price comparisons - question
 

In quite a few threads here people write things like "it all averages out" when you compare Canadian wages/prices to UK wages/prices. I am truly confused. The price of real estate in major cities, price of gasoline/petrol, new car and major appliance prices - all are about double in the U.K. Most (not all) food is more expensive there. Having briefly - and admittedly not very thoroughly -done salary comparisons, it seems to me that the average U.K. wage is approx. 30 - 40% higher than in Canada. How on earth can it then"all average out"? I find life in Canada incomparably cheaper than in the U.K. You can buy a decent car without breaking the bank, you can buy a very decent house (except in certain parts of B.C.) on an average salary and my wife and I eat out two or three times a week - something we could *never* do in the U.K. She earns about 50K and as a free-lance musician (albeith a fairly well established one), I earn about $35K. The kids are grown and not a major drain on our finances. Perhaps my view of this is skewed but whenever I visit the U.K (London and Reading) I'm aghast at the prices and then read with astonishment on this board that when salaries are compared it all equals out. Does it really?

GTR

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I have to agree with you there - we went from UK to Germany - found that cheaper to live than England - then here, cheaper still! I'm sure it's true in some areas (that things average out), but overall, I'd say no - it IS considerably less expensive to live here. We had good incomes in the UK and still found it a struggle to make ends meet. Not anymore. I think the 'disposable income' portion is probably greater here, AND it goes further :)

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Well we have done the detailed comparions and projected our Canadian costs (not there yet, still in UK but seems to be 20 to 30% more-for-money in Canada than here, howver you compare. Mind you, we're not planning the monster 5 bedroom house, eating out each night, buying two $50k trucks and having 2 Hawaiian/Caribbean vacations a year.

Canada def offers better bang for buck in our view. :) but also it's not just about the money for us.

Rich.

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A combined salary of CDN85K sounds fairly impressive to me.....obviously I'm no expert, but a UK salary of around £36K (taking an exchange of 2.3:1) would be way above average.

The average wage here is supposedly around £24k pa, but not too many people seem to come even close to earning that, so I don't know where the (Government) figures come from.

I think the bottom line is......enjoy what you have, and the next time you are having a little :beer: , think how lucky you are!! ;)

All the best

Scouse

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Exchange rates are not a good way of determining costs and living standards. A more accurate method is "Purchasing Power Parity" http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/PPP.html or a more simplistic approach is by determining how long do you have to work to buy something like a gallon of gas, a house, a car or Big Mac.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

I think you will find that when we speak about things being the same - it is relativity we are talking about.

For example:

House in UK - £300,000 = House in Canada - $300,000
Salary in UK - £35,000 = Salary in Canada - $35,000
Petrol in UK - 89p per litre = Petrol in Canada - 89c per litre
Car in UK - £15,000 = Car in Canada - $15,000

Generally it works out the same, just forget about currency exchange rates or which currency symbol you use. I find with almost everything it is the same figure in $'s as it is in £'s.

*edited to say* Obviously when you go on holiday to UK you will see everything is more expensive when you do the exchange calculations, but that isn't what we are talking about.

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I understand what you're saying - but I wasn't talking 'numbers' or exchange rates - just how things seem to be for us financially, and they are markedly better :)

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I think the bit where it falls down is the salary comparison part. My wife and I both earn $35K which would be a total of $70K. There is no way that it is equal to UKP70K. With $70K and no kids we manage a reasonably high rent (Toronto) and everyday stuff like phone, cable and food and have enough spare for entertainment and some savings etc. but we can't afford a car and no way we could get a mortgage to buy a house that costs $300K. While the house prices in the UK are equally insane as they are here (can't find a decent house in my area under $450K) I am fairly sure that if we had an income of UKP70K outside London area then we could at least afford a car. Obviously it depends where you are. I'm fairly sure you could take $70K outside the Toronto commuting GTA and get a house and car, but of course you'd have to also find a job to pay you some money as well. It's not as bad as the exchange rate but I think it's a little less than just switching the dollar and pound signs.

