Enough money?
 

Hi am new yesterday! :) We are thinking of applying to emigrate. I know it takes 4-5 years! We have about $240000 currently but would aim to have more by the time we came! Would this be enough to buy a house in Nova Scotia with some land and be mortgage free. I have looked at houses but would we have enough to live comfortably, getting low paid work without any stress attached to the jobs!
thanks

Re: Enough money?
 

Welcome. New to this site, not the world presumably:)

Its a popular misconception that low paid jobs are stress free. In my world shit runs downhill, and its the people at the bottom of the pile who are drowning not waving.

Anyway. Its an impossible question to answer. How much is enough? Some people are able to raise three kids on less than $20k a year. Dont ask me how, I have no idea, and I certainly wouldnt want to do it myself. I guess thats well below the poverty line.

You might be looking at $3000 a year to heat (increasing year on year), a few thousand for electricity, a few thousand in property taxes. (One NS poster recently quoted $9k!!!!, but that was for a million dollar property.

Low paid jobs dont often have health benefits, so thats another major expense waiting to happen.

Car insurance could be a couple of grand at first. Start up costs buying everything you need are always more than you think too.

If you havent checked out www.mls.ca then its a good start, but you cant always take the quoted property taxes at face value. Thats what they pay now, not what you will pay after any new property is reassesed at what you paid for it.

Hope that gives you an idea what you are getting into.

Re: Enough money?
 

Thanks for the reply!
Was thinking of being a cleaner in a very smart guest house where people cleaned the toilet before checking out! I just fancy coming home without having to do any more work or not having to plan work in my school holidays etc. Also would like not to have to pay $2400 mortgage a month to live in house.

Re: Enough money?
 

Well, if I take my mortgage alone out of all my expenses, then with two small kids and running two cars, my annual expenses would probably be just about covered by an income before tax of about $40k

I'm not sure I would want to try living here on a constant income much less than that, but thats my comfort level, and some people get by on less. But we dont live extravagantly by any means.

Re: Enough money?
 

hmmmmmm :eek:
What if we get some chickens and grow our own veggies! I guess we would have to retrain or get better paid jobs. Glad I found this site it gives food for thought.

Re: Enough money?
 

Oh, yeah, property is relatively cheap in some parts of canada for sure, but life here is not. Its nice to come on holiday and get over $2 per £, but earning in $cdn and living here is a different animal. The quality of life and lack of stress makes it worth it though in my opinion, but you need to come with your eyes open to the reality.

There was a recent thread called "misconception on..." that is good honest reading in my opinon.

Re: Enough money?
 

Good thread!
I like "Same shit, shinier bucket" :)

Re: Enough money?
 

beckyboo

Cleaner only make about $8/hr, so you not going to have a stress free life. You be worried if you could pay your bills.

We moved to Canada in 1997 and though that having a large down payment for a house would be great, unfortunately as ianik noted bill still have to be paid. Some bills can be much higher than we were used to in the UK. like ianik said you have to be very careful with your spending when you move to Canada, especially if you been used to a much higher wage in the UK.

I enclosed a government link which gives you living costs in Canada.

With $240k you could set up your own guest house?

We back in now in England , but I had an email from a friend in Ontario who spend $100/each a night in a guesthouse in the Thousand Island area 2 weeks ago

Look at this link:

http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil16a.htm

Re: Enough money?
 

even more hmmmm
wouldnt know the 1st thing about a b&b! except would be able to clean and tidy! maybe we will aim to save more money before coming out. As we havent applied yet and theres a 5 year waiting list theres plenty of time! :)

Re: Enough money?
 

I've had a range of jobs from filing, cleaning, waitress, mother's help to dispatch clerk and IainK is right - it doesn't always follow that lower paid is less stressful. I've also had jobs requiring my degree skills & it does depend on the environment to as how stressful the job is.

(The key to a less stressful job is control - so long as you can control what stress is in your job, then it is intrinsically less stressful.)

I still do a range of stuff, some of which can be very "interesting" but I'm my own boss most of the time so it's fine. We live a very simple life and can manage in the UK without too much money but it's the shocks that can be your downfall , eg new boiler, car breaks down, then it helps to have a slush fund!

B & B can be quite upmarket in North America - if you google, then there are a lot of resources for finding out about it. PM me if you want me to find some of them again - I was looking for B & B's a few months ago for a friend and found loads of good stuff.

Re: Enough money?
 

I know nothing about b&b's too but we know a lady who owns one and she claims in summer months she makes $10,000/month but wiinter is almost empty. if you look on www.bbcanada.com i believe there are b&b's to buy too. she said "all b&b's are for sale-at the right price!"

Re: Enough money?
 

thanks for all the replies ! :) especially as we havent even applied to come yet! I guess we are both fed up getting up at 6 going to work and coming home unable to do anything because we are so tired. (im sure everyone feels like this!) We do get paid a lot but seem to spend it on rubbish. Im sure if we had a grand plan we could save more and live somewhere that we would appreciate more. Having been to BC and Nova Scotia for the last 5 years on holiday Im sure we could not come for the next 5 and save a small fourture! But life but be much less interesting...

Re: Enough money?
 

Well, the simple solution is to seek a remedy to those problems in the UK.

If you are the sort of people who buy crap, moving to Canada is unlikely to change that Im afraid. There are maybe even other less stressful jobs in part of the UK where cheaper property can be found?

Re: Enough money?
 

I am beginning to sound like a bit of a moaner! Actually maybe we dont buy that much crap! Have so far resisted the urge to buy a BIG tele which we dont need or a psp! But we do spend a lot on beer and wine.
Also I dont think there are many houses left in the UK under £100000 which have a view or snow in winter!

Re: Enough money?
 

Only if your willing to move to the Highlands? Or buy a Croft