Originally Posted by kips

Absolutely. Perth is a rip off. Eating and drinking in restaurants, pubs and wine bars is definitely way more expensive in Perth than Sydney. We lived on the east coast for 8 years and had a week's holiday in Sydney last July and noticed the difference.

In Perth the pubs charge restaurant prices for food. We met some friends for a meal and drinks at a pub in Fremantle recently. My husband paid $38 for a tiny steak. It came with minuscule amount of salad.

And at the moment fruit and veg in the supermarkets is expensive and not very good quality. Hubby paid $4 for one small avocado last week.

Charged a fortune for car repairs as well. A couple of weeks ago it cost me $1,300 to get repairs done on my car. Out of this the labour charge was $682.50 for 6.5 hours work at $105 an hour. And I don't believe for one minute they spent that amount of time fixing the oil leak and replacing the spark plugs and timer belt.

Originally Posted by Molly Coddle

Thanks kips.

My husband has a job offer in WA, so I'm just trying to weigh up the pros and cons etc...

Originally Posted by Dorothy

It would depend on the offer I would say. Personally I wouldn't move here on a single salary of less than $100k plus, but there are plenty who manage on lots less. Like kips said, it's very expensive for everything here. You also have to take into account the isolation factor in WA. Your closest major city (other than Perth) will be Adelaide which is a 3 hour flight away.

My husband and I would consider moving to the east coast, but unfortunately for me he and the kids are very settled in Perth. We were in Sydney in January and he found it too busy - too much like where we moved from, so he's not that keen. Me? I like the busyness of Sydney.

Have you been to WA? It would be a good idea to come here and see for yourself the differences between Perth and Sydney. They're very different places.

Originally Posted by Molly Coddle

The job is actually a FIFO job, and if I'm honest I don't really want him doing FIFO. However, it's a job offer, which is great.

Initially we were going to Australia without him having a job lined up, so looking at it from that perspective, it kind of takes the pressure off, a beggars can't be choosers scenario really.


No, I have never been to WA. Only seen it on TV, read about it and had conversations with our friends from Bunbury about it.
I do like the look of it but like you said, it's a long way from anywhere and after Perth the closest major city is Adelaide. The fact that it's so isolated bothers me a little as does how expensive it is.

So yeah, like you said it might be wise to come over and see it for myself.



If you had a choice to live anywhere in Australia, where would it be? The east coast?





Thanks Dorothy.

Originally Posted by old.sparkles

If it's a FIFO role then you can probably live anywhere - I know people doing FIFO in WA living here in Adelaide, in QLD and in NSW. Has the company said they want him to live in WA?

Originally Posted by Molly Coddle

No they haven't said they want him to live there, I just thought it might be less traveling time if he did.

If say we lived in Brisbane, what would we be talking. A few extra hours flying time say?

Originally Posted by old.sparkles

You'd probably lose a day either end of his leave - there's a few on here doing FIFO so hopefully someone can give you a better idea - from here it's a couple of hours to perth and connecting flight from there