[ruthyroo]

I just tried out the COL calculator (it is so much easier to do once you've been here a while - though maybe that's not the point!) and I noticed that there is nothing on it for savings or pensions of any kind. It was interesting becuase it worked out that we (couple, no kids) could survive on exactly my OH salary of $58K - but that doesn't take into account any savings / pension payments. (and no holidays / Christmas either!).

What are people doing about savings - are you counting it as part of your COL? Or putting it in the 'too difficult' basket for now? Or planning to run up huge debts and jump off Harbour Bridge when the time comes?? It's an issue for us becuase neither of us are paying into pensions here in NZ, and long term saving is something that my Presbyterian nature will not allow me to overlook the need for.

[Sarah Jane]

Well we tried that back in October last year and thought we would be able to live comfortably. No it doesn't take into account savings/pensions but we thought we'd have money left over so we could take care of that ourselves. Not the case though. We were sent a book through the post by my husbands future employers about life in Auckland and stating the average Aucklander earns abouth $23,000 so we thought my husbands wages of $71,000 would be great.
Now we're here we've had to find housing 20 miles north of Auckland to be able to afford it. We're putting 60% into our property and the mortgage on the rest is astronomical at 8.5%. And we're only buying a 3 bed wooden house...smaller than the one we had in England which was in Exmouth in Devon. And as for money left over (and we're a typical family of 2 adults 2 kids) well forget it....we don't have any money left over to do anything let alone save. Not what we were led to believe with all the information we gleaned before we came here.

[sarahw]

Savings are on hold until I qualify & get a job in a couple of years.

Pensions - well - we were geared up for that since the UK pensions scene wasn't that great when we left we bought an investment property in a holiday destination abroad & plan on doing a few more once I have a job... We know a few Kiwis who've done the same & it seems to have worked alright for them.

[Moorf]

Now we have lived on our NZ$ salary for a few months we have decided to keep our UK property and continue renting it out and the income from this will be saved for our pension - no chance of us being able to save here at the moment but we have plans for the future that might make it easier..

[wilson182]

Havent done anything about pensions yet, but it is certainly on the agenda. I think we are one of the lucky ones. Ok, I have to work full time, but my kids are of an age when that is not too bad, and we do have money left over at the end of the week. In England we were also putting our Child Benefit money into savings for the kids, so that is something we have to think about too.

As for Christmas, as I did in England, I put money into a savings account each week, but as I say, we do have spare money to do this. Not thought much about holidays at the moment, but Hubby doesnt mind doing the odd bit of overtime to save up for things like that.

[clg]

Granted we are not there yet, our plan is that when we first arrive my wife will not work the first couple of years. I don't expect to save then but once my wife starts working again we should be able to save. We will be earning aroun 80k on just my salary which with a small mortage should be OK but not great. But then we would have a tough time on one income in LA too.

[StevieD]

Guys, hate to be a whinger, but both myself and my wife are working full time in the uk, and we have no chance at all of making any savings, let alone holidays and our kids futures to consider.
All money we get goes on survival, I know other people manage, but we just don't get it how they manage. All as I can say is that we must have made on hell of a lot of mistakes.

Obviously can't comment on what is said in this thread coz we not experienced NZ, but it is quite disconcerting to read. Maybe the rose tinted specs are not so tinted now readin this.
Everybody must make their own way, but if we are to enjoy the last 20 odd years of our working lives, and make arrangements for our childrens futures, then maybe we will have to think again. Couple that with the odd holiday, plus visits back to uk, which seems unlikely by all accounts,then something drastic will have to be considered I'm afraid. Maybe NZ is not the best option after all??

[clg]

This is something that each person/family needs to think long and hard about and in the end everyone needs to do what is best for them.

I know we will not earn as much in NZ as we do now. But I am prepared to give up some things to gain others. I am willing to drive less expensive cars, by fewer toys, and shop a bit more carefully. In return I want a cleaner environment, less people and easy access to the outdoors. I am not willing to give up travel and I am not willing to give up savings for retirement.

We are making a final decision in early May and this will be based on our visit in April/May where we want to walk around stores first hand and see what things cost.

[Wannaway]

There simply is not the same savings concept or pensions concept here in NZ as their is in the UK (or probably US or continental Europe for that matter). The infrastructure is not here and the tax breaks are just not available. What do people do? Pour money into property because it is one of the very few ways of potentially realising good returns tax free. It is really is as simple an analysis as that.

There has been considerable coverage and thought given to this poor promotion of a savings/pension culture. The Government have said that they are looking at starting to introduce measures in this year's Budget (due in May). There has also been a lot of discussion about the tax disincentives for superannuation here, they refere to it as the TTE model (tax contributions in, tax investments in the plan, exempt on withdrawal). The typical model is EET (exempt or tax relief on contributions in, exempt from tax whilst investments in the fund, tax the outcome).

