[martin&maria]

Hi there guys, my husband has been offered a job in chch and we have been really excited about this until.............we read this forum!!!!

The rose tinted glasses have been well and truly removed! We are doing this huge move through an agency and although they have been helpful they won't really give us any useful info until we have parted with our cash(£2500) this is something we are quite nervous about 'specially after reading this forum.

What we are really worried about is money my husbands salary would be $48,000 we have 2 wee boys to think about and are wondering whether or not this would enable us to live in a good area with a nice house or would this prove to be a struggle financially.

We are really quite unsure about the whole idea now the excitement is starting to dwindle heeeeeeeelllllp!

[Trigirl]

Hi guys - welcome to the forum.

Firstly - using an agency. The general advice is normally don't! They wont do anything at all you cant do yourself unless there is some particular difficulty you are expecting (eg a medical issue). Otherwise with the advice you get on here and some form filling you'll be fine.

Then there's living in Christchurch on $48k. I can't advise you on this. Everyone lives differently. So - do you/could you live in the UK on roughly £16k?

You could try looking on trademe (www.trademe.co.nz) for how much property costs - they have both rentals and property for sale. There's a good link from this sites homepage to a cost of living calculator that will give you a good idea of how much things cost. You can look at woolworths (www.woolworths.co.nz) for how much food and stuff like that might cost. And finally you can look on the IRD site for a tax calculator to show you how much of that $48k you'll get to take home (www.ird.govt.nz/calculators/tool-name/tools-t/calculator-tax-rate.html?id=homepage)

Hope some of that helps.

Mandy

[ruthyroo]

Hi

Where are you moving from in Scotland? This is pure nosiness - I used to live in Perthshire and did a lot of work around and about the highlands.

Re. salary / cost of living / quality of life... very difficult to answer and you won't know for sure until you are here but this is my tuppence worth...

Although $48,000 pa is slightly over the NZ average of around $43,000 pa, it will not necessarily buy what you consider to be an 'average' lifestyle. Mr Rr and I are trying to live (just us, no kids) on one salary of about $44,000 - and it's hard going. That works out at about $1300 a fortnight. Our rent is $510 / fortnight, and that's the major expense. Every other cent is absorbed by grocery bills,services, petrol and transport etc - the basics. On that salary, living very simply, we find that we can cover the bills but have nothing left over - so no new clothes, no holidays, no eating out, limited local weekends away, no CDs / books, no new 'toys'. And definitely no savings. Luckily for us we do actually have other income (Mr Rr is doing relief teaching) so that buys us occasional treats and lets us save for a holiday or whatever. But it has been a real education about living on one 'average' salary in NZ.

Something a lot of people struggle with IMHO is the fact that the average kiwi lifestyle is not the same as the average UK lifestyle. It's normal in NZ to be what would be considered 'poor' in the UK: to live on mince, sausages and (yukyuk) luncheon meat; to not save for the long term; to not spend much on clothes or 'stuff' (or buy cheap stuff at the Warehouse); to holiday at the family bach or a campsite rather than overseas; to drive an old beat up car; to have a kinda scruffy house and old fashioned furniture etc. There's a tendency for UK immigrants to look at the numbers and think "well it's an average salary - it'll buy me the average lifestyle"... and be pretty disappointed when that average lifestyle involves scraping around to pay the bills. House prices have risen here a lot in the past few year, and cost of living is not cheap.

Long story short - and this is just my opinion - you'll need more than $48K pa to enjoy NZ. On that income I reckon a family could survive - many do here already - but it won't be much fun. Having two incomes makes a massive difference. Don't be downhearted BTW - plenty people come out here on that kind of income - it's up to you how you adjust to the changes that you need to make. One of the reasons we wanted to come here was that we thought it would be easier to live on one salary than it would be in Scotland - since being here a couple of years, I know now that if we did have kids, we would both be working as well because one average salary is not enough to have fun on (IMHO)

Of course if you are bringing enough GBP with you to be mortgage free that's a completely different story and $48K will probably be fine!!

[martin&maria]

thankyou trigirl and ruthyru,

your help and advice is much appreciated

with the agency, the job offer we have goes hand in hand with agency, you dont get one without the other, but on the other hand if we get that money back on arrival in nz!!

secondly we are originally bankies but currently bide in lossiemouth, by the sea!! we kinda like it here so the huge drop in salary is the major issue with us as we have some equity in our property but prob nowwhere near being able to be mortgage free!
the reason we moved to lossie was cheaper property prices!!!

thanks anyway guys

[Moorf]

Welcome :)

Small world, I lived in Lossie when I was young and Dad was based at the RAF base....and I went to Seafield School in Elgin :D and before here we lived in Perthshire (nr Dollar).

