[Tia Maria]

I have read numerous posts on here with concerns over the cost of living and just wanted to say that to a certain extent you can establish whether your living standards (financially) will decline or improve.

Take an afternoon, a glass of wine and write out all your monthly costs in your home currency. Also make a note of any exceptional costs that can come up on a weekly basis, eg a school trip, getting the car fixed etc. Work out what percentage your outgoings are of your current wage. If you can put this list together in 10 minutes then you've not got everything on there. Resist the urge to estimate, find actual bills and receipts

Then complete the same list for NZ, trawl the forum for actual costs. Do not convert from your home currency. Everything should be as accurate as possible and in NZ$. Check out wages, taxes and real costs of a mortgage. One of the ways its easy to estimate wrongly is with housing, it often looks like you can afford more when looking on the internet as you don't appreciate areas or quality of housing. Then work out the percentage of your outgoings from your NZ wage.

Once you have your 2 percentages you must then check you have the saving to pay for the cost of getting here and setting up out of savings. If you are planning on buying a lot when you get here, you must either have the savings or include it in your monthly outgoings.

Then work out a list of 'new migrant costs', by this I'm not including the cost of setting up but the fact you may have to fly home for a wedding/funeral or may have to pay more childcare without grandparents around the corner. Kind of like an emergency fund.

If it does turn out that you will have less disposable income in NZ you will then have to decide whether this is balanced by the other less measurable advantages to living in NZ.

Finances are something you can work out. And as I've said, if it only takes an hour to do all this you probably haven't been as thorough as you need to be.

I know its tempting to ask the general question- family of 6, income of $80,000, can we survive? And you will get a lot of useful anecdotal evidence but this should be combined with your own real figures.

I know its also tempting to look vaguely at your wage, estimate costs and 'guess' the kind of house you can afford. But you really do need to put in the hours getting the finances right.

Some useful threads to get you started, I'm sure there are more ....

www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10910

www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13682

So if you are concerned then have a 'cost of living afternoon', hey why not order in a take away and make a day of it! :D

Cheers

Tia

PS Perhaps those of you who have already done this could share your lists, or, if you've just started a list you could post it to see if anyone could help fill in any gaps or let you know what you may have missed.

[Familyofmonkeys]

Fabby idea Tia....i'm not allowed to give you more rep for it though :p

[StevieD]

Very interesting, all I can say is that I can afford more here and achieve more here than I did back in UK.. . don't ask me the mechanics but we seem to be doing ok.

[mgbridges]

Tia what a wise woman you are! Would love to give you some more rep but apparently I need to spread it around a bit first.

Wish we'd done a 'finance afternoon' as we've been rather caught out by the cost of living and are not as well off as we thought we would be. Still we're making ends meet and I'm still able to have a coffee & a muffin from time to time so can't complain!

Anneliese

[tleventer]

Would Kiwi residents be willing to help with NZ costs if we offered up specific items? I've been keeping a specific and detailed budget for over a year (trying to get rid of the credit card debt and overspending on nothing habit).... so the US side of things isn't going to be a problem. But I'm worried about missing a specific NZ expense or not getting an accurate cost for it -- especially since while we would at this point PREFER to go to the South Island... we may due to jobs end up North... so a range would be lovely.

[mgbridges]

This thread may help if you haven't already found it:
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13682

Edit: oops! Sorry just realise thats one of the ones Tia has already pointed out!

Will have a hunt around for some others.
Anneliese

[CJ22]

Great minds etc...

I spent the evening compiling a relative cost of living spreadsheet, just out of idle curiosity. I compiled a list of 'typical' groceries and compared prices (I had a list of NZ prices supplied by MovingPlanet.com, so compared those to prices on Tesco.com). I should add that this just includes regular groceries and a few commodities, such as fuel, and does not include social costs such as health insurance, cost of mortgages, cars etc. It's just a day-to-day living estimate to give a rough idea. The spreadsheet would be more accurate with more items on it, and weighted to reflect reality. If anybody wants the spreadsheet to play around with, mail me your email address and I'll send it.

The object of the exercise is to compare (the cost of living in the UK compared to your UK salary) to (the cost of living in NZ compared to your NZ salary). Any other comparison is meaningless, given the fluidity of the exchange rate.

I can't just paste the spreadsheet in here, so I'll have to describe the results.

According to my figures, the absolute costs (using my sample items) of living (given the current exchange rate) is about NZ1.2 to UK. That is, a New Zealander will spend about %120 compared to a UK counterpart in absolute terms. This value will change as the exchange rate changes, and is based on the current rate of $2.55/£. This may go some way to explaining the perception that NZ is more expensive.

However, as mentioned, this is a fairly meaningless measure, so in order to make sense of it, you need to plug in a representative UK salary in £ and a representative NZ salry in $. So this is where I can only use an example, as these figures will vary from person to person (which is why you need the spreadsheet).

For our household, I know our current UK income and our prospective NZ income, so I can make the comparison. It tells me that the ratio of costNZ to costUK is 0.76. In other words, I'll be spending about 76% of what I'd be spending in the UK as a proportion of my income in those two places. It'll feel cheaper in NZ. However, in my case, that's because our move to NZ is resulting in a modest pay rise. If you took a pay cut or your salaries are roughly equivalant, it'll feel very different.

If I plug in a direct comparison according to the exchange rate, say £30K=$NZ76.5K, then it works out at a ratio of 0.84 - that is, with a like-for-like salary, you should still expect to feel a little better off in NZ. That's for today's exchange rate though :)

However, for it to be really accurate, it should include the costs mentioned above and others, and if anybody wants to expand the spreadsheet to include a more complete simulation of costs, feel free. Certainly, medical costs will skew the picture (but might have the opposite effect for a US immigrant). I'm bored wth it now heheh.

[CJ22]

These are the items I sourced. Sorry about the formatting:

Item NZ$ GB£
Loaf of bread 3.40 1.25
1 kg rice 1.10 0.98
1 kg apples (Granny Smith small) 3.75 1.39
1kg potatoes 1.98 0.93
1kg onions 1.92 0.72
1 kg tomatoes 4.98 1.44
400g tin tomatoes (whole, no brand) 0.95 0.42
Tin of tuna (425 g) 4.90 0.85
Small whole chicken (raw 1.4kg) 9.95 3.19
500g minced beef 6.00 2.39
6 eggs 1.85 1.28
Packet of instant noodles (85gm) 0.72 0.23
Cheese (block, non-specialist) 500g 6.90 2.76
1 litre of milk 2.25 0.76
250gm butter (no brand) 2.50 0.85
1 packet biscuits 1.40 1.10
1 litre orange juice 3.40 0.97
1 jar instant coffee (200g) 9.99 4.74
1 packet teabags (200 pack) 4.29 3.65
Plain flour (1.5kg) 1.49 0.64
White sugar (1.5kg) 1.90 1.20
Detergent (kitchen, 1litre, no brand) 1.47 4.02
Soap (5 pack, branded) 2.60 1.02
Toilet paper (2 ply 4-pack) 1.50 1.70
Toothbrush (supermarket brand, adult size) 3.40 0.40
Toothpaste (110g) 5.00 0.91
Shaving gel (Gillette 195g) 7.99 1.94
Shampoo (400ml no brand) 6.30 0.80
Laundry powder (4kg, no brand) 6.50 1.84
Bath towel (plain supermarket brand, prices vary according to quality) 7.80 12.00
Cinema ticket (full price) 15.00 6.00
Phone call (local) 0.50 0.05
Stamp for local letter 0.50 0.36
Mobile phone text message (within Aus) 0.25 0.10
Mobile phone call (within NZ, to same network) 0.50 0.10
Petrol (unleaded, non premium) 1.69 1.02

[willsken]

CJ that is a great list for comparison. :nice1 I will say though some things can be bought a lot cheaper once you know where to look. (Although I'm sure that can be said of the UK costs to!) :)

[dharder]

I know its tempting to ask the general question- family of 6, income of $80,000, can we survive? And you will get a lot of useful anecdotal evidence but this should be combined with your own real figures.

I can’t agree enough with looking at your individual situation. Usually, no one wants to believe my calculations when I say that our life was cheaper in London than it is here in Auckland!

Just as a few examples: I know that petrol is cheaper here than in England, but we spend more money on petrol here than we did in the UK, because we hardly ever used the car (usually two trips on the weekends) in London. Another thing is that our rent here is more expensive than our mortgage in London. A day out to the Science museum for two adults and four kids cost us next to nothing in London: I had a monthly travelcard that I had for work, the kids don’t pay on buses and tube, and no one pays fees to get into the museum. A trip to MOTAT with public transport for all 6 of us is quite a different story!

