It is so expensive to live in Nova Scotia.
The real estate is the only thing that is probably cheaper than Ontario. [Except that if you want to sell, expect it to be on the market for 1-3 years (at least around here).]
Everything else hurts.
We pay fists full… no make that wheelbarrows full… of cash to the provincial government (so they can waste it on nonsense like consulting; reports; convention centres and stadiums for Halifax; apartments, generators, camneras, laptops, art work, fancy office equipment for our MLA’s; bonuses for our provincial civil service workers; and industry handouts, and more industry handouts. It seems that every week there is news of another business closing its doors… after its government money train ran out).
Here are the bills we’re looking at right now.
License Plate Stickers (good for 2 years):
My car – $162.30
Jeff’s truck – $203.40 (more for a truck… because why? Sticker is the same size!)
This is a total tax grab – what value do we get for a license sticker? What are you paying in Ontario now?
Vehicle Safety Inspection:
In Ontario, when you want to sell a vehicle, you have to do a full safety inspection. We have to do that every 2 year here (was every year, but it just changed). We don’t have to do emissions tests, but everything else. And no one would give us any sort of guidelines/rules. You are completely in the hands of the mechanic, and how much he wants to replace.
Jeff’s truck is due for his inspection before the end of September. Right now it is looking like it will be $1500. He needs a ball joint, a new windshield, some rust holes fixed on his rocker panels, and new hinges for his tailgate. His truck is a 2001 and it seems like we’ve possibly been paying enough for it in the last couple of years that we could have been making payments on a newer used truck. When is it time to let it go?
We also have to have bi-annual inspections and vehicle stickers for the boat trailer and for the 4-wheeler. Luckily they aren’t all due at the same time.
Business License:
Here you have to pay to renew your business every year. I have a small business (web design, computer stuff) so I owe another $62.89 by the end of the month.
So far does any of this money give us any sort of value?
I’ve already mentioned many times how the food here is VERY expensive, far more than even Halifax, WAY more than even Northern Ontario.
Our HST is 15% so we pay 15% of everything we buy to our provincial government. FOR WHAT? Most roads around here are barely paved anymore. They might as well be gravel – they’d be smoother.
Property taxes – we pay $1600? I think a year. We live in an unorganized community with no bi-laws. That is a lot of money for a snow plow and garbage pick-up.
Gas is more expensive here, even more expensive than the other Maritime provinces. I was in PEI last weekend. Gas was 9 cents cheaper in PEI, and 4 cents cheaper in New Brunswick. All are regulated and set once a week by the government. (At least we don’t have ethanol in our gas.)
We pay a $0.05 tax on every pop can or bottle (and juice and bottled water). We pay a $0.10 deposit and only get $0.05 back when we bring it to the depot. Speaking of which, the only depot to drop off our cans and bottles here is a 5 minute drive out of town. Why are we paying for this recycling? The recycled product is SOLD isn’t it? If you buy a bottled water with your lunch at a place like Tim Horton’s, you are paying an extra ten cents, and then you likely leave the bottle behind in their recycling box. Bye bye extra ten cents. And do you think Tim Horton’s paid ten cents on every bottle when they came in a truck from an out-of-province warehouse? I don’t either. Oh, and speaking of Tim Horton’s – I’m not a coffee drinker, but Dad tells me our prices are higher here for coffee than in Ontario too.
So this is a bit of a rant. But we have two people living in our house who are both employed full time. How does everyone else around here survive? Jobs paying more than minimum wage are so scarce. Add in insurance (sounds like many people don’t have house insurance after their house is paid off), hydro (rates up 36% here in the last decade), extras like cable/satellite TV, internet, phone or cell phone bill. I work with people who work full time and make less than $30,000/yr. They must live on credit. Even Dad and I who both have an iPhone with Bell – he pays less in Ontario and has package twice as good as mine (he has twice the data, and has a fav 10 list, where I have only a fav 5).
It seems to me that Nova Scotia could charge extra tax on everything, because people here have been raised in a Catholic community where they traditionally do what they are told, and pay what they are told. I never see any sort of lash back, or protest, and most people around here have never lived anywhere else so they have nothing to compare it to.
There has never been a better time to grow your own food, barter with neighbours, and cut back!
(And by the way, WAY TO GO to British Columbia for telling their government to take their HST and SHOVE IT!)
My hubby (Jeff) and I are keep telling people it’s expensive here, but they won’t listen. We aren’t even sure that housing is really that much cheaper when you compare apples to apples. If you take a house, in the same condition, 21/2 hours away from a centre of commerce (Halifax is the only one here), it looks like the prices may compare to other provinces (we’re still working on the numbers).
