Rent where it's cheaper or where there's more work? (Sydney)

[skoshi]

Hi all,

I'm having a hard time deciding which suburb I should move to in the awfully expensive city of Sydney, Australia.  At the moment I live 2 1/2 hours from Sydney in the Blue Mountains where the COL is low and rent is free (thanks to my parents!) but there are no jobs available in my future profession as a teacher. 

The question is whether I move to an area of Sydney that has access to many train lines (like Redfern/Central) that travel in all directions and pay at least $280 for a room (probably $300-350) in a share house/studio or live further out where the rent is cheaper ($200 a room) but the trains are less frequent and the commute is longer.

I currently don't have a permanent job lined up, but I'm pretty sure I can get casual teaching work in places all over the city (N,S,E & W).  If I lived further out of the city I may need to buy a car (yuck) in order to arrive at school on time if I get called up to work (they call you around 7 and school starts at 8:30) because the public transport is so slow and infrequent.  However, buying a car could mean access to more schools, which means more work..

I have about 10k in savings, no debt, and at least $210 a week from the government until:)

What's your advice??



Let me know if I need to be clearer in my description.

Thanks in advance!

[robartsd]

It sounds to me like your plan is to start as a substitute teacher. I've heard that to consistently get jobs, be prepared to say "yes" to nearly every call you get - the person scheduling substitutes is likely to call someone who has a history of saying yes before trying those who only sometimes accept jobs. So you really need to be prepared to get to nearly every school in the district you want to teach in.

You'll likely find that renting in the lowest cost area that allows you to reach the schools using public transit and a bike is cheaper than renting in a lower cost area and owning, maintaining, and driving a car. But you may also want to look into less expensive personal transit (electric bike, moped, scooter) that would give you access to all the schools and cheaper shelter without the need for a car.

[Kaminoge]

Why not try for a permanent job and then move wherever you get one? Is there a reason you need to be in Sydney? As a teacher there's no way I'd want to live in such an expensive place and if I was going to then I'd really want a permanent job. Supply teaching means there's likely to be big chunks of time when you have no income at all and that would't be much fun.

And, I'll just put in a little plug here for considering international teaching. If you've got nothing tying you to Sydney and you want the opportunity to save, travel and have a great career then I highly recommend getting out of Australia.