Rhodaogunpeju:
I relocated to Canada through the express entry mode 2 years ago, one major advice I give everyone is follow all the steps laid down by Canada and you’ll be fine. When they say come with proof of fund of 6million naira for a family of 3, please try to get at least more than half of that money when landing, it’ll make life easier for you. I’ll be honest with my story by sharing breakdown of life and how we survived.
One important thing to note when relocating is give yourself one year to build your foundation, I can assure you that you’ll be fine. Another is not to be lazy or proud to do any odd job, as there is dignity of labour here.
This is my story from the day I landed:
We came with more than three-quarter of the recommended POF for a family of 3. From that money, we got an Airbnb where we stayed for 2 weeks, started house hunting, found something we liked and paid 3 months rent upfront (this is to reduce the tension of looking for job to pay bills).
In Canada, most times your experience is disregarded, so people go back to school, do certifications or anything to make your credentials equivalent to Canada’s. So we knew this and gave ourselves one year to work on that while we take up minimum wage jobs. We landed in October, my husband got a job at a warehouse In November, I’m lazy and didn’t have strength for all those tasking jobs of standing especially for cashiers in Walmart and malls, so I was searching for customer service job, and luckily I got a clerk job. My husband made 2,500 while I made 2,200. Together we brought in $4,700 monthly.
This is a breakdown of our expenses:
Rent – 1250
Home internet – 65
Power (NEPA) – 59
Phone bill for both of us – 110
Insurance for our car – 145
Total – 1,629.
We budgeted 1000 for groceries (this is a lot, but it was our budget). Our total expense came to 2,629. From the $2,071 left, we saved 1500 monthly and left the rest for miscellaneous (mostly for bulk purchase or to send money home to our folks, hang out with friends, shop once in a while etc.). By the way, there’ll hardly be any emergency where you have to spend your money on hospital bills etc. as medical is free here, education is free up till secondary school except for daycare.
We enrolled our daughter in a daycare that cost almost $1000 monthly. Govt of Canada pays kids up till 18years depending on household income something called child benefit. Our daughter got 560 monthly and another quarterly payment. The govt also pays daycare subsidy for each eligible child for 640 monthly. So since the govt paid 640 to the daycare on behalf of my daughter, I only paid the balance of 360. This was funded from her child benefit of 560. She had change of 200 which was paid into an account we opened for her.
Now this is our life as newly landed immigrants, while we were doing this, I was working on my HR certifications (I’m a HR professional), while my husband was studying online for his diploma. We were both studying and working.
While in naija, we earned well, we had savings of more than 300k monthly which we put away, in a year that gave us 3.6million. After house rent of almost 700k, hospital bills, (my daughter was a regular hospital visitor, sometimes we spent 50k, 100k in hospital bills). At the end of the year, we may have about 2m left in savings. Now go back to my monthly savings in Canada of 1500 per month which is about 18,000 Canadian dollars in a year, converted to naira, that’s almost 6million naira.
This is from people doing minimum wage jobs that included overtime o. it’ll be hard and stressful, combining studies and working is stressful. The stress from a physically demanding job can get to you, my husband was stressed for the first 3 months, back pain, neck and muscle strain etc. but we persevered, he was taken care of, he had regular massages, pain killers and ointment for joint pain but overtime he got used to it, he even moved from that role to a less demanding role.
Today, we’ve completed our studies, we’ve transitioned to professional jobs, and we have more than 4k monthly in savings from our income. You can actually have same expenditure every month as most bills are fixed, you can plan well, medical is free, nothing like emergency money for hospital bills. Unlike in naija, where we bought fuel everyday as per minister of power in our house, had 2 gens, repaired gen almost every 2 weeks, spent money on mechanics due to bad road and crazy drivers etc.
I have a friend earning more than a million per month in naija, he had an accident, had to be flown to Germany for surgery, sold some of his properties as the bill was mad, he lost that job because he was away for more than 2 years, his life never remained the same, he took the money left and relocated with his family (this is for people that keep saying if they earn millions, they won’t go anywhere), remember that in naija, an emergency can send you from grace to grass. If he were in Canada, his bills would have been free, he would have had employment insurance and be able to return to work.
The reason for this post is, please if you have the means and are eligible for express entry, please don’t be discouraged, I had friends that did security work, cleaning jobs while they were writing their bank certifications exams, to Nigerians, the jobs are degrading, but here nobody send you, our cleaner for office de drive range rover sef.
Today my friends have all transitioned to professional jobs. By the way I stay in Alberta where minimum wage is $15 per hour, so anyhow anyhow you must see like 2k take home job every month, and these minimum wage jobs are not hard to find, Walmart recruits everyday, stores, customer service jobs plenty just keep at it you’ll get one.
People are losing their jobs because of covid bla bla, very true, but like I said, are you lazy? My friend in HR was laid off in April, he jejely went to get a warehouse job and in September he got another HR role. Plenty things to do if you don’t get a job easily. My husband was doing something like uber, but this was like for food, you get to deliver online orders to people, he made like $200 every week (he didn’t do it full time, only on his off days). The money we got from selling our car in naija was kept differently for a car here, when we landed in winter we didn’t want to be carrying our then 1+ daughter up and down in the cold, so we got a car immediately (a small car of about $3,000).
Today we live in our home, doing far better, infact while on minimum wage we did far better than naija sef. Baby number two is on the way, everything is free, I’m getting the best medical attention, lots of freebies for pregnant mum lol.
To conclude, don’t let anyone discourage you from relocating, but do so legally, forget pride and take on minimum wage jobs while you look for professional jobs in your field. Don’t just sit around to wait for it to come, it took some people more than a year to get one, get busy, get certified and you’ll land one. Good thing is to be eligible for express entry, you must have relevant qualifications and experience so it’s easier to search for jobs with your certificate when you land.
By the way, a lot of people live comfortably on minimum wage jobs and never transitioned to professional jobs.
Fully endorsed. Great narrative, thanks for sharing. 1 Like |
