Originally Posted by Sooty and Sweep

I can relate to this, we can only hope the commodity bubble blows, Australia may then resume to some normalness, one can only hope for new entrants otherwise stick with Blighty for the foreseeable?

Originally Posted by isgraham

Yes but if the equity you are bringing over is reduced significantly by the official exchange rate then I'm afraid it does plug into the cost of living as in order to maintain a standard of living you are going to have to borrow more money and therefore increase your cost of living making Australia a bad deal if you are from the UK.

Originally Posted by Steve2009

I understand what you're saying, but I think it's debatable whether it is reduced. The exchange rate is the exchange rate. Perhaps interest rates might be even more relevant because that is an indicator of return on your capital.

Originally Posted by isgraham

Yes but commonwealth keeps telling us that the exchange rate shouldn't be used to compare cost of living which is just ridiculous. I'd love to know what random multiplier we should use to make Australia look like a good option.

Originally Posted by fish.01

I doubt he, or anyone, would argue with using the exchange rate when working out how much you will get when you transfer and how this will affect the size of your mortgage etc. But some use it to compare ongoing costs like utility bills, food and the like back to the equivalent in the uk....for this the exchange rate is useless.

Originally Posted by isgraham

OK then so what's the formula?

Originally Posted by isgraham

OK then so what's the formula?

Originally Posted by derren7

Working out what percentage or proportion of your income goes towards paying your bills.

Originally Posted by isgraham

Well in my case then London will always be a winner and with the shorter working hours and longer holiday that I have here I dare say I won't be back to Australia to live for a good few years yet.

Anyway the real answer is to use the Purchasing Power Parity index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...PP)_per_capita


But it does have flaws mainly because it contradicts my experiences.

Originally Posted by fish.01

If you know the wage you will be earning in Australia and the wage you earn in the uk divide the cost of something in each country into that countries wage to get a cost multiple for each country. Compare the two cost multiples to see which is more.

If you want to work it out on a more general country wide basis Australian wages have been calculated on here before to be, on average, a number 2.2 times the uk average wage number. So multiplying a uk cost by 2.2 gives you a rough amount of how much it 'should' cost in Australia. If it costs more than this 'should cost' amount in Australia then you can say it costs more in Australia and vice versa.

Originally Posted by DeadVim

Beautiful day out there ... just sayin' ...

Originally Posted by MarkMC

very beautiful, working from home, sat under the alfresco with a view of Tambouine mtn...still skint though

Originally Posted by jad n rich

The weather isnt better all year round but it is very expensive.

Ive just come back from melbourne spending a week with relatives from UK.
They have recently been in Perth and nearly died from the temps they have some photos of each other black with flies They were also shocked at just how wet qld could be. (450ml in some parts this month ).

I find food expensive in QLD, but it seemed even more expensive in melbourne even at the markets, we were in south yarra and went to markets and woolworth ( safeway there) and OMBGeven more expensive than qld, which I cant say I have noticed before. EG, cherries 15 a kilo, mangos 4 each, lemons 6 a kilo, apples 8 a kilo, the pom rels were astounded at almost all food costs. The tiny south yarra townhouse we were at for lunch was going up for sale for over 1 million and its a dated worn place that needs a good reno, at that price the buyer will also need over 50 k for stamp duty. We went to the city for lunch, $81 for 2 entrees, some bread and 3 glasses of wine, even I fell over with shock!

I could see the rels were extremely shocked at the cost of stuff here, but most seemed to think we were all having a 'lovely' lifestyle here and overall seemed to think life was 'easier', 'less stressful' in OZ, but they saw us in christmas mode, dressed up, dining in luxury, doing the tourist stuff. Dont know what they would have made of us on a wet monday morning with traffic, job, school run??

Super expensive for sure, but I know christmas week we certainly gave them the wow factor, so maybe some might still think its worth it.