Amer­i­can Dol­lar, U.S.A

Today, I’m excited to present you a guest post by Guillermo, a new Cana­dian orig­i­nally from Argentina, who lives in Ottawa with his fam­ilya. Guillermo writes in Span­ish and in Eng­lish about his expe­ri­ence as an immi­grant to Canada. Enjoy!

A few days ago I remem­bered all the things I had to buy dur­ing my first weeks in Canada. That “ini­tial setup” at the begin­ning can some­times be expen­sive… or not. no every­one arrives to Canada with the same amount of money, some peo­ple decide to leave some stuff behind and oth­ers just decide to move as much stuff as pos­si­ble. The fact is that we all need to address a series of major expen­di­tures that we must pri­or­i­tize not to fall into bank­ruptcy too soon.

So, here are 30 things you may need to buy upon your arrival

• This is not shop­ping … but it has to be paid: The rental deposit of your first “home” in Canada … It may be up to three months in advance. That can hurt!
• And the rent too!
• Some bed(s) or, pos­si­bly, mattresses
• Sheets, blan­kets, pil­lows, bedding …!
• A table and chairs
• A TV… or radio.
• Cut­lery, plates and glasses (which can be dis­pos­able at first)
• Phone ser­vice (mobile or land)… that will have to be paid every month!
• Inter­net Ser­vice… in this coun­try you can­not be dis­con­nected! Along with the phone, are a “must have”!
• Of course… you need a computer.
• And per­haps a printer, if some­one asks for a resume by fax or reg­u­lar mail
• Open­ing a bank account also has its cost.
• The monthly or weekly pub­lic trans­port pass
• You may chose to buy a car
• And if you did you’ll have to pay insurance …
• …And other related expenses!
• A Trans­la­tion Ser­vice you may need for some paperwork
• Hav­ing to do errands every day means being away from home… and at some point you have to eat or drink some­thing, right?
• Long dis­tance call­ing card.
• If you have chil­dren you may want to send them to a “day care” or “ser­vice de garde”
• Some new Ikea fur­ni­ture or used ones from the Sal­va­tion Army to locate some of the many things you brought.
• Chil­dren always want a toy… are you going to say no?
• Ooops! Sea­son change! You need new warm clothes!
• Ooops! Sea­son change! Let’s go for win­ter tires!
• Ooops! Sea­son change! Heat­ing goes up!
• Think about all you may need to face the Cana­dian win­ter and you don’t have!
• Small every day things like wash­ing and dry­ing clothes in the coin oper­ated laun­dry room of the build­ing  or rou­tine pur­chases at the supermarket.
• The low cost French lan­guage course for immi­grants because the gov­ern­ment french classes will not be avail­able for the next 6 months

And the list goes on and on…

You may won­der how can you esti­mate all this before arriv­ing? Well, let me tell you it’s not sim­ple. But the resources are online: search for super­mar­kets web­sites, read news­pa­pers and clas­si­fieds online, look for util­i­ties prices… every­thing can be done on-line and you may have an idea of what may be needed .

Many of these things can also be bought at low cost in the used mar­ket (Sal­va­tion Army, Comp­toirs, garage sales , Kijii, etc.), but still, as I said above, when you arrive in a tight bud­get, every­thing may be a major expense and should be prioritized.

And you… how did you “invest” your money on your arrival? And if you are still in your coun­try… what are you plans?

Guillermo, or Mr. G if you want, is a father of three and moved with his fam­ily from Argentina to Canada in 2005. He’s the edi­tor of The Zieglers blog, where he shares their expe­ri­ences as immi­grants with a par­tic­u­lar point of view. You can visit them at http://thezieglersblog.com

Related arti­cles:

1. How To Work Tem­porar­ily In Canada (2÷10)
2. Five Rea­sons Why I Live In Canada
3. Redis­cov­er­ing Canada – Things To See and Do If You Live in Canada