Living costs am I on the right path

[SwanseaJack]

Hi all

 

Trying to work out monthly outgoings everyone given lots of info so I have tried to take answers from everyone and devised this budget

 

Can you tell me if I have under or over estimated or am almost there.

 

Family of 3 3/4 bed house. Per month

 

Rent $1500

Food $700

petrol $170

home insurance $100

car insurance $70

child care to and from school/OSH $700

car tax $70

elec $150

gas $75

water $90

rates / council tax $140

net/phone/tv $100

mobile x2 $60

Medicare $140. .??? (do I pay this monthly or not . Paid through tax )

 

TOTAL $4,065. Before spends

 

If you can claim back half before and after school clubs do you do it weekly/monthly ?????

 

Using this budget would need to earn about $60,000???

 

 

Any replies more than welcome

 

Thanks kathy:confused:

Edited August 21, 2013 by SwanseaJack
Left something out

[Blossom]

Petrol depends on how far you travel and your car, if you have LPG etc. I spend about $50 a week just for one car. (I go a long way but I have gas so it offsets it). Then my partner has his own petrol.

 

My gas is about $80 every three months, that only supplies the fuel for cooking though, so it depends on your hot water system.

We spend about $130-150 per week on food and products per week for two of us (and three cats). You could do it on that if your kids aren't into treaty type things (chocolate is quite expensive here).

 

Medicare comes out of your tax.

 

I can't help on the water, council tax or kiddie things, but everything else seems close enough. You can get phones cheaper if you look around, but good to budget for a bit more really.

[Blossom]

Do you have pr? You will get child benefits (which I have no idea how much they are).

[guspjmh]

I've attached a budget planner that was on the other site, which someone shared. I think it's pretty comprehensive and useful.

 

You enter income etc, and edit the expenses to suit you and it gives you amount you'll have left. I've worked out that I think a family of 4 needs around $65k to live, and probably $75k+ to live comfortably.

 

Hope it helps!

budget.zip

[Blossom]

I think most schools here have some sort of fees too.

[SwanseaJack]

I've attached a budget planner that was on the other site, which someone shared. I think it's pretty comprehensive and useful.

 

You enter income etc, and edit the expenses to suit you and it gives you amount you'll have left. I've worked out that I think a family of 4 needs around $65k to live, and probably $75k+ to live comfortably.

 

Hope it helps!

 

 

Hi

 

Thanks for the link been on that that is where some of my figures came from. Just trying to ensure we can live for at least six months if neither of us gets work. Know it's going to be tough to begin with.

 

Thanks

[jim and adel]

You won't pay both rent and council tax (well, actually it may have been factored into the rent, but you won't pay the two separately as shown). The petrol one is a toughie - I pay about $120 per week and my wife about $60 but we have a fair commute. I'd say you're doing very well if you only spend $170 per month on it. I've come to the conclusion that electricity costs are random such is the variation in what people pay. We have solar panels and can still get whacked with a big bill, but others seem to leave appliances and lights on for fun and still not pay much ...

 

You might also want to think about such things health cover, life insurance, RAA (roadside assistance) and car servicing.

 

Jim

[cormcvcr]

I think if you budget for around $1200 to $1500 per week then that should cover you for pretty much about everything. We work on a weekly budget as my husband is paid weekly and although some things are monthly paid we put the money away, that way we know we are covered. We set up Bpay payments for the things that we can ie. electricity, gas, telephone, foxtel etc every week and it means by the time the bill is due to come in it's paid or close enough, sometimes we are over. It just helps you to keep in control of everything and there are no nasty surprises. It will take you a while to get to grips with everything, but if you start off with an affordable budget planner for you and then when the bills start coming in, it will let you see where you can start compromising on things and adjusting payments for others. It also gives you an indication of where your money goes and what you can cut back on easier than trying to back track on 1 to 3 months worth of bills. Also if you are a little short one week you don't have to worry so much about it as you can add a couple of dollars extra onto the remaining weeks and catch up again.

 

It's all planning and organising, pretty much what you did to get here

 

*BPay is a payment system that allows you to make direct payments to companies whom you have accounts with at your discretion when and as you want through online banking. When they send you a bill there will be details of their biller code and the account number/reference number that is unique to you. You can either pay the bill as a whole or in small amounts. (Once we had the accounts set up with the companies we asked for the biller codes and the reference numbers so that we could set up the payments and make a head start on them, it's a good idea so that you don't get hit with big bills coming in as you have enough to deal with financially when you arrive).

