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Orginally posted by vygodsky

We received our PR card withing 12 days of landing and the SIN number within 10 days eventhough we were told that it would take 4-8 weeks when we applied for it. We hope that we can find some productive employment soon.

However, it does take some effort not to panic to see your savings dwindle...

I thank you all in the forum for your guidance and support and eye-openers.

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Hi Vy,

Welcome to Canada.
It is commendable to see the processing times improve for PR card , it took 3 weeks in my case, looks like it is getting better.

It is good that you have gotten the initial formalities out of the way.,
As for settling down , you have not given much info about which field you are in, are you in GTA? , have you signed a 1 yr lease or is it a temp rental and can your wife work as well.

While you get back with some more specifics of your field, i can tell you about a group of new immigrants who came at the same time as me earlier this year.

Soon after coming here i had formed a circle of new immigrants of about 10 people at the new comer info center , and we used to meet and chat regularly, and even now we keep following up with each other. I'd suggest you do the same , making friends with people in the same stage as yourself gives a lot of moral support.

I can relate to some experience of these friends, all had taken a different approach and 6 months later they all are at a different stage of their pursuits.

the ones who have been able to accustom themselves the most and have prevented their savings from dwindling were those who took up a PART time employment after 2-3 months of landing and kept trying for full time jobs in their own field in rest of the time. two of them have now landed a job in thier own field...3 others who took this approachare still trying but are happy that they focus most of their energy in job search and are able to earn their survival money without touching their nest egg. ...their morale is high and even tho they have not landed a job in thier own feild they are enjoying themselves, one guy has even joined part time college . I am very happy for them.

those who are really unhappy after 6 months had taken two approaches (1) those who took up full time factory/transition jobs , they got drawn in the the cycle of full time transition job and are now unable to find time and energy to focus on getting employment in thier own field, they have been able to prevent their savings from evaporating but they havent made an progress in thier own field either.
(2) this is the other group that i am really worried about , and try to be in touch with most often. 2 guys had not taken up any job at all even tho they got many chances...they wanted to take a job in their field only. They havent landed any jobs yet and are running low on funds. And now panic and desparation is beginning to set in.

All immigrants MUST avoid this situation. looking back .... these guys could have easily avoided this stage, had they taken up some part time job to fund their daily living costs instead to dipping into their savings.

If you and your wife can both work part time for even 4 hrs a day, it should be sufficient for you to survise without touching your savings.
( assuming your rent and other expenses are not very high) ...if you are in toronto near subway , you can maximise your efficiency in travel , outside toronto the public transportation is not that fast.

I wish you the very best and hope that you get a job in your field right away .... but if you have to wait a little then please make good use of the new comer info centers, YMCA, your neighbourhood centers . they have a lot of resources to make use of and can help you tremendously in your initial job search.

Good luck my friend and keep us posted.