Living in Banff | Life update and Q&A 🏔

hey everyone welcome back to our channel tristan and i thought we would jump on and make this video today to give you a bit of a life update because a lot has changed for us in the past couple of months and to answer a q a so we put a poll up on both of our instagrams and mentioned it in our last youtube video um that we were gonna answer some questions that we've been sent in so we're gonna tackle both of those things for you guys today to start with our live update um we have changed jobs moved house and got a different car since our last kind of talking videos with you guys um so the first things first jobs we get a lot of questions about jobs so we thought we'd fill you in on what's happened for us and some things that we've learned since being here um we're coming up on maybe seven or eight months now maybe seven yeah yeah seven months in banff um still love it but the fact that we've changed jobs has been a huge huge bonus for that so as you all know we were working up at a ski resort we didn't end up seeing out the full season there we loved the idea of the work um but we have since taken up jobs in town so we're both working in restaurants jason's working in two i'm working in one um but we're doing night shift and it is so much better for a working holiday because we have all day every day pretty much to go out explore we still get to go to work earn some money and then most of the time we go out afterwards or we just go home get some sleep and then do it again the next day working up at the ski resort we were working the whole time everyone else was skiing and enjoying things um i was personally working like 7 45 a.m until 4 35 pm most days and that is your whole chunk of daylight especially in winter when it's super super dull and dreary and the sun is setting at like 4 30 that consumed our whole day our whole week we got two days off a week um it was good in theory it was great for the free ski pass while it lasted but we are much happier with our decisions now so as i mentioned we're working in restaurant jobs in town which is awesome we don't have the commute anymore um so i'm working at one restaurant where i pretty much start like 4 p.m all day every like most days um i still get my two days off a week it's super flexible i'm hosting so i um just see people and work with the servers and help coordinate that but i love it i think it's so much better you know we have seven mornings a week to go and do things if we want to go away we still can and we kind of get an extra half a day on top of that um but yeah it works really well so tristan's working at one of those jobs with me and he's also working at his another job because tristan's staying for the summer whereas i am not so i'll let him tell you about that one so the job that i work with caitlin i actually start serving this week um i got that job a couple weeks ago now yeah um i got that as my second job so the other restaurant i work at i started out before we left the ski hill um i've been there for probably six weeks now maybe maybe two months yeah six to six to eight weeks um i've just been food running mostly there i'm hoping to get into bartending there so i'll be bartending at one job and serving at the other hopefully one other thing too as you know we were working in food and beverage at our last jobs at the ski hill but food and beverage is an awesome job and we might go into this a little bit more in the q a about why and the potential for earning capacity um but yeah definitely something to consider if you're coming to canada especially from australia where the wages are a little bit higher we'll explain why soon on to the next thing our living situation because we left the ski hill we had to leave our staff accommodation so we have ended up moving in with two of our best friends at lowe and kyra so as you can see we're kind of made the lounge room at home um but we're living in a two-bedroom apartment right in town with them we are loving it um we'll talk about the cost of living and everything in the next section of the video um but yeah it's kind of worked out for the better it was meant to be a temporary solution for us but we just ended up staying here because we love it and it gives everyone cheaper rent and a little bit more flexibility but yeah anything to add on for livingstitch no no you like living with three girls yeah um yeah and then our last thing is our car so i think last time we had we had big red the van um we actually sold that and ended up getting a volvo suv just for more seats able to go on trips with more than just us um that broke down like two weeks after we bought it yeah we were pretty unfortunate we were sold a bit of a lemon we loved big red and it was such a sick van like if we were both going to be here in summer it would have probably been worth holding on to but at the same time we can buy a tent we can do everything you know how we used to back at home camping wise and everything but yeah not being able to drive our friends around and go on trips with them was kind of a big deal for us which is why we decided to swap vehicles so we're on to our third car in canada so after that happened we went to a couple used car dealerships and when we're doing that i sort of had the idea i'm like let's go look at a dealership and they were giving us options of brand new cars for similar prices as we were getting shown for secondhand so we're just waiting for our new car to get dropped off and yeah we got a couple questions about the whether it's worth having a vehicle in canada and things like that which we'll go into as well obviously for us it definitely is we've gone through three cars in six months uh we've been very very unfortunate but fingers crossed it's gonna be fine from here on out we'll update you guys when we have that vehicle but yeah i think that's kind of everything that's life update major honestly it's not been all perfect it was really stressful trying to figure out where to live and leaving our jobs um and not having a car at the same time yeah we had to move house without a car uh so it definitely has not been perfect and that's one reason we really wanted to get on here and make this video for you guys um because it's it's all well and good to see all the fun trips we go on or other people's awesome videos but you know it's still it's still life even if you're on a working holiday visa you'll still have things to deal with um but i hope that we can show you guys it's still worth it at the same time but yeah we'll move on to the q a section so onto the q a section um on each of our youtube videos we always put our instagram links in the um description of the video because we are more than happy to help you guys out and answer your questions in a couple of our first ever videos on this channel we explain why we why we make these videos and that we just want to help other people out because when we were coming over here there wasn't a whole lot of information so if we can help you guys in the process that is our aim um yeah so onto the questions we got a couple sent in on instagram and on youtube a lot of them we're going to start with are the finance ones moving overseas is obviously a big financial expense um and it's really hard when people don't want to talk about it or aren't willing to because you have no idea what you're getting into so we got a lot of questions about their living costs so everything that we're talking about is only specific to banff we haven't lived anywhere else in canada at this stage and we can't provide advice on that and banff is in alberta which has different taxes and prices to other provinces in canada as well just to be mindful if you're going to bc or somewhere else but for us rent and housing here is super expensive and super hard to find um we're quite lucky that we're in a good position now and we were prior in our staff accommodation but what do you have to say about the living situation here it's when you're looking it's stressful yeah i'm currently still trying to find a place for summer and there's nothing so yeah there's there's more people that want to come to banff than there is places to sleep um so if you're gonna come here definitely be prepared a two bedroom is about two grand a month that's pretty standard like 16 to two i'll probably go 18 to like 22. they're getting more expensive yeah um the more people you're sharing with i know people that like have a two bedroom about four people in it which is kind of what we're doing now um and that actually isn't bad for us so for our specific situation tristan and i are paying approximately it changes a little bit each month 950 so yes together so about four 425 that's all right no four 475. quick math under 500 each a month um which is still a lot to be honest when we're earning 15 dollars an hour um but yeah so that is our specific situation and a little bit of general about housing here um our other living costs that we have would be wi-fi which is we're paying about 50 dollars a month yeah approximately 50 it depends what plans you're on um and most places don't come with wi-fi included so you need to get wi-fi on top of your rent uh we also have our phone bills and someone sent in a specific question about this uh we'll address that one next but we're paying about 60 a month for our phone bills uh which is actually cheap and then car um obviously we've made the choice to have a car so that is an expense for us obviously fuel um and upkeep as well feels pretty much the same as home honestly a little bit cheaper than home at the moment um but yeah that's just kind of what comes with having a car in terms of living expenses they're the kind of crucial ones that we have to deal with um just going on to the phone plans someone said hey heard conflicting things about phone plans apparently majorly expensive is this true and yes this is one of the things that we found out when we came to canada we had no idea phone plans are so expensive compared to home um so we have 15 gig of data each and that's like a fair amount there is a lot of wi-fi in canada but um we both used all our data this month and we only got the 60 plan because we came through a company to come to canada and they got us a better deal you're probably looking at more like 80 100 80 to 100 dollars for a decent phone plan if you're used to having lots of data back at home um but yeah that's something to be mindful of one or one other thing that's also really expensive is car insurance so if you choose to have a car in canada so much more expensive than at home um to put it into uh context for you guys we're looking at about four thousand dollars for comprehensive insurance whereas at home we were looking i i used to pay nine hundred dollars a year for that so huge huge difference uh but registration is way cheaper so in alberta we're paying 80 dollars a year for registration compared to 800 at home so there are a couple things if you're gonna have a car you kind of don't have a choice um there's some expenses you're gonna have to incur as well all right so the next question we got was can you save much from what you're earning and this was a huge question of ours before coming over as well it's it's definitely possible to save of what you earn but i guess a lot of the a lot of the time you hear you want to you want to be social you want to do all that like you want to live your life yeah um we have we're fortunate we've been we've found that we don't really touch our