physiomitch

Hi all

Just wondering if there was anyone already in Queensland after emigrating, who could give a reasonable idea of cost of living for a family of 4 as an example. It would be nicwe to get a breakdown of costs including schools, insurance, food, petrol, just to get an idea of general cost of living. It could help those of us going over to set a reasonable budget, esp if work is not an immediate entity.

Many thanks

jayr

School - state schools are free. However expect to spend say $1000-2000 per child per year on uniform, books, stationery, trips and various "donations". Private I'll leave someone else to answer.

Home contents insurance - I think I pay about $50/month
Private medical Insurance - I don;t bother but say $150-200/month for family of 4
Rent - My 4bed, 2 bath, double garage, pool, in nice suburb about $2400/month - mortgage for the same house would be around $4000.
Energy (electric only - have no gas) - $150/month
Phone + Internet (fast)+ Foxtel (sky) - $210/month
Mobile - depends, say $50 cap/month each would suffice
Car insurance - hmmm, about $500-800 year depending on car
Petrol - I would say $50/week - clearly depends on a lot of things
Food/Groceries - family of 4 should be OK on say $250+ /week
Buses - I travel about 5km to work on public transport - $100/month
Water - not sure, I pay it but I rent, maybe $100/quarter tops
Rates -don't know, I don;t pay directly as I rent

DadAgain

Most of these seem reasonable to me apart from:


Phone + Internet (fast)+ Foxtel (sky) - $210/month

You're being ROBBED!!! $60 gets you a 120GB Naked ADSL2+ plan these days and $5 gets all the calls you could possibly want... - so thats $65 a month... BUT you have Foxtel.

Foxtel is widely regarded as a rip-off, costs a fortune is riddled with ads and cross-promotions. Save your money and spend it on an HTPC instead (and use that cheap internet connection to get good stuff to watch whenever you like)

BTW:

Rates: $400/qtr
House+Contents Insurance: $100pm
Private Medical: $150pm (high level cover 4 people)
Electricity: $400-$800 /qtr depending on time of year and use of air-con!
Car Rego (tax): $600/yr
Speeding fines: $200/yr (might as well budget for them they're damn near impossible to avoid!)
School fees: vary from $200/yr (public) to $16K/yr (private high school)

Also dont forget when considering motoring costs - the costs of buying a vehicle will come as a shock. A car that might struggle to sell for 900GBP in UK could easily sell for $8K+ here. There are cars under $4k - but they'll be very uncomfortable 20yr old wrecks that wouldnt be allowed on the road in a sane world.

abner

Catholic private school: $5,000 - $10,000 per year tuition
Protestant or non-denominational private school: $8,000 - $17,000 per year tuition.

Sundry expenses are roughly the same as at state schools, though there are optional clubs/activities that can be quite expensive (e.g. horse dressage).

(Figures based on an informal survey of Brisbane school options within 10 km of CBD.)

jayr

I have Fox with IQ (which is suprisingly useful) delivered by cable. Given that cable is fast, I use that for my internet, so am tied into bigpond. Then makes sense to stay with Hellstra for fixed line (which becomes free effectively on the $210 pack)

So for $210 I get:

Fox IQ Platinum (inlcudes 2 free Box Office Movies) including all sports and movies etc

T'internet over cable. 25GB/month (then slowed) with some sort of 30MBPS speed (allegedly)

Full landline cost included (probably excludes intnl calls)

I have had this only one month so cant be absolutley sure on what is in or out of the package. WOuld love something cheaper, but not to lose cable internet speed.

coolshadows

Yeah how many Mbps? Someone arriving from the UK will be wanting more like 20Mbps (I see BT are selling 40Mbps at £19.99), yet a lot of the reasonably priced packages here are somewhere around the 2Mbps.
Therefore it takes 10x longer to download music files etc...

physiomitch

In the words of the formidable Steve Irwin..."CRICKEY MATE!"...I really did not know what to expect from my question, but this has surpassed my expectations. Many thanks to all of you so far, I hope this will also assist others going over to get a better idea of costs there. I always realised it would take hard work anyway, but working in the sunshine beats working in the rain/snow.

Thanks again guys, much appreciated.

Regards

Cuppa10

I'm very tech savvy so I'll let you in on a good place to look at plans.

www.whirlpool.net.au

check out those forums and specifically 'broadband choice'

Cheap end of the scale there is exetel / TPG for internet, and more expensive iinet / Internode who are very good. BIGPOND / OPTUS IS NOT WORTH GETTING unless you -have- to get cable or nothing.

