As the the wife and me are seriously thinking about emigrating to Australia, and i have seen on this site that the average wage and related stuff and bits!, what id like to know is it cheaper to live in Australia than the UK?

We moved to Melbourne last November from Lincolshire. We find we are so much better off here. I was working 30 hours a week over there. Found it hard to save. We can save lots here. Meat is cheaper. Cars are better. Petrol is about 85cents a litre. The thing I hate is paying bank fees!!!

no one likes bnk charges!!

What I've learnt from the forum is that, that is one of those questions that has so many variables and so many people have different circumstances. Best advice is to look at the archives for cost of living threads and try and piece it together. Its a tricky one though

Hi Lavina

We are moving to Melbourne in October. We love the look of Frankston but I think my best employment opportunities will be in the city and it might be a bit far down.

Would you mind if I PM'd you and asked a few questions??

Sure

I'm considering this question as well - it seems Australia is a bit more reasonable.

Not at all. Will try to help if I can

Lavina

From my girlfriends perspective who is Australian.

She came over to the UK to work as she could earn 2 or 3 times the salary she could get in Oz. Working equivalent hours she would have done back home.
She saves way more than she ever could back home and is planning to carry on this for 1 or 2 more years before returning home.
When we were both over in Oz (July/August) most every day items seemed pretty similar maybe slightly cheaper in Oz but not much in it.

Cheers

TT

Bluewack, this is what I wrote in a thread yesterday in response to a question about the cost of living & one about whether the expats would move back. As someone suggested do a search on cost of living, you will find lots of threads & opinions.

This is what I wrote, its my opinion, others can bag me for it if they want .

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ACE, I think the thing is that the cost of living is similar to the UK - some things cost more, but some things cost less as well. The tax rate is higher here so you sometimes end up with slightly less take home pay. Its the extras that add up - Jo mentioned yesterday the money she sent to school for excusions, perhaps because she didnt have to pay out for that sort of thing back home? The trips to the beach, the BBQ that you buy for the backyard, the money for the things the kids want to do that they probably wont have done back in the UK. You dont realise that things like that add up, but they do. It's all part of the lifestyle, yes you DO have to pay for it!

The 2 big things that can make or break you are




1.Where you live

2.Housing options



Sydney & Melb are much more expensive to live in than say Brisbane. Especially as Mandy pointed out, for insurance & cost of housing. Strangely (or maybe not) Perth can be quite expensive for some things eg petrol & groceries, mainly because of its isolation. Even within states there are huge discrepancies depending on whether you want to live in the main city or smaller ones.

The second one is your housing option. JandJ brings up a good point - are we talking about an equivilent lifestyle when people say it costs more? People say "You will pay about $XXXX to buy a house in the beachside suburbs" or it costs $XXX/week for our 4x2 house with/without a pool". Did you all live near to the beach or in a 4 bedroom/2 bathroom house on a nice block of land with a pool in the UK? 10/20/30 mins from the middle of London (or comparative big city)? Probably not! Sure if you (as someone said they were) were paying 100 pounds/week for a 3 bedroom house with big garden then the $200+ will seem like a lot of money. But if you, like most people were spending 800-1000 pounds/month for a smallish 2 or 3 bedroom flat, terrace or semi-detached somewhere in the SE then its a step up! If you want the equivilent of the 100 pound house in the Yorkshire moors you will have to go & live in Kununurra. But Im warning you, you probably wont enjoy it much . It's no good comparing apples with oranges.

Alot of it is subjective. If you buy a large car, then yes, you can expect to pay more to run it. Exactly as Mandy pointed out. If you dont, then it will be cheaper for you. Maybe it would be easier for people to understand if it was qualified ie my car is a Nissan Pathfinder & it costs me $x. Thats what I try to do.

The huge advantage that people from over there have (IF they sell a house & have money) is the opportunity to come over & buy a house/car etc & have very little mortgage. The day to day stuff like bills dont change! I know its been said a million times before, but its worth saying again. If you come to Australia thinking everything is cheap then you will be in for a rude shock! . Its similar to the UK. Jo said it exactly right earlier in the thread when she said


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I have a $151 elec bill , $100 phone bill it goes on and on , just like the UK.
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Bills dont suddenly disappear and neither do problems. Even with lots of money.

If on the other hand you want to come because you think you will enjoy the lifestyle - lots of outdoors stuff, good food, good wine, friendly people, cleanliness, space etc etc (I could go on for ages!), then you have the right attitude. When it comes to the money compare apples with apples.

TOB, I know some people want to go back, homesickness I think is sometimes a major factor. I can only speak for us .... we have nothing to stop us moving to the UK if we wanted to ie money. Recently after thinking about it for a while I asked Dagboy if he wanted to move back. His response (with a very puzzled look on his face) was "Why on EARTH would we want to do that??!?".

All the above is MY opinion, if people want to disagree then thats their business!
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Exactly. I think it depends where you are leaving from in the UK.

If you live in an averaged price semi in the Midlands you are bound to think it is more expensive out there than I will coming from a very expensive area down South!

Housing costs vary so much in the UK and as much in OZ. It all depends where you want to live and if you need a mortgage or not etc. I think day to day prices will be pretty comparable.

thanks for eveyones replies it was a great help