Quote from BuddhaBing :

Taxation rates alone are misleading since they don't account for other factors such as user fees, insurance premiums and other costs of living. I've lived and worked in Canada, the UK and the US and, in my experience, when you roll all the taxes, user fees, insurance premiums and other costs of living together, you spend roughly the same percentage of your income for an equivalent standard of living with equivalent levels of service.

I haven't lived in Canada, but I have lived in the USA for a few years and I found that I had a lot more disposable income than I have ever had in the UK.

We're all going to be stuffed when the USA drags us all into the next global depression anyway, so it doesn't really bear consideration.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I haven't lived in Canada, but I have lived in the USA for a few years and I found that I had a lot more disposable income than I have ever had in the UK.

We're all going to be stuffed when the USA drags us all into the next global depression anyway, so it doesn't really bear consideration.

I had a friend whos family moved here for a brief time. They had a LOT more disposable income than they ever had in England. For some reason they moved back; I was told it was because her mother thought the quality of life here was 'too good.' Doesn't make sense to me; I Think it had more to do with one of the daughters getting pregnant by a degenerate loser and they didn't want him to see the baby.

Well I moved back from the USA for a variety of personal reasons. I actually enjoyed living there and made a lot of good friends, but it wasn't going to work out longer-term because at some point I had to go home to put my life in order. Various issues involving my dad dying while I was over there, a girl (isn't it always?), etc.

If those issues were not present, would you have stayed in the US?

17.5% is high, try 14%...? or in Alberta when there's only 7%.

Alberta may only have 7%, but it's much harder to afford a house since living there is bloody expensive. Even with the relatively high salaries in Alberta, living is still very expensive.

heh, we joked about moving to NZ from AUS when people started getting caught up in the Iraq war madness. NZ just seemed so lovely, so innocent and uninvolved. They're nuke free (still?) and trying to go carbon neutral. Another big plus is that I hear they don't have any kinds of poisonous spiders or snakes, or poisonous anything for that matter. That's a consideration if you're choosing between Australia and New Zealand, as Australia has every bloody thing that wants to kill you imaginable.

Quote from MAGGOT :

If those issues were not present, would you have stayed in the US?

Maybe, yeah. I would've liked to - I was certainly happy where I was and doing what I was doing, at least on the face of it. But it's hard to say. I had other issues I needed to sort out - I was suffering from quite nasty bouts of depression too and had been for years, since long before I moved out there, and I really needed to sort that out. I'm still not sure what caused all that but it's pretty much gone away now, but it probably had a lot to do with my dad so his death brought a lot of stuff to the surface and I felt like I had to go home to resolve it all. I didn't feel like I had a choice, I felt like I would've gone nuts if I hadn't gone home.

I was developing a rather nice little life in the USA though. I was working as a musician, getting lots of work in, making lots of contacts in and around NYC, living a few blocks from the beach in NJ. Had I not been a complete basket case at the time I suppose I could have had a quite different life now.

I still don't intend to remain in the UK. I love York - I'm very, very attached to this place - but I'm sure there are other places that I would think are very special if I had the opportunity to live there. I've got a good feeling about Barcelona - I think I'd like to live there if I couldn't live here.

I'd love to check out NZ and Iceland. Both seem like great places to live. I don't know if I could leave Canada, though. While I'm not attatched to my present location, I'm very attatched to my country.

I was considering moving to Canada a couple years back, but I was told by a wife and husband that had attempted moving there then came back, and some Canadians that I knew online, that it's incredibly difficult to find work in Canada as an American. They simply don't want to hire you over a 'native' Canadian. I suppose if your skillset is somewhat rare, you shouldn't have any issues, but I wasn't about to risk the move and then have no work when I got there due to discrimination.

I've been told that the only sure way of getting immigration status to Canada to start with is having a skill of some sort.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

I've been told that the only sure way of getting immigration status to Canada to start with is having a skill of some sort.

You need to try harder on insults. Care to try again? I'm not about to explain myself after that type of response, but needless to say, I have 'skills' that would get me a job in just about any country. The point I was making is, because I'd be comming from the US, they would rather hire a Canadian over me, even if I have the appropriate skills.

Now go ahead, piss on that comment as well

Quote from Slopi :

You need to try harder on insults. Care to try again? I'm not about to explain myself after that type of response, but needless to say, I have 'skills' that would get me a job in just about any country. The point I was making is, because I'd be comming from the US, they would rather hire a Canadian over me, even if I have the appropriate skills.

Now go ahead, piss on that comment as well

It wasn't an insult, it was a basic statment, you need to be a skilled chappy to get into Canada, anyone else just gets sent home, which is why I'm at uni, just in case I chose to move to Canada.

And most countries are like that, if I went to America with the degree I get when I finish and some American went to get a job at the same place he'll get the pick unless I was something uber special, or I worked for less than the American.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

It wasn't an insult, it was a basic statment, you need to be a skilled chappy to get into Canada, anyone else just gets sent home, which is why I'm at uni, just in case I chose to move to Canada.

And most countries are like that, if I went to America with the degree I get when I finish and some American went to get a job at the same place he'll get the pick unless I was something uber special, or I worked for less than the American.