[SwanseaJack]

I think if you budget for around $1200 to $1500 per week then that should cover you for pretty much about everything. We work on a weekly budget as my husband is paid weekly and although some things are monthly paid we put the money away, that way we know we are covered. We set up Bpay payments for the things that we can ie. electricity, gas, telephone, foxtel etc every week and it means by the time the bill is due to come in it's paid or close enough, sometimes we are over. It just helps you to keep in control of everything and there are no nasty surprises. It will take you a while to get to grips with everything, but if you start off with an affordable budget planner for you and then when the bills start coming in, it will let you see where you can start compromising on things and adjusting payments for others. It also gives you an indication of where your money goes and what you can cut back on easier than trying to back track on 1 to 3 months worth of bills. Also if you are a little short one week you don't have to worry so much about it as you can add a couple of dollars extra onto the remaining weeks and catch up again.

 

It's all planning and organising, pretty much what you did to get here

 

*BPay is a payment system that allows you to make direct payments to companies whom you have accounts with at your discretion when and as you want through online banking. When they send you a bill there will be details of their biller code and the account number/reference number that is unique to you. You can either pay the bill as a whole or in small amounts. (Once we had the accounts set up with the companies we asked for the biller codes and the reference numbers so that we could set up the payments and make a head start on them, it's a good idea so that you don't get hit with big bills coming in as you have enough to deal with financially when you arrive).

 

 

Hi

 

Thanks that advice is great especially about paying things earlier, like that idea.

 

Kathy

[SwanseaJack]

You won't pay both rent and council tax (well, actually it may have been factored into the rent, but you won't pay the two separately as shown). The petrol one is a toughie - I pay about $120 per week and my wife about $60 but we have a fair commute. I'd say you're doing very well if you only spend $170 per month on it. I've come to the conclusion that electricity costs are random such is the variation in what people pay. We have solar panels and can still get whacked with a big bill, but others seem to leave appliances and lights on for fun and still not pay much ...

 

You might also want to think about such things health cover, life insurance, RAA (roadside assistance) and car servicing.

 

Jim

 

Hi Jim

 

Thanks for reply. Can you give me a rough guide to How much RAA, car servicing and life insurance is also is health care different to Medicare.

Thanks Kathy

[Blossom]

Ohhhh yer, if you are renting to start off with then you will be entitled to rent assistance as well as child benefits. :-)

 

raa cover depends on what level you are after, but it's not huge. I think around $130 per year.

Ambulance cover for a couple is about $90 a year, but it's worth having as they can send you broke.

Some people opt for health insurance. Personally I don't think it's worth it. Even with Medicare you are likely to have some out of pocket costs with drs visits. I use a bulk billing dr so have no direct costs for most things, but they can be hard to find. Prescriptions are not a set amount here either. For an example of the kind of costs, four months of the pill costs about $20.

[cormcvcr]

Our family Ambulance cover through Bupa is $58 per year, we have full RAA cover which reminds me is due to expire this week so will come back to you on the price of that one. We don't have health insurance and have been here for 5 years but it is something we are now going to finally look into, more so for dental and eye care. Doctors appointments vary in cost it just depends on how long you are in there for, rough cost is about $60 but you do get just over half of that back through the medicare rebate. Prescription costs are majority government subsidised but sometimes some aren't and you need to pay the full cost of them, it just depends on which one they give you. The doctors do try and give you the ones that are subsidised which means they should cost you $36.10 per prescription. If you have quite a few medications to take and on a regular basis, then you can get a Safety Net card from the chemist, it's good to use the same one all the time, they keep one card you keep the other. Each time you go they will put a sticker in both cards to say each government prescription cost that you have paid, once it has reached the sum of $1390.60 with the year your prescription costs are then reduced to $5.90 (I think it is). If you have a concession card the sum is $354 before it is reduced. So it is a good way to make sure that you are not paying too much for your prescription costs that's why it is a good idea to use the same chemist and get to know them and they will keep the card for you. You will be sent out a letter from medicare once you have nearly reached the limit and your costs will then be automatically drop.

 

Rent assistance and child benefits depend on income being brought into the home, so that is tested on an individual basis, it's a hard one to predict you would have to wait and see how things work out for you and speak to Centrelink personally. Hopefully you won't need to go down that road . If you are on PR you will get child benefit anyway but how much I don't know, Centrelink complicate everything and confuse even the most intelligent of people!

[Guest BurgessFamily]

We have just the extras cover (no hospital cover).

