Cost of Living

WARNING! Warning to anyone who is planning on visiting us in Sydney, Australia. START SAVING NOW!

Okay, so maybe I am over exaggerating… just a little bit. We thought living in San Diego was costly and visiting LA and New York expensive. None of that compares to our lovely new home, Sydney. Let me break it down into a few examples so you can have a fuller picture.

Our first day in Sydney, after dropping off our many bags at the hotel, we decided to grab lunch. We found a simple café, Wynstop, in Wynyard Train Station and sat down. To our surprise, the sandwiches (a simple turkey, cheese with cranberry sauce) were $13. Each. It did come with a handful of baby greens on the side. A similar sandwich back in the “States” would only be $6.00+tax+15%tip= $7.37. Food in general is very expensive. Cherries are $16/kg or greater, that is $8/pound! Limes retail for $1.68 each (they are 10 for $1 at Henry’s at home!). Chicken breasts are $16- $20/kg on average, although I did purchase it once on special for $12.99/kg. I miss Costco’s chicken breast for $2.99/pound.

I went to Target our second week to check out the prices. I absolutely adore Target back home. Not so much here. First off, Sydney Target is tiny! I am use to the multi level big beautiful Target in Mission Valley or at the very least, the lovely Target in Clairemont where my girls and I spent many glorious hours. A $40 microwave back home is over $100 here. My John Frieda Brilliant Brunette (retails $5.80 at Ulta) is $15.99 at Target.

Cells phones (otherwise called mobiles here) are very different as well. In the US you pay for a plan that includes x amount of minutes, generally with nights/weekends and mobile-mobile free. Here, you pay for a plan that include x amount of dollars towards calls. You pay a “flag charge” of $0.25- $0.40 for each initial call made. Then each 30 seconds costs $0.25- $0.40 cents. There are no nights/weekends free and I only have the first 5 minutes free when calling Ron since we are on the same account. Sounds a bit confusing, right? Good thing I don’t really have any friends in Sydney yet so I don’t go over my allotted plan.


I have found a few bargain places to shop. Paddy’s market is a great place for fresh produce and sometimes they allow you to bargain. They are open Thurs-Sunday in Haymarket (Chinatown). You can find bananas for $2/kg instead of $3.50/kg at the supermarkets. They also have a lot of souvenirs so it is a great place for tourists to go. Fantastic! is a discount furniture store. We purchased an entire living/dining set and bedroom set there for a reasonable amount. It is IKEA style so Ron will be assembling all the furniture when they deliver it on Saturday. (Good luck, Ron!).

Coffee here is fantastic! It is the same price for black coffee, cappuccino and lattes. Why would anyone get a tall black when you can get a cap for the same price? The only thing is that the coffees here are small! The medium is a “tall” and the large is smaller than a “grande” at Starbucks. BUT the coffee here is much better. So much so that they are closing 61 Starbucks here in Australia.

I won’t even get into the renting market in this blog post. It deserves it’s own post.

Day 1 in Sydney

Our plane landed in Sydney at 8:30AM Monday, July 7th, 2008. Since we were situated nicely in business class, we were one of the first to step out onto Australian soil. We breezed through immigration and all 6 of our bags came out onto the revolving carousel one after the other. We were pleasantly surprised by how easy everything was... until we got to customs. The line for customs wrapped around the building and we had to weave and bob our way through groups of unorganized and loud kids. Finally, we made it to the front of the line where Ron declared that we had 2 wooden spoons somewhere in our luggage. We thought it best to declare it in case they decided to search through all 6 of our tightly packed bags. Keep in mind, we are here for 3 years. We brought a lot of stuff.

Our driver picked us up and thank god we did not have to rent a car and drive! Not only are there only 2 lanes each way, they are super narrow. Of course, they also drive on the left side of the road. We thought San Diego driver were bad, we were wrong. They tailgate, honk their horns and almost run people over (this is only our experience so far within the City of Sydney. I cannot comment about drivers in other parts of Australia).

I was in a daze our entire first day in Sydney, at least according to Ron. I was lost and dumbfounded. I had no idea how to get back to our hotel and I was shocked by the prices here (even though we were warned. I will dedicate a whole post to this topic!). KPMG placed us in temporary housing for our first 2 weeks. We are staying at the York Apartments right in the heart of the city and 5 minutes from Ron's work.

We went to Paul and Lili's for dinner that night. It was my first time meeting them and I was slightly nervous. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about! They are incredibly nice and easy going (reminds me a little bit of Tina and Kevin). Their apartment is right on the harbor, next to the Sydney Opera House with a view of the Bridge. Our blog photo was taken on their balcony.

LAX

Saturday July 5th, 2008
LAX

We arrive at the airport hours ahead of our flight. Although we were standing in line at Quantas with our 3 REI XXL duffle bags and 2 huge boxes, it did not feel as if we were leaving our home and moving to another continent. All of our belongings were packed away in these bags and we hoped they would all be there when we got off the plane in Sydney. We learned that our flight was delayed another hour until 1AM for departure and that our flight was over booked by 20 people. Our chances of having 3 seats to ourselves seemed slim. The next step was saying bye to Ron’s parents, Tina and Kevin (also my new Mom and Dad). They walked us up to the security line and we hugged and kissed. I had to turn away before I saw Tina’s face and started to cry myself.

Ron and I settled in for our 6 hour wait. We sat down at a Starbucks and began opening our going away gifts from Corrie and Lauren as we sipped our over priced airport iced vanilla lattes. The bulging card was the first thing we opened, I was curious why it needed to be taped shut. Lauren gave us magnets of different places in San Diego for us to remember our home by. If I ever get home sick, all I need to do is look at our fridge. If I ever miss Lauren, I’ll just open the fridge and eat a TimTam. ☺ She also named Ron and myself the keeper of the original Twilight, which I will return to her when she comes to visit. (Team Jacob!) Earlier in the day, the girls had driven up to Oceanside and we had our last girly nail day together. Lauren had given me a photo album filled with memories of the 3 of us from our first week in college together. The other package was from Corrie. She made me a Goodbye book filled with her favorite memories of our friendship and of me. It made me laugh and cry at the same time.

We were one of the last people to board the plane. Our seats were the second row after First and Business class. When I got to the front, my ticket was rejected! Apparently, they re-sold our tickets due to some system error and were not sure if Ron and I could sit together. We were clearly upset and almost made a comment when they came back with an upgrade to Business class. We settled into our 75 degree reclining chairs and toasted our new future with complimentary champagne. What should have been one of the worse flights ever turned into the best. Did I mention that it is World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney and that our flight was filled with hundreds of 10-12 year olds? Sitting in economy with all those kids would have been a complete nightmare. Instead, we changed into our fresh Quantas socks, reclined our seats, ate chicken laska for dinner, drank wine and fell asleep.