BEVS

Yes. I thought that for the South Island, even for my region which is more expensive but I expect the OP is tied to a job offer for now.

It hasn't been done in a while although there have been plenty of threads and posts re CoL v net and disposable income over the years but perhaps it's time to list all & every possible expense again as just a grocery shop isn't all that there is.

Moses2013

I get your point but too often people moving abroad only focus on the country rather than the location and maybe that's why so many actually do fail. It just worries me when people write Most mention a move to NZ is for a better lifestyle, and if it meant that my wife would 'HAVE' to work then i would be concerned. It might be that the money they have is more than enough, but if I'm in Singapore and want a few acres of land for horses, the wife probably might have to work. It's pretty easy to make a list of things that you have now and what you expect to have in NZ and if that exact location can offer it.

Bo-Jangles

It's really worth while doing and you have to be very honest with yourself and think of all the things you currently have that you would hope to continue in your new life, in order to at least maintain your current quality of life without too much compromise. It certainly can be quite confronting.

We pay for most things from a joint credit card account, so here's my list of $68.5k spent from both my own personal account and our joint household account this past year. Bearing in mind that we have no kids and the the other half has a company vehicle and phone paid for. I have a very small car which I mostly use to drive to work and back. Other half will have other things paid for from his own account and out of his pocket, so this is by no means the full extent. We had the most basic Sky TV subscription for part of the year, which we have recently ditched so not a full years cost (it was $65 per month). For context $100k salary will give you approx $71.5k take home pay if you subscribe to Kiwisaver (Pension scheme) at minimum 3% We buy gifts and cards only for immediate family at Christmas and Birthdays, maybe send some flowers on Mother's day and that sort of thing, so nothing out of the ordinary and just minimal maintenance of family relations. LOL

I am sure we could reign it in a bit (especially being super slack and not taking lunch to work everyday) but we've been there and it gets quite depressing just living to work. As it is we currently try to get out of the house a couple of times a month for lunch, dinner or movie and on special occasions anniversary and birthdays. We're not big drinkers and usually have just one beer or glass of wine with dinner if we go out.

Mortgage 25,532
Supermarket shopping 8,622
Rates 2,498
Fitness classes 2,460
Electricity 2,383
Work coffees / lunches 1,908
Misc stuff 1,767
Eating out 1,709
Insurance (Car, House & Contents) 1,679
Weekend away (Flight / 2 nights B&B) 1,626
Clothes / shoes 1,606
Maintenance (HRV filters, House & Garden stuff) 1,522
Other groceries (Bakers / Greengrocers) 1,350
Petrol (one small car) 1,342
Health (Physio / Doctors) 1,296
Gifts 1,288
Parking 1,266
Internet / Land line 1,237
Hairdressers 965
Household stuff (Briscoes and Warehouse type stuff) 873
Pharmacy 684
Takeaways 581
Water meter 549
TV (Sky part of year / Netflix part year) 511
Entertainment (Cinema mostly) 479
Glasses ( Specsavers) 474
Cash 360
Event tickets 289
Vet (Annual check up & jab for cat) 239
Kindle books 234
Bank charges 226
Mobile Phone (PAYG) 225
Rubbish collection 210
Spotify 165
Car rego 118
AA Membership 116
Postage (Xmas / Birthday Cards) 83

desmondo84

I was in the same boat 5 years ago with 2 kids - aged 2 and 3.5, I started about 93 k I think. We tried it on one salary for a bit but it was tough going so wife went part-time after about 3-4 months I think. I'd say 110 would just about cover the cost of living with bills etc. I'd say divide by 3 to get the UK equivalent. So think how you would live like at 30k/yr. If you have loads of savings then it's less of an issue if you don't need to save to buy stuff but saving anything will be tough.

