If you wonder how much living expenses in Sydney, this is the right place for you. I have started to track my expenses since January last year and I think it is good time now to share with you so you have general idea how much you need to prepare if you want to live in Sydney.
This is my living expenses last year, the total expenses for the entire year is $54.7K.
The start up cost is around $8K as you can see that in January. Majority are for rental bond and also buying some furniture. I rent a studio for $520 per week (includes water, electricity and gas) located in an extremely convenient place. I can walk to office and I can buy everything that I want within very close walking distance.
Starting from February to April is the living expenses for one adult which costs around $2.8K per month. Starting from May, the living expenses are for two adults. To average the living expenses from May to Nov, the living expenses is around $4.4K per month. The good thing about having couple is you don't multiply by 2 from the living expenses for one person! :)
Note: I don't include the expenses in December because that is vacation expenses that we had in Adelaide for around 8 days. That's why you see the sudden jump in December! :)
Living Style
- One adult walks to work and another one travels to work by train (less than 1 hour including walking)
- Do not own a car, travel with public transport most of the time
- Bring lunch box to office every day, eat out only when there is special occasion (every quarter perhaps)
- Cook dinner most of the time and eat out occasionally, 2-3 times a week approximately
- Travel to new places within the New South Wales state (i.e. NSW) during weekend with public transport (~ twice per month)
- Travel out of NSW by rental car in mid of the year (just 1 day) and travel to Adelaide by flight in the end of the year (8 days)
- Back to Malaysia for vacation once a year
Let's break down the expenses:
Housing is rental which consists of 55% of the total expenses, followed by food (18%), transportation (10%), leisure (6.8%) and the rest of the spending are less than 5%. As you can see, rental is expensive here unless I want to move out from city but I will spend more on transportation and time. So it may not worth it.
Further breakdown by food, transportation and leisure below:
Food is quite optimized already since majority are from Grocery unless we don't eat outside at all? Maybe just simply eat less, I think I eat a lot which is not really good for the health.
"Transportation G" stands for transportation general. I think those are car rental expenses including fuel. Maybe that can be cut down but I will need to cut down my vacation.
Leisure spending is mostly related to vacation. :)
Summary
My yearly expenses is $54.7K, assuming worst case that you don't get a job in Sydney for a year, you will need to spend that amount of money. It should be lesser since you don't travel like I do now. So I will say $50K expenses per year should be good enough for 2 adults. If you convert that to MYR, it is around ~RM150K.
Let me know if you have any questions, I am happily to share that with you. Here I wish you happy new year and stay healthy always!
[Updated 13 March 2016]: 2015 Expenses Update In Sydney
12 Comments:
AUSD2.8K per month for yourself is quite high actually as I saw your rental is only like ~AUSD500.
You did not state your medical/life insurance which i think you surely have to buy as critical protection to your wealth.
And you did not mentioned how much % or amount you save every month for savings :D That will be interesting to know.
Is $520 per week!!! :) So per month is $2K already lor.
Medical insurance is 2% of your salary. That is enforced by the government. You can buy your own too for private insurance which I didn't.
I didn't mention because don't want to reveal it mah. Anyway we're very lucky enough that 2 of us are working. So our monthly saving is >50% of our after-tax income. :) So it is still considered healthy I think.
Wow..I see wrongly..$520 per week!! Better buy your own place :D
You don't need to reveal dollar amount of savings, you mentioning the percentage is good enough. But at least i know both of you earn ~AUSD55K..haha.
50% saving is damn good!
One thing i heard alot is that you cannot eat out alot as it is very expensive unlike Malaysia.
>50% is not equal to 50% leh! It could be 60%, 70% or 80%! Hahaha! Also, 2 of us is not equal split mah, so still have some rooms to guess. :)
Yes, eating out is expensive. You can get cheap one but cheap definition is ~$AUD10 per meal. The thing here is the food here is damn nice, sometime really cannot "tahan" one.
Everyday eating western food, will not be jelak meh?
I bet you will crave for nasi lemak or nasi kandar, wantan mee, char kueh tiao one of these days...lol
I don't really like western food but try once a while only.
Don't forget Australia is full of Asian now especially in Sydney. We have variety of food, not just western food. Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and many more. The good thing is these choices are closed to unlimited! There are many of them. Surprisingly also, Malaysian food is one of the most famous one, people willing queue for it!
Not for Nasi Lemak and Nasi Kandar cause we can get it here and yet better (expensive only). But yes for Wantan Mee and Char Kueh Tiao!!! There are Wantan Mee and Char Kueh Tiao but definitely Penang's version is way better. Curry mee also.... :)
Wow.. you are earning good money in Sydney :) and you are saving a lot too especially if you convert to MYR.. Even though the rental is very expensive (AUSD520 per week), the rest of the expenses still looks good. I think you no need to trim anymore hehehehe.. you can have more holidays in other nice citites in Aus like Melbourne and Perth.
Very envy your life there .... I read somewhere that it's not easy to get a job in Aus.. Some have to depend on own saving for the first few months.
All the best for 2015!!!
Yes, I know but I wanted still cut down the expenses because there are still some gaps from my ultimate income! It earns more only after converted to MYR, if no conversion, it is not that much lah! lol!
Getting job is hard here. I'm not sure few months is good enough. I would say one year. That's the purpose I write this post for people who plan to migrate. Maybe is safe to buffer the expenses for 1 year!
All the best to you too! Happy new year! :)
Good read on some of the info in your blog.
I am planning to migrate to Australia as well, I am now researching and planning how can I get there.
May I know do you have a job offer when you apply for Visa? What kind of Visa you get to move to Australia?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, hope to read more about migrating tips in your blog.
Norman
I don't have a job offer when I applied the visa. I applied PR visa directly. After I get the PR, I only get a job offer (which was very lucky). After that, I only migrated here.
Not many companies here will apply the working visa for you unless they're really desperate in finding that specific skills that only you have. To be honest, I think the job market in Australia is an employer market which means the employer chooses the employee.
So, getting a PR visa first will definitely have higher chance of getting a job. But that doesn't mean getting a job is easier. After that, migrate here first and start looking for a job also has higher chance as compared to you apply remotely in your home country (which is my case, that's why I think I was very lucky). Again, that also doesn't mean getting a job is easier after you migrate here. It is still an employer market anyway.
Hope this information is useful and good luck!
i am planning to migrate to oz too and feels lucky to have stumbled upon your blog. thanks for sharing. Can you comment about Global Migration Solutions? They haven't been very helpful I was asking for their fees and procedure as my partner is trying to apply for PR first just like you did. His profession is on the SOL.
Global Migration Solutions is good but they're picky on their clients. As far as I know, they choose their client who has a higher success rate. Have you already started to engage them or the other way round (they engage you)? For my case is they engage me first after I send my details.
In terms of their service, overall it is good and professional. However, there are few occasions that I"m not happy with their service. So I escalate the agent(who supported me) and it was okay after that. I will still recommend them if you ask me.
If Global Migration doesn't want to accept you, you can always go for other agents or alternatively you can also do it yourself but you will need to spend more effort. Even thought there is an agent to help you out, you still can't trust them 100% based on my experience. It will buy you sometime but it is better you don't put 100% trust on them, do some basic due diligent is helpful.
So good luck to you! Let me know if you have other question. :)
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