BritInCanada82

After many conversations with my husband we are looking to move to the UK in 4-5 years time when his sons (my stepsons) have finished school. Long story short I am from the UK and miss my family and have never felt at home in Canada.

My husbands main concern is money and not wanting to struggle in the UK. Realistically how much would it cost to move back home? We are looking to ship most of our furniture, except electrical goods as I once found even using a conversion plug nothing works well in the UK, even changing the plugs! Better off buying new electrical appliances.

We have looked at the price of renting flats and houses in Manchester /Bury/Bolton areas. My Husband is a Yard foreman for a scrap metal company and have found quite a few companies in this area, plus its where my family is. Does anyone have a checklist/budget sheet with realistic costs on it for moving to the UK?

Thanks, Hazel

Pistolpete2

How can anybody possibly have any idea just what the exchange rate would be between the Canadian Dollar and the Pound Sterling in 4-5 years time.

There are so many variables that none of us, in spite of wanting to, can make proper plans that far out to ensure that we too will not struggle in the UK, particularly when the Government are in the process of changing so many things as we speak.

Rents could be 30% more by then.

Property could be 20% less.

The pound could be .80 of one Canadian Dollar. Who knows? If the pound does go down in value tremendously against the Canadian Dollar this should be a huge incentive to save as much as you possibly can BEFORE you consider returning to the UK.

Who knows whether ANY of those businesses will be around in 4-5 years. Maybe they will be but maybe they wont.

BritInCanada82

Thanks for your positive feed back there. Obviously things will cost differently in 4-5 years time!! I was trying to get a general idea of how much we would need in savings and then add about 20% - 30% to that amount on top. The cost of renting has not changed much in the past 6 years I have been living in Canada, so I doubt it would change drastically in the near future.

robin1234

Hi BritInCanada82, I don't think you say in your first post... just the two of you will be moving to England, or with your stepsons also?

Assuming just the two of you, it looks like you can rent quite a nice two bedroom flat in Bolton for £450 a month. That is £5,400 per annum. So I'm guessing, if you lived carefully, you could live for a year on £20,000. Add another £20,000 for start-up expenses (purchasing a car, basic furniture/kitchen equipment etc.) Maybe you could live without a car at first! I'm sure the Greater Manchester area has good buses & train service... so you could aim for savings of £30,000 - £40,000 for rent+ living expenses+ start-up expenses for one year, by which time one or both of you will have a job (even if only a low-paying one?)

I usually use rightmove for a good overview of property in England, rent or buy.. this is the to rent link..

chimpy

Hi Hazel,

We returned to the UK from Oz earlier this year and we are now renting a property in the Midlands for the short-term.

Our living cost budget for the year will be around the 18,000 pound mark. Now that's us paying 795 per month rent for a detached 4 bedroom and with 'going out/eating out' costs of around 50 pounds per week. If you pay less rent and/or eat out more or less then this would change for you.
Roughly per month, rent at 795, council tax at 130, electricity 15, gas 60, phone and internet 40, fuel 30, food 150, water 30. Note that there are only two of us so some costs may go up if we had kids with us.
Car insurance is around 400 pounds p.a., raod tax 150 pounds p.a. and car servicing 200 p.a.

That all totals around the 18K mark per annum.
We also had to provide 3 months rent up front, plus buy a car (ours was 4,500 pounds). Again this could be more or less depending on what car you chose.

Conatiner from Brisbane to here was around the 4,500 pound mark. We also had to buy some electrical goods, but this was only minimal at around 600 pounds including TV, washing machine etc. We were fortunate that our rental property has a fridge/freezer, microwave and dishwasher.

So I gues all together with a little buffer that's around the 30,000 pound mark.

Hope that helps.

Pistolpete2

Now dig out your crystal ball and roll all of that forward four to five years and work out how you should save the money, in Canadian or in Sterling and exactly when to switch the money. By the way, today, I would regard holding Canadian Dollars as advisable versus Sterling.

Agreed TODAY, based upon a great deal of discussion back and forth on the MBTTUK over 50s forum the consensus seems to be that a fairly frugal budget is approx 18-20,000 quid per annum for two.

Based upon current indications, unless you are in a fairly depressed area which is keeping rents low, there is every likelihood that rents are going to steadily rise from here, well in excess of the inflation rate, which is itself high.

So realistically, anybody saves what they can on a frugal budget with the move in mind without punishing themselves and looks at the situation when they are reasonably in range of the possible move, say a year to eighteen months out from it and then prices it as you have done and works out whether it's a GO or a postponement. With a potential year to go you also have a far better idea of the employment situation and where to focus on as well as the renting situation and other benefits available* if you need them which you simply cannot factor in when it is so far away.

