dormy

No, it was myself my wife and one 10 year old girl.

nikki dreaming

Hi
I've lived in NS for 8 years now. In my personal opinion as a family of 4 ourselves I think 54k will be very tight and stressful .

Hmm1

I suppose its as a previous poster said, if you're used to earning 40k then 54k is loads, but 54k is "very tight and stressfull" to someone earning more than that.

I appreciate everyone's help although I've had so many different views I'm still none the wiser what to do!

Although as 54k is well over the avg wage in NS it's surely doable?

raindropsandroses

I don't think average wage is much on an indicator of whether you would have an OK quality of life. Have you looked at the percentages of people reliant on food banks?

You will be pushing it with two kids on $54k. Would it work? Perhaps, until you hit one of life's roadbumps, but I doubt it would give you any savings, nothing for your kids college funds etc. If your kids wanted to join sports teams and clubs you may have to curtail and or limit what they do.

As much as I'm happy being antisocial and doing free outdoorsy stuff in my spare time, but our son loves doing sports and I wouldn't want his quality of life to suffer, or for him to miss out because we were struggling financially. As was mentioned before, emigrating to have to clothe your kids from Oxfam and not being able to afford for them to join teams for sports they love doesn't seem like the ideal. Personally I wouldn't want to risk taking an opportunity which was touch and go as to having enough to eat, affording to heat the house etc. Before being a parent I would have taken the leap no questions asked as it would only be affecting me if it went to pot, but now? No way.

Why not apply for PR before heading over, and then you'll be eligible for child benefit and all the other benefits which would really help.

Howefamily

This!!! Is sensible advice.
Our kids were not keen on sports being really young and just enjoyed playing on bikes and with friends for the first couple of years. That helped. Our salaries started low but mine increased quickly, hubby took longer to get work but he was ahead of where he was in the UK within 3 years. Only you know if the risk will pan out or not. Having PR and therefore child benefit will make an enormous difference.

nikki dreaming

Avg wage versus household income I think needs to be considered.

Based on some of the expense calculations further up it looked like there wasn't going to be much left each month and that was when groceries were noted at $400 per month, I agree with other posters who suggested doubling this to be realistic , there were also items missing in that particular list, gas, tenants insurance for the rental property, kids activities, as some other examples , I think car insurance will likely be way more than 120 a month.

We first moved and had 1 income at not much more than you, planned for OH to stay at home for a number of months as we had some savings . Reality was savings were blown through in setting up costs within a matter of weeks and OH had to find work months sooner than we anticipated.

Emigrating is stressful enough to start out without having concern of finances, that said of course anything is possible and if determined enough can work out well, I would really look at putting a list together with all costs and compare against the income and see where it lands.

Good luck

raindropsandroses

I completely agree. Whilst $54k is above the average income in NS I doubt there are many with a household income of $54K with kids and renting at $1200/month rent who aren't struggling. Not struggling in a will have to go to Timmy's rather than Starbucks this month, but struggling at the level of some people in the household having to skip meals, or having to use food banks.

It is also different to have $54K income as a PR or citizen than as a temporary worker. The former will have that $54K topped up with child benefit, tax benefits etc.
In the OP's case if he was a PR child benefit would be another $8700 a year tax free, based on the CRA's rough guide calculator. That's without the other benefits which may apply, and the admittedly sometimes dubious safety net of Employment Insurance.

nikki dreaming

2014 stats show household income at 72k for NS, course this is a median based bunch of stats, but I think useful

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil108a-eng.htm

DandNHill

Wow if $72k is the average there must be some seriously rich people in NS!

rivingtonpike

That's the average. Presumably for everyone over this number there's a corresponding person or family below it. Although averages don't work like that do they?

Siouxie

The stats for lone-parent families are consideraby lower, at $36,600.

DandNHill

That's what I mean. If the average is $72K then there must be a lot of people earning $150k+ to make the average that high sadly as there are a lot of people living in poverty.