Quesiton about Sydney Living Expenses

[mocapmarc]

Hi,
I've been offered a job at UWS on the Bankstown campus. The salary is roughly 77,000 / year.

Is this a good salary for living in Sydney?
How much can I expect to pay in rent for a place with at least two bedrooms?
I heard Bankstown is not really a nice place to live, where do UWS employees tend to live?


thanks for any help!
m

[Moving 2 Melbourne]

Hi M
I have moved your thread to the New South Wales section of the forum as you may get more replies.

[Joebloggs]

$77K is just slightly above the national average, but since Sydney is the the most expensive city it would be below the Sydney average.

Rent depends on where you decide to live, rent around Bankstown would be cheap enough but it's not a great area unless you are from the middle east.

[Rupert]

Not what I would call a good salary, agree with previous poster in terms of averages. The price of a 2 bed unit will vary greatly depending upon where said unit is.

Is it comparable with current salary? It doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks, it matters what you find to be an acceptable income.

[mj&db]

Depends on the standard of living you are used to and how many people you need to support. Sydney isn't that expensive if you are sensible about where you live, where you shop etc.

If it is just you then $77k will be fine. If you have a family you may find it a little tight...

[littlesarah]

I'm guessing that's not a top of level wage? In which case, your pay should increase over the next few years. You'll get 17% super on top of that as well, I think.

My starting wage (at a different institution) in 2009 was around that mark, and I managed to pay a mortgage of $1200 a fortnight, etc out of that. But that's outside Sydney and husband also works (though casual and not too much work on at that time). We took a gamble even buying a house, but did it because I knew I'd started towards the bottom & that my salary would increase every year for the first few years.

For us, that amount was OK, because hubby works also, and because we can both live very modestly if we have to (these days, most of our disposable income goes on our home renovations). If you prefer to eat out a lot, drive a brand new car and take multiple holidays every year, $77k probably won't be enough.

I guess you have to consider your future prospects also - I can see that there is a career path I could take that would lead to increased salary. Sometimes it's worth taking a bit less now for the potential of more in the future, or for taking a certain salary in order to have a job that is interesting and that one enjoys.

Sorry I can't help more with info about UWS - not working there I don't know much about it. But I do work in that sector, so have a general idea about how things work (subject to institutional variation, of course).

Good luck.

[Locksley]

77K not a good salary?
Maybe you can spare a few quid for us poor folk hey?
My wife and I would love to be on 77K each a year.
If you can't live in Sydney on 77K for one person, don't bother .

(As an example the average retail shop person's wage in Sydney is about $30,000 a year.)

We rent a decent house in Revesby for $350 a week.
We've just bought a house outside Sydney, in the country, will be moving there shortly.

If you wanted a nice area and are working in Bankstown then you'd want to be looking at Padstow. Panania. Revesby. Revesby Heights and anywhere along Henry Lawson Drive toward Milperra.

Just type the areas above into: www.realestate.com.au

Click on to buy or to rent to get an idea of prices.

[Rupert]

You see that is the trouble with questions like this, posts like the one above. Some people are determined to believe that the salary they live on is the "correct one" and god forbid anyone who earns more or should aspire to earn more for a more comfortable standard of living than they themselves can manage. That is why I usually suggest people compare it to their current salary in UK, rather than try to find out what is a "comfortable" salary in Australia, because we are all different.

And Locksley, $154k ($77k each) for two people is not the same as $77k for a singleton.

[Locksley]

You're well named, Rupert

[Cadas]

Hi,
$77k is not a great wage, but it really depends on who/what you are and what you need

We pay our junior professionals about that, but they are typically 23-25 years old. They will tend to live in shared houses, etc and get by fine (no cars, but do holiday and go out a fair bit)

If you have kids it changes everything, family on $77k would be almost impossible and to be honest not very enjoyable.

With the stress and demands of a new country, having no spare cash is tough.

So, to answer your question, $77k enough? Maybe but depends on circumstances





If you have kids then It gets more difficult, $77k would be hard.