carolg2712

Hi, I've been using some salary calculators and using my current job title and my husband's current job title, we would be looking at a joint income of C$145,000 in Toronto (although I would prefer to live slightly further out in one of the other cities of southern Ontario if it were a viable option depending where the jobs were to reduce living costs (could also consider Ottawa in the north)). We would likely be moving as a family of 3 or 4 (based on my outline plan for immigration (returning citizen in my case but with no Canadian work experience) as my daughter would be 20 and son 16 if timescales went according to my outline plan)

How feasible would it be for a family of 3 or 4 to live on that joint income. It is possible that my son and daughter could get themselves part-time jobs (or my daughter full-time entry level work in animal care, retail, catering or similar) but I am not factoring in any kind of income for either of them with the initial calculations.

Our lifestyle is modest; we currently have 2 cars (although would hope to go down to one if we can get somewhere with reasonable public transport options) and live in a 4 bed 2.5 bath house (appreciate that this might not be affordable in the first instance in Canada, more likely a large apartment). We eat out as a family once a week and like to spend time on inexpensive outdoor activities such as hiking and all enjoy our local parkrun. We also enjoy swimming, visiting museums, and exploring historic sites, country parks and country houses in the UK as members of the National Trust and English Heritage, although appreciate that there won't be so much of that in Canada, just different activities depending on the time of year. My son is also a keen Sea Cadet so would have to factor in any costs for that too.

It may be that I or my husband need to upskill over the next few months and perhaps command better salaries, but I thought considering current roles would be a starting point.

Thanks

Danny B

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Toronto

Summary about cost of living in Toronto:

• Four-person family monthly costs: 4,834.23C$ without rent (using our estimator).
• A single person monthly costs: 1,321.57C$ without rent.
• Cost of living rank 30th out of 386 cities in the world.
• Toronto has a cost of living index of 80.80.

plasticcanuck

dbd33

Assuming you don't want to buy a house, or can do so without using this income.

BristolUK

According to this site from last month




No idea how accurate the above is but this site gives census results for income levels

dbd33

If I may, that site would appear to contain some old bollocks unrelated to being able to buy a house.

Looking at their Toronto example 124,000*3 = 372,000. 873,000 - 372,000 = $501,000.

That is, if you were willing to borrow as much as possible and you had half a million dollars in cash then you could buy the benchmark house. What if you don't happen to have half a million dollars?

BristolUK

If that is applied to the other cities, much the same happens. So it looks impossible everywhere. But it can't be.

Hurlabrick

I am surprised that according to that chart, London is showing as the most affordable. Property market is very hot with multiple bids for each decent property, which sells within 2 weeks for significantly over asking

carolg2712

Thanks for your replies so far. Regards housing, we would probably rent initially. I need to look at a few websites to calculate an average rent for a property with at least 3 bedrooms. A house would be ideal, but likelihood is probably an apartment based on housing costs suggested.

Regards jobs I'm currently a project manager in the UK Civil Service with a year's experience as project manager assigned to Brexit. Prior to this job I spent 10 years or so in project support and project coordination (IT and local government) roles. My husband is currently a front end web designer and content editor in the banking sector.

Toronto isn't necessarily a final location as need to consider cost of living and job availability, which is why I used it as a benchmark in my calculations. A friend has suggested Kitchener, and Hamilton has also been mentioned where we might get more property for our money (but only if jobs available). I just need to find out more about those alternatives so any advice on that would also be welcome and if salaries likely to reflect them being slightly more affordable and viable work options.

Siouxie

Did you get certification for Project Management? You'll most likely find yourself in competition with those that do so it would be a good idea to do so if that's your intended profession here. Do have a read of this thread:- Struggling to get a job (perhaps revisit your other thread? Moving to Alberta: which city )

Web design unfortunately is unlikely to be an in demand profession, content creation is quite often produced by freelance or contractor workers. Does he have certification in other areas as well?

I think you may struggle to achieve $145,000 initially, without Canadian experience and certification.

There are a fair few threads about Hamilton and area, there's a few on the Kitchener area as well... and Guelph... Kingston etc., Once you decide on a specific area I'm sure people will be happy to advise you. First identify where the work is... then choose where you would prefer to live.

carolg2712

Thanks @siouxie. Regards project management certification, I'm working on it. My current concern is that I don't have enough practical project management experience for the full project management professional qualification as only got my promotion last year, so may have to try for the APM Project Management Certificate, which I hope will help. If all else fails I'll need to look at working in project support / project coordinator roles initially and prepared for the subsequent reduction in my salary compared to project management.

My husband does web content editing and web design on a freelance basis currently so nearer the time of immigration he's going to work on his LinkedIn profile to try and network once we've figured out the city we could best live in.

It's all about figuring it out and the logistics of such a move.over next few months. We're also hoping to visit Toronto later this year for a city break without the kids for our wedding anniversary and were planning to check out some of our options in between being tourists.

This forum is great but I appreciate it's best to do plenty of other research as well.

Siouxie

I'm concerned that your husband may struggle to find full time employment unless he has certification and/or a degree - there isn't a shortage of web designers and content creators/editors (many of them are freelance or with their own companies - I know quite a few, most of them are self employed).

We have many threads on different Cities / towns around and outside of the GTA so do have a look through some of them. In all honesty if you are going to have to look for a job in project support (without certification or Canadian experience) you may struggle to afford to live somewhere like Toronto at all initially. Ascertain where you can find work first, then look at commutable areas from that. No point in deciding on one town or City if there is little to no work in the area... or so expensive that you won't have much quality of life.

https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketrepo...ation/12496/ON
https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketrepo.../17898/geo9219

There's some good advice on this website you might find helpful (together with our Wiki of course!) https://www.zero2hired.com/blog/5-ea...ian-experience

carolg2712

Thanks for the links. My husband has a BSc (hons) degree in computer communications and also holds ITIL foundation certificate. He's freelance already as there aren't the web design / content editing roles in the UK either these days.

dbd33

There are plenty of freelance web designers/creators working in the GTA marketplace who are not physically in the GTA; they'll be in India or Eastern Europe or anywhere at all; that's the definitive "location independent" job. I don't think qualifications matter in that arena either; you need WebEx, an online portfolio and a means to contact people who want websites; it doesn't matter where the website wanters are. I think the value to the immigration process of such a job depends on the government being behind the times; a firm in Canada wouldn't physically import someone to work here when they could just contract the person where they are now and the person doing that work wouldn't offer anything that specifically relates to Canada,

carolg2712

Thanks - at the moment we are thinking about cities where I could get reasonably paid work more so than my husband. If we can both get good jobs with a reasonable or minimal commute that would be the best outcome. I would be taking him on spousal sponsorship as I'm a citizen so him having a job to go to wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker. Just having enough for our modest lifestyle would be great. Once we have the Canadian work experience, things should improve. We're planning to emigrate in the next couple of years, so we just need to figure out what we can do from the UK to get internationally recognised certification that would get ourselves through an employment sifting process at the moment.