Of course this comes across as just whiny (again…), but I really am just saying that even though London is one of the most expensive cities to live in, in our personal circumstances it was still cheaper than here, which in absolute terms is less expensive. In our case, this is of course compounded by the fact that we moved from low income East London to middle class Auckland, and from 2 bedrooms to 6, and of course there are benefits in that, they are just not financial.

Really, no one knows your own circumstances better than you yourself, and it is vital to look at them from your perspective.

Daniela

[Tia Maria]

I've copied the 'On arrival' section from the list - these are all real figures provided by forum members:

On Arrival:

Living

Motel (per week): $500 (hamilton) $700 (Central Auckland)
Rental (3 bed per week): $400 (Hamilton) $750-$850 (Central Auckland) $400-$500 (Chch furnished)
Food/essentials: $300/week (family of 4)

Car

Car: $11,000 (6yr old jap import medium sized family car, reasonable mileage)
Combined car & contents insurance: $125/month
Car Insurance: $330/yr fully comp 12yr Subaru Legacy Wagon (Chch),
Petrol: $200/month (obviously depends on amount of driving)
WOF: $60/6 months
Car Registration: $130/year

Utilities:

Mobile Phone: $75/month
Power & Gas: $200/month on Direct Debit (up to $600! in villa in winter with no heat/insulation)
Broadband internet connection: (once in rental) $25 - $50/month (depends on package/speed etc)
Rates and Water Rates: $290 and $160 per qtr approx

Pets:

Dog Registration/Licence (Christchurch): $75/yr
Dog charges (Auckland): $ 90 if paid before end July or $120 after.
Dog charges (Wellington): $85 ($64) for neutered and $120 ($99) for non-neutered dogs (figures in brackets for responsible owners).

Vaccination, Yearly booster Dog: $120 (Akl)
Kennel Fees: Medium Dog $25 per night

Schools & Kids

School 'donation': $50/child/year
Decile 2 (secondary school): $75 per child or $120 per family
Decile 7: $475 for two children ($300 for one)
Decile 10: $440 for College, $250 for Intermediate and $200 for Primary. (Auckland),
Decile 10 primary: $171 a year for fees (Auckland)

Stationery: $10/child/term
High School work books: $70 - $100
School trips: $10/child/term
School camps/trips: $100 - $1400 each depending on where they go
School bus pass: $50 per term
Kindy Private: $15-20 3hr per session (Auckland)
Swimming Lessons: for 10 wks $80-170 (Auckland)
School Uniform: estimate about $500-$600
PE kit: $200


Misc

Bank Charges: $15/month

Also the search facility is your friend, unless you want to know about anything that has three letters! ;)

tleventer wrote:

Would Kiwi residents be willing to help with NZ costs if we offered up specific items?

Yep - ask away, I'm sure someone can help with specific costs! :)

Cheers

Tia

[IanW99]

...
Also the search facility is your friend, unless you want to know about anything that has three letters! ;)
...
Cheers

Tia

Actually some three letter searches are now enabled e.g Sky and BMI now work. Some don't e.g. WTR.

I had asked ENZ to enable support for 3 letter searches but last time I heard, was having some trouble getting it to work properly?

Ian

[Tia Maria]

Actually some three letter searches are now enabled e.g Sky and BMI now work. Some don't e.g. WTR.

I had asked ENZ to enable support for 3 letter searches but last time I heard, was having some trouble getting it to work properly?

Ian

Aren't you good?! I checked out 'car' and 'tia', to see who has been gossiping about me. ;)

Cheers

Tia

[Moorf]

An addition - make sure that, if you are planning on returning to the UK, or wherever, once a year then you'll need to budget somewhere around $6k for a family of four for flights etc - that's without spends and accommodation/car hire etc. That's a hell of a chunk of an average salary per month.... so unless you're planning on credit cards then it's something to bear in mind as a monthly saving.

[nippa&pippa]

Firewood is other item to add under utilities, just ordered 9m3 for hard and medium wood at $600, this for chch's areas

[CJ22]

It's always difficult to compare like-for-like with groceries. Tescos offer everything from their own 'value' brand, their own ordinary brand to their own 'premium' brand, plus all the third-party branded equivalents too. Then you've got price differences between frozen and fresh, discounts for bulk purchases, and of course the ubiquitous bogofs and two-fors (the OH is a genius at surfing the special-offers - she managed to shave almost 20% off our last bill. She'll be in her element in NZ heheh). I presume NZ stores have much the same kind of things, so price comparisons can be tricky.

