Utility bills etc

[Guest Carolynn B]

We've just about worked out how much we will have to pay on rental/mortgage but don't know how the other bills compare to the UK. Is gas and electricity about the same? Do they have the dreaded council tax (or similar) in Adelaide? How about house and car insurance?

 

All very boring stuff but I need to dot my I's and cross my T's !! After all I don't want to move out there and find that I have to sell the kids to pay my bills!

 

Carolynn B

[Guest dglamoore]

Hi Carolyn

 

Bills here vary quite a bit - our last electricity bill for 2 months was $160 but our friends for same time was $760 . You do pay an equivilant to council tax if you own a property but not if you rent, same with water rates - if you rent you do not pay the rates only excess water usage. Our contents and car insurance are both slightly less than we paid in the uk.

 

Other stuff we have found similar - phone, broadband, foxtel tv etc all similar or slightly lower than uk

 

Lisa:cool:

[Guest Traci5]

Our utility bills I think are slightly cheaper than the Uk ....but depends on the time of year and the weather...( winter heaters...summer air con)

 

For example.....we have gas heaters in our house and the houses here do get rather cold in the winter..we had our gas heaters on a lot over winter and the gas bill for the quarter came in at $330.... which we were quite surprised at and had expected it to be more. Normal quarterly gas for us is around $130

Our monthly electric tends to be around $120. And we dont scrimp and scrape.

Our phone bill is about $70...but we do use mobiles alot to phone each other and we also buy the "Say G'DAy" vouchers from the post office for calling overseas.

We dont have foxtel as we didnt come here to sit and watch tv...we like to get out in the evenings and weekends and live the life.

We do have internet....and be warned that depending on where you live getting braodband can be quite difficult.....we have dial up as we cant get broadband

yet!!! but the price of that is in with the phone bill each month as we use the same provider.

rates are about $1000+ depending on the market value of your house. As are water rates....so they are alot cheaper than the UK...I was spending over 1200 pounds a year on council tax back there.!!!

All in all we budget for about $500 per month on utilities.. then of course there is the car insurance and home contents and building insurance. ....So realistically maybe about $800 per month....seems ok to us. Food shopping costs us about $250 per week however...which is about what we spent in the UK......So not bad although not much cheaper than England.....eating out however is dirt cheap...and with so much to choose from here in Adelaide it is fantastic!!

 

Hope this sheds a little more light for you..........

Enjoy!!! Traci

[Guest Carolynn B]

Thanks for your help. At least now we'll be able to do the sums and make sure the money stretches in the right directions.