per day, you would get 166.67 pints. To get 166.67 pints in Melbourne you would need $1166.66 as an equivalent daily pay.

ozzieeagle

Does this mean on 50K GBP ish (or 2.5 less than we get here) per year in the UK, I could live, 8k's from the center of London, in a fully done up 3 bedroom detached house, own two cars, have holidays where I want, go out when I want, buy what food I want, have no problem paying any bills, and save ?

Or is there anywhere in the UK a nurse and a postal worker could earn and live like that ?

Buzzy--Bee

hey - not saying it works the other way round!

BB

bcworld

As you often point out...you're starting to near retirement age. Will there be people of a similar age to you who've had similar occupations in the UK who lead a similarly comfortable life, of course there are!

Let's say the nurse and postal worker are 30 years old...do you think they:

...the stamp duty alone on buying your property is probably equivalent to more than one of their take home salaries!

ozzieeagle

Yeah but not in a top 1/3 rd suburb I forget to add that bit... doesn't gentrification do wonderful things.... According to one of those Herald Sun lists, which is quiet amusing.

In all honesty BC I dont see or hear of that many these days from the UK in a similar position, maybe there are plenty, but I dont know of them.

Right I'm orf for 'a wander' up the road to dodge the throngs around the myriad of Kebab shops and purchase some pizza dough for our wood fired pizzas tonight..... Albeit over charcoal on a weber.

JoeBloggs80

Only $850 a day huh. Jeez, however will you cope

BadgeIsBack

How about 2.35?

This is what I do - and it works. Perhaps it is the only sensible model that really works. But very people will listen. Watch me get acused of being a Zulu sympathiser!

A model I have suggested is that people look at a basket of goods: housing, food, transport etc, and then model various incomes which are realistic and also do some forecasting and variance - so look at incomes in other roles, and for unexpected career/life changes or adjustments - a sudden drop income might suddenly make the cost of living jump. Take that income and then see if critical items in the basket ring alarm bells. For some people, the housing cost will ring alarm bells, and that cost starts out high due to the FX rate (which here is important as many people bring over capital as deposits).

Sorry, I'll wind my neck in..

This for me is a sort of lucky reckoner. I forgot, but I had the same situation as you, so I instantly knew whether something was more expensive or not.
If something, at the dollar price, was more that n times more than the GBP price then it was more expensive.

I reckon you can't continue to use this method though - prices move, and of course, years on, your UK salary might have climbed considerably; there might be a position on how the UK and Aus salaries move against each other. I now longer know with any certainty whether AUS is cheaper or more expensive in some ways as I have no real idea what my income might or could be. What I do know is that my housing cost, (purchase cost and loan cost) as a pc of my income is a fraction of what it would have been in the UK, and as housing is a biggie...

bcworld

Doesn't work for everyone though. We're currently house shopping...in and around St Kilda East / Balaclava...I think you know the area, probably don't even rate it very highly! I don't know what you'd compare it to in London...while it's 'inner' here it has the amenities and character of somewhere more 'outer' in London...save for transport time into the city.

2 bed houses go for $800-900k+

Then you need another $50k just for stamp duty (WTF!)

Interest rates are low...could fix for three years around 4.5%, but a quick comparison shows I could fix for 3 years in the UK at 2%...that's a hefty saving in loan interest.

I still think it's cheaper, but it's not necessarily dramatically so.

BadgeIsBack

I look at those figures, and my model is that the Melb price is 2x the London price. If you earn 40GBP in London, you now need 80k.

You can also do other things though - for example, in Melb, AUS80k is a very typical salary for a mid-level,non managerial skilled white collar worker in finance. Is 40GBP typical? What we do see is huge adjustments, so that some people in some sectors now get 100k in Melb, say, or in other sectors, they go from GPB70 to AUS120...do the maths on that 2x...

Do this on really important and big things like housing. It may be that the cost of living in one area subsidises or absorbs another. For us that is housing.

IF you were earning 50GBP, you could actually, if you bought your UK home in the 90s, say,..and have accumulated wealth (eg). But a health worker or nurse, as far as I am aware, is not earning 50GBP in the UK. It's a silly example hence why rates never work.

Ozzie case is interesting in that retirees:
have had longer to accrue wealth.
A working life is long enough for some variances to creep in.
Over a generation+, things change, Aus was cheaper.

Often the senior people of the forum tell us that life is good in the UK and that noone they know is doing poorly - but they are the same people who have accumulated enough wealth and have a buffer.

In Ozzie's case, it's probably the case that he has done well in Australia, and has a lot to be grateful for.

BadgeIsBack

It will NEVER work for anyone! (For the reasons I have given!) We are subsidised because 8 years ago, our house was half the price it is now, and the FX rate was 2x...

Infact, it probably will not work for new arrivals because
FX is stuffed, and houses are expensive here. I've said before that I can't see much financial point in many migrants moving. I'm realistic on that one.

PS I would rate Balaclava. I'd say it was neither inner or outer London. In the 'middle' even, and it depends on the demographic too. There are postcodes all over the shop in London that are not as nice.

bcworld

I could be wrong but I think the x/2.5 = GBP50k was based on a combined income.

Beoz

If you say so I'm good with that.

Beoz

The housing thing is changing rapidly anyway. Those in power are no longer giving breaks to those without property in order to keep the market buoyant (therefore Pollies not loosing value in their own investment properties). They are looking more and more at bringing in money from overseas in the form of offshore investors to do this. Everyone is a winner. Pollies investment properties increase, no property market catastrophe ..... oh expect the poor first time buyer.