Originally Posted by Tiaribbon (Post 5388752)

Firstly, hi guys; haven't been on here for a long time....busy down on the farm and all that! :) But hope everyone is doing well.


Jim,

I live fairly close to where you are looking to move to and the move I made has had me go through the whole range of emotions, financial ups and downs etc. We moved here in 2004 to start up a farming business. Came over with a tonne of money, bought the farm outright and all the vehicles, machinery, tractor, stock etc. We built barns and stables and had a lot of fencing put up. VERY expensive to do - much more than we had ever imagined. Now you may not be buying a farm therefore you may think that what I/we went through has no bearing, but life and living does. Money in Ontario just runs away with you. One minute you are very comfortable, the next it's flying out the door quicker than you are making it.

On minimum wage with no absolutely outgoings (apart from bills), would put you in the same category as us. I moved here with my daughter (husband remained in England for another year and a half running his business over there). So for a long time there was only me and my daughter to pay for.......however.......we also had 3 cats, 3 dogs and about 16 horses at the time. The first year we lived on UK money but then we decided not to bring any more money over and felt that the farm had to do its stuff on the earning front, mainly to see whether it was a viable business or not. We lived on $15,000 a year for the second year.....boy was that tough! VERY tough whatwith all those animals and vehicles to keep running. I would certainly never EVER want to go back to that.

The tail end of 2006 gave us a glimmer of hope.......none too soon either :unsure:. By Spring 2007 things were actually looking up and we were surviving not too badly. A number of good horse buys and selling easily and for fabulous profit margins, we managed to keep our heads above water. Summer 2007 - bingo! Everything slotted into place; business is doing pretty well; for a farm at any rate. By May in 2007 we had already turned over $50,000, about two thirds of that being clear profit and that includes husband moving out here and funding his wine enjoyment! Obviously I don't know what our figure will be by the year-end, but with a huge influx of new customers this month alone and with none of the existing customers having left (or with any intention of leaving), it has to look fairly decent. However for us winter is our expensive time therefore our profit margins dwindle somewhat during this period.

Our hydro is roughly $150 per month - this services the house (including the air conditioning and the swimming pool) and the whole of the farm.

Our property taxes obviously are very low as we are on farm status which works out at 75% less than residential taxes. Ours are around $1,200 per year.

Water and sewerage - we have our own therefore no cost.

Garbage collection once a week, roads plowed every day there's snow is included in our taxes.

Oil for heating costs us about $2,000 per winter nowadays, although the first winter when we had plenty of cash it was more than double this figure. Turning our thermostat down to 22 degrees made a massive difference to our heating costs.

I'm not sure where the person who is commenting on the "low income" subsidies is getting their information from, and I am in no way saying they are not correct, but I certainly didn't get them. That second year when I was really poor, I received $150 winter fuel allowance and that was it. I do now receive the child benefit (or whatever the name for it is) but that's not exactly going to keep you afloat.

Anyway, I digress, I would agree with those who have said yes you can survive on that amount of money.....but I honestly wouldn't advise even trying to. It is nothing more than a pitiful existence and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy (not that I have any enemies). One thing I will say though is this; your trade is much in demand around where I live (about 30 mins from Belleville) and no, none of the workmen that I know live on anywhere near minimum wage, therefore I think you should look at this as absolute worst case....and likely something that won't happen. There is always work here for skilled workmen and they do pay at least 3 times more than minimum wage, so I don't think that you will have any trouble picking up enough money to live on......but this is only what I think....so please do your research thoroughly.

Something you have going for you is that the Belleville area is reasonably cheap to buy property so you may find you have more available cash left over after buying your property; but don't rely too heavily on this and try to find work as soon as you can. You might be best to buy property in the Belleville area but try to seek work up in my area - property prices have more than doubled up here in just a couple of years. Our farm has just been valued and the figure we have been given (a conservative figure at that) is almost treble what we paid for it at the beginning of 2004. Of course that means absolutely nothing unless we sold, which we won't be doing in a hurry.

Finally, try not to squander money, because once it's gone it's very difficult to build your reserves back up again.

Very very best of luck to you.
Tia

Originally Posted by gill_andy_grew (Post 5389094)

We looked at what we have, what we could afford etc with a comfy life style.
We have also talked to others who have advised to have a safety account, just incase :thumbup:

That is then used incase you need to drop and fly back to the uk for any reason, good idea really if you are leaving parents etc behind.
If you dont live with high standards, then wise spending can get a good life in canada.
We have sold everything in the uk and just have the house left to sell :ohmy:
cheap cars, everything being watched what we spend etc etc
Seeing the end picture makes it worth while, we have done our sums and can easy live off 50-60k, but like most will say depends on your life style :eek: