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
