Living in Melbourne

[Eloel]

Hello Australians and anyone who's knowledgable about the island and living there. Others welcome too, but, yeah.

I'm planning (in 1-1.5 years, so it's actually a plausibility-check) to travel abroad for my Graduate studies, which's presumed to be 2 years. I have no idea about the prices or salaries, and am looking at if it's plausible for me to basically migrate myself to Melbourne. How much would it cost me for the years, on top of my tuition fees, to live in Melbourne?
Also I've taken a look around for part-time jobs, but getting a trustable figure seems impossible. What are the pays like, hourly?

[Elemental]

Hmmm... As an Australian, I should known this. But then, I live twenty hours away from Melbourne by car, a distance of over a thousand kilometres.
All I can remember is that Melbourne is more expensive than Brisbane, but I'll just do some checking...

Seems it depends on where in Melbourne you want to live. But the general vibe I managed to get was about two hundred and fifty a week.
I will of course, wait for someone from Melbourne to prove me wrong.

[Eloel]

From what I've researched, 20-30k per year seems to be the cost of living within a relatively close distance to civilization. Anyone confirm?
(250 a week is 13k a year and would make me very happy :smallsmile:)

[Elemental]

I wish I could confirm.
But for some reason the Melbourne People have ignored this thread.
I suggest going over to the Australasia in the Playground thread and making further queries there. Someone should know more than me.

[Lady Moreta]

From what I've researched, 20-30k per year seems to be the cost of living within a relatively close distance to civilization. Anyone confirm?

I would... be wary of trying to survive on that little... admittedly, I live in Perth, not Melbourne and as I understand it, Perth is one of the most expensive cities in Australia to live in... my husband and I barely scraped by on $28kpa when we first got married, but we were only paying $150/week in rent and that is extremely unusual (at least, it is for Perth).

Having said that, we did survive on that amount and that was with two of us, so with only one of you it'd obviously be easier.

I would suggest taking a look at www.realestate.com.au - you can use it to look up rental prices in Melbourne - baring in mind, that if they're anything like Perth rental prices, by the time you get to a year and a half from now, they'll have gone up by $20-30. It'll at least give you an idea of whereabouts you'd be able to afford... and remember - you won't be eligible for any sort of government assistance, so you'll have to make sure you've got enough to survive on until you find yourself a job.

[Serpentine]

Minimum wage is, iirc, about $17/hour. Any more detail than that I'm afraid I don't know.

[Kaun]

I'm in Melbourne

Do you have any idea where you would be studying so i can figure rent in the close vicinity?

Side note, Melbourne is still one of the 20 most expensive cities in the world to live in, but don't let that put you off!

Any other questions let me know

the lowest end of rent can hit $250.00 AUD a week but i would budget at around $350.00 @ the least.

A lot of the Uni's can set you up with dog box living on the cheap, you wont exactly have much space but they are generally close to everything.

[Eloel]

I'm in Melbourne

Do you have any idea where you would be studying so i can figure rent in the close vicinity?

Side note, Melbourne is still one of the 20 most expensive cities in the world to live in, but don't let that put you off!

Any other questions let me know

the lowest end of rent can hit $250.00 AUD a week but i would budget at around $350.00 @ the least.

A lot of the Uni's can set you up with dog box living on the cheap, you wont exactly have much space but they are generally close to everything.
Science. Computer Science to be specific, if that makes a difference.
I'll make sure to bother you if I have specific questions, thanks :smallsmile:

[Kaun]

ehh that doesn't narrow it down to much hehe.

Look there are tons of people from overseas who come to Melbourne for sudy every year and from what i understand the UNI's that offer courses to overseas students offer a lot of help and support with the whole process.

I would try and figure out where you want to study (here are a couple of the big unis in Melbourne for a starting point; RMIT (http://www.rmit.edu.au/) University of Melbourne (http://www.unimelb.edu.au/)) touch base with them and see what info they send you. Then if you have questions after that, hopefully i can help from there.

[Eloel]

Ah that, I'm planning on university of melbourne, didn't even know of other options - my bad. I'll contact them, makes sense

[Zorg]

Also keep in mind that a student visa limits you to 20hrs a week employment during term, so earning capacity is limited in that regard (I work with quite a few OS students).

Pay will be around $17 an hour, but will vary where you go. Expect, if you can get 20 hours, to be pulling around $300 before tax a week. Not sure what the employment situation is like in Melbourne though. Unless you have supplemental income/savings you'll probably be sharing.