[upnorthkyosa]

Hi Everyone

I know this is a very sensative subject, but I'm trying to get a handle on what other migrants have done in regards to debt when they migrated. My wife and I have large student loans and we are attempting to set some goals that will help us make our move sooner rather then later and still be successful when we get over there.

Please respond to this anonymous poll and let us know how much debt you brought over (if any) when you migrated. Then, if you wish it, please feel free to make some general comments on the subject of debt and migration.

All $ amounts in the poll are NZ.

[Sam B]

Oh yeah - student loans - forgot about those - never paid a penny off my student loan, cunningly managed to stay below the earnings threshold by being part time. They were brought in half way through my time at uni, so I always saw them as a travesty of justice anyway. Doesn't count as a real debt does it?

[upnorthkyosa]

If you went debt free, how did you do so? How old were you when you emmigrated?

[zardell]

If you went debt free, how did you do so? How old were you when you emmigrated?



Hi John.

We emigrated debt free, in fact we have lived debt free all our married life.

Although we have a credit card, if we ever use it, we always pay it off the same month. We use it for the convenience aspect, not the credit aspect.

We have no store cards, nor have we ever had any. I object to paying over the odds for goods/services in the first place and then paying credit/store card charges on top of that.

We use the old fashioned method......if you can't afford to pay for it, you can't have it !!

Yes, we did have a mortgage in the UK, but it was a very small one and when we sold the house we made a very good profit.

I know that this sounds very simplistic, but it's just the way we are.

One rule of thumb that we have always used is that we have never had debt (and I class a mortgage as debt) whereby it would have taken 2 of us to go out to work full time in order to pay it back. You never know what life throws at you and I personally am not prepared to have everything that we have worked so hard to get to be taken away from us.

How old am I ?? Old enough to be your Mum I would suspect....LOL...:D

Julie

xx

[K&CS]

We were debt free as well. Wouldn't have considered bringing debt over with us.

[KerryS]

I was debt free too - I was 25 when I moved to Australia to work and 27 when I arrived in NZ four years ago.

[urban78]

I moved debt free as well, and was 27 when I emigrated.

When I lived in London, I never had a credit card (only a Visa debit) and was lucky enough to study in a country where education at uni is (nearly) free (France) so no student loans either :yes

Jen

[upnorthkyosa]

Well, I'm 30 and in the US, university is neither free or cheap. Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to go for as long as I did. Anyway, I have a Master's Degree with a few years worth of credits beyond that. My wife is in a similar position. As far as debt is concerned, when we emmigrate, we won't have anything in regards to debt, but our student loans.

With that in mind, what is the typical debt load NZ students are carrying? Tertiary education is not totally in subsidized, so I know that many students there have to take out loans. What kind of numbers is NZ's economy accomodating?

[Moorf]

We were both 36 when we got here and we came debt free, we wouldn't have moved here had we not managed to clear all debt, from the get-go the aim was to start afresh and we're now living pretty much as Zardell says, if we can't afford it (or at least pay back the credit card within a couple of months) then we don't buy it... quite a change from the UK but what a lovely feeling (once you get used to it!!)! :nice1

[Trigirl]

With that in mind, what is the typical debt load NZ students are carrying? Tertiary education is not totally in subsidized, so I know that many students there have to take out loans. What kind of numbers is NZ's economy accomodating?
nz fees to students are typically <$5k a year. average student debt is <$20k.

[zardell]

Well, I'm 30



Yep , old enough to be your Mom John............:laugh

Julie

xx

[wanderingoregonian]

As an american who had to do 6 years of uni to get certified in my field... I feel your pain. All my debt is student debt. We also waited to moved until we had a small house deposit saved that was about the size of the student loans. I consolidated to lock in my interest rate at 3.5% or something crazy like that. So while we still have debt, I can pay it with american savings while I try to make enough interest to cover the student loan interest. Not perfect, but its the best I can do give the realities of being a college graduate. If I had to pay american loans with NZ dollars I would be really stressed.. same if I choose to pay off all my loans now and have no savings. Its a tough added wrench when thinking about immigration, and remember that this is one of those areas where americans are going to have very different experiences than those from other countries. In my field, clinicians from the UK only have to do about half as many years and incur very little student debt - but we all are paid the same. In fact, some may get paid a bit more because they have accrued work experience while I was still in school those extra years required in the states.

[robberger]

Wondering how the debt-to-age ratio stands? We lived pretty stupidly when first married; instead of paying off all loans with our two incomes we lived high. Only now debt is my wife's student loans but as she is stay-at-home mom with three children it is a drag on us. I'm 34, she's 31.

Hope to pay them off (student loans, not the children!) within two years of moving to NZ.

