What’s the Cost of Living in Sydney?
Tags: Finance, Sydney, Australia, Money Management, Cost Of Living

The money you need for food and shelter …

Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash

If you’re an expat moving into Sydney, Australia or simply an Australian looking for a new job in Sydney, you will need to know an approximate cost of living in Sydney.

This is largely from personal experience. I relocated interstate, and realized shock horror, the cost of living in Sydney is not cheap at all! Hopefully you guys will find this breakdown somewhat useful.

Firstly, I’ve divided expenses into Core and Discretionary.

Core expenses include items such as rent, groceries, children’s education, health insurance, medical costs and transportation … (things that are absolutely essential) Discretionary expenses include clothing, restaurants and cafes, alcohol and car expenses…(things not so essential but important to have)

In this article, we’re just going to cover core expenses.

Core Expenses

Rent

The largest factors are:

Are you single or a family unit?

How long are you prepared to travel to work?

If you’re a family unit, say husband, wife and child, you’re looking at circa around $600–700 per week for a basic two bedroom apartment in a middle-class suburb. For instance:

Rhodes and Meadowbank (circa 600 per week)

Burwood (circa 650 per week)

St Leonards (circa 700 per week)

If you get an older apartment, you can probably save somewhere between $30–100 per week.

In recent years, there’s been an influx of apartment buildings, especially in the suburbs mentioned above, so you can probably bargain a good rate. $500 would be the bare minimum for a 2 bedroom apartment. And if you do find one, don’t expect it to be in great condition.

If you’re single, you can probably get away with anything between $200–300 per week. If you’re prepared to live further away from the CBD, i.e. a >45min travel time, you can probably find something for sub-200.

Approximately, you should budget for:

Single person’s rent: $1,000 per month

Couple’s rent: $2,600 per month

Groceries

The largest groceries stores in Sydney are Woolworths and Coles. Because it’s a duopoly, prices are not considered cheap. According to Canstar Blue, expect to pay around $560 a month for groceries. For a family of three, expect around $676. From personal experience, this seems to be on the low side. This is especially true if you buy imported produce.

Approximately, you should budget for:

Single: $600 per month

Couple / family: $1,000 per month

Education

If you have kids, that’s going to be a big cost aside from rent.

For children over kindergarten, the biggest factor is whether you choose to let them go to a public school or a private school.

Private school education is significantly more expensive, and you should factor in circa $30,000 per year. Catholic schools are slightly cheaper, but still at the $10,000 range. Public school education is “free”- however you do need to cover a voluntary contribution, this varies between suburbs, but do expect to pay circa $4,000.

Day care for children under kindergarten usually ranges from $90–170 per day. This can accumulate quite easily to be over $20,000 per year.

Below is a survey on education costs:

Let’s say you have one kid:

Private school: $2,500 per month

Public school: $350 per month

Health Insurance

The average cost for health insurance in Sydney is circa $2,000 pa for an individual. Expect to pay double for young families.

Approximately:

Single: $160 per month

Couples / families: $350 per month

Utilities

From my experience, expect to pay between $100 to $300 a month.Some guides are set in the link below:

Approximately, you should budget for:

Single: $100 per month

Couple / family: $200 per month

Public transport

Assuming you travel from home to work on public transport, the maximum cap you can pay according to transportnsw.info is $50 per week. That’s $200 a month — realistically you would probably spend less.

Single: $100 per month

Couple / family: $200 per month

Total Core Expenses

For a young family (public school) — $4,700 per month.

Rent $2,600

Groceries $1,000

Education $350

Health Insurance $350

Utilities $200

Transportation $200

This means $56,400 per year of after-tax money! Not a small amount. Assuming a rough tax rate of 30%, you would need to earn $80,571.40 to afford basic expenses. This is a lot more manageable if both husband and wife are working. The minimum wage in Sydney is approximately $40,000.

For a single person (sharing)— $1,960 per month.

Rent $1,000

Groceries $600

Education $0

Health Insurance $160

Utilities $100

Transportation $100

This means $23,520 per year of after-tax money! However, this is the bare minimum where you’re sharing apartments. If you want an apartment all to yourself, expect to add another $1,000 per month, bumping up your total to $35,520 per year.

Rule of Thumb on Core Expenses…

$60,000 for a family of three

$30,000 for an individual

Therefore, if you’re moving with your partner and child to work here in Sydney, they should be offering you at least $100,000 pa.