What do you all think? Ontario or the UK?
 

Hi everyone,

I could use some outside opinions from the great people on this forum. My wife and I have been going back and forth endlessly on moving back to the UK. My friends in Canada say stay. My family in Canada says stay. Her family in the UK says come back. Its an endless tug of war, so I would appreciate some outside opinions from people who don't know us!

I am Canadian, I went over to the UK for university years and years ago and came back to Canada with a wonderful souvenir, my wife. We have just welcomed our first child into the world and he has both his British and Canadian passports. My wife no longer works, and my business can be run from Canada or the UK it doesn't matter.

We have lived in Central Ontario for 8 years now. About an hour and half from Toronto. This is where I grew up. This is where all of my family are and have been since the British conquered Canada (I wish i was joking). I admit to being very bored living here, as is my wife. We are being forced to move out of our rental unit and into a mortgage because of personal and financial reasons. I want to try something new, like perhaps Kingston or close to Ottawa. She wants to move back to Scotland, she misses how close everything is, the sea, the weather, trips to Europe. Having lived there I can understand, I miss those things too but it seems like such a massive undertaking to move back to the UK. And unfortunately I don't get along very well with some of her family. When we lived in Scotland they were always showing up unannounced (which was crazy because they lived 5 hours away! I thought only Canadians drove those kind of distances?). I love her mother and father, but the rest of the extended family drive me crazy. And I guess that is the biggest thing holding me back from moving.

Also yes where we live is boring, and travel options are expensive and limited, but we can have a bigger home here compared to Scotland (I think).

For those of you who have gone through this, could you share your stories with me?

Re: What do you all think? Ontario or the UK?
 

As someone who has relatively recently made that move, the major consideration for us was the lower cost of living in the UK. While my salary in the UK is substantially lower than it would have been in Ontario, I find I am able to save a fair bit more money each month than if I were living in an equivalent situation in Ontario. Happily renting a small house in north-west England for the same price we used to pay for a one bedroom apartment in the GTA. It all depends on what you want really. If it's a big yard with lots of space between you and the neighbours, it's probably easy to find that in Ontario. If you want to be able to travel and get other places in a reasonable amount of time, it's probably easier to do that in Scotland (plus less snow). You'll never know for sure unless you give it a go.

Re: What do you all think? Ontario or the UK?
 

I can't comment on Scotland as I live in the Republic of Ireland myself, but I would assume that it just depends how you live now and where you end up in Scotland. I'm sure there are also people closer to Toronto who live in smaller homes than people in Scotland (vice versa). You say you are both very bored living there, so is a larger home really worth it? Family is family and if they are willing to drive 5 hours, there's not much you can do unless you go for a smaller house with less rooms for them to stay, or you pick an island location. If it's the Isle of Man or Northern Ireland etc, you at least still have the ocean between them.