Hi Guys

Call me nosy but i'm tryining to get an idea of the average funds people land with.

I know the minimum requirement but I guess i'm trying to get an idea how far people's money goes so i can gauge the abilities of our pot.

i'll start this off with honesty...

Because of the nightmare we've all been through financially for the last 2 years we're looking at only £50k of cleared funds after liquidating everything.

I dont want my family to be up against it as soon as we land in Nova Scotia so is this really enough to get us started.

I know the obvious questions are have you a job to go to..do you intend to rent...where do you intend to live and how big...car etc.

No job so far but i'm hopeful....the rest i have no idea but i guess it will fall into place.

I'd appreciate the feedback.

LOL, "only" £50k eh


I arrived with a suitcase and a work permit more or less. When I landed 3 years later I had managed to save up $10k to show them...back in them days it didnt matter is you had a job or not, you still needed proof of funds.

Ive a feeling there was a poll about this some time ago...with a very broad range of responses.

Not that Im an expert on things - Im unlikely to make the move any time within the next 24 months but I would think that amount of cash would be enough. It's certainly roughly what we are expecting on taking over with us.

It's much easier said than done but if you have the funds to survive 3 or 4 months renting while you search for a job and as long as you dont tie yourself down to say one particular city only then you would still be left with a nice big chunk to fund a mortgage, a cheap motor and some furnishings once a job is secured.

Take Canada out of the equation and imagine you are moving to another part of the UK. You wouldnt think twice in asking if that sort of money was enough. Of course removal costs, flights and car will eat into your chunk of cash mind you. Im not trying to kid you on, the move will no doubt be solid and there'll be times you'll think you're crazy but personally from my zero experience point of view Id think you'll be reasonably comfortable with that.

Ive set myself up quite nicely to be ridiculed by those with experience now so I expect a good grilling soon...

There's no answer to the "is $x enough" question. It all depends on circumstances.

However with GBP 50k you can certainly pay the rent, feed the family etc for quite some time without any other income

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=487137

We're (family of 4) hoping to do it on a 'fraction of that' but i do have a job ready and waiting when we arrive.

I wish we had as much as that to go over with...

Thanks Rich, Karma for that

At the current exchange rate I would plan to land with as little as possible.

Start your job hunting as soon as you know you are coming as the sooner you are earning in Canadian dollars the better.

Whatever pounds you swap, when you spend them everything at $1.51 to the pound will seem very expensive.

By the way can some one tell me how I do a pound sign on my north american keyboard?

Try going into Control Panel and changing the language to British English. I get the pound sign when I hit the hash key (shift-3 on my keyboard). The " and @ are swapped over, too.

Hold the Alt key down and type 156 on the number pad =£


Seems like less hassle, if you have a full size keyboard

That doesn't work on mine

Odd, what are your keyboard properties in control panel?

Mine just says "standard 101/102 key or microsoft natural PS2"

Annoyingly I can't seem to get either method to work. This is probably down to user error and the fact that the company I work for has the strictest IT network in the world that will not let me change much in the control panel.

If anyone does have another method with a combination of keys please pm me. I am currently on a Dell Inspirion 1300 (which is a bricky piece of junk).

http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards.asp

alt +0163 also works

£

Then there is the MS charactermap app

go to Start / Run, type "charmap"

Select and copy (doubleclik)what you need, and keep an eye on the bottom of the window as it will show codes there too

£