Paul2004

But, I need to ask

Cost of living in Oz? ...lol (Queensland - Gold Coast or Brisbane)

Now I appreciate this has been done MANY times before, but altho I HAVE researched loads, I feel a 'current' opinion is always good to go on

So what I'm asking is can you check this list, and tell me if there is something obvious I've missed. I've seen people include things like 'going out' and 'leisure activities' but I'm trying to get together an as good as accurate figure for basics, must have's, cannot go without's (like Cable TV & Internet ...lol) ... but you get the idea!

I've also included figures that a previous poster put, and most follow up replies agreed with, but I don't remember where in Oz they was asking about. For me it will be either The Gold Coast or Brisbane, a suburb maybe ?! I know this in itself can make the whole thing vary by tons, but for the rent for example, I've gone higher than expected as I've seen decent for a LOT less.

All figures in $ per month for 2 adults & 2 teenagers.

Oh and I'm not sure if things like Council rates are included with rental price, so have included these.

Anyway, so I have:

Kids School Fees - $1,200
Rent - ($400 tops! Per week) – $1,600
Private Medical insurance (best policy) - £330
Food/Shopping - $800
Electricity - $85
Gas - $50
Water - $70
Council Rates - $85
Emergency service levy - $30

One Car
Petrol - $100
Registration - $40
Insurance - $20

Phone and internet - $100
Cable TV - $100

What have I missed as I've gotta something! ...lol, and do the figures look ok ?

I'll very much appreciate any opinions on this one

thanks

amanda76

hi

havnt a clue about the figures that you have quoted, but i know this has been discussed at length before because i have read the millions of pages!! try putting in " cost of living australia" in to the search facility. i understand the general jist was that you needed to earn +/- $80k per yr,

hope this helps you a bit

amanda

coxfamuk

Hi, you don't appear to have included anything for insurance (house, car & life). We pretty much have included in our budget what you have, except school fees which I assume are private fees - we are going state.

Sarah

Paul2004

I did for Car, $20 but yeah house & life, cheers

Paul2004

Ceri

what do you mean by emergency service levy?
Do you mean ambulance service/cover or something else?
If it's ambulance, it's included in our electric bills (QLD) and is around $22 something cents total for 91 days
, around 24 cents a day) - so that will be only around $7.33 a month . It's in the costs of the electric bill for us Qld's - so if you mean ambulance cover, you could wipe that extra cost off your list -the quotes you are hearing for people's bills regarding electric in Qld are also covering ambulance costs in that figure of electric bill costs (unless some people are deducting the cost of ambulance off their electric bills - which I doubt it very much).

If it's for local fire services, I have some sort of payment in my rates bill for this, haven't got my bills on me to go give you a figure within the rates bill cost etc- but anyway that is included in my final rates bill cost,along with everything else like wheelie bins etc -it's in the cost of the standard charges in my rates bill

I'm not quite sure what you mean by emergency service levy, as I don't pay anything like this here - except for the above and it's a standard charge covered in the electric and rates bills and no separate bills, and both costs (within those two bills) are cheaper than that $30 a month.

Go buy yourself a few beers with the extra $30 if you do mean the above for emergency service levy, it's already covered in the other bills..

( mind you ,your rates bill seems very low to me, try well over a $100 month , I pay hell of a lot more more than $85 month
Haven't got a figure/bill on me, but I know mine is lot more, a good few thousand extra ( without including water which is included in my rate bill final costs)



cheers

Sandra

Ok I am from Sydney but I do not think that changes the prices that much.

I have a couple of questions rather than dispute the prices you have. We only have one car (and a motorbike) the motorbike gets used for husbands work trips and I use the bus for work so we are talking just casual use and for petrol for the car we are using about $50 a week. Are we excessive in our use 300? Shopping trips (which are petrol wasters in a bigger car - 4l Auto)weekend drives to beach and country. All it takes is a three hour trip up to Post Stephens and we hammer the petrol usage - and yes we do take day trips that far and back in a day. Central Coast is an hour and we do that drive regularly.

I also think your car maintenance and insurance are low.

Mobile phones are missing - and if you have teenagers without - how are you managing that?

if your private school is costing 7200 a year per child - working on your figures of 600 per month per child does this include all uniform and incidentals for the school - my children attend an excellent state school but I know I roughly pay an extra average 50-100 per month per child for activites and extras. This is for a 15 and 13 yr old.

