Cost of living while studying in Winnipeg

Hi Expats,
Looking for your responses.

apohary wrote:

Hi Expats,
I am excited to start my one year diploma course at U of Winnipeg next year. Meanwhile I am planning out the finances for my education and living in Winnipeg for the course duration. I have accounted for:
1. Tuition fee
2. Student visa fee
3. Books and supplies
4. Housing (on campus)
5. Food
6. Personal
7. One way air travel from my home country to Winnipeg

Is there any other cost parameter I am missing?

Regards
Ashutosh

I think that about covers it. I am assuming personal can be expanded to the following:

- clothing -> warm ones!!!
- entertainment -> of course you need to relax and unwind!
- transportation -> get around town and stuff
- phone call to back home -> assuming that home doesn't do skype / facetime
- misc.

Now students don't get tax unless of course you do a off-campus work (max of 20hrs/ week is allowed). Work permit for that cost too... But given that you're minimum wage, your tax deduction prior to pay would be more than enough to cover your tax. You may even get a refund the next year - because you may have over paid CRA.

Get your SIN# as soon as you can from Service Canada and get a CRA account even though you may not work part time. That puts you in the system and you can then apply for a GST/HST rebate which will more than qualify given that you are a student. So ya, that's not money going out but money coming in.

If you continue to stay in Canada and decide to work here. You can claim tuition fee rebate for your CRA tax filing in the future. Make sure you get your T2202A from your University so you can use that when filing.