blueballsuk

Hi, the dreaded affordability question!!! Ive read plenty of times about whether people can afford to emmigrate to auckland and im pretty sure im about to be told that no we cant afford it but here goes anyway.......My wife is a nurse with 10 years experience, she doesnt want to take on any charge nurse post etc so she would most probably be middle of the road pay for a nurse if that makes sense???? probably not I would not be working for the first year, we have 2 kids aged 5 and 8, we are not big spenders but then i know everyones idea of not being a big spender is pretty different, we are not big on going to the pub, every now and then we might do something like go out for dinner. We are looking at Auckland as thats where all our friends are. We would hope to be no more than 40 minutes away from auckland city hospital. We will only be coming with around 10000 pounds....ok shoot me now....... fire away anyone who wants to just be honest and tell us NO WAY ON EARTH or give us a wee bit of hope......OH YES ITCAN BE DONE ..............

simonsi

Whether you can afford to emigrate comes (IMHO) in two bits:

Can you afford to get here:

This bit takes, for a family of 4-5 around 9-10k sterling, based on visa fees, medicals, flights, shipping a container of stuff and its associated MAF fees etc etc. That gets you landed at Auckland and a container paid for to be delivered to your door when it gets here.

Can you afford to live here:

If you aren´t bringing a whollop of equity from the UK then budget on approx NZ$65k of gross income being necessary to live here, rent, food, utilities. Some will manage on less, some will require more but that is my assessment of minimal required income.

Even that figure has issues regards number and age of cars you can run, holidays (there is not much in that budget for either) etc etc but hopefully that will give you a baseline.

Feel free if you want anything more specific...

BEVS

Can't help with this as although we do live on one wage now , we have no kids and are nowhere near Auckland. We're near another expensive place to live. Nelson !

I can help by moving this to the main NZ forum where more folks tend to hang out.

So, what do your friends say about affordability for your family ?

MOSO

If you're coming with £10,000 to set yourself up - rental deposit, 2nd hand car, insurances, restocking your kitchen/house etc etc etc then that sounds realistic. As Simonsi says it costs about that to get your family here in the first place so that depends.

Checkout trademe.co.nz for rentals. We're not in that area so can't help on areas but presumably your friends can advise on where to live.

I'll say it before someone else does - does it have to be Auckland? There are cheaper (and alot would say nicer) areas of NZ (shoot me now!)

As to whether you can live on $65,000 - do you live on the equivalent in the UK? Depending on where you are in the UK some people could survive, others couldn't. Are you planning on renting or buying a house, do you have a deposit for example?

You obviously know it's tight financially so try and work out your monthly costs, they should't be that different to the UK, some things are cheaper others more expensive. Woolworths.co.nz do internet shopping so you can work out your food bills.

Entertaining the kids is certainly cheaper than the south east of England where we came from and things such as sport clubs are about half what we were paying. You will pay for all stationery though at school as well as possible uniform and donations.

Way it all up carefully, it is not cheap and think through your reasons for wanting to come here. It's expensive for 4 to visit the UK so there are things like that to also take into consideration.

Alot to think about and no right answers. Good luck making your decision.

mickey_d

65000 would leave you with approx 3900 per month, less any kiwisaver (pension) contributions.
Then you need to take off house rental which I would think would be a minimum of $300 upwards/week say $1200 min.
Shopping would probably be around $200 a week (just double your UK shop figure to give approx. total)
Electric say $150 min./month
Phone/internet say $120/month
Insurances Car,Life,Contents say $130/month
School (ours averages out at $70/month for 2 kids)
Travelling expenses ? say $100/month
TV Sky? $50/month

Total - $2620 Leaving you $1280 for entertaining. etc. etc.........

It's really dependant on where you rent & your shopping habits. Our rent in Auckland (North Shore) was 1800/month (450/week).
We were earning around $80k between us then & that year seemed pretty tight for us.

simonsi

Yep but double the rent and that is your surplus wiped out...which is where I got my figures from...

mickey_d

Exactly & it's highly likely that the starting salary will be less than 65k anyway.

Bo-Jangles

[QUOTE=blueballsuk;8928278 We would hope to be no more than 40 minutes away from auckland city hospital.[/QUOTE]


Does it have to be Auckland City hospital? There are others, you know: Waitakere (West Auckland), Middlemore (South) or North Shore, which would significantly widen your net for more affordable housing. For example, you could probably get cheaper rental properties around the Albany or Greenhithe area and be 30 minutes from The North Shore Hospital. Others who live out West could better advise on the cheaper suburbs: Henderson, Te Atatu and the like, which would be near to Waitakere.

blueballsuk

Brilliant answers thanks!!!! Have only had chance to skim over them as heading out to work but will get back to all the quetions later when i get chance to go over them, thanks for taking the time to reply, not even sure if this is where im supposed to be replying

Aliwales

Hi


Just thought I would add my two pennetb worth. Were in process of going I recently secured a job with Auckland district health board as nurse working shifts, and before taxes annual income will be between 60 and 63 k, but I gave only 1 years experience!! Your wife will obviously have more and in turn would probably earn more.
To help you think about the expense of physically moving. . . . . The trust are offering me a relocation package including flights, couple of weeks temp accommodation and sensible hone shipping costs !!

Hope that helps.

Ali

Aliwales

Oh and apologies for spelling!!! My fingers are fatter then my phone keys

ble

I think that the above figures are about on the mark except for a couple of things.
Mobiles - we are $80 a month for two (thats not counting the work calls that we charge back to OH company).
Travel. $100 a month is one tank of petrol. (in my car I get around 500km for that). Also there is car tax (depends on the vehicle for the cost - but our diesel 4wd (well we live in teh sticks) was $250 for six months - or somethignn like that.
Plus, as it is a diesel we need to buy the 'diesel miles' separately. Which you need to watch as diesel looks so cheap, but we have worked out that it is about another $20 per tank on top of that price.

We live 45km from Chch, run a small car and a truck (and it is more fuel efficient than the car). But as I say, we live in the sticks.
There is no public transport as an option. And the kids don't get the school bus - it doesn't run past our gate so I run them the 20km round trip morning and night. But to be fair, that isn't normal. If I choose to send them to the slightly closer school they would be able to get the bus in teh afternoon - no morning one as it doesn't tie in with the High School run.

We would fill each vehicle up approx once a week. So our fuel cost (doesn't bear thinking about) but must be $700 a month - and that is not including the car warrent ($25 each 6 months if there are no probs) and the car tax.


I have no idea what the public transport is like in various areas of Auckland. I have lived in Wellington before years ago, and remember that the buses where good, and that the trains useful for getting into the CBD for work.
Chch seems to have a good system of buses as well.

simonsi

Hmmm, well my maths makes $450 a week $1950 a month. remember there are 4.3 weeks in the average month and $1950/mth works out correct for the yearly total (450x52=1950x12) (anyone who thnks that difference isn´t significant can donate the $150 a month to me...)

Wonder if that is why so many on here find things unexpectedly tight, assuming wrongly 4 weeks costs = 1 months costs

I´d be surprised if $65k annual gross isn´t somewhere quite close to the mark.

Charlie Paynter

£10,000 capital plus a gross annual income of $65,000 for a family living in Auckland? Don't do it! You will struglle like hell on that and it will put you back years.

simonsi

Hey, he´s planning on that for a year then both working....and it depends what you want out of life. You still in Market Harborough? (I hail from Leicester)