Living costs

We going to come to Adelaide at the back end of the year and want to do some budgeting. Is anyone aware of a website which will compare prices between UK and Australia? Alternatively, what are the typical cost for things like electricity, gas, council charges, fuel, insurancestandard food items eg milk, meat, veg etc....

Hello and welcome. Tbh it's hard to give figures as they will vary depending on people's homes, lifestyle, solar panels and tariff and more.

I'd not compare it into pounds either as once here and earning dollars you need to focus on income earnt here and how that is managed. Salaries vary here, casual rates and other things will make a difference too.

For your weekly shop, to give you an idea check out Coles and Woolworths online to see what your average weekly shop may add up to. Keep in mind once here and shopping locally it may vary again as you find local stores, deals etc.

Insurance is again hard to say as individual circumstances will vary. Fuel is on a cycle so can be $1.15 one day nad leap to $1.28 the next then slowly drop down in price over a couple of weeks before leaping again. I was in the UK recently and it was £1.15 per litre where I was there and when I left here it was $1.15 per litre.

Thanks for the shop info, I recognise i need to use dollars as the basis and know the income bracket i will be in, so could still be useful info, another area i thought about was car insurance and internet access. For electric etc is there a price per unit3&

http://www.bobinoz.com/blog/category/cost-of-living-in-australia/ is a useful site with some articles you may wish to read.

As has been said, and I'm sure you appreciate, these costs can really vary from household to household. To give you a starting point, we pay

$60 a month for unlimited 'naked' internet

$45 a month for a 'bring your own' sim mobile plan with Amaysim, with unlimited calls and text in Aus and 7GB data and unlimited calls and texts to UK

About $550 a year to insure me and partner to drive our 3 year old SUV, bought brand new

Council rates vary on size of land and which council area it is. We pay about $1200 a year for a large apartment in city of holdfast bay.

Electricity we budget for around $500 a quarter but this can vary wildly depending on size of home, usage, if you have solar, type of plan you have, etc.

Gas honestly can't think what we pay, a lot less than electricity

Water we pay about $200 a quarter.

Other costs you may not have thought of as I'm not sure if they apply in the UK (I didn't own my own home there) are an emergency services levy for home owners - about $250 a year for us and it seems more people have health insurance here than in the UK.

I find electricity and groceries are the biggest costs compared to the UK, with petrol being the biggest saving. Overall I think it balances out and previous posters are correct you cannot compare to pounds as hopefully your salary is a lot higher here than if you were to convert it to the UK equivalent.

Agree, do an online food shop on woolworths or coles online to check out what your average shop might be. But once here Aldi is much cheaper for basics and local fruit and veg shops and the markets can be much cheaper for produce. Many people also use discount places (like the Pound shop!) like The Reject Shop and Cheap as Chips for toiletries, cleaning products etc. It's less of a 'one shop buys all' mentality here, though I'm sure many still do just one big supermarket shop. I just make more effort to shop around here as groceries is one of our biggest expenses.