Living comfortably in NZ these days?

[dvs_dave]

The good people of NZ, I have a potential opportunity with my firm in NZ, Wellington area. Salary on offer seems decent, but all I hear about is how unaffordable living in NZ is, so it’s hard to tell if it’s a good deal or not.

For a family of 4 (2 young school age kids), nice 3-4 bed detached rental home with good schools in the Welly suburbs, 2 decent (used) cars; what sort of pretax annual household income do you need to support that?

$100k, $200k….more? Any guidance would be appreciated.

Edited by dvs_dave on Friday 5th May 21:21

[antipodes40]

Very difficult question to answer. Probably a good start would be to check Trademe.co.nz and look at Apartments and homes to rent, location, Wellington.

Once you know how much you will need to spend per week to have a roof over your heads, then look at weekly living costs. Yes, food here can be expensive, but with judicious shopping, costs can be minimised. Admittedly, there are just two of us, but we live very well on $250-$300 per week. Utilities (power, phone, internet) cost us $300-400 per month, but depending on how well insulated the home is, heating costs can be high. Petrol ranges from NZ$2.35 per litre up to over $3.00 per litre, depending on location.

There is, of course, huge scope for “extra-curricular” activities, and here, the sky’s the limit.

Hopefully other will chime in. We are mortgage free and that makes a huge difference.

[klootzak]

A 4 bedroom house in somewhere like Kelburn or Thorndon (ie, decent ‘burbs, fairly close to town) will be $1,500 to $2,000 per week so you’ll need to be on around $150k pa just to cover rent.

There are more affordable suburbs (Kandallah, Aro Valley, Highbury) but you won’t find much under $1k per week. Welly is ridiculous for rent.

k

Edited by klootzak on Saturday 6th May 08:57

[dvs_dave]

Yes, seems like pretty grim stock for very punchy money. How do the locals afford it? Is everyone paid accordingly, or do people just accept paying 50%+ of their income on housing?

Looking further afield, how commutable is downtown Wellington? Where’s “nice” within a realistic 30mins drive?

Edited by dvs_dave on Saturday 6th May 23:40

[mikiec]

Hey Dave, checkout r/Wellington on Reddit. Has lots of members and should be able to help you out.

[moles]

We lived in Petone which is 30 mins out most days, last year we moved to Christchurch.

We earned $150k between us and were spending $800/week on rent for a central heated 3bed villa 50m from beach.

Shopping for 2 of us was $200/week but we ate whatever we feel like and my missus shopped solely at M&S in uk so has no concept of budgeting.

Bills were phone/broadband $50/week gas and elec $75/week and car insurance $20/week per car.

Edited to say don’t know if you have pets but if you do think very hard about bringing them. We found a rental on arrival who’d take a dog but our landlord decided to sell after a year and we couldn’t find a rental that would accept a dog. We had to leave wellington because of it.

Edited by moles on Monday 5th June 03:36

[Skeptisk]

Any update from the OP?

Only just seen this. A few points for someone who left NZ:

- echo comments about bringing pets. Cost a fortune (over £5k) and really limits choice of rentals

- weather in Wellington is st (according to those who moved to Auckland to escape it)

- quality of housing is appalling. Garden sheds in the U.K. are better built than most kiwi houses. An insult to injury when you consider how expensive it is to rent. Kiwi idea of heating is just putting on more clothes. Seriously. When we arrived and moved into our house in Auckland I was floored by finding out that there was no heating in any of the bedrooms and just two gas fires that were supposed to heat the living room and kitchen. Despite having had insulation fitted (where possible) as soon as you turned the heating off the temperature plummeted.

- Wellington did seem like a nice place (with above caveats) when we visited it.

- unless you want to live on pies the cost of food is outrageous. Strangely, eating out was relatively reasonable but buying fresh fruit and vegetables and anything from Europe eg Parmesan was horrific. As an example. Price of Heinz tomato soup was four times more expensive than in Tescos.

[TV200]

As someone else who has lived in NZ and returned to the UK (but would love to move back - fingers crossed), I agree with the above. However and apart from the outdoors (and that's a massive attraction of NZ);
-Parking outside of the larger cities is free - so you can pop into 'town' for free, go to the weekend markets, go to the leisure centre, park at the beach etc
-Swimming pools are a couple of dollars as opposed to £50 an hour for a family of 4
-Public events are cheaper to go to - the Richmond A&P was about £10 for the family, whereas the Newbury Show is nearer £70.
-Electricity is about half the price.
-Rentals include council tax.
-Most importantly car parking spaces were designed for a car bigger than the original mini.