Well, I didn't mean to jump down your throat about it or anything. You know, if you just enter through our southern border, you really don't need much more skill than knowing how to jump a fence

Quote from Slopi :

Well, I didn't mean to jump down your throat about it or anything. You know, if you just enter through our southern border, you really don't need much more skill than knowing how to jump a fence

No problem, I could have worded it better. Reminds me of a fun joke.

Why doesn't Mexico have any sports teams?




All their best runners, swimmers, and jumpers are already in America.

Move to Poland, all of the husbands are working over here in the UK so you'd most certianly get some action.

Finland and New Zealand are both places i'd love to go, simply because as a boy growing up I loved rallying (And still do) and loved the look of the place.

Quote from Slopi :

Well, I didn't mean to jump down your throat about it or anything. You know, if you just enter through our southern border, you really don't need much more skill than knowing how to jump a fence

Isn't it two fences now?

Quote from Bawbag :

Move to Poland, all of the husbands are working over here in the UK so you'd most certianly get some action.

Finland and New Zealand are both places i'd love to go, simply because as a boy growing up I loved rallying (And still do) and loved the look of the place.

Fun point about that, the rest of Europe (well Czech and that sort of area) thinks British men are too nice for the women we have, the men here all mostly in good shape, but the women are messes, but it is the other way round over the rest of Europe.

Quote from MAGGOT :

Isn't it two fences now?

I'm not sure, but what I do know, is in matter of a couple years, the US is going to have one hell of a group of Olympic-class hurdlers

I've had conversations with a few people on forums who want to move to the UK from the USA and the general concensus is that its just too expensive. House prices here have gone through the roof (if you'll excuse the pun) pretty much doubling in the last few years, which isn't helped by the strength of the £ compared to the $.

$200,000 will get you a VERY nice house in the US but here, where it comes out at just under £100,000 you'd have a hard time to find a 2 bedroom house in a not particularly nice area for that.

We were looking to buy about a year ago, and even with £125K to play with we couldn't find anything at all that we'd have felt comfortable buying.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

$200,000 will get you a VERY nice house in the US but here, where it comes out at just under £100,000 you'd have a hard time to find a 2 bedroom house in a not particularly nice area for that.

Depends very much where you live. The average sale price for a house in Seattle a few months ago was $520,000 USD. It's even higher in some areas. The average for all of the US is $220,000 USD.

It's a similar picture here in Canada. In Vancouver, the average sale price is $560,000 CAD while the average for all of Canada is $335,000 CAD.

By contrast, the average house price in the UK is £200,000 GBP with London being the most expensive market, averaging £310,000 GBP.

And for comparison, here's a table of the average individual income level for the US, Canada and the UK.
Average income (individual):
US: $23,535USD (2004)
UK: £23,600 GBP (2006)
Canada: $25,400 CAD (2005)

Sources::
Housing :-
Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/12/14/homesales.html
US: http://www.realtor.org/press_r ... using_prices_recover.html
UK: http://www.hbosplc.com/economy ... usePriceIndexJune2007.pdf
Income :-
US: http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new02_001.htm
UK: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/ashe1006.pdf
Canada: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil105a.htm?sdi=income

Out of curiosity what's the local language in Finland (since i speak no language other than "butchered english" as Becky Rose would put it).

What parts of Canada do you guys live in (to the Canadians involved)?

I didn't expect so many posts while i was at work, thanks for the response.

Well, obviously Finnish is the main language but 5,5% speak Swedish as their mother tongue and it's the second official language. While Finnish is thought as challenging language to learn, I think people know English quite well, or at least the younger people. We have the "best" education system in the world you see.

Oh yes, almost forgot the wiki article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland :P

i dunno about moving there, but i sure wouldnt mind making a trip there to meet fellow LFS'ers.

And i just thought i would take a moment to congratulate the general community, you've been a lot more mature about this topic than I or anyone I've talked to about it, had thought you would. Thanks.

House prices, income...... The US is very big. I guess my house is EXTREMELY low compared to the average, eh? I only paid $80,000 for it. There is a huge difference in housing prices in the US when you compare even small cities to where I live. I'm about a 40 minute 70 mph drive from anywhere and anything. If you pay $200,000 for a house around me, you had better be getting a couple hundred acres of land along with it.

Average income in the US at $23,000? I can believe that. There is absolutely no possible way you could purchase a house on that income. I'm well far above that and can barely make my payments on my $88,000 house. I routinely run out of food between paychecks to feed the family and rarely can pay for "gas" to get to work the entire 2 weeks.

It really is useless to compare two areas of the world. From what I've seen, in the UK, you have astronomical fuel prices compared to us. But BuddhaBing eludes to your average salary being twice what ours is. And, as I said, where I live, it's a 40 minute drive to get a gallon of milk where in the big cities or the UK, you have more public transportation. There is no public transportation around me.

Another comparison, where I grew up, the school bus had 2 stops, one on this corner, and one on that corner. The bus was full and it took less than half an hour for me to get and come home from school. My daughter's ride on the bus is an hour and a half with how the bus has to travel everywhere picking up single children or several siblings at each stop. Her school is only a 15 minute drive from my house, only about 5 minutes longer than the school I went to from where I grew up as a kid.