ian68

What sort of standard of living would a couple with no dependents earning a combined salary of NZD 90-110 have? would be living off the wages only no big nest egg.

Synky

Since the average is a lot less than that I'm thinking pretty good

MrsFychan

I agree with Synky but it would also depend on where and what sort of things you want to achieve with that wage.

Philzbub

Hi there, where about would you be living/working.

We have very similar incomes so I could give you a pretty good idea.

As you don't have dependants, you should be fine. Look to pay between $500 & $550 a week on the rent this should allow you to live a bit and put some money aside each month for a rainy day! Obviously, get something cheaper if you can but try not to be tempted to spend more than necessary on rent. Believe me when i tell you the money does not stretch far over these parts!

When you relocating by the way?

All the best
Cheers

Synky

Oh dear, we are going to be in trouble then as that's what we are looking at for our whole family! I've done what I think is a decent budget and it seems ok...

Philzbub

List the budget then and I'll tell you how close or far out you are... :-)

I did the same before I came out too... had it all planned out nicely in Excel.. and boom!! SHOCKER!! its not that bad.. but, share it it will be good to see.. Where abouts in NZ are you going to be living tho? that makes a big difference...

ad132

Sorry to jump on the thread .... Philzbub is it cool to send you a message, I am currently in the middle of doing my excel spreadsheet as looking to move to NZ this year (tauranga) and would like to see how far out I am budget wise always good to get different prespectives on things!

ian68

we where thinking of living somewhere round christchurch but are unsure of the running cost of a 2/3 bedroom house for gas, electric, rates, internet ect we thought about 50% of wages would cover it would we be a long way off

Synky

Thanks for offering to look at our figures.

This is what we have so far for a month. We have 3 kids. (4,2,2) and are planning on centralish Christchurch.

$1700 rent
$300 petrol (this is based on our uk cost?)
$600 food (our current uk cost is $400)
$250 utilities (water, electricity)
$200 private health insurance
$200 insurance (car & contents)
$200 entertainment (inc sky. Since we have young kids we don't go out much so this is a zoo trip etc)

Am I right in thinking that there is no council tax if you are renting?

No childcare costs. Are we missing something major? Bank charges?

Persephone

I have just moved away from Chch temporarily but I'll list our expenses. We lived in a 3 bedroomed house owned by us, just the two of us, no kids.

Electricity - $90-120 pcm
Water - Not relevant in Chch, no separate water rates or bill
Gas - No piped gas. We had 2x 45kg cylinders to run the oven hob and one gas fire. Cost was approx. $100 per cylinder and $100 per year rental [paid by house owner if a rental property] One cylinder would last 4-6 weeks in winter and 8-9 months in summer. We got through 3-4 per year
Phone and internet - $90-100 pcm
Sky - $60 pcm
Car insurance - $400 per year for each car
House contents - forgotten, sorry!
Petrol - Will vary depending on what you do, $80 every 4-5 weeks for me and $80 per fortnight for him
Rates - $500 per quarter though these are paid by the house owner if you are renting
Food - $100-120 per week

We used to put $500 each into the joint account per month and this covered food, electric, gas, eating out, phone, internet and Sky. This did not cover rent or mortgage. The rest we paid out of our own accounts.

We have just about eliminated bank charges by changing accounts. I used to pay $5/m for a current account and now pay nothing. We do now have to pay to deposit cheques and do certain transactions at the counter but these are so few and far between that it's cheaper to pay as necessary than have these things included in our $5 fee. Pays to shop around and check out various banks and their charges.

Ian, your salary should be enough to live comfortably on depending on your lifestyle and what luxuries you cannot do without. Might be difficult if you can't do without a magnum of champagne, caviar and truffles every night. Have you looked at what your take home pay will be on that wage? You may not have a huge amount to live on but you should be comfortable.
Me and him are also quite 'cold blooded', we don't like a hot environment so never used much heating. gas fire in the living room and that was all we used! Did not use any supplementary heating.
Hope this helps

Philzbub

Of course, no problem at all... Cheers
Phil.

Philzbub

Ok, first off, I have to say, I'm on the North Island in Auckland so I can't give you too much guidance there, I think the south island is a bit cheaper living but I'm not sure by how much.

Rent wise, have you looked in to places at this price? is $1700 monthly? if so this is $392.30 a week. If it was here around Auckland, I would be saying you will be hard pushed to find a place big enough for your family at that price if you want a roof on the house! :-/ However, I'm not sure on rental prices out that way so maybe its doable.



Hope that helps a bit... Let me know if there is anything else!
Phil.

Philzbub

This may help you get a realistic idea of take home pay. http://www.salaries.co.nz/a/salary-tax-calculator/ it is pretty accurate, not to the penny for some reason, but close enough to gauge.

Phil.

Persephone

Hmmm $392 per week for a three bedroomed place in Chch would be pushing it. There is a shortage and rents are going up, I would increase the amount you are planning on spending just in case, there is a lot of competition for houses. You can get places for that amount or less but they are in the less desirable areas and tend to be older so you may end up spending more on heating anyway.

Our house was 6 years old when we bought it and well insulated, that and us not liking too hot a house meant lower electricity bills for us.
We used one gas fire and that was it, we had a heat pump in another room but never used it so our electricity bills were pretty consistent month to month. Having young children will mean you will need to heat more of the house than we had to, we could cope with no heating in the bedroom-was fine actually!

You will not get a water bill in Chch, this comes under the rates which will be paid by your landlord.

Synky

I'll have to look at this closer with a spreadsheet but thanks for your inputs. Looks like we can save in a couple of areas and put it on the rent!