Bengineer

First time poster, thought it worth chipping in here as I feel a lot of the above is potentially a bit pessimistic. I'm in a similar situation, sole earner $120k/yr for stay at home mum (she's the Brit, I'm the Kiwi) with a 2yo (on the burgundy passport) and 0yo (on the Kiwi passport), we came to Auckland and rented for a couple of years and we've just bought in Stanmore Bay, Whangaparaoa. I was on 40k GBP before we left Milton Keynes in 2017. We were mere inches from buying in Hamilton as we thought there was no hope for us on our family income in Auckland, but boy were we wrong. Depending on what you want in a house and in life, there are great little pockets of affordability in Greater Auckland that we didn't know about, just have to really look hard at your search criteria and identify what you're willing to compromise on (commute, section size, apartment v house). As I took a job on the North Shore, we decided to look further up north in Hibiscus Coast, and looking back now we can't believe what we've got away with. We have a sunny north facing 3 bedroom bungalow great sea views and 500m walk to a calm safe white sand beach, great neighbours (Germans on one side, Liverpudlians over the back, and Kiwis [a comparative rarity!] over the other side), a great little shopping center 500m walk west with a great pub called the Good Home, run by another British guy called Tom, an indoor swimming complex 500m another direction (great kids swimming programmes) + football/rugby/league fields, 2x big kids playgrounds, cinemas and other amenities 5 minutes drive, all kinds of other beaches in all directions, a big Regional Park called Shakespear Park at the end of the peninsula, all in all a fantastic find and for well within our price range (~$650k). Our mortgage is a third of my take home pay, about half is essentials (food, insurance etc), and the rest is saving/spending. Plenty of room to reduce the burn/tighten the belt if we were to need to. I used to have a 10 minute commute in central Auckland, with better nightlife and so on, but that's about all I miss. Up here on the Coast, I feel like I'm going on holiday coming home from work every day. I'd really encourage you to make the move, I don't think you'd struggle financially at all if you're sensible, especially as most of the stuff that makes NZ a great place to live is free - nature, beaches, reserves, the mountains, the sea, the climate. Imo it's one of the reasons NZ has a (generally) low wage economy, high prices and productivity issues - there's less incentive to strive for success when there's so much great lifestyle to be had even on a bum job and living on the breadline. There are many other Brits in the neighbourhood, traffic isn't all that bad if you take the bus to work (there's a dedicated busway which will go all the way from Albany when the extension is finished in 2021), my 60km round trip commute costs me $10 a day, chicken feed, and my mental detox time to read a book and relax. Give it a blast, if it doesn't work out, it's not irreversible, you only live once, why wait all year for 2 weeks of summer Up Top when it's already getting to 20 degrees in Auckland and summer's still two months away!

EyeResign

Thank you all for your comments and inputs - really interesting range of opinions and experiences. If anyone's interested, I've compared our current monthly spend in Surrey to an estimate for Auckland. Nowhere near as much detail as provided by Bo-Jangles! Whilst almost everything looks to be more expensive, there are some key savings where things are cheaper: childcare, transport and rates. I'm currently driving to work, but public transport looks a fair bit cheaper and a good option there. Similarly, the cost of the rates (council tax) could be considered to be absorbed into the housing costs. The "everything else" line is essentially what we have left over at the end of them month after the other expenses are covered and includes the occasional one of costs spread out over the year.
There's also a couple of pie charts of these figures as a percentage of net income, but I havn't got enough post history to post them! On this basis, it looks pretty achievable, if not ideal.

Item UK NZ NZ:UK Notes

Housing £737 £1327 ($2600) 180% Assumes $600 per week average property

Groceries
& consumables £500 £751 ($1472) 150% Weekly shop from the supermarket plus top-ups (assumes no major change in spending habits)

Childcare £400 £289 ($565) 72% Currently 2 mornings per week, NZ cost assumes 2 full days per week at average $65/day

Council Tax £145 0 0% It is typical that owners pay the equivalent of council tax, rather than occupiers

Utilities £81 £103 ($202) 127% Calculated from percentage of national average we pay currently and multiplied by Auckland average rate

Phone £31 £41 ($80) 132% Assumes two phone contracts with similar plans

TV & internet £50 £56 ($110) 112% Assumes higher end Broadband and Netflix

Fuel £150 £138 ($270) 92% Assumes similar fuel usage

Public Transport £40 £112 ($220) 281% Assumes a single monthly travelcard for commuting in NZ and occasional journeys in the UK

Everything else £642 £675 ($1322) 105% All other expenses including clothing, eating out, recreation, repairs, travel, purchases etc.

EyeResign

That's the dream! Right, I'm blaming you if our experience isn't as great!
I'll be working in Newmarket, so Hibiscus Coast feels too far unfortunately, how long and maybe more importantly, how consistent is your commute time? Where I am at the moment I only need to go about 13km and can take anywhere between 20min and 1hr15.