[dobly]

A supermarket shop will be at least 1/3 more than in the UK.
The price of eating out at a cafe or restaurant has almost doubled since Covid. Hopefully some of this extra cost has been passed on to the people that cook for and serve you, but I get the feeling that it is just for the owners to recoup what they missed out on during the (relatively short) lockdown.
Anything, from a book to a washing machine, will be about 25% more than in the UK, and premium brands command even more of a premium, especially if European.
It remains to be seen if the incoming Government will make things much worse for the average citizen, or better only for the richest 5%, like in the UK…

[GravelBen]

dobly said:

The price of eating out at a cafe or restaurant has almost doubled since Covid.

Not anywhere I go! There have certainly been some increases (inflation is hitting everything) but nowhere near that dramatic.

The big spike of inflation was an inevitable and predictable effect of the govt's 'just print more money' response to covid though.

[antipodes40]

dobly said:

A supermarket shop will be at least 1/3 more than in the UK.
The price of eating out at a cafe or restaurant has almost doubled since Covid. Hopefully some of this extra cost has been passed on to the people that cook for and serve you, but I get the feeling that it is just for the owners to recoup what they missed out on during the (relatively short) lockdown.
Anything, from a book to a washing machine, will be about 25% more than in the UK, and premium brands command even more of a premium, especially if European.
It remains to be seen if the incoming Government will make things much worse for the average citizen, or better only for the richest 5%, like in the UK…

I don't think that is peculiar to NZ though. We've just come back from a 3 week jaunt in British Columbia and the NW USA and were appalled at how expensive eating out and accommodation were. Both were roughly 50 - 100% more than what we would pay for the equivalent here in NZ. Food in supermarkets was not noticeably cheaper, apart from some seasonal fruit and veg. Appliances (depending on brand) and clothing were also at least as expensive as here, if not more. About the only thing we found markedly cheaper was fuel.

[dvs_dave]

Skeptisk said:

Any update from the OP?

Only just seen this. A few points for someone who left NZ:

- echo comments about bringing pets. Cost a fortune (over £5k) and really limits choice of rentals

- weather in Wellington is st (according to those who moved to Auckland to escape it)

- quality of housing is appalling. Garden sheds in the U.K. are better built than most kiwi houses. An insult to injury when you consider how expensive it is to rent. Kiwi idea of heating is just putting on more clothes. Seriously. When we arrived and moved into our house in Auckland I was floored by finding out that there was no heating in any of the bedrooms and just two gas fires that were supposed to heat the living room and kitchen. Despite having had insulation fitted (where possible) as soon as you turned the heating off the temperature plummeted.

- Wellington did seem like a nice place (with above caveats) when we visited it.

- unless you want to live on pies the cost of food is outrageous. Strangely, eating out was relatively reasonable but buying fresh fruit and vegetables and anything from Europe eg Parmesan was horrific. As an example. Price of Heinz tomato soup was four times more expensive than in Tescos.

The opportunity I had lined up fell through, which was incredibly disappointing. However we’ve decided to do it under our own steam as we have the wherewithal to do so, but just need to go through the process. Kids have now got NZ citizenship (through mum), and I’m in the process of getting a residency visa through her as well. Upside with that approach, personal expense aside, means my opportunities will be far greater as I’ll not be tied to a specific job and it’s associated visa. So that puts me in a far better negotiating position as any prospective employer doesn’t have that hassle and expense to deal with.

We’ll be visiting NZ again next month for a few weeks, so hoping to line up some meetings/coffee with prospective employers. We were over same time last year and compared to where we live now (Chicago), NZ seemed fairly reasonable price wise. Inflation here has gone nuts and everything is very expensive now.

Either way, looking forward to NZ eventually happening, pending my visa application and assumed approval, however long that’ll take.

