What type of lifestyle would $220K p/a salary Sydney get a family of 3?

[pestooneverything]

DH and I trying to decide whether to give Sydney a go for a couple of years but I know the cost of living is sky high? Just wondering whether a joint income of $220K would give us a nice standard of living?

By 'nice' I mean:
Renting a 3 bed place in a nice neighbourhood.
Close to the beach but doesn't have to be walking distance
Eating out twice a week
Our DS would be 3 when we go so we'd have to pay for daycare for him too.

I know i should probably go over to pomsinoz but mumsnetters are generally very helpful!!

Thanks in advance!

I get comments if the children are given more than an orange and a handful of nuts. She has helped us out with school fees in the past because we have spent all our savings but as I don't plan to go down that road again for a while I can build our savings back up again and buy the kids presents at Christmas. She does not approve.

Ah yes, I appreciate that. My FIL goes batshit at any perceived 'wasted money' including any item that he thinks we should have bought but we decided something else would suit our needs more.

Drives me bananas and only seems to be aimed at me now as I spend time with them so they can see dd where as DH buggers off back to work.

I really don't know Mosman - sorry to hear you have fallen out with your mum.

MIL has form for ruining Christmas, our last in the UK was completely spoilt by her selfish manipulative behaviour and I danced with joy at the thought of never having to spend a Christmas with her again. Her last visit three years ago was a disaster and ended with her standing outside waiting for her taxi feeling very hard done by because I flatly refused to drive her to the airport after a month of her crap, and DH had said no to paying her taxi fare after a month where she spent a grand total of $20 - I kid you not. So when there was talk of her coming again, and November was mentioned I knew she was angling for Christmas. I told DH that she could come ANY TIME EXCEPT CHRISTMAS so guess what, she arrives on 6th December and goes back 3rd January. No doubt I will be the first one on the Christmas family moan threads

That salary sounds good. I pay $130 a day daycare in Sydney (ouch!)

It's not pineapple season. Pineapple season is summer.

We lived in Canberra on around 80000, in a house with backyard. It was tight but doable.

Eating out is even more expensive in Canberra, but everything else is cheaper.

Thanks everyone for your helpful posts!

So many pros and cons -I am a little bit confuzzled!!

tryingtoleave your post has made me happy I've been worrying that I'm blindly leading DS and OH into a poverty when I look at the sort of salaries others are taking about.

We think tight but doable and BBQ's at home with friends or trips to the cotter or down to my folks on the Sapphire coast should do us.

We live in inner city Sydney oh on that salary and I work too pt have one ds have just come back after one year in uk and I think much more expensive here especially food and going out household bills good lifestyle compensates but Sydney is a costly place to live

Didn't some survey put Sydney as the 4th most expensive city in the world to live in?

I live 1.5h north of it and it's not quite so expensive in terms of housing and daycare but food is just as costly. What pisses me off slightly more is the daily variation in costs though - mostly on fresh fruit and veg - so e.g. grapes can be as low as ~$3/kg one day and back up to ~$13/kg the next - makes budgeting hard if you generally buy a lot of F&V (which we do). The banana "crisis" meant we didn't eat bananas for months (luckily DS was in an "off" phase with bananas) because they were just too expensive and not even that good.

Mosman - glad you've made it out here, hope you're enjoying Perth and boo to MIL having to come out but I hope it sorts itself out. I can't believe your ma is going to fly half way round the world and still refuse to come and visit you - that would be some falling out!

The thing about the cost of living here, I have worked out, is that when the dollar sat at 2.5 dollars to the pound, everything was about the same price as in the UK (barring imported foods etc.); but with the dollar at 1.5 to the pound it seems viciously expensive. At some point I will stop comparing the two but am having troubles with it so far!

Worst offenders (IME) are: books, clothes, food, large toys, small electrical goods.

BUT: you can haggle for household goods. Which can bring the price down quite substantially, especially if you buy a lot of things at once. NEVER pay full ticket price on any household stuff.

I have no idea when pineapple season is.

Thanks everyone - it's such a hard decision as I know financially we'd be better off staying in uk but I think we'd be ok in Sydney on $220k and it's just this itch which won't seem to go away! I wish I felt happy staying in uk but I don't!

mossman I've seen a few of your posts - glad you've made it out to Perth ok. Perth would be my first choice but we can only be sponsored to nsw.

I think you'll be fine on that salary. For us rent has been the thing that's really eaten up a lot of income, our cost of living here is more than double what it was at home but our income hasn't doubled. If we'd opted for somewhere in the northern beaches (rather than eastern suburbs) it wouldn't have been so bad. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Daycare has been a big headache for me (we're between bronte and bondi and there is a big shortage of places). DS was 4 in June and despite being on waiting lists for a year he is only just getting a place next month. If I'd been desperate I could have put him in one in the city for around $120 a day, but I'm not working so decided to wait for the local government run centre which will cost around $80 a day.

Food seems hideously expensive to me. I was almost getting used to it, because I'd forced myself to stop converting to pounds, but our weekly shop has crept up a lot in the last few weeks! I do find it odd that the price of fruit and veg changes almost daily. DS and I went to a cafe the other day, he had a croissant and I had banana bread, and we shared some apple juice - $21!!

I will be a lot less moany when the weather gets better though. It is a bit like being on holiday all the time in summer.

We were on a significantly lower salary than that when we lived out there (moved back to the uk last march), and we managed ok - it was tight, but we didn't have to go without (ok, we couldn't have gourmet food, and the car that we had was basic, and there were no expensive holidays) but we still had a good standard of living.

I think you just have to be a bit careful (like the others have said) - buying fruit/veg out of season is a no (still have nightmares about those banana prices!) and it's worth ordering things like books from overseas. Also, where you live makes a big difference - we were in lane cove north - less trendy and a distance away from shops etc (when I say a distance, I mean a 10 minute bus ride), but still only a 25 minute commute to the cbd - prices there were much more manageable and we could afford to rent (just) a 3 bed detached bungalow with a good sized yard. I also tended to buy clothes etc from target and Kmart rather than the more expensive chains.

It did seem hideously expensive (I am still surprised at how cheap things are here) but I think the experience of living out there for a while was well worth it. Not sure I would have felt the same had it been long term, and we would have had to move somewhere cheaper in the long run if we were ever going to save anything.

Not 4th most expensive overall, 11th. According to this (quite interesting reading if you haven't already seen it)

I've lived in several of those cities within the past 7 years (am very transient!) and Sydney & Perth Australia, for us, have been the most expensive. (I haven't been to Luanda) (and won't!)

Hi Pestoon, I just wanted to see if you made it to Sydney and how you are getting on. We are planning a move on a PR next summer as a family and want to get as much information on costs. We have 2 boys (9 and 8 year old) and are looking at family locations within 30 mins from CBD. We are looking to sell up everything and buy but not sure if that's sensible. We are watching the exchange rate daily so see what we could afford. Any thoughts would be greatly recieved. Thanks

It would cost much, much more to sell up and buy new than to ship. Unless you can easily afford to and fancy all new stuff, it wouldn't be worth it. It's not "sensible"! Shipping works fine, and you'll need to ship some stuff any way. It can't all fit in a suitcase each :)

I went to start saying pineapples aren't in season but it I see I already did, last year

Don't see everything! When our shipping arrived it was like christmas just boxes and boxes of stuff we loved. I kept going oh that book fantastic!