You'd be after ADSL2+ connection, ask on whirlpool if you have a specific budget and requirements.

For VOIP to make cheap cheap phone calls around Australia and UK and world wide, try www.pennytel.com (cheapest) or www.mynetfone.com.au (cheap but very good quality) and as a bonus i'll let you know of their deals for whirlpool members which is www.mynetfone.com.au/whirlpool which are slightly better than there normal offerings.

As for non INTERNET related stuff I have no idea.

But yeah, www.staticice.com.au has cheap prices for computer parts and you can try www.msy.com.au / www.umart.com.au / www.gamedude.com.au (GD is slightly dodgy imho, but quite cheap... Umart/MSY are your best bet for CHEAP pc stuff.)

Harvey norman and the big shops etc are rip offs, except for laptop sometimes!! They can have laptops with cash back offers for a few hundred bucks that cannot be matched.

Cheers!

LASTLY!!! If you are going to get a home telephone line and you are going to use VOIP to make your outgoing calls, then dont pay standard line rental. Go onto telstra homeline budget, it's a bit cheaper line rental wise and you can save a bit each month. http://www.telstra.com.au/homephone/...ne_budget.html

odyssey

School - state schools are free. $60 a week for a catholic school, $245 for a higher level one - plus trips, building funds etc
Private medical Insurance - $289 per month
Rent - My 3bed, 2 bath, double garage, pool, in nice suburb about $2000mortgage for the same house would be around $3000
Energy (electric only - have no gas) - $200/month
Phone + Internet (fast)+ Foxtel (sky) - $210/month
Mobile - depends, say $99 cap/month each would suffice
landline: $70 per month
Car insurance - hmmm, $60 per month for a 2000 honda, $95 per month for a brand new hilux sr5
Petrol - I wont even answer this one as we are unusual
Food/Groceries - family of 4 $400 plus frequent small shops per week (my kids eat!)
Rates -$2400 per year

Extras
pool cleaning $50 a fortnight
Ironing $50 a week
Childrens activities (swimming, gym etc) $17 per lesson approx
childrens clothes cost more here

WAGES
carpenter $35 self employed per hour/$27 approx on payroll
programmer - $80 -110k
contract tester $70 per hour ($100 test manager)
admin - $30k (lower levels), $50k mid range
child care worker $13-17 ph
Cleaner/admin/supermarket $20 per hour
Electrician $35 ph on payroll - $60ph hour contract


You can go to this site to calculate your take home pay
http://www.ato.gov.au/scripts/taxcal...ndard_hire.asp

Heres a budget calculator
http://www.commbank.com.au/Tools/budgetplannercalc.asp

physiomitch

Thanks again, just keeps getting better. Any ideas on mobile internet with dongle, compared to land line?

Cheers

hakkajai

[QUOTE=jayr;8366149]School - state schools are free. However expect to spend say $1000-2000 per child per year on uniform, books, stationery, trips and various "donations". Private I'll leave someone else to answer.

Home contents insurance - I think I pay about $50/month
Private medical Insurance - I don;t bother but say $150-200/month for family of 4
Rent - My 4bed, 2 bath, double garage, pool, in nice suburb about $2400/month - mortgage for the same house would be around $4000.

Hi jayr,
The mortgage figures that you have supplied,i take it that there are based on a 100% loan from the banks with no deposit.


cheers
john

odyssey

[QUOTE=hakkajai;8367159] Hi - not in nice suburbs, more like 66% - that is a mortgage of 410k. Mind you that is fixed at 7% so maybe reduce that by about $400 to current

go to realestate.com.au - find the house of your dreams, check out the mortgage calculator
Odyssey

hakkajai

[QUOTE=odyssey;8367189] Thanks, the cost of cars is a SHOCKER.


cheers
John

odyssey

It is but they are in better condition - I thought about this and I reckon its because they dont rust in the same way. With new cars remember to add on stamp duty etc if it doesnt say "on road"

I think new cars are cheaper here. Furniture and household goods are more expensive. People will come online with offers saying "you can get a bed room suite for $500 what do you mean more expensive?" but believe me, I shop. Quality costs much more here and things like food, kids clothes, books, furniture does make a dent in your budget!

Cuppa10

It's pretty crappy.
If you use MSN messenger or the like you'll notice it may drop off a few times per night. Your download speed and quota will also be much lower.

If you dont really care about it being a bit more unstable / slow than a land line and have a laptop and possibly would use the net from other places other than home, then it's OK.

In terms of providers maybe Virgin mobile.. or check whirlpool and see what people say. http://www.virginmobile.com.au/broad...ile-broadband/