dupe

Hi,

I'll get right to the point.
I want to compare the cost of living etc. yes I've seen house prices and grocery bills but I want it from the horses mouth.
I'll pluck a figure from the air here,
Lets say I earn £30K a year, Other than mortgage I have no debts, young(ish) family 2 kids, schoolage. Whats the ball park figure of what I would have to earn to maintain my finances/lifestyle, I don't meen £ for $ exchange rate, I mean running a car paying a mortgage, getting by, and having money left over for 'family time'. your views will be much appreciated

P2L

Hi Dupe

It really is a horses for courses question, every person on here will probably have their own idea of what they term 'maintain lifestyle'.

For us to maintain our lifestyle as we had in the UK, my DH would probably need to earn twice that he does now, which is never going to happen here. Instead, we have 'adapted' our lifestyle to suit our pockets and like most others on here, we could probably do with a bit more, especially to allow us to travel a bit. However, we are not on the breadline and we could save more than we do if we were put our minds to it.

We knew before we came to NZ that we would have to make these adjustments, so it has not been too hard to deal with ( at the moment!)

Beachcombers

Ditto what Sarah has already said.

Where you intend to live is going to be a major factor, ie Auckland vs the rest of the country.

Do you dream of your kids running around in big garden, going fishing everyday after work........ Difficult to achieve in Auckland unless you are earning mega bucks.

As for money, all the glitters is not gold mate!

Life here for us is much simpler, less stressful and much less materialistic.

dupe

Thanks for that Kev and Sarah,

I know it's a vague question
I sse that everyone appears to be struggling a bit more than they did in the UK. I know it's not all about money we are just trying to be realistic.
I've just had a look at this cost of living calculator if anyone else is interested

http://www.emigratenz.org/cost-of-li...w-zealand.HTML

TeamEmbo

Very much depends on where you'd be living, what type of house you would consider acceptable, how much of a deposit you would have. It is very difficult to give a like for like comparison as it is so different here to the UK.

Basically, you can pick up a decent 2nd hand 4x4 for around $9-14k. If it is petrol you pay your yearly WOF (MOT) which is about $25-30 and Road Licence which is about $180. Petrol is about $1.56 p/litre. If you buy a diesel car/4x4 you pay for the WOF, Road Licence, + a Road User Fund and you have to buy your mileage (or should that be kilometres?!) per year, which would cost an extra $200-300 per year, this is because there is no tax on diesel and diesel is cheaper at the pump at around $1.02 p/litre.

In Auckland I guess a 3 bedroom place would cost around $600k +. Elsewhere you can get a decent 3 bedroom house/shed for $300+. This is extremely generalised terms though. The banks will not lend you more than 40% of your net income as your mortgage repayment per month so that your mortgage is affordable. They have look up tables to work out what, say, a family of 2 adults, 2 kids would spend on average per month on food, utilities, etc and this gets taken into account. You can borrow up to 80% of the value of the house you wish to purchase and get a 'decent' fixed rate. Or you can borrow above that (up to 95%) but may have to pay a higher interest rate to secure the mortgage.

Fixed rate mortgages at present are around 8.9%. But then Term Deposits are running at an equivalent level so if you've money to save you will get a decent return.

I guess it would cost somewhere in the region of $175-$250 per week in food shopping for a family of 4, but that very much depends on how you live/eat. If you buy in bulk, home cook everything and only buy stuff that's on special you'll spend less.

Electricity depends on how your home is heated and whether you run a tumble dryer etc. I suppose an average for that would be $200-$300 per month.

Telephone, broadband internet etc, again depending on usage, will cost you around $100-$200 per month. As far as I know there is no unlimited broadband etc like UK. There is not much competition here so you pay for what you use by 'buying' 1gig, 3 gigs, etc.

Sky TV is $99 set up fee, and around $63 per month if you have the basic package plus one other, eg Sky Sports.

Mobile phones telecom, Vodafone. Personally I use around $20 per month on pay as you go and use the Best Mate ($6 of the $20 I buy) to call/text my OH p/month. Telecom do offer packages and you can have contract but in general mobile phones and tariffs are a lot higher than UK.

Am not sure if this entirely answers your question, and I'm sure their our others on here who will spend less or more per month and have different experiences they will be able to share.

In summary I guess if you didn't have a mortgage, or a low one and earnt around $60-$75k p/year, and had kids to think of, that what probably see you alright, but like I said it does depend on your standards and needs and how you live. See Wiki NZ, Education for costs of schooling.

teambwr47

This subject has been done to death in the past if you utilise the search function.....

The exchange rate is an easy way to just do a straight conversion but our own opinion taking everything into account is that to maintain the exact same standard of living UK to NZ you need to earn somewhere around 2.3 times your UK salary.

It seems to be the norm here that people get paid less than there equivalent job in the UK and stand out bench mark jobs you can use are teachers, police officers, nurses etc. By way of example a few years ago i was a uk police officer earning about 35K a year basic while an officer of the same service length here would earn NZ$66K a year basic.....

In the private sector it seems wages are lower than the UK in most but not all professions. If you have a very specific skill set that is simply not available then its possible to earn the same here as in the UK if not a bit more in exceptional circumstances. By way of example my wife has a guy working for her who's a consultant in media and is the only person in NZ with a specific skill. He earns very good money but is an exception.

Your wage will i guess depend on what you do........

The wages here are less than the UK and its well known but as others will no doubt say moving here is not about money which is true but also sometimes i think a convenient excuse to pass off low salaries.

Lifestyle wise you're better off in NZ in our opinion but many money wise many seem worse off its a balance that the individual has to assess and decide where on the scales they are happy to be....

dupe

Thanks Teamembo,

I'd thought about $70-80K so I must be getting my figures about right.
You've confirmed my plans anyway
Would that figure be seen as average household income in NZ? Outside of Aukland

TeamEmbo

I forgot rates! Can be anything from around $600 p/a to over $2k p/a, again depends where you live, each local council sets their own. Ours includes water, so no separate water bill.

TeamEmbo

No, average NZ wage is around $40k, but again that depends which stats you are looking at. If both you and OH were working guess you would obviously be much better off, but it does depend on what your lines of work are. Think the minimum wage is around $11.85??

Like another poster said, some jobs attract a higher salary, around $60k-$75k, if one of you had such an income and the other worked part-time to fit the kids and earnt around $20k you would be doing really well!

dupe

Thanks Niseys OH,

x 2.3 Thats the formula that I've been looking for.
If it's beeen done to death it just goes to show that people want to be realistic and get their research done, I'll be sure to use the search facility next time.

teambwr47

I've no problem with it being done to death it just adds to the knowledge base here...........

The average NZ wage to mid 2006 was $31770.....

The stats show men earning more on average than women and all the data if of use to you can be found HERE

My 2.3 conversion point is just a view we've formed on it taking into account everything we can within our own personal circumstances and others may take a different view on it.

P2L

Hi dupe
Post away my friend, most of us are more than happy to share our wisdom and experience of the whole process with others

teambwr47

Average male wage -$39208

Average female wage- $24596

TeamEmbo

Isn't the minimum job offer requirement $50k now? so there must be jobs out there for that much that pertain to the skills shortage list, otherwise NZIS wouldn't have set it at that level, would they?

dupe

Goodnight