Hi, my husband has got a one year teaching contract at a secondary school in Brisbane. His salary is $82,000. I will be looking for work when we arrive. I am a special needs teacher and hope to gain relief work at least! We have 2 young children. After reading many posts on here, some stating you need huge salaries to survive, I have become worried.
We have our e 457 visa and we will be arriving probably 26th December. Looking at short term accommodation rentals, everything just seems so expensive, is this because its the holiday season?

I was wondering if there is any advice, if other people have managed to survive on a teachers salary?

Any advice on suburbs that are reasonably priced but good for kids etc.

Thank you in advance.

Will yes holiday accommodation is always more expensive around Christmas the world over I think. Funny time to arrive, aren't the schools in middle of long summer holidays then? Perhaps you could put it off a bit if you are worried about short term accommodation costs.

Regarding salary, there is no point worrying about what other people think, we all survive on different amounts and have different ideas about what is a good living. Brisbane is not one of the more expensive cities at least and I am sure there must be lots of teachers living on teacher salaries for a start. If you could manage on say £35k in the UK, then that probably goes about as far.

I don't know much about Brisbane suburbs, but the concept of "good for kids" never really makes sense to me, there are generally children living happily in every suburb i have ever come across. I think when choosing a suburb you need to think about what are the differentiating *facts* (not subjective opinions about being good for kids), facts will include things like price, proximity to the city, or river or hills or whatever else is important to you.

Good luck with your move.

Hi whereabouts in Brisbane will you be based?

I agree with Bermudashorts - find a place to live based on the house you want, can afford, accessibility etc. living in the cities is expensive and you will need to work for sure. Child care (if your kids are young) will cost you quite a lot ($80-100 per day) and you won't have access to the child care rebate. At the moment, education is free for temporary residents but with NSW charging ($5kpa) and WA just starting to charge I'd be budgeting just in case Qld follows suit.

If you have done 4 yr uni training to become a teacher then you should be able to get on the CRT register but there is a lot of competition for teaching vacancies in the places that people actually want to live and generally dependents on temporary visas do tend to struggle a bit when finding employment.

As a belt and braces approach - take a career break, rent out your house etc and don't burn any bridges then enjoy the adventure for a year.

Thanks for the advice. We re arriving at this time due to the new school year starting at the end of January and want a month prior to this to find a long term rental. We our open to any of the suburbs surrounding Brisbane.

For short term accommodation Brisbane is one of the most expensive cities in Australia IMHO, hotels are more costly than Sydney. Usually during school holidays the city is a bit cheaper.

I appreciate you are open about suburbs but you need to be a bit careful with traffic - it can be a nightmare. Personally I would live nearby or in the 'opposite of most people commuting' direction.

Good luck!

If you multiply your current gross income by 2.2 then based on experience that's the gross income you will need in Aus to have the equivalent spending power. Good Luck, Brisbane is lovely outside the Summer months or all year if you like the heat!

Brisbane is pretty much divided between the North Side and the South Side, so you definitely want to be on the side where your husband is teaching. Particularly as his travelling will be right in the morning and afternoon school rush. Remember that in Brisbane most kids get dropped off at school unless they live within a couple of blocks.


So what suburb will he be based in, so members can suggest suitable suburbs? Can make a difference of up to a half hour twice a day, and if you are concerned about rents etc then that half hour could place you out into a cheaper rental area and possibly better for kids than a more central location.

Having lived in SEQ since the 1970s I can assure you that "any suburbs that surround Brisbane" is a bit like saying "Lancashire" without specifying the location.

Choose your area very carefully, as has been said traffic can be a nightmare and if you have to travel to work it can add a substantial amount of time to your working day. Also remember that areas with cheap housing are cheap for a reason.

Thanks to all for your advice. Ha ha I know saying we are open to suburbs can appear quite ludicrous, but it's because we haven't got a clue!! We read up on the Internet about all the different suburbs but its difficult when we don't know the city. Places by where i live now can sound nice on the internet, but in reality they are not great!! My husband's job is in the city, (south) so we were thinking of looking south and southeast. We don't want to live too close to the city as we prefer quiter areas and wont be able to affor it. We're not expecting to live in the posh expensive areas, we are quite realistic! I think that we may struggle financially until I can find work but hey, we are willing to be broke to have an adventure!! ( I think!!???)

Personally I'd struggle to survive on $82000 without any kids. But that's just me. Different people do different things and have different expenditure needs.

As killerhales says, as a rough ball park, take that 82000, divide it by 2.2 (or there abouts) and you end up with £37,272.

Could you survive on that where you live in the UK? If so then you are pretty much good to go. If not then you better start to find that job pretty quickly on arrival.

There are plenty of people who live on $82,000 with 2 kids in Oz, and there's plenty of people who live on £37,272 with 2 kids in the UK.

I am not a believer in the multiplier, how can one number translate to some many differing scenarios. It cant.

All markets sway differently, housing market, dollar vs BGP, petrol (especially), etc.

We had a guy on another forum as if he could keep a family on 54k a year in Brisbane and too which the answer was absolutely not. You will be earning above the average wage for Australia but for that you have to have the Australia expectation of what that involves, in terms of where you can live, what you can do etc.

Two wages make a massive difference, look on realestate.com.au, find something that you like, if it was me, I think you will be looking realistically at at least 500 a week rent.

If you need a car they can be dear but pub transport is ok.

To use crude calcs, rent is 26k a year, probably about 20-22k a year tax which leaves, 700 bucks a week left.

You need to break it down to this level, you can live on 84k a year with a family but you just need to be open minded when you arrive and take being here as a massive plus.

I work in Brisbane and live on the Goldy, if I can be of any help at all, please PM me.

Sean

Thats the exact point of a rough multiplier. Its rough, and gives people a guide otherwise people would be looking at 1.7 and think that sounded about right.

Hubby is a teacher on that salary. We live in Brisbane (south side) We have an expensive rental ($600) as we have chosen a nice property close to the city. When I work (IT contracting) we are flush - when I don't - 82k is survivable just. If that is your only income be prepared to cut your cloth - much cheaper rentals can be found away from city - but beware traffic as commute can be awful. As I have struggled to find work we have decided that 80k is not sustainable so will be moving back eventually, but you'll find plenty on here that manage. You will not be rich, that's for sure!