segs

Hello

We are a couple with very little savings [£20000] but most likely we will relocate to Canada to start jobs immediately in the health sector.


Would people be happy to share:

1] How much money you had saved up for your move to Canada
2] How much money the move actually cost and
3] Did you relocate to start a job immediately or did the money saved have to 'go some way' before more income started coming in

Many thanks

haggis88

i relocated and started immediately with half of that as a single guy, to Calgary

all i had to bring was two suitcases and three boxes though, and the company paid for my hire car and hotel for 3 weeks!

christmasoompa

This thread might help - http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=735341

£20k sounds fine to me for a couple, especially if you'll be working straight away.

chrissyb

Me , my fiance and son moved on £13,000. This included:

Flights
Half a container
Car Insurance for the year
Jeep
Down payment on Gas and Electric
Deposit on Rental
Deposits on two Credit Cards
Electrical house hold items we couldn't bring.
Cost of TWP

Collie

Our household stuff cost about £4 500 to ship over (from Northern Ireland, so probably more expensive than usual). Electrical appliances (washing machines etc.) seem to vary quite a bit in price here but are generally more expensive than in the UK. And as the previous poster said, we found that to get a credit card we needed to deposit $1000 (each) in a bond with the bank: UK credit rating counts for nothing. So that's "dead money" too. Car and home insurance for a year cost $3600 (!) even with a perfectly clean history... It's not cheap! Plus the cost of buying a car (second hand ones here have HST - a bit like VAT - added to the price here, which is weird and different from the UK). I guess the key thing is to make absolutely certain that your employment will start pretty soon after you arrive, that your qualifications will be recognised etc. That seems to be the stumbling block for many!

segs

Thanks for all the replies
We plan to whittle down our belongings to avoid shipping- which I know will mean more spending in Canada
So I guess our spending will be on 'rental home set up costs' etc

christmasoompa

I'd research a bit more to see if that will save you money though, shipping is usually cheaper than buying everything new.

Geordie Lass

+1. We have really decent furniture (been together a long time) so for us it was cheaper to ship it than get peanuts for it and buy it again over here

You can bargain with all the international shippers. I played them all off each other and got over £1000 off... and bargain like crazy about marine insurance!

chrissyb

We definitely wish we had bought an awful lot more. We were told furniture etc here is cheap...very wrong. We personally found replacing ALOT more expensive than if we had bought more. Home furnishings here are very expensive, and electrical items . We found we were spending more on crappier items! Just our experience, we are in Vancouver British Columbia. The cost of the "half" the container definitely paid, we would never of been able to replace everything for what we paid shipping.

Alan2005

Expect half of that to go getting here and getting set up somewhere. The other half will be gone in 3 or 4 months if you can't find work.

I'm somewhat sceptical that you will be able to 'start work immediately' in the health sector, cos Canada. However, if you've got jobs lined up then you'll be fine on that.

JamesM

I arrived with $4000 dollars. I had a place to stay for a month but no job.

20,000 pounds is ample.

Collie

Agree with Alan2005 - don't forget that whilst your qualifications may be regarded as being great by CIC for the purpose of admitting you to the country, there is absolutely no guarantee that they will be recognised by your profession as allowing you to work at the same sort of level that you did in the UK. Protectionism is alive and well, unfortunately... If you have got job offers sorted out then that's obviously nothing to worry about, but I thought I'd better sound a bit of a warning bell in case you haven't!

segs

Thanks for the warning Collie
We are working with recruitment agencies for jobs and TWP
We'll only come to jobs/job offers