How Much is the Cost Of Living In Toronto?

Our Costs for a Month in Most Expensive City in Canada

We’ve been traveling the world full time since 2019 and sharing our costs as we go. So far we have cost of living summaries for our stays in Poland, Ukraine, Turkey and Italy.  Today we’re sharing our costs for one month in Toronto Canada but a few things make this summary different from all the others. 

Up until recently, we were enjoying our slow travels through Europe but COVID hit and we ended up on a rescue flight from Italy to Canada, which is our home country and really the only place we could go during the pandemic as borders closed. Upon arriving in Toronto, which is our hometown, we had two weeks of quarantine and since then we’ve been sheltering in place. So how did that affect our cost of living this past month?

Accommodation

Let’s start the summary with the place we’re spending most of our time: our AirBnB rental in downtown Toronto. In normal times, Toronto has some of the highest rents in Canada. And, if you’re renting short term through Airbnb the way we do, it’s even more expensive. However, when we were looking for rentals we quickly discovered that the pandemic and all the travel bans have turned Airbnb into a buyers market. 

We’ve ended up paying close to what standard market rates would be for a long term rental in this city. For this we got a spacious, stylish apartment close to transit in Toronto’s west end. There’s a park nearby for walking the dogs, a lot of closed stores and some open restaurants offering takeaway. 

That said, even though the price we’ve paid was a very good rate, it’s still much higher than any place we stayed during the past six months of traveling Europe. For example, in Istanbul we had a spacious apartment close to Istiklal, the main pedestrian shopping street. This cost $1,000 USD. In Fethiye, on the coast of Turkey, we had a cute apartment just a few minutes walk away from the Mediterranean for just $695 USD. And in Florence we had a very traditional top floor apartment with beautiful views over the terracotta rooftops for $1,277 USD.

In contrast, here in Toronto we’re paying $1,600 USD for a one month stay — and there are no terracotta roofs in sight! Just a typical residential neighbourhood.

Groceries

We wouldn’t want to say that grocery shopping has become an exciting part of the day but it is one of the very few places that we’ve been allowed to go during this time of lockdown. Overall we spent $650 USD for the month. Although we did shop at one of the lower cost grocery stores, Toronto is generally pretty expensive for groceries. But we also like to eat a lot and we were cooking 95% of meals at home. 

Takeaway

So that brings us to the other 5% of meals that we had, which were takeaway. Normally in every country we visit we like to explore the local food by dining out. However, with the pandemic taking off in March, the very last restaurant meal we had was this delicious sandwich in a cute cafe in Lecce, Italy on March 10th. We remember the date very well because two days later we were attempting and then failing to leave Italy. 

Since then we’ve been in lockdown and haven’t had any meals from any restaurants. That is until this past month when we were finally able to get our hands on some takeaway. That’s been the fun part of sheltering in place in Toronto; it’s a multicultural city with so much great food from all over the world. Our total spend on takeaway was $103 USD.

Entertainment

Our entertainment costs were minimal during this time of lockdown. We spent $18 USD to cover our Netflix and Spotify subscriptions. The rest of our entertainment was completely free and it consisted of long walks through the neighbourhood with our dogs, bike rides, and social distanced meet ups with friends and family.

Local transportation

Since it is a lockdown, we spent very little on transportation because we weren’t supposed to go anywhere. We took public transit to visit family a couple times. We were  worried about potential health risks but the seats were taped off to ensure distance between people and the trains were basically empty anyway. We also took one Uber ride so that we could take a walk on the lakeshore of Lake Ontario. Total costs came in at $16 USD.

Fitness

If you’ve been watching our videos, you’ll know that we love working out and staying fit. In fact, we have a whole video on how to stay fit while traveling full time.

Obviously we couldn’t join a gym during this time. However, we were fortunate enough to be able to borrow a set of dumbbells from our family. So we’ve been following an at-home program for the past month for a grand total of zero dollars.

Other expenses

We have a few other costs to mention that are usually consistent from month to month…

Data 

For data, we use a global data provider that came in at $7 USD this month because we weren’t out and about much at all.

Insurance 

For insurance, we recently changed health insurance providers in order to have a more comprehensive coverage. So we’re now on a slightly more expensive plan at $134 USD but with more peace of mind.

Storage

For storage, we do keep a small storage locker here in Canada for those personal items and mementos that we want to hold onto. That’s $104 USD per month. 

The Total

So now we’ll share how a month in Toronto — Canada’s most expensive city — compares to the other cities we’ve stayed in.

In Fethiye, Turkey, we spent $1507 USD and that got us a month on the coast of the Mediterrean in the middle of winter, enjoying a leisurely time hiking the turquoise coast.

In Istanbul, we spent $2357 USD for a month and that got us a spacious apartment in a traditional neighbourhood and we had meals out once or twice a day and a few tours and attractions. 

In Florence, we spent $2506 USD. We cooked lots of meals at home, enjoyed great Tuscan food when we ate out and experienced the best of Renaissance art and architecture. 

Here in Toronto, we spent a total of $2632 USD and for that we had a nice apartment at a very steep discount. We cooked almost every meal at home with just a few exceptions and we didn’t really go anywhere or do anything that costs money.

For us, the difference in these amounts really reinforces the value that you can get by spending time in lower cost countries. So we’re watching the news closely to see when we might be able to get on the road again. In fact, we recently shared our top destinations to go to next, in case you’re looking for ideas for your own bucket list. 

Item	Budget
Accommodations: A spacious and stylish apartment in a central location close to public transit and a park.	$1,600
Groceries: Almost all meals were homemade, giving us a good-sized grocery bill	$650
Takeaway: Finally, a few meals that we didn’t have to cook for ourselves!	$103
Entertainment: Dog walking and socially distant meetups in parks, all for free. Just a small amount for Netflix and Spotify.	$18
Local Transportation: A few trips but generally we stayed at home	$16
Data: Barely used since we didn’t go anywhere	$7
Fitness: At-home workouts	$0
Insurance: An essential for any travel. Our new plan with Cigna provides comprehensive medical coverage.	$134
Storage: Although we downsized 95% of our possessions, we still have a few personal effects in storage back in Canada.	$107
Total	$2,635

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