MoneySaving - Not your average bear

Tixy

How exciting, emigrating to Canada. Is there a specific reason for your move? (I like to be nosey!) Is your job easily transferable to a career over there.

8 weeks is not a lot to learn to drive, are you already part way throught learning?

As you say normal part-time jobs are not feasible I think your best best may be to earn extra money from online activities, such as surveys, reviews, maybe AQA would suit you.

Do you have any items you could sell to give your savings a starting boost (try ebay, amazon or carboots)? Perhaps you will have some things you can sell just prior to emigrating that will not take with you that will give you a final extra bit to put to your savings.

You could set up a standing order for a certain amount each month and then try to make small additional transfers through the month (a bit like the payment a day challenge for debt repayments).

You are not smoking very much at £4 per week - I bet you could focus yourself to give up when you think of your savings/new life goal.

Is your travel of £57 the cheapest way to get to work? Is this train fare? Do you buy a monthly pass- if not check out how much cheaper it would be? Would buses be cheaper? Do you work with anyone travelling the same way and time as you that you could get a lift with and just contribute to petrol?

Have you looked into airmiles at all for your travel? I have no idea how airmiles work really but if you could get a credit card that earns you them you could pay for your general expenses on the credit card rather than using a debit card then make sure you pay the balance off in full each month so you never pay interest. (you do need to be disciplined to make sure you don't ever pay interest and I'm not sure how much you would be likely to make and whether it would be worthwhile but you could research it).

Good luck
Tixy

tallyhoh

Quit smoking, I reckon you under estimate the £4.00.

tomterm8

I would think with a little bit of effort making £4k from matched betting is reasonable... there is a board on here with instructions on how to do it.

tealady

Hi. How about counting the miles to Canada and allocating each mile a % of the amount you need.
eg say if your journey to whereever was 1, 000 miles and you need 10,000 then each mile "costs" you £10. Imagine every £10 you save as getting you a mile nearer to where ever it is you are going.
Either that or open a savings account and pay in a direct debit each month and think of that saving as a debt to be paid NO MATTER WHAT.
HTH

fsrandom

Hey guys! Thank's for all the replies

I'm insured on a family car, plus I've already had some driving lessons so I imagine I won't even need another two months worth as I'm pretty confident and drive with the family alot anyway, I just need to work on the manouvers and such and I should have my licence! There will be extra costs involved taking the test and such, but the finances above are quite rough and I'll amend them over time .

Well, my smoking habbit used to cost me £17.50 a week however now I just purchase foreign pouches of tobacco (50g) which costs me £3 per week, it's really horrible to smoke but it saves me alot of money! .

I do have four accounts at the moment, one which is a main account I use for DDs and payments in, and others I try and distribute finance too, nothing in the other three at the moment but I plan to use them to transfer cash and such.

What's "Matched Betting" by the way?

tomterm8

fsrandom wrote: »

What's "Matched Betting" by the way?

See http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=41 .

Fire_Fox

Matched betting - go to the 'Gambling Loopholes' message board (note that it is NOT gambling at all, it's a very clever system).
http://www.free-easy-money.com/bettingtutorial.php
http://www.mbassist.co.uk/

fsrandom

Ok thanks, I'll take a look into that.

housebuyer_abc

fsrandom wrote: »

Ok thanks, I'll take a look into that.

Okay so having lived in the Uk and Ontario in a see-saw fashion for the last 12years let me set you straight on a few things.

July/Aug/Sept are the most expensive flight dates, aviod these and they are cheaper - you also need to heavily up your first class budget - I've done the trip may times (with others paying) its never cost less then 9000 CAD return - but you usually find that the return leg is a fraction of the cost of the first flight.

Secondly - you need to show 10000 CAD on entry (I'd check its due to be increased).

Thirdly - have you been granted PR yet? Or do you have a class zero NOC classification on your occupation? Without these (or Canadian nationality) you have no guarantee of being allowed into the country. In fact without these the airline won't let you on the plane unless you have a return ticket.

Finally (although I can go on for much longer) - your plan to upgrade the UK licence won't work. Ontario uses a graduated system and as a result anyone who has only passed their test in the last two years is treated as a G2 driver (google it). It will require you to drive as a G2 for two years before you get a full unrestricted G licence. The other thing you may not be aware of is the cost of insurance, I was quoted (after 12 years of UK licence holding and 6 years UK no claims) the grand total of 6400 CAD per year to insure a Honda Jazz, also driving over there is crazy and everytime you get on a 400 highway you take your life into your own hands, better to learn over there.

fsrandom

housebuyer_abc wrote: »

Okay so having lived in the Uk and Ontario in a see-saw fashion for the last 12years let me set you straight on a few things.

July/Aug/Sept are the most expensive flight dates, aviod these and they are cheaper - you also need to heavily up your first class budget - I've done the trip may times (with others paying) its never cost less then 9000 CAD return - but you usually find that the return leg is a fraction of the cost of the first flight.

Secondly - you need to show 10000 CAD on entry (I'd check its due to be increased).

Thirdly - have you been granted PR yet? Or do you have a class zero NOC classification on your occupation? Without these (or Canadian nationality) you have no guarantee of being allowed into the country. In fact without these the airline won't let you on the plane unless you have a return ticket.

Finally (although I can go on for much longer) - your plan to upgrade the UK licence won't work. Ontario uses a graduated system and as a result anyone who has only passed their test in the last two years is treated as a G2 driver (google it). It will require you to drive as a G2 for two years before you get a full unrestricted G licence. The other thing you may not be aware of is the cost of insurance, I was quoted (after 12 years of UK licence holding and 6 years UK no claims) the grand total of 6400 CAD per year to insure a Honda Jazz, also driving over there is crazy and everytime you get on a 400 highway you take your life into your own hands, better to learn over there.

Hey housebuyer_abc,

Thank you for your advice, it appears to be invaluable and I'll look a little bit more into all areas, as other people have stated maybe it's worth just shipping everything over to CAD as apposed to traveling them, and then using a base ticket to get over.

I can't perticulary give much information about my immigration circumstance for obvious reasons, however my immigration is 99.9% secured for that date, but I'll keep in mind about the dates for flying.

I'm lucky enough to be given a car, plus insurance once I get there, so I won't have to worry about those costs once I arrive (lucky I know).

Hm, that bothers me a little as I'll be living in the GTA and I'll need access to the 401 in order to get to Toronto, so I'll need to do extensive research about that .

Again, thanks for your advice!