Quote: (02-28-2014 12:20 AM)big poppa Wrote:
I live in Sydney.
Rent: Depends where. If you want it smack in the middle of the city you're looking at around $2600/mo for a 1 BR apartment. If you're further out you can get a decent 1 bedroom for $1500/mo (with gas, electricity, water)
Car: Get a small runaround for 5k paid outright. I can think of better ways to piss away my money than buying an expensive car on lease. While I'm poor anyway. Price would be about the same as the States I'd say.
Gas/Insurance: $300/mo
Going out/eating/partying: $150/weekend + $20 per weeknight = $1000/mo
Weekend trips (or vacation budget/savings): $400/month
Clothes/Mobile/Internet/Gym membership: $200/month
Before tax, you can get by reasonably well on 50-55k per year if you're happy being a 30 min journey from the city by train. 70k if you want to be in the city.
Anything on top of that is savings. So ideally you'd wanna be pulling in 75k before tax to get a decent savings fund going.
People keep in mind this is a thread asking on how much you can live a good lifestyle, and in comes an Australian giving figures on how much it takes to live in some hovel in Auburn or Granville (shitty outskirt suburbs) in which you'll be forced to commute 30 minutes and more in your broke ass car every time you want to party.
Accommodation: $2000/month for something closer to the city or eastern suburbs.
Car repayment: $1000/month
Petrol/insurance: $300/month
General foods, meat, fruit/vegetables, household staples $400/month
Health insurance & medical: $150/month
Entertainment expenses: $1000/month
Holiday savings, weekend trips, hobbies etc: $1000/month
Clothes, phone, internet, gym: $300/month (unless you want to look like every other guy in Sydney wearing cheap t-shirts, 'chinos' and dirty canvas shoes)
So we're talking roughly $70,000 after tax. Which is equivalent to around $100,000 before tax or in other words the wage of a skilled tradesman here, or an office worker with 5+ years of experience and skills in a high demand area (engineering, medical, CPA, programming languages used in finance/banking systems), not a typical wage for a young guy at all. The ones getting by on $50k are either living in some undesirable shithole, or they're sharing an overcrowded accommodation with a bunch of fellow students/grads. Those who are getting by on $70k are not partying every weekend and eating out every weekday as his figures suggest, unless they are still living with family. Sydney is an overpriced city, not only in terms of high absolute expense, but also in terms of low return/value. It is almost as expensive as NYC & London, if not equally as expensive, with none of the international amenity, prestige or job prospects, nor is there proximity and cheap flights to multiple other great cities from Sydney as there is from NYC & London, Australians are blind to this fact and will do anything to defend our country even if it means talking absolute lies.
I think it's important that anyone who wishes to contribute to this thread will be a little realistic with their figures, because it would be good to find where the actual value lies. And not good to get bad information such as that which suggests $70k before tax in Sydney is a good lifestyle.