*In a changing benefit environment

BritInCanada82

Robin1234, thank you for your reply and the link.
It will be myself, husband and our daughter, the boys live with their mother and will be 18 by the time we get over there. We are thinking about getting a car after we have found jobs, hoping to find some before we go, but we all know what thats like, my husbands employer has contacts in the UK within his line of work so its not impossible to have a job set up for him before leaving.

BritInCanada82

Chimpy your reply has been a great help thank you, I have been looking at 2 bedroom houses to rent, at the moment they are around 350pcm - 450pcm (terraced houses). We dont really eat out much, normally once or twice a month and birthdays etc!
We are hoping to take quite a lot of furniture with us as a fair bit of it is stuff that is flat pack, I understand containers dont go on weight its volume. Houses are a lot smaller in the UK so our furniture should fill a house, we currently have a very large apartment. It is so hot out today, I certainly wont miss the humidity!

Dashie

We're hoping to move back from SW Ontario next year. I really wouldn't advise taking any furniture, even flatpack stuff, it's so much cheaper there, and a lot better quality too on the whole from what we found. There are also charity shops selling furniture as well as second hand place, and Ikea for cheap stuff. And yes, they do take weight into account as well as volume for shipping at least some of the time. Even if they don't, what would be the point of taking something you can get cheaper and better when you get there and not pay to ship? If it's stuff you already own, flat packed stuff does not travel well if assembled or taken apart.

Do a google search for moving companies and ask a few for quotes based on what you would be likely to take, as everyone will get a different amount based on what they are taking/have taken and that likely won't help you much. For how much everything else will cost, you're already looking online at rents, you can check the council tax on the local council websites, and you can even fantasy grocery shop at tesco.com (again, nobody else will buy the same groceries as you, so their budgets likely won't help). You can look up cars and basic insurance quotes with them on autotrader.co.uk too.

Then add on your actual flights there for yourselves too.

I wish there were a magic number, but everyone's will be different, so it's probably best to work out your own, kwim? Once you've got it, I'd probably double it at least, and then aim to get as much as you can higher than that before you go, simply because the more you have, the easier it will be, and that's the same for everyone wherever you go. Last time we were over (earlier this year), there were only 2 things we found more expensive than Canada, which were fuel and houses. Groceries and clothes, appliances etc. were all cheaper and better.

huddm

Robin

We spent around £30K in 2005 selling our house in Ontario, transporting our house hold goods to the UK, buying a car (£7K)/household appliances and new house. I managed to get a job within 3 weeks returning to the UK, so fortunately I was still on holiday pay from my last employer in Canada. Our first year back we were spending around £2k/month for 2 adults and 10/12 year old boys.

Hudd

BritInCanada82

Hudd, Well done for getting a job so quickly, that can be pretty hard to do! I have heard that its more expensive buying a house in the UK than it is in Canada?

Hazel

Beedubya

I find that rent very low to be honest, I am paying £425.00 pcm for a TEENY TINY 1 bedroom ff flat.

sallysimmons

I think the advice to aim for £30K to £40K sounds about right. Yes of course things might change by then but if we all thought like that there'd be no point in ever planning anything. No matter how much they change, £30K to £40K would be a nice cushion and help your husband feel better about the move.

We're banking on having to pay 6 months rent when we first get back just because we won't have credit history and that's on top of agency fees (usually one month) and the deposit (usually 6 weeks rent). We're also counting on having to buy a car in cash for the same reason. We've decided not to take most things back because it's just as cheap to replace them there and we won't have to wait 3 or 4 months for the stuff to arrive before we feel 'at home.'

Pistolpete2

huddm when you say you spent 30K which included selling your house and then on the new house what does that mean? Are you including legal and brokerage charges or are you simply mentioning these as that involved moving things to/from the port across the ocean and buying white goods?

If the 30K was really just for transporting/moving and then the car and white goods and misc household furnishings in 2005 what would that same process have cost today, in your view?

As I think you know, we have been budgeting on the over 50s for around 20K for an annual living budget for two when renting. I believe you own and are budgeting 24K with two (hungry) kids. Do you think that 20K is at all doable for three with a rent of, say, 600 per month and how much do you recall your cost of living has gone up in the UK in the last five years not counting things like schooling or other things that have changed in your lifestyle?

Pistolpete2

In the Bolton rightmove rental listings there are 74 three-bedroomed places going for less than 500 per month, 450 two-bedroomed.