Drew

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Let me verify before I go any further: you "cannot" afford a car making 70k CAD??? WHAT???? 70K after taxes gives you about 50k cash per annum, of which "surviving" expenses as I calculated them (east of Toronto, $1250 rent, two kids) averaged 3k per month or 36k per year which leaves 14k for miscelleanous stuff PER YEAR out of your combined salaries. A decent car will cost roughly 20k and it will last at least 10 years with minor maintenance cost (if it's Japaneese, of course :D ), even figuring cost of insurance and gas - please don't tell me that out of 140k for 10 years of spare money you cannot afford a 20k car which will last at least that long....

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I trust your judgement on expenses being equal when dropping the currency symbol, but are you sure you got your salaries right? Are you saying £35,000 is as common as CAD$35,000 in Canada? This would mean that people in UK make roughly 2.37 more than in Canada which nowhere agrees with the statistical economic data nor common sense (Canada being so much behind the "developed world"?)

To back up my words, one decent economic figure which often translates nicely into salaries people actually receive is Purchasing Power Parity which according to 2005 CIA Factbook equals ~$27k USD in UK, while it's around ~29k USD in Canada...

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I bought a beautiful three bedroom house with all the bells and whistles in Oakville (in 2003) for 269K. A *very* decent used car can be had for 10K. But those are minor quibbles. The major point is that while 35K is pretty close to an average Canadian salary, this sum is way above average for the U.K. As I said before: I simply do not see where it all averages out. One could argue that culturally the U.K. has much more to offer and unemployment there is lower - but the standard of living is undesputably higher in Canada overall.

GTR

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Whilst Tiaribbon is correcty on the comparisons and I am not even there I have read a lot about the statistics of earnings and have found that differential between average household incomes is about a quarter overall and seems to be getting closer as time goes by. Average household income in Canada is around $83,000 (£36,000) and in the UK it is £27,500. A major cost factor in the last few years has been housing and a reportedly tripling of the cost of a home in the UK. In Canada the house we were looking at 15 months ago has gone up by $50,000 which is reflected in the housing boom which is still underway whilst the property boom has stalled in the UK. I wonder if the costs will become much closer?

Saying that the environment that the average salary will buy is somewhat different from Canada to the UK due in part to the huge amount of old and social housing that was and is being constructed in the UK. But I have seen brochures of many new developments in Canada recently where the space allocated (plot) seems to be getting ever smaller which I am sure is a reflection of get rich quick on the part of the builders who are seeing the benefits of a housing boom.

Perhaps then the financial benefits are not what they appear to be.

But from a personal perspective (us) it makes sense. Also the buying power of the average graduate is greater in Canada than the UK - perhaps this is the worry about the brain drain to the south and quality people command more...?

As far as average wages are concerned I read that a houshold salary will at least buy you a 3-4 bed detached new home or a smart condo. In areas in the south of the UK a graduate will be lucky to afford a one bed flat in a not very nice area.

In short comparitives are not what they seem to be but where is? You pay your money - you take your choice but do your research first.

But if you have a job in the UK it is quite different to no job in Canada. We are faced with a major change in our business life coming towards us so we have a real incentive to make a new start. If I was settled in a job with a nice pension and plenty of prospects within a company I would give it serious thought. Depends on personal circumstances and what you want out of life and where you want to 'try' and live.

PS. One thing you might have to ask is this. You...the parent may think you have won small fortune when converting your hard earned money but what about your children. If they are starting with nothing like we did you are on a level playing ground. Then you need to say where do you think your children will have the greatest chance of not working themselves into the ground in a difficult economy with a poor 'lifestyle'. My vote is with Canada - not Europe. But only time will tell

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It could be that the smaller lot size is a typical Yuppie requirement for 2 working parents. Part of the low maintenance lifestyle along with outsourcing the housecleaning and bringing up the kids.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

I have found the same.
Coming from the UK, Canada seems very cheap, but it's only in proportion to wages. You earn less over here.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

But just mulling it over I would hope that IF my children could end up earning $40-$50,000 as graduates a car for $15,000 is a lot less of a years salary than £15,000 from a UK salary at £25,000. Here's wishful thinking perhaps.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

A lot depends where you live in Canada. In the GTA and Vancouver a lot larger proportion of your canadian salary goes towards housing costs than elsewhere in Canada, but you dont have to live there. 90 mins from TO our older (but OK) house would be about $130-150k (property taxes appraised at $116k!!!). A brand new house nearer $200-250k

Getting away from the big ticket items my best guess is that for day to day expenses £1 cost in the UK is about $1.30 cost here. (except bread and milk which is $1.20 a loaf for the cheap no name stuff, which seems a lot more than the UK :confused: )

Dont forget UK prices already include the sales tax, but here you have to tack that on top of the sticker price. Property here is certainly cheeper than the UK, but salaries are generally lower. I think I have more spending power here on my engineering salary...at least I am paying more than just the interest on my mortgage, which is more than a lot of my contempories can say in the UK. We have 2 cars, my wife doesnt have to work and we make ends meet, but without too many luxuries (apart from my wife not having to work;) ) without being up to our necks in debt.

