Cost of Living in Canada

I am going to tread carefully as i tackle this one...........................

Everyones situation is different so i am going to use an imaginary family.

This family live outside of town, they have one child, so let me first of all intruduce you to the Doe Family.

John Doe is a 40 something trucker working for a Honghaul company and his wife Jane Doe is a stay at home mum (the hardest profession of all) and thier teenage daughter Chloe Jo Doe attends the local High School.

Here is a breakdown of their typical monthly outgoings:

Mortgage or rent - $1200
Gas heating - $60
Electricity - $100
Utility - $45
Home Phone - $100
Cell Phones - $200
Satellite TV - $50
Internet - $30
Medicare - $44 (Normally $88 but after 3 months, half is paid by H&R)
TOTAL - $1829

Groceries would be about $120 per week and about $30 for gas and John would probably spend about $100 per week while on the road.

This would mean that the Doe Family have an outgoings of $2829 per month, bear in mind there is no finance included on there, loans are very difficult (practically impossible) the Doe family would probably be driving round in a car that was a few years old and they paid cash for it. Car insurance is quite expensive in Alberta and it doesnt seem to vary by much with what sort of car you have, there are no MOT tests over here and it will cost you $100 per year to licence it.

John works hard and is pretty switched on when it comes to working with his dispatcher and the miles come in pretty easily (most of the time). He never refuses loads, and goes where he is sent, he takes the good with the bad. If John can achieve the target mileage (about 144,000) in 1 year and he can earn over $60, 000 gross (before deductions at 33%) then i am sure you can see that there will even be a little left over at the end of the month.

The Does are a pretty amicable family and they understand that immigrants dont have an easy life, no matter what country they are in. They sold their house back in Europe and used the profit to set up their new life in Alberta. After 6 months has passed, Johns company chose to sponsor him for AINP and within a few months Jane was able to apply for her Open Work Visa and promptly went and found a job.

This increased the Does income and life suddenly got a little sweeter and took a little of the pressure off John...................................


That is how the Does made it work, they worked hard to make the dream work.

Notice how many times i used the the word work in that last sentence and how many times i used the word dream...........................................................