[ruthyroo]

This quote came off the "other site"...

1... I have been told that the best way to view it is when trying to work out a relevant NZ salary, its 2 to 2.5 times your UK rate.

2... when it comes to actually spending the money, its 1 for 1 so a $50K salary would be like earning 50 000 pounds.

I have to confess that when I first started looking at coming to NZ, both these wee 'rules of thumb' were told to me and I naively believed them... more fool me. :oops:

My experience of the reality has been that No 1 is more or less true (gone from GBP 22K to earning $45K here in NZ for a similar position), but that the second is pure fantasy - no way does a salary of $45k in NZ buy the same lifestyle as a salary of GBP 45K in the UK - I wish!!! If so we would have been loaded and never left the UK!! :nice1

So I just wondered who else had heard the above myths through word of mouth... Also as the above quote came from a NZ recruitment consultant it's a bit worrying to think that these myths are being casually fed to would-be immigrants!!

[adamsat]

Hi ruthyroo,

Does your 45K NZ buy a better or worse standard of living than the £22K?

Andy

[lynden]

do you live in auckland

[Craig]

Hi ruthyroo,

We understand exactly where you are coming from :clap :clap

The idea of bringing GB pounds to NZ is great, but earning Nz dollars is a different matter altogether.

Again, wages are perhaps double here but then other things are more expensive too :wah . We were trying to work out whether we were better off here than in the Uk but it's not so easy. Proportionately speaking we spend almost half our income on accommodation (only Craig is working at the moment - same as the UK), compared to just over the quarter we were spending in the UK. The same trend continues for grocery shopping and fuel. We are living in Auckland though

The upshot is we are just going to see how much money we have left over each week and work out how much better/worse off we are, and what kind of lifestyle we can expect.
:?

It can be very misleading listening to "experts".

[Moorf]

One of the first posts I read on this site was with regard to salaries etc. It really made us sit up and think of the real reasons for our move?

If we wanted to maintain our UK incomes and standards of living it quickly became apparent that we should NOT move to NZ.... but that's not what we wanted.... we wanted quality of life... so that's why we are here - out of the UK rat race where no one ever seems happy with their lot or insist on keeping up with the Jones's.

[Craig]

Hi moorf,

yeah I guess it depends on your reasons for coming here. and what you want out of life :yes but unless you can get a relatively well paid job your lifestyle can be somewhat restricted.

It really does depend on an individual's expectations. If you want to be able to go diving, skiing, and do the kind of things that are easily available in NZ a minimum salary is essential. On the other hand a quiet life is not so expensive, but you still need to be able to live on a daily basis.

Hope I'm not sounding argumentative, sometimes it's difficult to make a point without sounding so :oops: :oops:

[ruthyroo]

Hi guys

Cheers for the replies. I was just really surprised to see the 'rules of thumb' that I'd been told, also being put around by an agent - who also got them from another UK immigrant - word of mouth and no basis in fact eh!

Craig, you're so right re lifestyle / salary - it does depend very much what you've come to NZ for. We came for all those things you list - diving, skiing - and more besides i.e. trying out all the excellent wines and food, and exploring the rest of NZ and also using it as a base to explore the Pacific Islands and Oz. For us, it's not about keeping up with anyone - it's about us being able to do the things that give us pleasure and that mean 'good quality of life' for us. And they cost money, above and beyond the basic living expenses, and we are both willing to work so that we can afford to do them. I spent a year in Oz as a backpacker, and it was really depressing being in such a fantastic place but not being able to afford to do anything or travel anywhere because we were so skint - didn't want to end up in that situation again. If I was satisfied with looking at a great view every weekend I would have stayed in Scotland!

Re. rent - we are currently spending about 25% on rent, but if I stopped work for any reason that would jump up to about half. It's a helluva lot, and I can see why coming here mortgage free makes such a difference to people's financial situation. Overall, I think we are spending less , but partly becuase we're doing different things. e.g.we go kayaking or walking at the weekends rather than shopping - got to be cheaper. Food, bills, etc are all more expensive than I expected, but we're getting the hang of it gradually. And Pak n Save do some really good deals on NZ wine!

[Douglas]

Ruthy, what the agent is saying sounds like a garbled version of something I posted on the old forum in Dec 2003.

Here's what I said - and as a rough (but by no means precise) rule of thumb, I think it's not bad.

Migrants to NZ generally do not come to make their fortune. Most come for non-financial reasons. Most migrants from Europe or the USA expect to make less money in NZ than their home countries. Having said that, it is still important to know the standard of living your NZ salary will provide you with.

To figure out your financial well-being in NZ, a very, very rough rule of thumb for Brits is to take your UK income - say £20,000 - and double it in NZ dollars to $40,000. If you can earn in NZ dollars double your UK salary, you should have very roughly the same financial standard of living.