Things like electricity, heating and insurance are pretty expensive here, so what you gain on buying goods perhaps you lose on house running expenses. We pay $150-200 a month for heating oil over the year, and thats over and above our elctricity costs, which are seldom less than $100 a month, and more in the summer with the A/C going.

A $15k car here will be as cheap as it sounds. You get what you pay for, but its certainly not in the same rip off level of cost as some stuff in the UK.

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Why is this when Canada has large land areas under crop? Normal bread in UK about 70p a loaf with Asda cheap stuff at 20p! Very odd :confused:

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Many good points (especially about utility costs - hadn't really thought about those!) Not sure you're right about the 15K car though: I bought a used Honda Accord back in 1998 for 11K. It now has 250000 clicks and still runs like a dream - and it's fully loaded: A/C, sun roof, power everything. It's starting to creak a bit so I'm now looking for a replacement and have seen some very decent BMW's (mid- to late 90's mmodels) for about 10 - 13K. That's very affordable!!
Btw, is car insurance in the U.K. as exhorbitant as it is here? Probably not! That may be one of the few things that is substantially higher over here

GTR

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are there subsidies on bread in the U.K.? I know milk prices here are held artificially high to support farm subsidies. The actual price of a litre should be well below a buck

GTR

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Probably. We/I drive a Jag and that is about the same as my my wifes people carrier used to be. About £650 per year but thats with 9 years no claims bonus. Without that it would be up to the £2,000 mark if I were a new boy on the block even given my age. A newly passed driver in the UK might pay £1,000 - £1,500 a year and up for a 3-4 year old Focus/Fiesta or similar.

Read that after a few years insurance can get to below $1,000 for a normal car in Canada.....I hope.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

I was refering to new cars, no doubt canada is cheeper than the UK (not many places arent!), but as a percentage of average salary its not so great a difference. There are not to many good new vehicles to be had new below $15k after tax, the UK caters to the small/cheap car market sector better than canada. I can only think of the Toyota Echo (Yaris) and the GM Aveo clones, and I suspect either would be squished like a bug on a windscreen if hit by a truck here. I suppose the small Kias also qualify, and maybe a Hyundai or two?

Even though Canada is a tough envirionment on cars, I too would rather spend $15k on a larger used vehicle. Dealer servicing isnt ridiculously expensive, so oil changes every 6000k dont seem too painfull and most people do them. Always used to DIY in the UK, and far less frequently than here. Much as I like Beamers you still pay for the name and they are a bit too RWD for my taste in Canada. Rather spend the money on an Audi, or a newer Subaru, but each to there own.

As far as insurance goes, it is expensive, but its not helped by:
A. Most immigrants having to start from scratch again,
B. Winter conditions causing fender benders, and
C. Everyone and there dog trying to sue someone for something, I would guess that Legal and Medical costs are probably the main cause of the difference in premiums .

FWIW between my Subaru and my wifes older Mazda Protege we pay $1800 a year, and thats after maxing out no claims here. Seems a rip off to me, but we shopped around and thats as low as it goes with full coverage. It probably doesnt seem so bad when converted to pounds...but I dont get paid in pounds! As a percentage of houshold income Im sure its higher than it would be in the UK, even with all the car crime over there.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

Yeah, I know....I've never owned a Beamer (decades of Japanese cars and two VW's) and now I'm thinking of snobbing up a wee bit :) What's "RWD", incidentally? Got all the other abbreviations but this one stumped me

I notice you're located in Quinte - very nice part of the province. I work in Prince Edward County quite a bit

GTR

Re: price comparisons - question
 

I would have to agree with you here. Between us my husband and I made much less last year and manage a car and even manage to save. I think a lot is down to priorities. We bought a car second hand $5000 and it works like a dream.much better than anything we could have affored in uk. Insurance and petrol is cheap enough. We don't consider tv/cell phones necessities and spend no money whatsoever during work hours. We do like to go out but spend wisely.....
tip: buffets are great when you go away. you can get your dinner and discretly arrange your breakfast for the next morning!!!

