When I was moving here I had little knowledge about what to do beyond getting from the airport to downtown. How do you get on with life when you’ve just moved to a new country?
Well, there are a few things to sort of focus yourself in the first few weeks, including.:
1. Social Security Number
2. Renting a place
3. Getting a cell phone
4. Opening a bank account
But you have no idea where to start, who to trust, who not to trust, and you could do days of research (and probably should) but you could also read this to help you along.
1. Get yourself a social security card and number.
If you have come over with USIT then you will go to one of those SWAP orientation meetings, and they will sort out your card for you and it will be posted to your address. If you don’t have a Canadian address they will hold it for you at their offices downtown. A social security card allows you to work in Canada and is used for your employment, taxes etc.
2. Sorting out somewhere to live and furnishing it
I wrote about this a few weeks back, so scroll down to April entries for more info. Bascially though, craigslist is a pretty safe bet. If you do happen to rent an unfurnished place, craigslist is also a decent spot to buy used furniture and general stuff for the house. Of course, there are plenty of sketchy offers and you have to choose carefully but you can find some good deals. There are a lot of people contatntly on the move in and out of Vancouver (moving back to Toronto for example) and sell the entire contents of their condo. Also, garage sales are pretty big in this part of the world. Can’t say I’ve bought much at those, but each to their own.
Tip: Just so you know, most rental accom asks for one months damage desposit as well as the first months rent. Many places also ask for post dated cheques for the 12 months, so basically this is just you writing a cheque that can be cashed on the first of each month and not before it, which the owner can cash and not have to come to you each month looking for pay.
3. Getting a cell phone
Cell phones are expensive here. The main networks/carriers are:
TELUS – equivalent to O2
Koodo – owned by TELUS, but is their younger brand.
Rogers – more of a Vodafone
Fido - Owned by Rogers, but their cheap and cheerful brand. More like Meteor
From what I can tell, Fido seems to be the cheapest. I’m with TELUS but only because they used to be my client and I got a discount on an iPhone. Otherwise I would likely be with Fido.
Networks charge you for incoming calls over here, which is ridiculous. The telecoms industry seems to be quiet behind Europe in many ways, and everything is done by contract, which makes phones quite expensive.
I suggest having a phone card. They are super cheap for international calls, keeping the Irish mammy happy.
4. Opening a bank account.
Within a short time, you no doubt will be rolling in wealth and will need somewhere to keep your obscene amounts of money.
If you bank with HSBC back home, they supposedly look after transferring accounts internationally, however in practice I don’t know how accurate that is. They call themselves the world’s local bank, but from experience I think that is nothing more than a slogan crafted by a ambitious copywriter somewhere.
Canada’s big banks are:
BMO (Bank of Montreal)
Scotia Bank
RBC (Royal Bank of Canada)
TD Bank
CIBC
Banks, like cell phone companies, enjoy charging people for things that banks at home do not. (not that Irish banks are exactly the poster children of honesty). They charge for cash withdrawls from ATMs (there are certain ways around this) and a host of other excess charges.
I don’t know enough about banks over here to make any sort of suggestions about which ones are the most competitive, however, look at things like:
- Credit history. You won’t have one in Canada, so what sort of credit card limit are they prepared to negoitiate.
- AIRMILES on credit cards. What are they prepared to give? ( I know that CIBC is pretty good in this regard)
- How many transactions/withdrawls can you make per month before they start charging you
Also to consider are credit unions. Credit Unions are slightly different to the ones at home, firslty they are for-profit and are larger and very secure and offer competitive rates. Credit Unions in this part of the world include:
Vancity
Coast Capital
Westminster Savings
If I was doing it again, I would seriously consider opening my chequing account with Coast Captial. They have no charges.
