glendem4

Property tax around 0.6% of house price
Electric $80 per month, rising to $140 in summer for a/c. Gas $60 in summer, $150 in winter.
Water $50 per month.
Mobile phone $28 a month unlimited nationwide calls and 5gb data.
Car insurance $100 a month for a small SUV. Aviva Canada accepted our 15 year no claims.
Internet WiFi unlimited $80 per month.
Beer local brew in pub $8.
Fuel $1.46 per litre
3 Indian dishes takeaway $50
We live in Niagara region, southern Ontario.

rivingtonpike

I think part of the comparison depends on where you came from in the UK. We moved from Richmond, SW London (ish) and the housing prices even 12 years ago were very high. We were able to buy a significantly larger property here - which would never have been possible in the part of London we came from.

Mordko

Our costs are in the same ballpark, except for property tax which is lower %.

Food and basic consumables (dog food, cleaning, etc) approximately $400 per person per month.

JamesM

In Downtown Toronto everything is more expensive from food through to haircuts. Certainly no one ever buys anyone else a beer at Hooters because after you add tax and tip it is $11 on average.

The exceptions which can make a difference are petrol and housing which are cheaper. The gap in housing has eroded immensely over the last decade.

If you'd arrived pre-2005 the difference in housing cost would have made you better off, despite other costs, but that is gone now.

You also have to factor in that in many professions salaries are lower here. For example a lot of companies will pay $70,000 a year here for a job that would make £70,000 in the UK.

Then it flips around with government jobs here where very few government workers make less than $100,000 and you can have a luxurious lifestyle of flexible work, ample time off and gold plated benefits.

So weigh up costs but also weigh up salary. Remember hiring here is slow, there is less choice of employers and incest & institutional racism are the foundations of Canadian employment.

JamesM

$28 for your mobile??? Explain?

That is not a norm.

RichMitch

Thanks so much again Christmasoompa. At the moment I am in a Data Analysis role working in Utilities. I have 15+ years experience and my background is a bit varied but is mainly in Technical IT Support roles and computer networking. I've also some sales experience from a year working as a recruitment consultant.

To be honest I don't mind if I don't get an IT job initially, just so long as I'm earning enough to keep the bills paid etc.

I'd like to head across early in 2022 hopefully to begin job hunting

Mordko

They do get gold-plated benefits, paid for by often much poorer taxpayers. No different from Britain, really. But “very few less than $100K” is an exaggeration. In Ontario there are 650 thousand public sector workers. In 2020 205 thousand made the $100K sunshine list, many of them nurses who worked a lot of overtime. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...list-1.5957158

Pingpong2021

We have lived in Calgary for nearly 3 months now

Some basic monthly costs for us.

1X CAR INSURANCE- $120 per month Fully comprehensive Car Insurance on a nearly new SUV (Allstate recognised 10 years NCB in the UK, I had to show letters from my UK insurer with start and end dates of my insurance, they were very strict on this but worth it as the premium is good IMO albeit more expensive than the UK.

1X MOBILE PHONE - $40 per month for 10gb- unlimited calls and texts Canada wide through Koodo mobile monthly no contract. Again not bad IMO. I brought my I-phone from the UK so sim only deal.

CABLE TV-WIFI- $120 per month for Unlimited high speed internet and SHAW cable tv combined (around 120 channels inc TSN sports). I also pay $10 a month for DAZN for premier league/champions league footie. No home phone.+ Netflicks. I was paying £120 per month in UK via SKY for phone-wifi and Sky sports

COUNCIL TAX- $250 per month for 1700 sq ft home. Cheaper than Band D/E in the UK

GAS/WATER/ELEC/GARBAGE $400 per month combined approximately. More expensive than UK. I was paying around £170 per month in the UK for a 1300 sqft 4 bed detached for these combined.

CONTENTS/BUILDING INSURANCE $70 per month combined. Not as expensive as I anticipated

FOOD- $100 approx per week per adult shopping at Costco and Canadain superstore. 50% More expensive than the UK. I have been pleasantly surprised with the choice of food in the supermarkets compared to when we last lived in Canada back in 2008.

PETROL- Currently $1.32 per litre at Costco. Much cheaper than the UK.

I think overall some things are more expensive and some things cheaper so at the end of the day the cost of living is very comparable to the UK.

dbd33

My daughter has a government job and, for what she wanted, it's wonderful. The salary isn't great <$150 but, since she's been employed, she's had more time off than working. It's the same trade off as in the UK and is ideal if you have a partner who has a high income, low benefit, job. Getting a government job isn't that easy though, it's rarely an option for an immigrant.

Data Analytics is too wide a field to put a price on, a recent grad who can work spreadsheets and some basic ETL tools can be had for $25/hr but would likely want 40. An actuary with IT number crunching skills might get $180-$200/hr.

christmasoompa

Nice idea, but you won't get a LMIA/visa/sponsoring employer without work experience in the role you'll be doing. So not just any job will qualify you for a visa.

BristolUK

After over 30 years in the biggest government department in the UK, where most of the staff were earning less than me while at various points I qualified for low income exemption from NHS charges (glasses, dental and prescriptions) I'm waiting to see these gold plated benefits. In the meantime my civil service pension is £520 a month

Can you tell me when gold plated kicks in please?

dbd33

Pregnancy. If you work for the government you can take mat leave. Vacation. If you work for the government, vacation means unplugging the computer for a week, not just being allowed to be an hour late answering the email. Flextime. If you work for the government you can take advantage of this arrangement.

BristolUK

Fortunately we've all seen from other posts that your experiences of people being sacked or not hired for wanting to take leave are not the norm.

With no experience of the workplace in Canada (other than gained from stepdaughter and mother in law) I wouldn't have said anything without the reference to Canada being the same as the UK. So taking that statement as the truth I felt able to respond

All those things you mention are normal in the UK and were normal in my mother in law's working life in Montreal. My SD gets no health benefits but her hours are very flexible in terms of starting later, finishing earlier etc.

Gold plated is the expression used for civil service pensions. It's not an accurate expression for the many not at the top.

caretaker

For Directors of Crown Corporations who receive insane payouts if they're too incompetent to be kept on, it's called the Golden Handshake, or more colloquially, Golden Handjob.

Siouxie

Umm.. I worked flextime when working for Hastings Bus and Coach 33 years ago - it's not specific to government jobs (in the UK) , This enabled me to reduce my child care costs as I was able to leave work early enough to enable me to collect sprog from primary school (working through my lunch hour / working overtime on weekends etc.,) I was better off working flextime and claiming Family Income Supplement, than working full time without any 'flex' and paying £25 a day after school child care costs!