Re: price comparisons - question
 

Rear wheel drive as against FWD..front wheel drive. Rear wheel a total pain in the arse in the snow to me.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

Rear wheel drive
I thought it was only farmers down there ;) :D Where have you played?

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A place called the Waring House in Picton. There's also a nice jazz festival in mid-August

GTR

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Place has a good reputation for food around here, and is supposed to have a nice pub :beer: . Will have to check it out :)

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A great place to stop after a day at Outlet Beach.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

It's a serious mistake to make any assumptions upon possible earning power when you arrive in Canada.
I'm a graduate with tonnes of experience, yet I earn less than $20k as I've had to take a survival job in a shop.
Many others seem to be in a similar position.
The best policy is to assume the worst. i.e minimum wage (shop work, bar jobs, flipping burgers etc.)
Anything over that is a bonus.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

Yes I am aware as seen too many threads like this not to be. One difference though is that by the time our youngest leaves Uni if we ever manage to get there it will be another 8 years. High school etc to finish first for our middle one as well. Our eldest has secured a place at Waterloo (waiting on Western to answer) so even she will have been in Canada four years before looking for work and I must say having done the tours there is an enormous amount of preparitary work done on emplyment issues before students graduate. Whole buildings are put aside where prospective employeers interview and coach. I was, as was the family blown away by the facilities on offer. So she probably will be a dual passport holder so in effect a citizen. I have tried to think the whole thing through but best plans of mice and men... (Is that sexist nowadays)... best plans of mice and people...?

But poor old me... does worry me but I am at an age where we have a bit put by. Thanks though. The future anywhere is unsure.

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I have taken a £8000 pay cut to move back to Canada but we will still be better off in Canada than the UK. The UK simply has no gravity, it just sucks!

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The difference is they would be graduates of a canadian university, with canadian experience and contacts made through internships etc, so its not really comparing apples to apples. Congrats on the job, hopefully now you are on the ladder your ability and experience will propel you upwards like it did for Glaswegian.

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My new job pays $35k per year and I have 15 yrs experience and a PhD!

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I can read this two ways. You may be saying you earn more than $20,000 or you think $35,000 is good for a graduate whatever the experience or qualification level.

I know many graduates on poor money simply because they are in fields that do not command good pay. I also know many who have little or no qualifications who earn shit loads of money.

For my kids all I can do is guide them into what one hopes are good careers and then its up to them...money may or may not come with job satisfaction and if you find life a little easier it does not matter quite so much me thinks...

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Came across this

Make your own mind up really as stats and lies I am told... :)

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/pop...ing/popup.html

and this link that goes with it

http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/11/pf/c...iving/?cnn=yes

Re: price comparisons - question
 

Apologies, I thought you meant they're graduates from a UK university! :D
A lot of Brits think they'll just be able to move seemlessly from Britain to Canada with no change in financial status whatsoever.
The number of times I've seen 'I expect to earn $50k', 'I will accept $35k' etc. For many it's minimum wage!!
They wouldn't expect this if they moved to Italy or Spain, so why Canada? Is it because it's largely English speaking?

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Thanks,
I feel much more positive now I've finally broken the barrier and got a job here. I was beginning to think I'd never ever get work in Canada!!
Hopefully now I'm working full time here employers will view me more seriously instead of just a British immigrant! :D

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The richest man I've met has a grade six education -- ie, he left school when he was 11 :eek:. A lot of people attribute his financial success to his lack of formal education - he just didn't think about stuff like 'is this a right decision?', 'what are the risks?' etc. too much, if at all! He just did stuff. He's a bit of an assh@le as well so that too probably helped him 'succeed' :D.

Re: price comparisons - question
 

This gives a good demonstration of price comparisons within Canada. Last Summer we sold our old and rather ugly 3-bedroom townhouse in Oakville for $225,000. As you must be aware, GTR, that is towards the bottom of the price range for Oakville. We then bought a fairly new 3-bedroom detached house in Gatineau. Lots of upgrades, nice garden, finished basement and in the best part of town. $171,000. Sure, municipal and personal taxes are higher in Quebec, but you do get a lot back. We can afford to send our son to private school (subsidised by the provincial government).

