Money-Magnets.Net

Written by Karen Leslie

Sunday, 25 April 2010 08:02

Well the question is usually "How much money should we take with us when we move country?"

This question that often comes up when people are moving country and there is no quick and easy answer. Even knowing your costs in your home country may not be of any help since everything can change when you move country. However what you can do is get an idea of the expenses that you are going to have in your new country.

Draw up a budget where you live now (simply list all your income and expenses either in a spreadsheet or on a piece of paper). This is to remind you of what you’ll be looking for when you move country.

Check out the rental (or mortgage) in the places you are looking to move to by finding good website in google (or another search engine). For Australia try realestate.com.au or domain.com.au since they have sales and rentals. Don't forget to include a rental deposit or bond in your calculations and this may be higher than you expect if you have a pet as well.

Find a website or forum that has a cost of living section (for Australia check out the Australia Forum on Expatforum (yes I am a moderator on there). If you can’t find the costs that you are looking for don’t be afraid to join online forums and ask questions. I wish some of the great forums were around when we were moving country!

Prepare a rough budget filling in and the expenses that you created on the home country budget. This gives you an idea of what your expenses will be.

Don’t forget to include any loans that may be left behind. When thinking about loans also think about the exchange rates between countries. For example at the moment someone would need to earn roughly 1.5 Australian dollars to pay back 1 British Pound and that’s before exchange rate fees.

For income this can be more difficult. If you are moving to a new job then you know your salary but make sure that you know what your salary will be AFTER deductions. Check out the tax websites for the country you are moving to – for Australia this is the ATO. Some tax websites have calculators so that you can work out what your roughly what your income will be after deductions

If you don’t know your salary yet, check out some job websites and see if they list salaries. For Australia some of the best known job sites are Seek, CareerOne and the government jobsearch.

If you are self employed then at least you know what you need to be earning to cover your expenses. Online forums can be great way of finding out what trades are charging if you are in a trade or check out some online advertising with your competitors.

Once you have an idea what your income and expenses will be monthly (or weekly) then you can work out what you feel comfortble taking with you when you migrate. Personally I'd want enough to keep me going around six months since you may not be entitled to any benefits in your new country (depending on visa) if things don't go according to plan.

When to check whether you can afford to live in a new country?
Of course you need to know what visa you can use to get into a country but I would suggest that even before (or at the same time) that you need to know whether you can afford to live there. There is no point is spending time (and money in some cases) to get into a country if you actually can’t afford to live there. It breaks my heart to think that some people move country only to struggle financially since it’s seems harder when you’ve little or no support network when you move.

This is some of the planning you can do at home but of course there are financial advisors and planners who can help you with the detail. Good luck to you if you are moving country since we've 'been there and done that'. With a little planning you can move to a new country knowing that you can live there without any financial worries.