We have no money left over for savings or pension and yet we are not living anything like the lifestyle we had in the UK (where we were able to save and I put a fair whack into a pension scheme). This is not a whinge, I have no complaints about the lifestyle here. When we do buy a house our outgoings should drop drastically, giving us some income to play with re savings but the bottom line is you have to retjink your savings strategies here because the mindset is quite different.

[ruthyroo]

Thanks to all especially Wannaway - that is very much my impression of NZ lack of savings / pensions. We are both in typical public service jobs - teaching and local government - but there is now sign of occupational pension for either of these, unlike the UK at present. Everyone I have met here is basically chucking it all on property - which is making a few people very wealthy but cannot be good for NZ economy in the long term if no-one is investing in anything else -and house prices cannot continue upwards exponentially forever. It just reinforced for me once again that NZ is not a wealthy country, in terms of what people are earning etc. as there seems to be very little spare cash. TBH it is one of the reasons that we are now pretty unlikely to stay here long term, that it is so difficult to save for the future on the unfavourable salaries / cost of living ratio. One to think about, and people will make a decision they are comfortable with.

[Douglas]

Hi Ruthy, public sector workers such as teachers are all eligible for pension plans - these are I believe 50/50. For every dollar you contribute the govt contributes a dollar. The pensions from these contributions are paid in addition to the standard state pension.

[Gran]

The rest of us should be so lucky!!!!!!!

[Carol]

all very well but they have only been running for the last three years.


(teachers pensions that is)

[Douglas]

Hi Carol, As far as I know, older teachers will retire on good pensions. There was a gap from the mid-nineties to recently when the pension entitlement was scrapped for newly employed teachers but not for existing teachers.

From Ruthy's husband's perspective, given he has arrived recently, there is a pension scheme he could have joined when he began work that would match his savings dollar for dollar. Also Ruthy, if you're working for the govt. there is probably a similar pension scheme you could join. Worth checking?

[leslie]

hubs private uk pension worth all of 40% of paid-in sum. alt pension is property in london that cannot be sold for tax reasons. future investment likely to be property too. at least it gains and you can manage it yourself.

begin to really understand why doing your own thing is good - learning to fully appreciate the additional possibilities when compared to drawing salary from a company.

there is a part of me that sympathises with people re. high cost of living in nz, then the part that lived in nz when most nz'ers - who created the beautiful place we all kinda love - were losing their family farms/ livelihood and property was being snapped up for pittance by affluent foreigners. are nz'ers worrying about pensions or just surviving?

[Carol]

Hi Carol, As far as I know, older teachers will retire on good pensions. There was a gap from the mid-nineties to recently when the pension entitlement was scrapped for newly employed teachers but not for existing teachers.

From Ruthy's husband's perspective, given he has arrived recently, there is a pension scheme he could have joined when he began work that would match his savings dollar for dollar. Also Ruthy, if you're working for the govt. there is probably a similar pension scheme you could join. Worth checking?

I'm currently making enquiries about bringing my UK teachers' pension (not a lot!) out here to add into the one I joined 3 years ago.
Will let you know if
a) it is possible
and
b) how to go about it... once I've sussed it all out.
C

[ruthyroo]

Cheers Carol and Douglas for the hints. We will check them out further, especially Mr Rr. For me, I don't expect to be in this job for more than another year so maybe not worth the hassle. We are saving (and spending!) a fair whack as we're actually living off two salaries at the mo. I guess I wanted to find out how those on one salary are handling the savings side of thing... or not, as we might be in that situation one day.

LEslie - my impression is as Wannaway described it - those that can afford to save / invest pile it into property, but there are very few other investment opportunities here of the ISA / TESSA type savings. Otherwise they 'survive' on very little - as kiwis do anyway, to a great extent.

[Hannah]

Hi StevieD

Re your comment below: (I can't get it to go into a little white box like other people do - i'm not technologically inclined..but i can cut and paste!!)

You wrote "All money we get goes on survival, I know other people manage, but we just don't get it how they manage. All as I can say is that we must have made on hell of a lot of mistakes"

- I think a lot of other people appear to manage but live on a lot of credit. We live really frugally and see so many buying far more than we do and often wonder where we are going wrong, but we have no debt and I think we're unusual in that respect.
Hannah

[wilson182]

Hi StevieD

Re your comment below: (I can't get it to go into a little white box like other people do - i'm not technologically inclined..but i can cut and paste!!)

You wrote "All money we get goes on survival, I know other people manage, but we just don't get it how they manage. All as I can say is that we must have made on hell of a lot of mistakes"

- I think a lot of other people appear to manage but live on a lot of credit. We live really frugally and see so many buying far more than we do and often wonder where we are going wrong, but we have no debt and I think we're unusual in that respect.
Hannah

I remember feeling exactly the same way in England. I really struggled to work out what we were doing wrong compared to other people. We were not like you hannah, we did have debt :oops: but maybe not as much as other people. I guess you can never know how the other half live.