[gil]

Er, none, but I had a wild twitch of the hand and accidentally pressed the button for "In excess of $200,00" :o
Sorry.

Gil

[willsken]

Er, none, but I had a wild twitch of the hand and accidentally pressed the button for "In excess of $200,00" :o
Sorry.

Gil

:laugh :laugh :laugh

[zardell]

Er, none, but I had a wild twitch of the hand and accidentally pressed the button for "In excess of $200,00" :o
Sorry.

Gil


Aha!!!!! The truth 'will out' as they say........:laugh :laugh

No wonder C.Irons is religiously watching the exchange rate, mind you, so am I................:uhoh

Julie

xx

[marcia]

Aha!!!!! The truth 'will out' as they say........:laugh :laugh

No wonder C.Irons is religiously watching the exchange rate, mind you, so am I................:uhoh

Julie

xx

Yep us as well, actually Kev is, I've just said tell me in a weeks time when it HAS to be moved what we are getting and thats that!! But i can't help praying that it has a sudden shoot upwards :nice1

[Super_BQ]

I know a few local NZ people that did the student debt run abroad overseas. They left after finishing uni hoping that they can run away from their debt by living overseas for as long as possible.

Then I heard 1 day that a guy was nabbed at the Auckland Intl. airport as soon as he arrived. The IRD immedately asked him to make payment or else he would not be able to fly out of NZ again. Already by law, the NZ courts can detain you from flying out of NZ if you have outstanding payments to the gov't. Your IRD # is linked with your passport and driver's license.

Though many may think that they can run from their student loan, sooner or later, the debt collectors will catch up. By law you can't declare bankrupcy and clear student loan debt. Computers have a tendancy of not forgetting. And eventually a loved one (close family member) dies in NZ where you would have to fly back to face the reality.

BQ

[Sam'n'Kelv]

Another question: how many people arrive debt free and then end up getting into debt because of the low wages / high costs in NZ?

[Tia Maria]

Sam'n'Kelv wrote:

Another question: how many people arrive debt free and then end up getting into debt because of the low wages / high costs in NZ?

I think that's worthy of seperate thread/poll! :nice1

Cheers

Tia

[Sam'n'Kelv]

It's more of a rhetorical question. I wouldn't expect anyone to answer it. It seems to me though that I will need to work even harder to stay out of debt in NZ than I did in the UK.

[Nelsonian]

Never had a debt (except a mortgage) but then I was fortunate enough to also get a university education when they were still free!!
I would hate to have a debt in GBP or US$ and have to earn enought NZ$ to pay it off.........:uhoh

[upnorthkyosa]

This is all very disheartening. Both my wife and I come from very modest upbringings. Our parents lived below the poverty line and we both worked our butts off to improve our lot in life. The only way we could do this was by accruing this debt. And it's not like we lived stupidly. We've always lived in a spartan fashion and have worked to make regular payments all while attempting to pursue our dreams.

With that being said, we have always dreamed of living in overseas, with NZ being at the top of our list. And now, I just don't know what to do. It will take us five years of working hard and living cheap in order to pay off both of our student loans...and at the end of that time, we still won't have much savings. So much could happen in that amount of time and we definitely did not want to wait that long...

Still, the prospect of bringing over our current student loans and dividing it by the exchange rate isn't pretty. Especially if people are being brutally honest about the lower salaries and higher costs of living. Does anyone have any light they can shed on this?

[veronica]

No, not unless you have some things to sell before you leave that you can use to payoff some of the loans. its catch 22 then as it means you then have less to start with here. For myself I hate debt and would rather have less start up and less debt.

[upnorthkyosa]

One of the problems with our particular situation is that in our current area, we have declining enrollment due to economic depressment. Our community is going to close a number of school and my job is definitely at risk of being cut as I am lower in seniority. With that being said, we don't know how much time both of us can be employed in our current area.

The bottom line is that if one or both of us lost our jobs here, we would have to move anyway.

Thus, I think, it is really smart of us to plan on moving regardless. We are paying down on our debt and building a savings in the form of investments and equity. If we are thinking about moving to NZ, it doesn't make alot of sense for us to move somewhere else first. We'll have to build a new life for ourselves regardless.

So, it's catch 22 again.

The best plan I can come up with is this. We stay in our current area and pay off as much as we can before they start closing schools. I would say that I have between 1-3 years before they close a one or two the high schools in our community. When we move to NZ (or anywhere for that matter), we're going to have to put whats left of our student loans on defferment and just pay the interest. During that time, we'll probably rent and then devote a substantial portion of our income to clearing whatever is left over.

