How Much Do you need to survive?
 

Hi
There are conflicting accounts on how much you need to earn to have a good standard of living in NZ. Could someone give me a ballpark figure of average monthly expenditure. With no mortgage how much would I need to earn. 2 adults 2 kids, no fancy cars.3/4 bed house in nice location. Any comments would be great. Thanks

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

Theres a thread, currently on page 2 called 'Will we survive?' that will answer some of your questions - mainly concerned with earnings. HTH Adie

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

Also there's a useful site:http://www.emigratenz.org/cost-of-li...w-zealand.HTML
where you can do a rough calculation. Take it with a pinch of salt. Keep scrolling down it, there alsorts of info on it.

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

Oh dear, I just did that calculator on your link, went for modest lifestyle and upped a few things because of having 4 kids, not two ... we need a salary of $175,000. Or need to rob a bank every couple of months?!

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

OMG what do you hope to do for a living? Accountant, solicitor? We won't earn anything like that!
I wonder who devised that COL and if it's accurate? No doubt someone in NZ will put us out of our misery or make us aware of the truth :eek:

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

I dont think there is any estimates, I work as a nurse and live reasonablly well on my wage, i wouldnt say its great and cant buy what i want all the time, but we eat out alot and live comfortably.

However there are nurses at work who support a family of 4 on one wage, they seem to get by.

I think without a mortgage to pay off you should do well.

I think life here is less stressful than the UK and its cheaper in some ways, you do have to adapt your lifestyle but i dont feel its a hardship.

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

We found that the cos of living in NZ was roughly the same as the cost of living in the uk when the exchange rate at 2.5 ish. Now the rate is around 3 it would be a bit cheaper in NZ. So work out what your costs would be in the UK, times that by 2.5 and there's your answer.

Don't rely on other peoples costs because everyone has different lifestyles & expectations.However you asked for a ballpark figure so...

For us (no kids), our basic weekly outgoings are around $500:

FIXED COSTS
Insurance (House, car & contents) 21
Life Insurance 24
Rates 31
Health Insurance 17
Telecom 30
Electricity 50
Sky 15
Refuse collection 5
Road tax, WOF & service 15


HOUSEHOLD:
Food & sundries 160
Petrol 40
Night out 50
Yoga classes 15
Coffees etc 20

On top of that we have weekends away, new toys, decorating & garden etc. The above is what we regard as the minimum we can get by on - it includes a few luxuries like a couple of nights down the pub, sky telly etc, but not much else.

We probably average another 150 a week on extra spending. TBH no matter what we earned I couldn't see us wanting to spend a whole lot more - but on average our net income is around double our total outgoings.

The figure of $175000 for a 'modest' lifestyle is wildly over the top in my opinion.

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

Dur!!! Am Loolah. Am Fairy!! Put in $500 a week rent, but we will be buying and costing rent into "move-out" figure. Should be mortgage free when buy. Bottom of the class for me! Sorry!!

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

I agree $500pw after tax and housing costs will cover decent basics for a family of 4.

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

We have no mortgage and survive quite nicely on $200K PA from local earnings and £85K PA from UK earnings.
2 adults one child.

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

Who wouldn't ??!??

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

For f@+ks sake, thats a good representation for the average person.

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

That's a good wage!
Did you press £ instead of $ for the uk earnings? :confused: Blimmey I don't know anyone on £85k...(mind you our solicitor must earn a huge salary she is charging us £160 an hour to do the paperwork on selling our house!!! :mad: )

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

Over $420,000 Oz a year equivalent with no mortgage? Wow....drug dealer perhaps? Most people would be looking at $70K a year in NZ as a joint income before any living costs are taken out.

I doubt I could find enough stuff to buy for $420k Oz....then again, MV Augusta F41000 Oro, Dodge Ram SRT-10....yeah, maybe I could.....

Re: How Much Do you need to survive?
 

If I was earning that much I wouldn't tell everyone - must be a typo, or serious bragging!!