savings from home um other than for big trips so we have like a trip coming up in america we know we're not going to be able to fund that with our money from canada so we're going to use our savings from home um so those sorts of things but little trips we've definitely we've been able to cover um with what we're earning yeah and we haven't had to touch our savings a lot of a lot of our savings will go to like those smaller trips or the social side of i guess living in bev yeah so we we love to go out we love to eat we love to go out for drinks with friends and for us that's a really important part of being here so i think if you want to [Music] if you're really focused on saving you can definitely cut back and restrict those aspects of your life um and save some money i know some people that definitely have or if you're in a really good job with high tips it's definitely possible but it depends what you're coming here to do as well and what type of experience you want to have so the biggest thing for us is that we just wanted to come and be able to live off what we earn and we can do that which is awesome so the next question was rough price of spending now that the snow season is almost over does it get cheaper it honestly it doesn't change whether it's winter summer yeah we were thinking about the same thing i don't think the season's affected that much like the only significant cost for winter would be maybe a ski pass um so we had to purchase like a end of season pass because we left our jobs at the ski hill so that was a little bit of a cost for us it was just 500 each for like two months worth the only thing it doesn't change cost but like in summer town is a lot busier than it is in winter yeah but i yeah i i really don't think there's going to be much of a difference between um spending between summer and winter if anything in summer you can go away for weekends and not have to purchase a hotel room because it's not cold you can go camping and do all those fun things um but yeah just again it depends on how much you want to go out how much you want to see the town uh whether you're doing free activities or uh priced activities but yeah i don't think it's it's dependent on the seasons that's depend on what you make of it all right the next question we got was do you think it's worth buying a car for the time over there yes short story like unless you're prepared to spend your time purely like for us in banff and only go places when you're relying on other people it having your own car is definitely worth it because you can wake up one morning they're like i'm going here and you know go and see all of those things yeah in summer it might be a little bit easier for people without a car because there's gonna be a lot more people in banff um and it's nice out you don't need to drive into town to get groceries you can just walk um but for us because we were both used to having our own cars at home honestly we have gone through so much with our car situation but for us it's still worth it because we can do whatever we want whenever we want you know banff is a bit isolated from other towns like our nearest big town is like 20 minutes away the city is an hour and a half away down to calgary um yeah even trying to get there when we didn't have a car or trying to move house when we didn't have a car it was just stressful so for us it's definitely worth it um it depends on what type of experience you want to have when you come here because there are a lot of costs associated with having a car as well uh we'd hope to just buy a car sell it at the end recruit our costs hasn't really worked out that way for us might for you um but yeah there is risk but i think the reward outweighs it yeah definitely another question we got was do you have any tips on getting jobs on a hill during a ski season for iec workers honestly ski resorts need iec participants um there are so many ski resorts in the last few years that have been struggling to operate because people have not been able to come over on the iec visas um so i think you'll be able to get a job wherever you want just do your research see what ski results work for you um a lot we'll be hiring i think they start worrying about june putting some applications up um some are open for summer so they're doing some applications now and then they'll do winter once summer season starts um i think you'll be fine honestly a lot of we get a lot of questions about whether we used a company to come over or whether we did it ourselves as well as you may have seen in our earlier video we did use a company but we did it because it was covered uh we had extra requirements on our visa we were both working crazy crazy hours across multiple jobs at home to save and come here and we needed a job before we came you don't need any of that now so if i could give you some advice and if you're confident enough to come over and try and do it all by yourself i honestly think you can um and save yourself some money on getting someone to give you the checklist on how to submit your visa um yeah you can apply directly for those ski resort jobs you can get into them yourself um i've even heard stories of people who are being forced into resorts they didn't even want to go to because they have paid these companies so it just depends we didn't have a bad experience um but i also think we could have saved ourselves 700 each if we had done it ourselves anything to add no so the next one was after your own experience and your friends is there any jobs you'd recommend i love this question i think it's really good we've spoken to a couple of our friends about it as well what would you say what would your advice be honestly first off like if you've got something that you're interested in