Originally Posted by Notiaink...honest

Not really, but the premiership is well covered, and there is a daily 30 min summary highlite show on "The Score" that covers cricket and rugby to some extent, as well as covering the top european soccer leagues, and even the scottish league.

Hockey is king here, and when its not hockey season baseball takes up huge numbers of telly hours. But its a great big country and life is too short to spend all but saturday morning stuck in front of the idiot latern.

Originally Posted by Notiaink...honest

You do get more house for your money, but often they are not as solidly constructed as a UK house, and they are viewed more as a place to live than an investment in most cases. There also seems to be more maintainence, new roofs every 10 or 20 years, that kind of thing.

There are many "cost of living" threads if you search the archive. We have 2 small kids and two (paid for) cars, so I guess we are in a similar situation. Our income from my job is in the mid $60ks, and frankly after the mortgage and all the bills are paid there is not a whole lot left. My wife stays at home with the kids, which we think is good for them, but its just as well as with no family to help out, childcare expenses would suck up most of anything she earned if she worked too anyway. Its essential to start saving early on for college and retirement funds, so I suppose without that sort of sensible thinking we would have more money for frivolous stuff. Car insurance is a major shock for newcomers, it can easily be thousands a year, regardles of how good your UK record is.

Vacation time is an issue for many. Standard holiday entitlement starts at two weeks, or three if you are lucky.

But having said all that I really like it here, consider it home and have no plans to ever return to the UK if it can be avoided. Its a very kid friendly place to, but there is not much in the way of what you would recognise as pubs.

Premiership is no problem, three games (live and time shifted) on the main sports chanel "Sportsnet" every Saturday morning, and more elsewhere if you are addicted. Keanos done really well, it will be intersting to see how they do in the Prem.

Originally Posted by Ant_Barber

Cheers mate, you seem like you're the only moderately normal one that has replied!I realise that we're still a couple of years away from joining you over there but theres a few figures we need to bash about to make sure that the hole thing is worth while doing. We had a look at a few houses and theres no denying that you get more for your money, but after paying the mortgage whats the other costs like if you don't mind me asking? We'll be a family of 4 by then and there'll only be myself working so i would imagine it would be pretty tight. We would be running 2 regular sized cars. I understand its a bit personal what i'm asking but it would certainly help in figuring the whole thing out. The last thing i want to happen is to uproot the family and find we are living on a shoe string!

P.S. Can you get the premiership over there, since Keano and Quinn has dragged us back to the top flight?

Originally Posted by Ant_Barber

Thanks a lot mate. Yes you are pretty much in the same boat by the sounds of it. That gives me a decent idea, I appreciate it. I'll be in touch again if thats ok, but thats enough to go on for the time being.
Other than where abouts are you located. We are looking in the southern Ontario region. ?