I should emphasise that the effects of regional house price variation and varying interest rates on mortgages can play havoc with this rough guide. For example, if you move from London earning £20,000 pa to Christchurch earning $40,000 you should feel considerably better off financially. If you move from Northern Britain earning £20,000 to the more affluent suburbs of Auckland earning $40,000 you will probably feel worse off financially.

It is also worth bearing in mind when making comparisons that the average house in the UK is a semi or a terraced house while the average house in NZ is detached.

Here's the link:

http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44&highlight=earn&sid=9b4d7a4d78c3 710adace84749dd81ea2

[richard]

The financial side was one of my biggest worries before coming to NZ (we arrived 3 days ago). I was on around £60k in the UK and after playing around with figures I reckoned that as long as we could live mortgage free then we would need to earn around $65k to have a similar life style in NZ.

[leslie]

what i find almost hilarious are aussie mig's...

we spent £10,000 last xmas to clarify the oz scenario as a perm dest alternate to nz, only to come back truly confused. the relaxed beach-lifestyle thingy??? maybe if you win the really big lotto. in the end we accepted that city life in oz is more costly than london. were i religious i'd pray for people moving there - its !@£$%& huge money for the return. somehow nz just doesn't feel the same - life is simpler. when you live there you just cannot have all the crap you fortify your soul with to survive in a place like the uk. my big hope is that people there still just dont want it , which is a different thing altogether.[/b]

[lindajax]

Hi all,
I agree with many of the above posts.

Ali and I are not massive earners in the UK but our earnings do mean we can afford a nice detatched house, 2 cars, holidays and the usual stuff without worrying about cash.

However, we will be moving from the Northwest of Uk to Auckland and are very aware that we will probably initially take a marked decline in lifestyle - we accept that - we aren't particularly materialistic people.

Dollar for pound we'll be a little better off as my salary in NZ amounts to slightly more than Uk BUT is full time and City life is more expensive!!!

It is very true as Douglas says you don't go to NZ to make your fortune :wah BUT the trade off is the relaxed, safer and less protentios way of life - PRICELESS

The reality of moving out of the UK ever looms for us with just a few weeks to our move.

I have no fears about how we'll manage etc - we just will.

It is only money and money doesn't bring happiness only extra comforts what can sometimes be unnecessary - we canmanage without them for a while or ferever if need be. :eek

I can't wait to go - it'll be hard but at times its been VERY hard here so what the hey :nice1


Love Linda xxx

[Danpoll]

One thing that always startles me is that those who are supposedly worse off in other european countries have better quality food on their table that we have from our expensive supermarkets. In general the UK is very materilistic we are ripped off by our own govt and foreign industry loves to trade with us. My wages on paper will be half in NZ than the UK but theory never works. I am confident that the vegtables I feed my child would be free of pesticides and life enhancing chemicals.

as you can see food plays a big part in my life, and my waistline, but I am sure you understand where I am coming from.

Whether uk or NZ the fact remains with money

1. You will never have enough
2. Someone will always have more
3. Money doesn't bring happiness
4. you cant take it with when you die.

Regards
Dan

[ruthyroo]

Ah well, the myth of NZ's "clean, green" image is a whole new debate that we could get into - but probably shouldn't. There have recently been reports of pesticide residues etc in the fruit and veg grown here and the possible impacts on health. NZ is one of the only developed countries in the world that still has an economy based largely on farming - that doesn't happen without having some of the most intensive farming sytems on the planet. Organic veggies are far harder to get hold of here than in the UK, and I don't know if that is because they just don't grow them as there is no demand (which I think is the case) or becuase their normal veggies are less intensively farmed because they think that's a good way to go (which would be great, but knowing farmers is very unlikely!).

Having said that, they do know what makes a good steak!

Douglas - what really got me was that the 'rules of thumb' were told to me by someone (and now I cant remember who!) in the UK before we left so I took them on board and passed them on as you do, the agent had been told them by a recent UK immigrant to NZ and she's been passing them on (until brought up sharp by some of the reponses from people on the 'other site'!)- it just struck me how powerful the word of mouth thing is now.

[Diny]

Dan

Hate to shatter your confidence in NZ produce, but I wouldn't rest on your laurels too much regarding the veggies not being steeped in pesticides and life enhancing chemicals :eek

As for point number 3 on your posting. You're dead right - money doesn't buy happiness .... but my word it can be one hell of a down payment.

As mentioned in an earlier posting ... I too spent alot of time backpacking in my yonger days. I can relate only too well to the miserable feeling of having a host of wonderful and exciting things to see and do at your fingertips and not having the cash to be able to enjoy them.