obviously try and find a job in that um otherwise for like socializing the money side of things and just like the fun of it all i'd have to say hospitality the biggest thing too is coming from australia we're earning a lot less per hour than we're earning before um so we're on between 15 to 16 50 per hour but because we work in hospitality we get tips so the best way to earn tips would be working as a server um we aren't doing that just yet tristan will be moving into that soon or if you're working in a support role in hospitality you get tipped out so you get a portion of the tips that comes to you as well and that boosts that can boost our like hourly wage from like five six seven even eight dollars an hour just from tips as well um so i like that capacity to earn more money and yeah as we discussed at the start a night job has been awesome for us we came here wanting to snowboard and ironically working at a ski hill wasn't the best for that um even though we saved money on a ski pass we got to ride so much less because we were working all the time we got some ride breaks here and there um but yeah it depends what you want to do if you are here to hike and sightsee and snowboard and do all of that fun stuff see if you can do something at night you know tristan and i are both qualified at home um tristan's a carpenter i'm actually a teacher i don't know if we've mentioned that on here before um but tristan loves bartending so he's with no experience in that he's now getting into that job just because he could you can come here and do whatever you want to if you have enough ambition um so yeah anything that you think is gonna be good and in a town like this you're gonna find people to get along with um but for us yeah working in town as opposed to something out of town has definitely been a huge bonus the next question we got was from someone who is moving to canada at the end of the year which is awesome congratulations um they said where so far do you recommend living we've only lived in banff um from my experience and like talking to people who have lived in other places i don't think there's a better place than banff um tristan loves ben i love bamf too we did some road tripping through bc when we got here and we've done a little bit of travel back through bc i'm torn i kind of i'm interested to see what bc has to offer as well there's some really cool towns um but i feel like we might end up back here i don't know bamf is a really really cool place and if you're looking for somewhere to start that's guaranteed you know you're gonna make friends it is an awesome town there is a nightlife there is a huge like hiking outdoor culture as well yeah it's definitely the place just be prepared you may not want to leave so the next question we got was how long do you plan on working in canada for do you have any work slash travel plans for other countries i love this question so we're gonna do our full two visa uh definitely we are already seven months through which is crazy um i am actually leaving canada for summer though so tristan's staying in banff i am going to the states to work in a summer camp over there for a couple of months which i'm really excited about um but then i'm going to come back to canada we might do a little bit more travel before winter kicks off again next year um but your time is flying like six months of winter we thought would be so long and we still have so much left we didn't get to um so yeah we want to travel heaps at the end of our visa who knows yeah we've talked about going to south america and doing some backpacking around there even going to europe and doing some backpacking um i don't know by going with the flow there's so much we want to see before we pick a place to settle forever um yeah anything to add no no it depends if i can get tristan out of banff or not right we've got one more question that we got on our last youtube video it said do you guys get holiday pay also do you make much money with the pay rate or does most of it go to rent slash living expenses um so in terms of holiday pay we we did we got paid holiday pay at our last jobs but what they did is they instead of accruing it they just paid it out to us every paycheck um we haven't got that many pays for our new jobs i'm pretty sure we do but honestly it's not something we're relying on um yeah not 100 sure exactly um and then in terms of do you make much money with the pay rate or does most of it go to rent living expenses um we did go through all that at the start of the video as well so hopefully we've addressed that well enough for you we're getting by i think it's possible for everyone to get by but i'm not i'm not even working full-time hours anymore we're you know we're having fun paying what we need to and not touching our savings so we're loving it yeah so we hope this video has been helpful for you guys um we love canada we love it in banff um and we know how stressful it can be planning to come over when you don't know all these little things so if there's anything we can answer for you guys please feel free to comment or send us a dm on instagram and we're happy to answer those questions otherwise good luck we hope you guys make it over soon and yeah enjoy someone thank you goodbye

Channel: Caitlin Laurent

Views: 5,705

Keywords: banff, banff national park, banff working holiday, canada, canadian working holiday, moving from australia to canada, moving to canada, working holiday, working holiday canada, working holiday visa, q&a, working holiday q&a, banff alberta, banff canada, life update, living in banff, life in banff, living in banff canada, living costs, living costs canada

Id: fh12B0I-ztM

Length: 24min 25sec (1465 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 17 2022