Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

Hi,

I have received a 120k job offer in Melbourne. Pretty interesting job actually, and great city to live for the family. However, I have doubts on how would we do financially. Is it a financially sound offer for a family of 5 to have a good, decent living without financial stress?

We are a family of 5 with 3 young children. We moved from the UK to the US, where we currently live and where live is quite inexpensive. So with a similar equivalent salary we are doing pretty good in the US. For instance, my wife currently does not need to work and can take care of the children. Going to Melbourne sounds like a dream to raise a family, especially being originally from Europe, but I would not like to get caught in a permanent financial stress where you have to look for every single dollar that you spent. I have never been to Oz, but I have heard that Melbourne in particular is very expensive. My assumption, by experience, is that once you get there, you can adapt and find your own way. But I have never been in such a expensive place...

Ideally, we good like our children to go to a good (not necessarily the best by any means) school, and my wife would like to stay at home with the smallest ones for at least 2 to 3 more years (this is, without working). Ideally too, I would like to be able to support my family without any additional income (so independently from whether or not my wife works).

We will certainly appreciate any advice / comments that you may have.
Thanks in advance!

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

Is the 120k your take home pay? or is before superannuation, taxes, medicare etc is taken out? Is it inclusive of bonus?
I only ask as we had a package offered and had to take all of the above out before we got to work out our take home pay.

We are also a family of 5 going to Melbourne!! Hopefully there in about 8 weeks :D

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

sounds like a pretty good deal to me. My hubby is accepting a job on a lot less than that. That is about £80k a year. How could you not lead a good life? But, I would go to Australia first for a holiday. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

120k provides the equivalent of a high 40k life style in Oz if you're working on sterling to Aud. Don't forget sterling has been heavily devalued due to the recession in Europe. 2.5 is the rule of thumb to feel the cost of living is more or less the same.

To the OP $120k in Australia will feel a lot less than $120k in the US for the same reasons. It's up to you whether the better weather, novelty value and beaches compensate for that.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

Generally speaking Australia is more expensive than the US to live. I'm currently in California in the Bay area where house prices have not lost their value. I would say that by comparison, houses are a third cheaper here if not more. We are a couple with no children, but find that our grocery bill and eating out so much cheaper. The cost of clothing.....there is no comparison, clothes in Australia are just so expensive that it's incredible.

Here in the US people choose to live in neighborhoods that are good school districts. This ensures a decent education for their kids without paying for private schools. In Australia, many people opt to send their kids to private schools which are massively expensive because they don't like the public education system.

That said, Australia is a great place to raise a family. My advise would be to take a vacation and look at which neighborhoods you could afford to live in, look at the school system and get a better idea as to how far your dollars will go.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

My husband and I are looking at moving to Melbourne, I have been looking at jobs with a salary of between $70k - $85k p/a and my husband would expect to get a job for approx $50k p/a. These are gross figures. I was also wondering whether this would be enough compared to the UK?

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

Yes, 120K is the before taxes and medicare but without superannuation. With superannuation, the salary would 10K more before taxes and medicare.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

Vitoriano, don't know if this is any help, but a friend of mine just relocated to Auckland from San Fran for a year. His company is paying him an extra 30% in salary to compensate for the difference in cost of living. They estimated this from a government web site (sorry don't know what it is) that compares the cost of living in various cities around the USA with overseas cities. Might be worth a search.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

No it is nothing like GBP80k in UK and it would be a big mistake to assume that.

It is not going to be as comfortable as 120k in the US, but really hard go say whether less financial comfort can be compensated for by other things for OP.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

If you're not planning to buy a house and send kids private then you should be fine.

Factor in mortgage and/or private school fees for 3 kids eventually then *tongue in cheek* no salary is enough.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

Er.... Sterling did its main devaluing in late 2008, when it went to virtual parity with the Euro, and before anyone had even considered that there might be problems across the Channel. It's never really recovered. The UK has plenty of home-grown fiscal problems without having to worry about Europe.

You will hear a lot about this theoretical 2.2/2.5/3.0 (well hadn't actually heard that last one before) "real" exchange rate. There is some truth in that: some, and probably most, things are that much dearer here. But other things are cheaper here - fuel, urban public transport.

Be aware that here your take-home pay on that salary will be around 71% of your earnings, compared to 66% in the UK. Also, if renting, you won't pay rates/council tax, let alone that absurd tv licence. Superanuation/pension arrangements here are better for most people outside HM civil service (compulsory 9% employer's contribution - soon to be increased). There are generally many more things which you can claim as tax deductions here too.

Good luck with your decision.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

On 120k a family will be able to live quite well, but not extravagantly. Choose a moderately priced family area, holidays camping etc, don't buy the latest BMW and you'll be fine.

BB

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

hello there. congrats on getting the visa! avergabesalary in aus is 60 k so you would be earning double that. you would need to live in an outerouter suburb for rent and especially to buy. you would need to send kids to a state school but the schoolsnhere tend to be pretty good unless you alive in aschoking area. somyes you could have a really healthy nice lifestyle but nit extravagant. where in europe are you from? i might be able to give more meaningful comparison.
best of luck with the prep fornthemove

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

We moved to Brisbane on a similar salary. Rents here are very high if you want to live in reasonable commuting distance of the city. We are comfortable but not rich. Australia is so expensive to live that you can't use the exchange rate as a comparison - Clothes, travel hugely expensive. Food a little more, but you can shop at markets. I was very comfortable in the UK (South of England) on a 50K (pounds) salary, with a decent house and car - on $120K I live in a smaller and scruffier house in a nice area with a tiny car - part of moving to Oz from the UK right now probably involves a drop in your material standard of living unless you are very rich.

Re: Moving to Melbourne a family - would 120K be enough?
 

Rents in bris are way cheaper than melbourne too.

I reckon $120,000 if you have a family, mortage/rent is need a second income territory now. Its the income bracket where the govt slugs you with every tax/levy/penalty for working hard.