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Did you read where the U.S. has 79 types of government assistance available to those less fortunate?
Now forgetting for a moment Canada's "single payer" healthcare delivery system was modeled upon the U.S. Medicare program and even named as such for decades, there is no need for Medicaid or Veteran's Assistance Program in Canada.
There are no cel-phone plans for baby momma's with multiple babies from multiple daddies - none of whom are contributing to the household.
So, as the title states, I’m considering moving my family (wife and 2 kids under 10) from a small town in the US to Montreal and trying to weigh the costs and benefits. I currently make around $220,000 USD, and given that I live in a small town in the US my cost of living is really low. Does it make sense to move to Montreal given a salary of $220-230,000 CAD?
Why Montreal?
• We visited for a few weeks a couple of years ago and loved it. TONS of things to do with kids, the city is walkable, and is far better than the town we are in now. Overall, the city seems as good or better than any other major/mid-major US city I’ve visited or lived in.
• You can purchase a 3+ bedroom apartment in the center of the city for under $500,000 USD. In the US, that’s unheard of. If you want to live in the heart of a major city AND send your kids to a good public school (i.e., live in a good school district), you’ll probably have to double/triple that amount.
• Canadian universal health care. My Canadian friends have all said that the US coverage of Canadian health care is completely untrue, and it is nice to know that if I were to get sick, I wouldn’t become bankrupt.
• University costs are significantly lower (assuming the kids go to college in Montreal)
• Might be nice to be in Canada if the US completely implodes politically, which is looking more likely with every passing day
I also understand that there are costs to living in Montreal:
• Winters (that’s ok, we’ve lived in cold climates before)
• High taxes—online take home pay calculators estimate that with a $230,000 CAD salary, you would take home about $130,000.
• Purchasing power--$230,000 CAD is only worth $175,000 USD.
• Need to learn French—our family is bilingual, but French is not our second language. The job I am considering doesn’t require French, but I would still like to learn to integrate.
Given this, I suppose the questions I have are:
1. Generally, are my above assumptions correct?
2. Are those online take home pay calculators roughly correct?
3. For daily life, will $1 CAD in Canada buy what $1 USD will buy in the US? For example, if a bottle of water costs $1 in the US, will it cost $1 CAD in Canada? Or does it cost something like $2 CAD? If it is the former, then the purchasing power difference shouldn’t matter as much (as long as we spend most of our money in Canada). It has been a while since I’ve been to Montreal, so I’ve forgotten what things cost.
4. Are there any other major costs or benefits that I am not considering (e.g., retirement, other hidden taxes, etc.)?
5. Overall, would you recommend making the move? Why or why not?
You would be insane to move to Montreal if you're counting dollars and cents and quality of life over what you have now.
Informative post, but I'm not too sure about this here...
Montreal is the 8th largest city in North America, after Mexico City, NYC, LA, Toronto, Houston, Chicago, and Havana. And it feels every bit as big as Houston (maybe even bigger due to its urban fabric and layout.) There aren't many "much larger" cities in North America.
Which large American cities are that much more diverse with higher immigrant populations than Vancouver and Montreal?
I'm pretty sure you left out Dallas - Fort Worth, but you are correct, I should have included Montreal. However, in terms of numbers of large cities you are only considering what lies inside "city limits". That severely skews actual statistics. In USA, in order to understand actual urban populations one must also include the many smaller cities that surround the larger ones, what we call here "Metro Areas". Most of those city limits were laid out centuries ago, and actual growth went out from them in all directions.
Here is a list of the continent's 40 most populous cities including their metro areas. There are only 3 Canadian cities on the list. 34 American cities make the cut plus San Juan PR which is listed separately since it is in an American territory instead of USA proper, but residents there are free to come and go at will to any place else in USA and they have full citizenship.
I'm pretty sure you left out Dallas - Fort Worth, but you are correct, I should have included Montreal. However, in terms of numbers of large cities you are only considering what lies inside "city limits". That severely skews actual statistics. In USA, in order to understand actual urban populations one must also include the many smaller cities that surround the larger ones, what we call here "Metro Areas". Most of those city limits were laid out centuries ago, and actual growth went out from them in all directions.
Here is a list of the continent's 40 most populous cities including their metro areas. There are only 3 Canadian cities on the list. 34 American cities make the cut plus San Juan PR which is listed separately since it is in an American territory instead of USA proper, but residents there are free to come and go at will to any place else in USA and they have full citizenship.