 

As a family we spent over $2000 on various dentist visits (kids cracked teeth falling off scooter, replacing old fillings etc...)... all normal stuff I guess (and spent that much the year before). Without the Medibank cover this would have come to well over $5000. Though it's possible the amount may have been a little less if we didn't have cover (I bet they bump up the prices).

 

As the extras cover costs us under $1000 for a family of 6, I think it's been worth it for us.

Edited August 22, 2013 by BurgessFamily

[Guest BurgessFamily]

Also to mention, if you rent you need to pay a bond up front. So generally when starting a property rental you'll be paying the bond (6 weeks rent) + 2 weeks rent in advance.

[cormcvcr]

Also to mention, if you rent you need to pay a bond up front. So generally when starting a property rental you'll be paying the bond (6 weeks rent) + 2 weeks rent in advance.

 

Not forgetting your contents insurance, we were lucky enough that when we took out our car insurance that we went with the RAA and if you take out 3 things with them you get 10% off each item so saved a lot. So roadside assistance, house insurance and car insurance. We had phoned round a load of places and they ended up by far the cheapest for us when we added it all up. I like dealing with the fewest companies that I can and it was nice that they were based in Adelaide too. I could also pop into one of their shops if I had a problem and they would phone through for me when I was out shopping. Refreshing change!!!

[jim and adel]

Some people opt for health insurance. Personally I don't think it's worth it. Even with Medicare you are likely to have some out of pocket costs with drs visits. I use a bulk billing dr so have no direct costs for most things, but they can be hard to find. Prescriptions are not a set amount here either. For an example of the kind of costs, four months of the pill costs about $20.

The pros and cons of health insurance are actually quite complicated.

More than half the adults in Australia have private health insurance (57.1%) and because of how the rebate, Lifetime Health Cover loading and Medicare surcharge works, someone on a decent salary can be clobbered for not taking it out. Plus the longer you leave it (after 30 years of age) the more you pay.

A good starting point is the government's own website:

http://www.privatehealth.gov.au/

It's best for each individual/family to work out whether taking it out makes financial sense to them based on their income (quite apart from deciding what level of medical cover you might be looking for).

[Guest Guest12727]

Ohhhh yer, if you are renting to start off with then you will be entitled to rent assistance as well as child benefits. :-)

 

Surely rent assistance is means tested and not automatically available to all?

[Blossom]

Surely rent assistance is means tested and not automatically available to all?

Yes, sorry, I meant to start off before both have found jobs etc (assuming you don't have them lined up). From what people said in the 'what you can claim when you arrive' thread if only one wage is coming in (assuming your not on mega money) then you could get at least a little.

I don't have kids, but if you have a look on that thread some people gave examples of what they got I think.

[Guest Guest12727]

Yes, sorry, I meant to start off before both have found jobs etc (assuming you don't have them lined up). From what people said in the 'what you can claim when you arrive' thread if only one wage is coming in (assuming your not on mega money) then you could get at least a little.

I don't have kids, but if you have a look on that thread some people gave examples of what they got I think.

 

Do they also look at your assets, such as a lump sum of money? We weren't able to get anything when we arrived, not even child support as they looked at the previous years income which was our 2 x full-time UK incomes and that was over the threshold for minimum benefits here.

[Blossom]

Do they also look at your assets, such as a lump sum of money? We weren't able to get anything when we arrived, not even child support as they looked at the previous years income which was our 2 x full-time UK incomes and that was over the threshold for minimum benefits here.

According to other people on that thread no... I don't have kids, so haven't even got as far as a hello to centrelink. I thought one of the child benefit payments everyone got, and the other was means tested??

[jim and adel]

I thought one of the child benefit payments everyone got, and the other was means tested??

 

We've never been entitled to any. Got it for a few months one year then had to pay it all back at tax time. I know everyone tries to be helpful on here (well 'everyone' might be pushing it!) but there have been some quite sweeping statements recently on different threads about benefits and what people are entitled to that actually are incorrect and it would be a shame if those planning the move relied on such information.

[Guest Guest12727]

Child benefit comes in 2 parts part A and part B. These are now called Family tax benefit A and B.

They are both income tested but have different thresholds. So, lots of people qualify for A who don't get B, but not everyone will get A.

[Blossom]

We've never been entitled to any. Got it for a few months one year then had to pay it all back at tax time. I know everyone tries to be helpful on here (well 'everyone' might be pushing it!) but there have been some quite sweeping statements recently on different threads about benefits and what people are entitled to that actually are incorrect and it would be a shame if those planning the move relied on such information.

It would be great if you could add to the thread about entitlements when you first arrive. Far better to get different experiences so people are prepared. :-)