Thanks for the info.My husband 4 kids and I were seriously thinking of moving to Nova Scotia or N.B. you have made up our minds.I have been checking it out and things seem to be so much more, no wonder the economy is in the crapper and people fro there are leaving in boat loads. This is so sad people having to leave places they grew up and want ot raise their families because the government is to greedy.May be they should take a cut in pay LOL
We moved from BC 5 years ago to SK because BC was to expensive. At lest there is a bit of money there. Sk is excellent for the work now . We turn down a lot of work. But I miss the trees and water. Too home sick. Can’t go back to BC so I guess we will go to NB.
Thanks again for the insight
This may be a little out dated but HOLY CRAP are you kidding me!!! THAT is what you call EXPENSIVE???? Just TRY to live in BC for 6 months and you will wish you NEVER left Nova Scotia. On Nov 28th 2012 I have to come up with $850.00 for one year (1 year) to licence my car with ICBC. THAT is CHEAP here!! Housing has collapsed – can’t sell for 3-5 years. There was a huge glut of building here in the past few years – houses, condos everywhere. People bought new and high and now they are losing. MY taxes every year for a townhouse 15 years old – $2400.00 – EVERY YEAR!!! Rent – nothing under 1800.00 per month for a small descent one bedroom apartment. Food – well – if you like to EAT do NOT move here. I only eat once a day. FORGET owning a pet – Vet care is through the roof (GREED). I will trade you any time!!!
Nova Scotia is the most expensive province I have lived in, and I have lived in most. It costs almost 8 dollars for 4 litres of milk, and I get the same 4 litres in Ontario for 4.35. When I tell my family in NS just how badly they are getting hosed, they balk at me, and tell me that I am exaggerating. What are they feeding the cows there? Everything except for Lobster, is more expensive in NS, but then again, I don’t like lobster. The Consumer Price Index from Stats Canada will show you that. What a pity. I always wanted to go home to Nova Scotia to retire after serving the military for 30 years. That would be a crazy thing to do now…I would take a killing on my pension deductions for Nova Scotia tax payable. farewell to Nova Scotia…sadly…it could be such a nice place to live if it were more affordable.
My wife and I are also considering Nova Scotia in the future. I have heard about the grocery prices but fail to find proof when I look at a flyer from a store there. I have noticed prices at the grocery store are on the increase, but I think its everywhere. We pay $88.00 a year for a sticker per car so its almost equal. Toronto pays much lower property taxes than the surrounding areas. We live in Barrie currently and our taxes are $3200.00/yr. Social services in Ontario are on the decline. Our taxes give us garbage removal (1 bag/wk) and snow plowing and a very nice city hall. My house in Barrie, an hour from Toronto at 120km/hr was $270,000.00. Move it to Toronto….$500,000.00!!!
Nova Scotia is ridiculously expensive for the fact that there are VERY few and or limited jobs, and those that there are you can only get by who you know or if you want to work only 16 or 50 hours a week for minimum wage and get treated like trash, I lived here when I was younger and moved back three years ago and I AM OUT OF HERE! And the health care in Cape Breton is laughable at best, if you want some opiates or antibiotics that you will get, anything else…. you die trying, AND the hospital in Sydney has visible MOLD. Also, this place is rampant with drugs and severe alcoholism and the mainland isnt too different, the crime index in Halifax for being a smaller size metro area of about 700k people ranks up there with some of the largest cities, and then of course the salt in the wound of all of it, the taxes!!! INSANITY! Yes the milk does cost between $7-$8, chicken form the grocery store is literally more than double per kilo, cigareetes are average about 14 a pack alcohol is expensive too, about $14 for a pint of vodka…. madness. Gas is ridiculous usually floating around $1.30 a litre. The politicians and closed minded bubbles crazies have ruined this beautiful place and chased off just about everyone normal. And I am not too far behind. I love Cape Breton and NS, and it will always own a piece of my heart from my childhood and roots, but I doubt you will ever see me here again. After druggies have stolen my things and the cliquey nasty women and or the self proclaimed gossipy mean Christians have done everything but spit in my face… this is no longer a Nova Scotia I recognize. I am out of here, im sure it will be a ghost town soon then all the wealthy people will by it up and turn it into something else, once Walmart or the call centers dont run this place any more. Unless you have a guaranteed contracted job that will pay you no matter what of at least 45k a year. you’d be better off begging for change on the streets of Toronto. I could go on for days…. its heartbreaking, BUT they do it to themselves. Believe me ive watched it my whole life to some extent of course it has always been a different place but ridiculously more so for the past 3 years. It is a beautiful place to visit, just dont let your purse out of your sight and dont trust any of the local con artists. This place is also the capital of identity theft…… stay away if you value your sanity.