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I think you have to look at Toronto and anywhere you can commute to Toronto from in the GTA like Oakville as a completely seperate case to the rest of Canada, excluding Vancouver which is just as, if not more, expensive. It's like London and the south East in the UK. For example in the area I rent my apartment in Bloor West Village in the west end of Toronto near high Park the cheapest house I have seen on the market recently is $425,000. that's for a 4 (maybe 3 but I think 4) bedroom detached house with space for a car. Nice area but on a main road. That's the cheapest, most are over $500,000 and this isn't like a super rich area like Rosedale or Forest Hill where there's nothing under a million dollars. Compare that to anywhere outside the GTA or Vancouver and it just makes me want to cry, hehe. I hate renting and giving my money to the landlord rather than building equity but unless I either hit lucky on the handfull of slightly cheaper properties in this area or move to a crappy area of the city I'm stuck. I'd love to move say to the Quinte region or Southern Ontario etc. where you can buy fantastic property for hald the price of Toronto, however to live there you need a job there and that's the catch 22 because most of the jobs are Toronto centric which is why so many people spend hours a day commuting because they want to live outside the city but are forced to commute back to it. There really is a huge cost of living difference between large metropolitan hubs like Toronto and Vancouver and smaller cities and towns in Canada.

On the job market front one thing that I always try and bear in mind is that Canada is a tiny country that happens to occupy a huge expanse of land. By that I mean the population is only 30,million. Compare that to the UK population of 60 million on a tiny Island or the USA with it's (just under) 300,000,000 people. That's 10 times the population of Canada in slightly less space. So lets say the US has an unemployment rate of 5%. That's 15 million people out of work. That's half the entire population of Canada. If Canada has an unemployment rate of 7% that's around 2 million people. So the US would have to create 7 times as many jobs as Canada to employ all it's people. in that respect I think that while Canada relies on immigrants to maintain it's workforce due to small population and low birth rates (like most of the western world) you have to bear in mind it is a small job market and that there are a large amount of Canadian graduates etc. heading into the professional and skilled jobs. That means that there will be a whole bunch of people applying for all these jobs and the people who were raised and educated in Canada, who know Canada and the way it works and have the friends and networks etc. are going to have an advantage. Just like a UK graduate who had done work experience or placements with a UK company would have an advantage over someone from Canada who just moved to the UK.

I think that people from the UK or USA or Australia etc. have a slight advantage over the majority of migrants in that their native language is english so there is less of a communications issue. It's still an issue, especially if you have a heavy accent, because you can still be mis understood and have problems getting points across when using unfamilar language or slang etc. However it is still an advantage over someone who has english as a second language.

I think the main thing is getting over that by proving yourself. You may have to start in a position below your experience or qualifications. However once you have a job you are there and doing something and you have the option of exercise your skills and impress people. If you truely are qualified above the level of work you are doing then you will be able to easily excel and surpass expectations and make impressions on people. The job I took when I first came was for $9/hr helping out in an office and I only found that through a family contact (networking is everything here). I thought it would be temporary while I tried to find a "real" job using my technical degree etc. However I soon realised the IT market was screwed and all the local graduates with their work placements etc. had the easier route and so I concentrated on making my temporary job into a "real" job as it were. I found that once you actually had the job then your qualifications became alsmost irrelevant, no one looks much at your resume once you are hired. It comes down to performance in the job and real world results. So I just usedc what I had learned at university etc. used my IT skills to impress all the technically inept people in most offices and did a good job and that was enough to skip past the temporary job thing and be taken seriously. Now after 2 years (which may seem a long time but isn't really) I've managed to get a decent position in the same company and set things up to either stay there or if I chose to leave I have 2 years of good "Canadian Experience" on my resume which should help diffuse the whole immigrant thing in the eyes of future employers.
All I am trying to say is don't overlook those temporary or crappy paid jobs because every company has opertunities for moving up or to different departments or work areas and if you can stick with it and prove your true skills then you will soon be treated like every other employee whether they were born/educated in Canada or not.

I think where I work there are people from around 40 different countries, probably more. It also helps having a US parent company because all the guys there are American and so to them everyone is a foreigner whether you are Canadian or British or South American etc. So that kind of evens the playing field.

Drew