I have looked at various threads on here about the cost of living in Canada. What do you consider to be a comfortable wage for a couple to live on. Kind of average life style. Eating out once a week holidays aboard twice a year.

Hope that gives you enough to go on

How long do you consider a piece of string to be?




Whats comfortable is going to depend in large part on location. Some areas are a lot more expensive than others

Are you living in an apartment in SK, or a 2500 sq ft town house in Vancouver...Are your going to drive a Pontiac Sunfire, or a BMW X5?


$100k may be "Good" at first, but if collegues doing the same job are getting $120k, then you probably wont be happy for long.


If you left school with no qualifications, $70k probably seems good. If you were at University until you were 25 and have a PhD and MBA, then $125 probably doesnt seem all that great....

Almost nobody in canada holidays overseas twice a year, we just dont get the time off to do that.

Given all the intangibles, to save the $5-10k or so after tax that you would need for the vacations (depending where you go..Europe presumably?) and do the other stuff I would say you are looking at maybe $80-100k a year with a mortgage, but its a real "hail mary" stab in the dark, and largely dependend if you choose one of the more expensive cities as a location or not.

"Good" is just too hard to define...

Not the $10.75 an hour i'm on but luckly my husband is on a much higher wage than me. We don't pay the bills with mine and believe me it wouldn't go very far if it had to.

When I went to the bank for a credit card I was told this was the higher end of a retail wage How do most of these people live yet alone save up.

We will be living in GTA

Wont be coming back to Europe for holidays.

Not too worried about other people wages as long as we are happy with what my husband will get paid.

He will get health insurance for us both, and 2 flights a year back to the UK as part of his package

This is almost unanswerable. What employment arenas are you/partner in? An average lifestyle to a family income of $200k will certainly be a high lifestyle to a family income of $50k. Will you rent or buy? One car or two? What type of eat out facility? McDonalds or white tablecloth? Holidays abroad-Europe or Caribbean/Mexico/USA? Big difference in prices from here. You have to plan a reccie to get some lay of the land and understanding of what living in Canada is all about. There is a recent similar thread on the same subject. It might give you some food for thought.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...come+in+Canada

It all depends on what kind of accomodation you want to live in.

What kind of lifestlye you like to live

Where you like to dine out

Where you like to go on holiday

How do we know all this? Only you can do this homework

I know of people who are mortgage free and live an OK modest lifestyle on $40k and others who have what seems to be a more lavish lifestyle (they don't think it's lavish) on $120k who are struggling to get by.

What is a good wage is very subjective with many variables. What is livable for one is a struggle for another.

For immigrants who wages are a key factor then one would question whether they would be happy as immigrants. It is a struggle for the first few years for most, adapting to the new life and invariably on a lower pay scale than they are used to.

Ok I realise I have asked the impossibe

I just had a bit of a panic reading some of the treads. I have done a lot of home work looked at the supermarkets and St Lawrence market last time I was in Toronto. I was quiet happy with cost of living against salary until I read a thread on here this morning.

May be I should trust the ground work I have done.

Thanks for your replies though

I think I know which thread you are referring to but everyones situation and stories are different. As long as you do your homework and you have a secure job in place you should be fine. There might have to be some cut backs for a while but it won't kill you.

It sounds like your hubby has a good job package (needed to watch the wording there) and there is only so much research you can do before you have to bite the bullet.

I take it you have done the major ground work of house/Condo prices, taxes, bill costs, etc etc.

I was talking about his salary package - lol

Yep spent loads of time going through taxes house prices ect. We have been working with a realtor who can get us a short term rental until we find a house. I think they call it a sub let.

We have friends that live in Torornto who keep me well informed.

My husband works in London at the moment and travel takes over 3 hours a day, on a good day, we are hoping to have a big improvement on our life style in terms of actually seeing each other for more than 3 hours a day.

My husband will have an allowance for a car from the company, not sure what I will do might use public transport for a while it will help me get to grips with the place.

How much vacation are they allowing?


The flights are a nice cherry on the package, but that will take up a week of vacation anyway... most people get only two or three weeks total, a few get more than that, so that doesnt leave much time for other overseas vacations.


Are you going to buy in the GTA? Average price is about $400k if i recall correctly, so mortgage could ba a major expense. Under the circumstances I would say $100k would be OK, baring in mind thats far in advance of the average GTA income.

http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recen...B1=All&Custom=


The car allowance will also make a major difference too, if it covers insurance and gas etc too, so maybe 70-80k would be more than enough...

I'm in Alberta so can't advise you there, from experience here public transport is a bit of a joke. One of Neils bosses was saying that people who ride the bus are considered poor (not what we think by the way but each to their own, some Canadians can be ignorant when they want to be)

We are currently renting, one of the reasons is because of the "R" word and also because we are on Work Permits just going through the nightmare PR process "Fast Track" apparently.

We have a realtor that keeps wanting us to buy but he has no chance, we want to see what happens for a while.