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Cost of Living in Toronto (Living Expenses)

idwtu

Newbie
May 21, 2013
1
0
Breakdowns would be nice.
Suggested salary to upkeep those expenses would be nice as well.

More detail the merrier.

Example:

Area/Place: ____ (e.g. Markham near Highway 7 or Scarborough near Scarborough Town Center or Near ____ station.)
Rent (Apartment, Basement, Condo): ____
Car (Lease/Finance + Gas + Insurance): ___ + ___ + ___
Grocery/Food: ____
Entertainment/Outings: ____
Utilities (Electricity, Gas, Water): ____
Internet + Cable + Mobile: ___ + ___ + ___
etc etc
 

karankohli

Star Member
Jul 9, 2011
92
10
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
Firstly congratulations for your visa, i am assuming since you are asking for living expenses so here it goes.

You would initially have to stay in a hotel or some friends house till you look for an apartment. Hotel would be between 100 to 125 CAD per day.
Rent for an upscale apartment would be around $2500 and for a basement would be from $700 to $1000 depending on where you stay. Brampton is the cheapest housing in GTA while Indians living over there. It won't seem too important right now but once you move there, this will be the most important factor. It is close to impossible to have Canadian friends as you don't talk, walk or behave like them. But once you live there for a couple of years you would adapt. I would seriously not advice scarborough as there is alot of wanna be gangsters and thugs. Its easy to get mugged or similar bad things around scarborough specially near Victoria park south of sheppard. The safest place in GTA is downtown toronto and the most gangs infected place is Scarborough. North york is extremely good till you go west on finch and reach Jane st. Jane and finch intersection is one of the most dangerous places in the world keep that always in mind.

Enough of scary things, the whole picture is not gloomy and toronto has alot of police patrol so it's not that bad.

Moving to car, there are 3 type of licenses ranging fromn G1, G2 and G. I got my G1 license at 17 where i gave a written test and after passing i got a paper license and card was sent to my address. If you have an international drivers license you will apply for G2 which would give you full driving priviledges. The rule 10 years back was that difference in alcohol level between G2 and G. G can have around .8% and G2 you can't have any alcohol in your system period. Moving to Insurance, If you don't go from G1 to G2 you would pay 50 dollars extra a month. The rates are not fixed and depends on how many people are on a single vehicle on the insurance. If there are 2 young adults on the insurance, cost would be $600 per month. Again this is subjective as they consider all factors like if you drink, have kids, previous driving problems, etc etc etc.

As for leasing and mortgage, i am not sure you can take a loan since you don't have a credit history. You can take a credit card as soon as you open a bank account so you get started on your canadian credit history. Some companies though do give mortgages and loan to new immigrants.

Now lets get down to groceries. These are 10 year back estimates and i haven't been to Canada since 2007 so please KEEP THAT IN MIND FOR ALL DETAILS.

The best grocery store for me was no frills. They have all fresh vegetables, meats, poultry etc etc. A grilled chicken would cost around 6 bucks, other items like bologne are cheap. Eatables are mostly cheap. You would look around $120/week for grocery expenditure for about a family of 4. Again there are chinese, sri lankan, indian, south indian grocery stores all over. If you are Indian you'll find an indian grocery store near every sikh gurudwara.

Entertainment hmmmmmmm. I don't remember the cost of a movie ticket, a beer in a bar would be about $3.50, I would highly recommend Swiss chalet Routesseri chicken best chicken in the world used to cost about $11. There is Pizza Pizza where a slice of pizza would cost around 3 to 5 dollars. Kfc is good, Burger king is good, etc etc. A TTC bus ticket used to cost $2.50 or you could get a monthly transferrable pass for $100.

REMEMBER EVERYTHING YOU BUY IS EXCLUSIVE OF TAX. THE TAX RATE USED TO BE GST 8% AND PST 7%.

utilities no idea what so ever.

Internet, tv and phone are combined which would cost you about $60. For Cell phone connection, firstly don't call it mobile locals are going to make fun of you. Cell phone would cost about $60 for a monthly connection. I used to love FIDO and beleive it has the best service. Landline local calls are free in Canada, rogers would be the best bet for TV, internet.

Please feel free to ask me anything else, i have abundant useless info about toronto.

Bye and best of luck