shoequeen

Hi everyone

Hubby is currently working in TO, but still on £UK salary. Job offer is expected next week [already been told verbally - just waiting for it in writing].

What would be considered a "good" salary in $CAD?

For instance, if you were earning £100K here in the UK, would you need to earn nearly $200K to get the same lifestyle, or does the lower cost of living come into the equation? Or, if you were offered $150, would you still be able to have the same lifestyle?

Salary for comparison purposes only by the way!!!

Love to hear from anyone who's lucky enough to be living in TO!

lucieg

Hey shoequeen,

I think it would depend on your personal circumstances i.e are you buying/renting a house, running a car etc.

Personally I have a LOT more money here and my wage wasn't doubled, I think I get a third more here than I did in the UK and I live very comfortably, but I rent and I don't have a car so I can only say based on my situation I didn't need to make double...although it woulda been nice

shoequeen

That's very helpful - thank you. We would be looking to try and get our current lifestyle over there, which would mean buying a decent house and having an SUV or equivalent along with a runaround.

lucieg

Have you picked an area to live in yet?

I know that insurance on cars over here is more than in the UK...I was pretty shocked when I heard how much people spend on it monthly. Also you'll have to take into account the fact that you're a newbie and not all insurers will accept UK no claims (I think there are some who do) so essentially you're back to being a new driver.

shoequeen

I think the area we are looking into is called York something [Yorkdale maybe??] It definitely had the word York in it anyway ha ha!

Will need to look into the no-claims aspect - thanks for advising me!

iaink

It doesnt really work that way.

What you get paid in the UK is the going rate in the UK,

What you get paid in toronto is the going rate in Toronto.

What Im saying is its likey to depend on what the job is.


You cant go by saying a sytems analyst in the UK gets paid x and one in toronto is paid y, so as an engineer I should be paid y/x times what I get in the UK, it depends whether your skills are in demand locally or not.

And where did this idea that the cost of living in toronto is any different to the UK come from anyway, there is unlikely to be much in it overall.

Maybe a site like

http://moving.move.com/move/tools/SalaryCalcInt.asp

gives a rough idea, (its not working, try http://www.worldsalaries.org/cost-of-living.shtml) but its dependent on too many variables to be honest, such as where you want to buy a house, and whether you want an explorer or an escalade, or hopefully something a bit more sensible without a carbon footprint the size of prince edward island.

In general terms anything over $100k would be considered very well paid by most canadians , but if all your peers are earning $150k to do the same job, that's probably cold comfort.

lucieg

lol there's quite a few with York in it...Yorkdale (there's a good mall there) Yorkville...WISH I lived there...York Mills (no idea) there's also York region which is an area North East (don't quote me) of Toronto...lots of nice places there like Richmond Hill.

I would have a quick check into house prices in the area you're looking at (they're not tanking so much as in the UK yet) and see if you can get a few quotes for car insurance.

My other half works in real estate on the legal side so if you had an idea of what you want to spend on buying I could ask him to average up the cost of buying legal fees etc and what you could expect to pay monthly. He's good at that stuff ;-)

Novocastrian

York Region is huge. Richmond Hill is due north of TO. Our main street is Yonge.

lucieg

Thanks

All I know is I get told to get in the car and we head away from the CN Tower!

dbd33

Past Fort York?

lucieg

Hang on...I know that one it's West of me (and the CN Tower) ;-)

shoequeen

Cost of living is vastly different in Canada compared to the UK. It costs me £60 to fill my car up with petrol, average weekly supermarket bills are £100 and don't get me started on the gas & electric prices over here.....
Oh dear ... I must be in rant/rave mode today - sorry!

iaink

Well, that rules out going south at least

lucieg

lol you say that...but I used to live on Queens Quay ;-)

Doubt you'd be driving south for long though or there'd be a splash.

dbd33

I think you're kidding yourself. I think you need about the same amount of income for the same standard of living. Even if it's 10% cheaper in Canada that 100,000 pounds needs to be 180,000 dollars, an amount you're much less likely to be able to get than the 100,000 pounds. If you move to the middle of nowhere from a city you win but city to city, not really.