It's not going to be idea, but then again, I'm not sure if "ideal" is either rational or feasible.

Has anyone had to do anything similar to this? How did it go?

[jo-and-jeff]

Does anyone have any light they can shed on this?
We've got $150,000USD of student loan debt. It's like paying on a second mortgage every month, and at my age, I'll probably die before it's all paid off. But if we let that albatross be the overriding factor in our decisions, we'd never have gone anywhere or done anything.

We crunched the numbers repeatedly, to reassure ourselves that we could survive on NZ's reduced wages, even with a poor exchange rate. And once we determined that we would be able to manage it, we decided to go for the move to NZ.

We're not able to put bucketloads of money into savings (although we really need to be doing so). But at least we're not sitting back in the States saying "If only..."; we're getting out in NZ and trying to enjoy the country to the fullest, especially since our time here may be limited due to the serious problems with the Auckland laboratory contract situation.

If you can make the loan payments in addition to a primary residence here on your NZ salary, go for it. NZ has its problems, as does any country, but it's a lovely place to live with lots of wonderful people and fabulous things to do.

Jo

[ruthyroo]

Hi OP

Something that is very common for NZ'ers with student debts is to head off on the OE, work somewhere like England for a few years, and make enough money to pay off the student debt - plus some. I have a friend who worked as a planner in London (for Red Ken) for about 4 years - she saved enough to pay off her student loans in NZ plus she and her partner are now buying a house, and have a big deposit to put down on it, thanks to the higher salaries, willingness to save and converting back to NZ$. Would this be an option for you? Head somewhere you can make more money rather than less for a while?

Sorry it's not much comfort, but I agree with other posters that it would be hard to pay off debts overseas while earning an NZ salary. Mr Rr is a teacher, I work in local govt. We have no kids and earn a bit above the average. We left a pot of money in the UK to cover ongoing student loan payments, and also have deferred them, which we can do indefinitely as long as Mr Rr earns below the threshold (which is laughably easy on NZ salaries compared to UK). There is no way we could have afforded to meet those payments long term from our NZ salaries and still have a life here.

[katiejay]

We sold our house last month and are now debt free with the aim of coming to NZ to start afresh with a new way of life - unmaterialistic. We'll buy something modest that we can afford with only one of us working, and hopefully with good soil that we can grow stuff on to save expenditure on food. Thought about going further green and investing in wind turbines, but the view in UK is that they don't save much money in terms of outlay versus cost saved. We'll keep looking for ways to live debt and stress free, though. We don't believe we can do both in the UK, but we are hopeful that we can with the lifestyle that NZ has to offer.
Katie.

[MB]

This is all very disheartening. Both my wife and I come from very modest upbringings. Our parents lived below the poverty line and we both worked our butts off to improve our lot in life. The only way we could do this was by accruing this debt. And it's not like we lived stupidly. We've always lived in a spartan fashion and have worked to make regular payments all while attempting to pursue our dreams.

With that being said, we have always dreamed of living in overseas, with NZ being at the top of our list. And now, I just don't know what to do. It will take us five years of working hard and living cheap in order to pay off both of our student loans...and at the end of that time, we still won't have much savings. So much could happen in that amount of time and we definitely did not want to wait that long...

Still, the prospect of bringing over our current student loans and dividing it by the exchange rate isn't pretty. Especially if people are being brutally honest about the lower salaries and higher costs of living. Does anyone have any light they can shed on this?

I know I've quoted this before, but if you guys feel you are on the crest of Shakespeare's "tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune", then it might be well worth taking a look at how much you really want your debt to weigh on your decision whether or not to move to NZ.
By golly debt can be irksome, especially as you are decent, honorable people who want to repay. But it's also worth entertaining the perspective of folks such as UK writer Tom Hodgkinson, author of 'How To Be Free'. He is very assertive about not letting debt cripple one's plans and life psychologically: that attitude to (especially guilt and fear about) one's debt can rob one of enjoyment and pursuing dreams far out of proportion to what is in many ways just a list of numbers on a screen.
While I am not keen to detail our own finances on the forum, I'll tell you that this post is not comfortable preaching from someone who came over with huge pots of cash. And who cares about us, anyway? Your situation is your situation. Sounds to me like you have good values and enjoy life, so it makes sense just to keep debt in its proper place amongst everything.
Many terrific forum folks are in strong financial positions, but NZ plans/dreams can be bigger than a hefty bank balance, lovely and useful though that is.

All the very best to you. :nice1

[Jo_b]

Apart from the student loans (will continue to ignore them for ever I expect!) we have mortgages on two houses in the UK, both of which are being covered (the interest only unfortunately) by rent. They are our insurance in case we go home.