[tleventer]

I'm not sure if CJ22's list or the copied list from Tia Maria is more depressing. :no

Tia's list with things like dog licenses and school stuff is great to see... although a bit depressing as well. I paid $36 to my vet this year for 2 licenses for our dogs... so the yearly registration is really high.

As for CJ22's list, i just looked at a couple things we use but it seemed those I did look at were high (and I didn't even calculate in the exchange rate):

Item NZ$ GB£
1 kg apples (Granny Smith small) 3.75 1.39 -- 1.38 per pound -- which equates to 63 cents/KG

Tin of tuna (425 g) 4.90 0.85 -- Just bought tuna for the cat at Jungle Jim's on Sunday for 50 cents a tin

Small whole chicken (raw 1.4kg) 9.95 3.19 -- whole chicken here, which I buy for the dogs, can be had for less than $1/pound.... or 45 cents/KG

1 litre of milk 2.25 0.76 -- This one doesn't look so bad as we pay $6/gallon for our milk (or $1.56 per Liter)... except that we buy raw unpasteurized milk from grassfed cows -- definitely a premium which obviously would make the difference even BIGGER!

1 litre orange juice 3.40 0.97 -- equates to $13/gallon!

Cinema ticket (full price) 15.00 6.00 -- Just went to the movies on Saturday -- 1st run theaters here are up to $10

Petrol (unleaded, non premium) 1.69 1.02 -- bought some this morning at 3.17/gallon -- or 82 cents/L ... although based on the lines I saw at lunch, it's going up today!

Someone please tell me I'm doing my conversions incorrectly, because the difference is astronomical on some things (like orange juice and chicken). So much so that it's really making me doubt this will work out.

I used the following conversions that I found online:
1 Gallon * .26 = 1 Liter
1 Liter / .26 = 1 gallon
1 KG * 2.2 = 1 pound
1 pound / 2.2 = 1 KG

Gosh for the first time I really hope I screwed up the math.:no

[Andy-Dee]

:no I don't think I'd want to buy a chicken for less than £1

[tleventer]

:no I don't think I'd want to buy a chicken for less than £1

We don't eat it... but it is for the dogs as they eat a raw diet. I just bought two 10 pound bags of chicken quarters at WalMart today for the dogs -- for $4.70 each -- works out to 47 cents/pound... or 21 cents/Kg.

No the chicken we eat is free range and as naturally raised as possible... and costs a bit more than that. :)

[BkyMonster]

You might find chicken necks and organ meats more economical for your dogs.

From prices it seems there isn't as much poultry farming in NZ as in the US and UK.
From looking at Foodtown it seems eggs are only about twice the price as in the US. $9NZD for 30 versus $9USD for 60. I'd theorize that there are egg farms, but not meat farms.
Chicken meat is quite a bit more expensive, though most of the whole ones I could find on the Foodtown site were prepared/stuffed in some way. :confused:

I also could clearly see the difference between in and out of season produce :eek:
I wonder how popular preserving is?

[Tia Maria]

From this thread:

www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=15324

Madmungo, family of 4, heading to North Shore Auckland (estimated budget):

Monthly outgoings:

Rent - 3000 (700/week)
Contents insurance - 20
Council tax - 200
Electricity - 200
Home phone - 60
Internet - 40
Mobile phone - 40
Bank fees - 15
Food - 1000
Eating out - 300
Drinks (home and out) - 200
Car breakdown insurance - 20
Train / Bus / Ferry - 100
Car maintenance - 80
Car insurance - 35
Scooter insurance - 15
Road tax - 25
Petrol - 250
Pension - 100 (NZ Superannuation?)
Baby sitting - 50
DVD rental - 25
Cinema - 80
Satellite TV - 35
Gym membership - 150
Medical Insurance - 150
Dentist - 40
Haircuts - 40
Birthdays - 80
Clothes (family of 4) - 225
Holidays - 1050 (includes allowance for an annual trip back to the UK)

Total monthly outgoings = 7625

Cheers

Tia

[Tia Maria]

Bump!

Cheers

Tia

PS Barnacles ;)

[Rabbit]

If you are in NZ and want to get a handle on what UK grocery prices are like at the moment then try this site:

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/Home.aspx.

Rabbit

[melly]

another thing not to forget about in budgeting/comparing is the tax credits you get for having a family. The amount we will be able to get from the NZ government is significantly less than what the Australian government gives us (try $40/wk from NZ compared to $120/wk from Oz)