Yes, we know what metro areas are and we have them too. But U.S. metro areas (MSAs, and even moreso CSAs) are notorious among demographers for being hyper-inflated and encompassing far more area and people than what other national statistical agencies typically do - and this includes Canada's.
And of course it's an easy leap to take either the MSA or CSA number and say that that's City X's population. And compare it to other cities in the world whose numbers are based on different criteria.
In an apples to apples comparison, Toronto is actually a Chicago-sized city and metro.
Montreal is a Boston and Philadelphia-sized city and metro.
But if you compare the MSA/CSA figures to the Canadian CMA figures, Montreal and Toronto appear a lot smaller relative to their US counterparts.
Yes, we know what metro areas are and we have them too. But U.S. metro areas (MSAs, and even moreso CSAs) are notorious among demographers for being hyper-inflated and encompassing far more area and people than what other national statistical agencies typically do - and this includes Canada's.
And of course it's an easy leap to take either the MSA or CSA number and say that that's City X's population. And compare it to other cities in the world whose numbers are based on different criteria.
In an apples to apples comparison, Toronto is actually a Chicago-sized city and metro.
Montreal is a Boston and Philadelphia-sized city and metro.
But if you compare the MSA/CSA figures to the Canadian CMA figures, Montreal and Toronto appear a lot smaller relative to their US counterparts.
If I compare Boston to Montreal's costs, I noticed a couple of years ago on a trip to Boston that the price of items at Costco was the same in US as in Canadian in Montreal. It seems to me that with lower health and hi-ed costs, and real estate/rent, Montreal is cheaper. Energy costs are a bit complicated, gas is cheaper in Boston, but electricity is 2 to 3 times Montreal's cost, which when added to lodging, is pretty hefty. It is a lifestyle choice as to how comfortable you are in either city, culturally, and all the rest of it.
1) interest on the mortgage for your primary residence is not deductible in Canada, which may or may not be of value to you.
2) as a US citizen you will still need to file US tax returns as well as Canadian ones. Usually you pay more tax in Canada so your US liability might be nothing but you do need to still file.
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markjames68
Two additional considerations -
1) interest on the mortgage for your primary residence is not deductible in Canada, which may or may not be of value to you.
2) as a US citizen you will still need to file US tax returns as well as Canadian ones. Usually you pay more tax in Canada so your US liability might be nothing but you do need to still file.
Exactly.
Also, cost of living is generally higher in Canada. Food (especially dairy and meat), cell phone plan, Internet are more expensive. Income tax is high, especially in Quebec -- when I moved to Ontario, my income stayed the same but my income tax dropped by A LOT -- as is sales tax.
Hi canadacurious2020! I just made the move to Montreal from the US with my wife and two kids under 10, so I think I can help. My thread full of questions is here. The people on this forum were a huge help.
Quote:
Originally Posted by canadacurious2020
So, as the title states, I’m considering moving my family (wife and 2 kids under 10) from a small town in the US to Montreal and trying to weigh the costs and benefits. I currently make around $220,000 USD, and given that I live in a small town in the US my cost of living is really low. Does it make sense to move to Montreal given a salary of $220-230,000 CAD?
If you're talking about math-wise, the short answer is no. Moving to Montreal from anywhere in the US for the same same salary in CAD would effectively be a giant pay cut. We moved here for less than your salary, however it was a net pay increase even after accounting for taxes and the lower purchasing power of CAD. I specifically negotiated those terms with my (at-the-time) prospective employer, mostly because I was in your exact situation of looking at the math and trying to figure out what made sense.
Quote:
Why Montreal?
• We visited for a few weeks a couple of years ago and loved it. TONS of things to do with kids, the city is walkable, and is far better than the town we are in now. Overall, the city seems as good or better than any other major/mid-major US city I’ve visited or lived in.
• You can purchase a 3+ bedroom apartment in the center of the city for under $500,000 USD. In the US, that’s unheard of. If you want to live in the heart of a major city AND send your kids to a good public school (i.e., live in a good school district), you’ll probably have to double/triple that amount.
• Canadian universal health care. My Canadian friends have all said that the US coverage of Canadian health care is completely untrue, and it is nice to know that if I were to get sick, I wouldn’t become bankrupt.
