Apologies first. I know I'm asking questions that have been answered before but I have searched and read lots of threads on the subject and I think I still need to ask.

As I have previously mentioned, we are looking at the possibility of relocating to NS from Northern Ireland.
My main worry is -
Can we make a decent enough living in NS? Now I know that money is not the be all and end all and that an improvement in our quality of life is the main issue we wish to address.
However, our quality of life is greatly impacted by our financial situation. Having 5 children we must ensure that we can support them to a decent level, I'm not talking silver spoons in mouths, just normal standard of living.
Oh is a carpenter and from what I have read he should be able to get work but with heating fuel, insurances and other amenities seemingly so expensive I am struggling to understand how we would make ends meet sufficiently well.

Sorry if I am rambling but I would love some feedback from you who are experiencing life in NS. Thank you.

Will you be working as well? Will you be bringing cash over with you? Buying your house outright - ie no mortgage?

Yeah we're hopin to bring a good bit of money from house equity - maybe $500k. We would hoope to buy outright and be mortgage free.
Im a counsellor so I have to look into the equilivancy of my qualification, but yeah Ihope to work part time also.

If your buying outright then that is one less monthly expense. Your husband will probably earn aroun $26 per hour (no doubt someone will correct me if this is wrong). My OH earns around this and brings home $795 a week - from this we have to pay out $400 a week for mortgage, insurance (car and home), electric, heating oil, gas, property taxes, Eastlink (TV/internet/telephone bundle) and cell phone.

Food is really expensive here - I am only just getting the hang of budgeting for this. Once my youngest goes to school I will work part time to bring in some extra cash. It can be tight sometimes but we manage and we love living here and would definately recommend it.

We hope to get PR and sell our UK house next year, which will mean we pay off our mortgage here and also have the opportunity to work at whatever we like - we are here on a TWP at the moment so my OH cannot earn anymore than $26 per hour.

[ - we are here on a TWP at the moment so my OH cannot earn anymore than $26 per hour.[/QUOTE]

Sorry to hijack the thread but I just noticed what you said above - are your wages capped if you are on a TWP??

Sorry to hijack the thread but I just noticed what you said above - are your wages capped if you are on a TWP??[/QUOTE]

No they aren't capped as such - he has had a wage increase since he started - but he cannot work for anyone else or do private work to earn some extra money.

Another drywall firm offered him some evening and weekend work at time and a half but he is not legally allowed to do it.

He can only work for the company who his TWP is connected to.

Hi there,
Don't really have an answer for your questions but just thought I would say Hi as we moved from Northern Ireland to New Brunswick earlier this year. No idea what the normal wage for carpenters is but as salaries for my job (IT) are generally lower in NI than the rest of the UK my salary actually went up when we moved here!! For alot of other jobs though the wages do seem less but we've found cost of living about the same, some things are more expensive and some things are cheaper.
We had hoped to be coming with huge equity from our house sale too but we are still waiting for it to sell and have dropped the price loads already don't mean to be negative but the housing market is pretty dire at the min.

All the best,
Sinead

No they aren't capped as such - he has had a wage increase since he started - but he cannot work for anyone else or do private work to earn some extra money.

Another drywall firm offered him some evening and weekend work at time and a half but he is not legally allowed to do it.

He can only work for the company who his TWP is connected to.[/QUOTE]


Phew!! Thanks for the info, thought there was something I had missed there about salaries

If he is a journeyman carpenter then he will be in the same Union as my OH and will earn just a smidge over $26 per hour.

Can/or do you have to join the Union before or after you start your job?
I'm only asking because when we were on our reccie and OH was job hunting, he got the knock back from a couple of companies saying they will only employ people who are "in the Union"

My OH started work and his company recommended him to the Union, once he had worked a week and they liked what they saw.

Your OH just needs to tell them that once he has his TWP the first thing he will do when he lands here is join the Union - it will take around 15 mins to do.

We're a family of four in NB. Armed with £123k from a 2005 house sale, that was about $264k on the rate at that time.

It bought:

• 4 bedroom, air conditioned house with deck, patio, garage and big garden and all the furniture and appliances to go with it.
• Duplex to rent out for additional income.

I had money left over.

The rental profit is around $7.5k. There's no point in telling you how we have been managing perfectly well on a low income; that just brings out the disbelievers.

But our house was $118k and the duplex was $100k. On current values, maybe $140k and $120k.

If you have about $500k you could buy some rental property as well as your home. The income from rentals could give you much freedom as far as employment needs go, perhaps even allowing you both to work part time.

I never did anything close to being a landlord before and there's no great work involved. The income nicely supplements my small pension.

Thank you all for your replies so far. Hi to fellow norn iron in NB.
Id love to hear from more of you with regard to living cost and how you manage.

please

It's been a bit slow today. I'm sure some more will come along.