Hello,
We've been in the Toronto area a few months now and starting to have some doubts about living here long term.

We're not missing England or homesick our feelings are very rational. Our concern is if this move is right & it?s fuelled by the financial reality of living here. Also we like the area, there?s a lot to see and do.

In summary I'm netting a lot less $$ than back in England and impulse buys are now considered luxuries or items Id save for ever for. My wife also had a tidy income back home, which also gave her a huge amount of independence. She?s unlikely to work for a couple of years at least due to our kid?s ages.

On this basis staying seems a no brainer !!!

Its a myth of the low cost of living here really is, but we couldn?t have found out about it 'on paper' we?ve had to live it. A combination of moving closer to Toronto, exchange rates, and two years of price increases over here mean that we'd probably end up buying a house here for similar price as back home. OK it'll be bigger but my ability to pay it off will be a lot worse.

People keep harping on about "The Lifestyle" here but you still have to pay for it !!

We're now starting to look at this move as an opportunity for a life / work experience that a lot of people would love to be able to do, so we're pretty upbeat still. My children are young enough to fall back into school back home with no ill effect.

Guess I?m not the first / last person to feel this way.

Any advice,
Thank you

Hey Albert,
I'm in a similar situation although we have been here 2 years and my husband really wants to go for citizenship so we will think of our final year here as a chance to see and do new things.

We find that that 'living the lifestyle' is very expensive and we have less disposable income here than in the UK but we do have a large house and an equally large mortgage and that was our doing. We wanted to come to Canada for the experience and I think after 2 years we had decided we had certainly had that! I can't wait to get home to the UK actually and if I had my way I would be leaving now but hubby is the sensible one!

Perhaps you should just treat it as an extended life/holiday experience and see how you feel a year down the road. As you say you have young kids. Mine are a bit older and they have certainly lost out with the 'education' system here.
Many Thanks

Albert

Have you thought about moving to Alberta?

House prices are much cheaper; standard of living is much better and you only pay one set of taxes as opposed to other parts of Canada. You can easily walk into a job in Alberta given the good employment opportunities.