• University costs are significantly lower (assuming the kids go to college in Montreal)
• Might be nice to be in Canada if the US completely implodes politically, which is looking more likely with every passing day
I also understand that there are costs to living in Montreal:
• Winters (that’s ok, we’ve lived in cold climates before)
• High taxes—online take home pay calculators estimate that with a $230,000 CAD salary, you would take home about $130,000.
• Purchasing power--$230,000 CAD is only worth $175,000 USD.
• Need to learn French—our family is bilingual, but French is not our second language. The job I am considering doesn’t require French, but I would still like to learn to integrate.
Given this, I suppose the questions I have are:
1. Generally, are my above assumptions correct?
Yep, everything above is correct, both the pros and the cons.
Quote:
2. Are those online take home pay calculators roughly correct?
In my experience so far, yes. I used this site and it gives about the same amount net pay for that salary.
Quote:
3. For daily life, will $1 CAD in Canada buy what $1 USD will buy in the US? For example, if a bottle of water costs $1 in the US, will it cost $1 CAD in Canada? Or does it cost something like $2 CAD? If it is the former, then the purchasing power difference shouldn’t matter as much (as long as we spend most of our money in Canada). It has been a while since I’ve been to Montreal, so I’ve forgotten what things cost.
No! And this is extremely important. There are some things that are 1:1, particularly services, housing (more on that below), and deals if you can find them. But so far (disclosure: we've only been here for a month) we've found that costs basically follow the USD-CAD exchange difference. So if something costs $1 in the US it will cost $1.33 in Montreal. Depending on where you currently live, food prices may be waaaay higher, even on top of the exchange differences. Our first couple of weeks here we were spending 3x as much on groceries as we did in the US. Since then we've found better deals, but we were coming from Austin, Texas where groceries are really cheap. Your difference might not be as extreme. But that's the one area that has been severe sticker shock for us. When we visit family in Boston the prices of groceries is also much higher than in Texas, so it might just depend on where you're coming from. Coworkers of mine that came from California also said that the prices don't seem that much higher (but they might also cook less).
Which is another important issue. You didn't mention where you're moving from, other than a small town. Depending which state you're leaving, the tax difference is probably your biggest concern, math-wise.
One of the major areas where this is not true is housing. As you mentioned, housing in the city is insanely cheap compared to major US cities. Owning a home within walking distance of downtown, or on a major train line is pretty tempting. However, I haven't looked into additional costs like property taxes, fees, etc. Also, as I'm technically a temporary worker, buying property into another country is something we're not currently thinking about.
Quote:
4. Are there any other major costs or benefits that I am not considering (e.g., retirement, other hidden taxes, etc.)?
There's both a Canadian federal sales tax and a Quebec province sales tax that's almost 15% total. This is one (but not the only) reason for the higher cost of things like groceries. I'm sure there are other things both good and bad, but I haven't been here long enough to spot them. You already mentioned health care, that could be a major one depending on what you're currently paying. Some other people have mentioned some government benefits that kick in after a year, especially if you have kids.
One benefit is that you might not need a car, depending on where you live. The cost of importing a car to Canada usually isn't worth it, so we sold ours before moving here. We thought we'd need to look into buying a new one immediately, but so far we've gotten by without one, even with all the snow. The car rental and car-sharing companies are one thing that's been cheaper than in the US, so we've gotten by with renting when we've really needed to get somewhere (usually big grocery runs or moving furniture around).
Quote:
5. Overall, would you recommend making the move? Why or why not?
Again, just looking at the math, not at that salary. You'd effectively be taking a significant pay cut. That said, that salary is a lot of money. It could be the case you'd be completely happy taking a lower effective salary in order to get the other benefits of Montreal that you mentioned. An affordable house in the heart of a pleasant city alone could be worth the pay cut, if that's something you value.
Again, I don't know where you're coming from or what your current net pay is, so it's hard to do a direct comparison. Below are your current numbers. If you divide your current USD net pay by your USD Equivalent Net Pay and subtract that number by 1 you can figure out exactly what your "move to Montreal fee" is, percentage-wise.
CAD Salary: $230,000 CAD Net Pay: $132,511 USD Equivalent Salary: $173,001 USD Equivalent Net Pay: $99,672.12
Marginal Tax Rate: 52.96%
Average Tax Rate: 42.39%
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