Extras for the children
Scouts for one child is an extra 600 a year - cost of fees and camping weekends.
Twonk - Takwondo! I think I mean can be anything from $10 to $20 a lesson with added costs for examinations

I am sure these will be things you are counting in but I have found some of those 'outdoor activities have cost us a fair bit Boogie boards, surfboards wetsuits and fins and rashies etc set us back a fair bit and cause the little buggers are growing we have to replace the stuff.

Then the added cost of buying another big car to cart it all round in

If you get a house with a pool you are going to have the cost of wither paying for maintance or getting the stuff and doing it yourselves - obviously cost depends on the pool type salt/chemical and the amount you do yourself - our costs for a chemical pool average to $40 a month. But we have had unexpected costs such a pump change and filter change. Add to this a spa and your heating costs can increase dramtically!!!

Anyway I am having a bit of a laugh with the pool and spa - like most places it is how much you want to have as extras which add to the cost. Have fun.

Cheers Sandra

ABCDiamond

Jim/Paul
Your school fees ($7,200 per child per year), I assume are based on a reasonably good private school. In our area Sheldon College and Ormiston College are a bit less than that.

Rates are paid by the landlord, so you needn't include them, and that normally includes the water too. So you can reduce that by $155 per month. But if you do end up buying, then those figures would be about right in my area.

Petrol costs will really depend on how far you travel But for my car, 1800cc, it costs about 10 cents per kilometre.

Paul2004

Well earlier I was about to do a winge and give it a 'no ones listening to me, I'm off' post ...lol. I got told off by Bix only the other day for my impatience, but I am a Gemini!!

For my better judgement I said to myself I HAD to at least wait for the Aussie lot to have had the chance

I must be getting too paranoid as I've been very anal today and monitoring how many ppl are viewing my thread. Most threads like this get bundles of replies, but after 8 hours the thread had been viewed 152 times, I had 4 replies, and 2 of those was from me! ....rofl

Too much waccy maybe, but I'm reading VERY negative things into this

What the hell!

Right,

Ceri, most of my figures came from other posts, but as I said in the first post, it seemed a lot of ppl agreed with the figures so I went with them. The Rates, again sorry to keep saying, but I DID say at the start of this thread that I didn't know where the person who I got most of the figures from was, or going to.

cheers for your input tho

Sandra. again anything that's low or high, well it was just figures I've seen about, nothing I've worked out on here but the rent, school fee's, and health insurance. The rest are from other threads about 'cost of living'

Mobile phones! ...... wow how did I miss that one! ...lol. Not so much for me and the missus, but the kids!!

Extra's for the children. Well altho I know there will be a chunk of dosh needed, I'm just tryin to work out 'minimum' costs so to put it. I'm planning to study in Oz to get my PR. This is gonna cost a small fortune as my partner is going to study too, and the course times are mon - Fri, 9 - 5, which in my books don't allow much time for work! ....lol, so we're basically gonna have to have enough dosh to cover us for a min of 2 years b4 any of us can bring money in! .... :scared:

swimming pools, well it would be lovely, but the way the costs keep rising, I reckon a plastic paddling pool will be a luxury the way it's going

Hi ABC.

well the school costs were for state school, but being on a Student Visa we will have to pay them! sure you know that, but just to explain to Ceri & Sandra as I think one of them questioned it.

Anyway, I just took the highest figure from the Queensland Gov website as I think at least one of my kids will be in that bracket (will be 15 & 13 when we arrive)

As to car / fuel. Well we're hoping to be as close as possible to the college, so in an ideal world we'll walk, a car will def be a luxury, but I guess we're def gonna need one! Don't see us doin a lot of mileage tho!


Still, I had to do this post as what was looking at one point at possibly getting thru the study period on £30k per year, well that's getting more like £35k + now so I don't even know if it's even gonna be financially possible as we speak!

College fee's are $2,000 a month, altho to start ONLY I was gonna study, but now maybe both of us, and will obv cost double ($25k for the 2 yr course each!)

Maybe we'll not even sell our house in the UK, maybe one of us will fail a medical, maybe ............. oh maybe I dunno!

lol

thanks tho for the input tho!