$48k - depends on whether you will have a mortgage and then, as Ruthyroo said, what sort of lifestyle you want, house/car/schools etc. I would stick my neck out and say that $48k alone would be tough for most Brits in NZ who must have a mortgage, without a mortage you'd probably be fine. A part time job supplementing that sort of income would see a large rise in disposable spends. We don't have huge wads of income coming in (and we don't have kids to keep and educate) and we have a great life here - we don't have all the bells and whistles we had in the UK, and it was a conscious choice to give those up, but our lives are still "better". If we had come here wanting to have our life in the UK but simply move it to NZ we'd either have had to live in Auckland for the salary (equiv we'd need here would be at least $300k at today's exchange rate to match our UK income) or bought over a huge wad of cash.

I know many Kiwi's who get by on a lot less that $48K and it's the norm for them, and they get so much out of their $$'s, and if you are used to budgeting and squeezing everything you can out of a small income you'll be well suited here to survive on a lower income, but I find many people who come here are shocked as they come from a relatively luxurious lifestyle in terms of everyday choices and future planning.

PM me if you want further info on Chch, or search in Locations as there have been lots of threads on this area :nice1

Best of luck
Moorf

[Diny]

Something a lot of people struggle with IMHO is the fact that the average kiwi lifestyle is not the same as the average UK lifestyle. It's normal in NZ to be what would be considered 'poor' in the UK: to live on mince, sausages and (yukyuk) luncheon meat; to not save for the long term; to not spend much on clothes or 'stuff' (or buy cheap stuff at the Warehouse); to holiday at the family bach or a campsite rather than overseas; to drive an old beat up car; to have a kinda scruffy house and old fashioned furniture etc. There's a tendency for UK immigrants to look at the numbers and think "well it's an average salary - it'll buy me the average lifestyle"... and be pretty disappointed when that average lifestyle involves scraping around to pay the bills. House prices have risen here a lot in the past few year, and cost of living is not cheap.




This is very true !!! Without sounding 'snobbish' ..... what is considered an average lifestyle over here is a million miles off what is considered 'average' in the UK.

However, that's not saying that it's all run down houses, clothes from the op shop and living hand to mouth .... it's just that the word 'average' has a different meaning over here.

That sounds dreadful, it's come out all wrong ... I hope you understand what I'm strying to say.

Personally I feel the key to success over here is to learn to live within your means. To move away from the credit consumerism that is the norm in the UK. It takes abit of doing but the feeling is liberating ....... and I speak from experience on this one.

Welcome to the forum.

Diny

[wilson182]

This is very true !!! Without sounding 'snobbish' ..... what is considered an average lifestyle over here is a million miles off what is considered 'average' in the UK.

However, that's not saying that it's all run down houses, clothes from the op shop and living hand to mouth .... it's just that the word 'average' has a different meaning over here.

That sounds dreadful, it's come out all wrong ... I hope you understand what I'm strying to say.

Personally I feel the key to success over here is to learn to live within your means. To move away from the credit consumerism that is the norm in the UK. It takes abit of doing but the feeling is liberating ....... and I speak from experience on this one.

Welcome to the forum.

Diny

And I agree with that wholeheartedly...Well put Diny.

We are a family in Chch with one child and we both work. This gives us a good lifestyle, we can cover our expenses AND have money left over for "treats" BUT that incorporates the advise that Diny has just given above. We certainly would be unhappy here to live on just Hubbys Wages which are in the region of 45k

[Gran]

You dont say what the job is, and I dont want to know, but quite a lot of employers who recruit overseas offer low wages, certainly at the start because they dont know what they are getting. Normally when you have proved yourself you should be able to get more, if not you can always look around after the guaranteed period. You are not signing on for a lifetime.

[martin&maria]

Hi there,

Thankyou so much for all this information. We are still deciding on what to do.
Just wondering if anyone knows about childcare costs as I will be looking for work (social care support worker)

Thanks
Martin and Maria

[jodieinchch]

Clothes from op shops are generally more accepted here. You're not classed as a cheap person or scummy if you wear things from op shops. People prefer it if you get a bargain!!!

[pieeater]

Well put everyone.I do admire the New Zealanders for their 'grit', gathering seafood and raising and killing their own animals in order to supplement their income which many of my neighbors/colleagues do.It's a world apart from popping down to Sainsburys.I got into the spirit of things and managed to kill a few chickens and gave the kids one each to pluck as a 'Meet the Meat' exercise but I struggled with the whole thing.

[Moorf]

People prefer it if you get a bargain!!!

So true!!! And if you've bought something they inevitably know somewhere you could have got it cheaper - or secondhand!! :D