[GravelBen]

antipodes40 said:

I don't think that is peculiar to NZ though. We've just come back from a 3 week jaunt in British Columbia and the NW USA and were appalled at how expensive eating out and accommodation were. Both were roughly 50 - 100% more than what we would pay for the equivalent here in NZ. Food in supermarkets was not noticeably cheaper, apart from some seasonal fruit and veg. Appliances (depending on brand) and clothing were also at least as expensive as here, if not more. About the only thing we found markedly cheaper was fuel.

Sounds broadly similar to my experience visiting eastern Canada back in 2018, fuel was the only thing I found significantly cheaper there.

Meals out and accommodation were generally similar prices to NZ, but with the added cost of tipping which we don't have in NZ.

Often retail items and food etc looked cheaper from a glance at sticker price, but sticker price in Canada is pre-tax and sticker price in NZ includes tax... with tax included the prices were generally pretty similar.

[GravelBen]

dvs_dave said:

The opportunity I had lined up fell through, which was incredibly disappointing. However we’ve decided to do it under our own steam as we have the wherewithal to do so, but just need to go through the process. Kids have now got NZ citizenship (through mum), and I’m in the process of getting a residency visa through her as well. Upside with that approach, personal expense aside, means my opportunities will be far greater as I’ll not be tied to a specific job and it’s associated visa. So that puts me in a far better negotiating position as any prospective employer doesn’t have that hassle and expense to deal with.

We’ll be visiting NZ again next month for a few weeks, so hoping to line up some meetings/coffee with prospective employers. We were over same time last year and compared to where we live now (Chicago), NZ seemed fairly reasonable price wise. Inflation here has gone nuts and everything is very expensive now.

Either way, looking forward to NZ eventually happening, pending my visa application and assumed approval, however long that’ll take.

At least you have more destination options than just Wellington now I expect! Housing costs are significantly lower in some other places (especially smaller towns if that fits with your work/lifestyle) so look around at the options before deciding where to be.

[daqinggregg]

Also posted as topis "How far/long"

This post is just out of curiosity, nothing more.

I really know very little about NZ, apart from what I see on TV/internet; but from what I have seen it’s staggeringly beautiful and the people seem very genial. I can certainly see the appeal of living there, yes, I understand it’s expensive, but that’s down to location.

One thing that stands out, how long (time wise) to travel elsewhere, a quick search of the internet, I was in for a shock. I expected Europe and the US to be a long old schlep, but Asia, Tokyo, KL or Hong Kong all around 17 hours, that’s long haul, even Fiji is 10 hours away.

I expect (maybe wrongly) Australia will be a bit too similar, where do Kiwi’s like to go for a vacation? A lot of people will have roots elsewhere, so I guess there may be a bit of a bucket list thing going on, although that will diminish over time.

[mikiec]

Those numbers are out. To KL/singapore you are 10-11 hours. Americas around 12 hrs, west coast. Pacific islands are 3-4 hours, east coast Aussie 3 hours. Nothing is really close and Europe will take around 30hrs all up.

[daqinggregg]

Apologies for posting in here, just seems this NZ forum is a little quiet.

My post is based on flying from Wellington (because capital) times quoted are from the internet, so probably not that accurate.

Since double checked, using actual flights, the numbers don’t seem that far out, with the exception Fiji. IMO, anything over 10 hours is a fair old schlep.

As I said my post was just out of curiosity.

[Fulvisti]

Last time I flew from Auckland to Fiji is was only just over three hours. Not sure where you're getting ten hours from, but they're very wrong.

[MrBen.911]

daqinggregg said:

My post is based on flying from Wellington (because capital) times quoted are from the internet, so probably not that accurate.

Auckland is a much more major airport, so look at flights from there. It's still a long way to a lot of places, but not as long as you've suggested as there are direct flights to a lot of places (Hong Kong 11.5 hours, Singapore 11 hours, LA 12 hours)

I absolutely loved NZ when I visited, but the distance to anywhere else would massively put me off living there as I love to travel. We are very spoilt in the UK with short distance travel to many and varied cultures.

[daqinggregg]

My apologies, it would seem my travel times were somewhat over-egged, certainly with regard to Fuji. In addition, my quoted times for flights in Asia were well over, even so 11 hours to Singapore or Hong Kong, was more than I would have expected, before looking in to it.

My mistake; was using Wellington, as departure point, instead of Aukland (lack of local knowledge) and using Rome2Rio (lazy) as a guide for time.