Wages in NZ are lower - that's an established fact. How each of us will handle the change of income only remains to be seen. I'm not a particularly materialistic person either but I've been broke and I've been flush. Believe me - flush is better.

Oh for a jackpot lottery win :nice1

Diny

[Raeven]

Hi, Danpoll,

I have to chime in here, too, on the issue of pesticide-free fruits and vegetables in NZ... I do think it's somewhat dependent on where you settle, but a friend of mine who recently made the shift from near where I live now to the North Island called after 3 months of residence and shared the following:

She is very worried for the long-term health of her children as regards their exposure to pesticides and herbicides. She said it is not uncommon for the local newspaper to publish a notice the day before pesticides are being sprayed on neighboring farms to advise it might be a good idea for residents to close their doors and windows and maybe not hang out their wash that day. Other than that, she says pesticides and herbicides are used very generously in NZ, and she was shocked by that.

She also shared that getting organic or even pesticide-free fruits and veg is a real challenge. Despite actively looking for such products, she has only been able to locate chemical-free oranges and organic walnuts for her family. Everything else has been treated in some fashion. Since we take such things for granted living here in California, she was quite stunned at the difficulties she has encountered in obtaining these goods. She also said it's no good raising your own, because the drift from spray would pretty much negate your efforts.

I know this is a real downer, but better to make an informed decision. And please let me reiterate: This may not be the case all over NZ, but it is in the North Island near where she settled, in Napier.

All the best, Rae

[veronica]

I know this is deviating from the original subject but I have to say that in Christchurch most of the supermarkets seem to have an organic section and there are a couple of organic fruit and veggie places that I have noticed. I didn't feel it was too different to England in that regard.

[eric_amanda]

Ruthyroo - thank you for bringing up this topical discussion.

Eric's employers have from day one, insisted that what you can buy for £1 in the UK you can buy for $1 here in NZ. They are SO wrong and will NOT be put right on the subject, despite not having lived in the UK for nearly 20 years.

From our own shopping experiences here so far, I have to say that it is more likely to be what you buy for £1 in the UK, you can expect to pay $2 for here in NZ.

We learnt at a very early stage to work anything financial out, not as an exchange rate conversion, but as a percentage of our NZ income. For example, for our family in the UK, my average supermarket bill was £80. Here in NZ I am lucky to get it below $250. As a percentage of our NZ wage this is double the cost.

It is right that, after a while you begin to do things different, we are already digging a veggie patch and we are lucky to have a reasonable amount of land which we intend to prepare ready for growing something like Olives.

At the end of the day it is the lifestyle that we came for, and my children would never have had 2.7 hectares to play on in the UK, but the transision is difficult, especially when you have lead up the garden path a little. In hindsight we could have budgeted a little better had we really understood the difference when earning a kiwi $.

[Danpoll]

Thanks for the informed advice on my agricultural incompetence. It does however raise an interesting point. For years as a child I would battle with my parents and lost many a pudding over the contentious issue of whether vegtables where good for you or not. I now have written proof that I was right. No prizes for guessing who won't be having veg with his sunday roast from now on.

Cheers

Dan

(p.s Sorry for causing a total digression from the original topic)

[ruthyroo]

Danpoll - it's not you, it's the image that NZ likes to present to the world as it keeps the immigrants and tourists coming in! I work in local government here, and the whole marketing for both tourism and getting people to move to the town is based on the lifestyle and supposed pristine environment... in reality the lakes around Rotorua are polluted with effluent run-off from the intensive dairy and cattle farming all around, and the raw sewage that was chucked in them for years. Farmers are business men at the end of the day. The forests look great from a distance, but in reality they are man made, exotic species and can be clear felled at a moments notice. NZ looks very 'green' but it's not necessarily 'clean'. I think the Lonely Planet has recently revised its publication to reflect this, that it's been accident and remoteness from development that has kept environmental pollution to a minimum here rather than any intentional design.

Veronica - yep, it seems to be a persistent myth that 1 dollar in NZ buys the same as 1 GB pound in the UK! We too have started budgeting on the basis of percetage of our income here and very quickly stopped converting everything into GBP once we started earning NZ$ as it becomes meaningless. Unless we are splashing out on a treat - it's much easier to justify a $20 bottle of wine when you convert it to just 7GBP - practically a bargain!

[Michelle and Richard]

Amanda, I get the same story from someone I work with the old pound and dollar thing, it drives me nuts.

Drove to Taupo at the weekend, lots of forests all being cut down for Timber, damn shame.

There is absolutely no way that living expenses in this country match the drop in salary, yes I'm in Auckland but even taking that into account its not that much cheaper.

Not on a downer but just stating facts. We shop at Pak and Save and my grocery bill is the same as the Uk as a percentage of my salary its much greater. This would be the same countrywide not just Auckland

Michelle