Monthly Outgoings
 

Hi - Myself and family are hoping to emigrate to NZ within the next 2 years, we are a family of 2 adults and 3 young children
We are only in the early stages of planning, but i want to try and get my head around monthly outgoings etc, i'm hoping you can shed a bit of light on the situation....
.....(i apologise in advance for the vagueness and uneducated manner of my question) we are looking to rent for 1 yr before hopefully buying, the properties I have been looking at in the chc area are $600pw - nothing extravagant, a 3 bed property with garage for storage etc
My question is, what other expenses on top of the weekly rent would there be, is there council tax/TV licence to pay? Approximately cost of electric, water per month etc
The list could go on, but hopefully you understand the nature of my question
Thanks again

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

Mortgage costs are not as much as your rental costs but here are some of our monthly/yearly costs:

Gas bottle $109 for about 3 weeks. We heat lounge and hot water on external gas bottle. Gas fire tends to chew through the gas so we use electric heater (like an oil heater) if we are going to be in room all day.

Elec - We are in Dunedin and it has been a bitter winter. We have HRV system, fully insulated top and bottom (not walls) and we still spend $400+ on electricity. Our house has a bad layout though which contributes to these big bills. Our heat pump is in the hallway (not sure why because we don't sit in the hallway). No heating in kitchen/diner and gas fire in lounge. We have heater in the girls' bedroom.

Food - 250-300 per week. We have three of us for lunch at home and dinner/snacks etc for four. Usually buy something cat related each week too. We eat very well, cook mostly from scratch and buy meat from New World which is worth the extra expense. We buy seasonal produce but occasionally splash out on a cucumber in winter :ohmy:

Rates - $2000+ per year.

No TV licence

Sky/phone/internet $150 per month

Mobile phones $80 per month

We might eat out once a week for lunch or dinner $40-60 per time.

Car insurance $600 per year.

Contents/life insurance/private medical cover $400+ per month

No water rates in Dunedin, pretty sure the only place you pay for water is Auckland.

Petrol $80-100 every 3 weeks


Just a quick summary of kids activities here:
$5 for a gymnastics class
Library - excellent and free.
Leap - local trampoline place $50 for family of four for an hour :eek:
Ice skating $35.00 for family of four
Movies $50+ for tickets and food for family of four
Bowling $40.00 for family of four
Brownies $240 fees for year, uniform another $150.00 at least
School sport $30 to buy uniform top, $30 for season fees.
School contribution $160 per year (I think at our school, less for subsequent children)
Private swimming classes $100 per term.
Our school provide 10 or 15 swimming lessons per year free and we have a school pool (by no means a flash pool but a pool none the less) other schools charge for transport.
No free school lunches or school dinners so packed lunches every day for school and Kindy. Occasional pizza day or sausage day.

Hope that helps.

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

I'll add to the excellent list above. We have a 1948 weatherboard old place in Chch. Almost new logburner eats $260 of wood (lasts all winter) and electric bills vary from $100-$130 a month throughout the year. With HRV, heat transfer kit and additional double glazing, the house is pretty comfortable.
Approx $60 a year for a proxy server address for BBC iPlayer. Local TV is a mix of infomercials and little original content.
Rates ours $2400 pa, but nothing if you are renting - it's factored into the cost of rent.
Road tax (rego) for the car is approx $200 pa.
Too many new bars and restaurants opening in Chch to mention at the moment, lots of choice. Rebuild seems to be ramping up a notch finally, exciting times.

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

That helps so much, thank you both for taking the time out and replying
Better get my calculator out and get things rolling - cannot believe how excited I am now 🙌

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

Thanks Dannigirl & Mark for the great info. We are hoping to be in NZ for early Jan ;0)

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

Remember when you rent in NZ the rent includes council tax as the landlord pays that, unlike UK where tenant pays.

:)

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

also water is chargeable elsewhere in NZ, so it does depend on the area and is something you would have to check with the local council.

GP costs approx $45 per visit if you are funded more like $80 if you are not. Prescriptions approx $5 per item

Rubbish collection depends on if you buy the council sacks or rent a bin, again something that will need to be checked in the local area. for us a 80ltr bin for a year is $120.60 - and $140 on a 140ltr, can't remember if their is a bond on that.

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

We rent a 140ltr wheely bin from, 'Budget Waste' for $232.15 every six months. Also, IIRC, there's no bond payable. Buying stickers for a few dollars each from the Corner Shop aka Dairy, which indicate to the rubbish collection that you've paid for their collection on the full rubbish sacks is another way of doing it. I've done this along with a full wheely bin for when I've already filled the wheely bin with full rubbish sacks and there's a few more full rubbish bags that need to be taken.

It costs $52 per year to rent a large plastic crate to put our recyclables in which is collected on the same day as our rubbish is collected from outside our house each week. They sort the recyclables at kerbside into the recycle truck.

There is a 'Resource Recovery Centre' where I live. What would have been the local rubbish dump in ye olden days. However, just like Britain, recycling is very much the watchword. We used to go each week to drop our recycling off there, sorting it ourselves into the relevant skip bin but we've got the crate now.

There's a couple of dumping grounds here too which costs money per load dependent on what is being got rid of. If what you want rid of cannot be recycled. Which, these days, would be unusual. Nobody wants flytipping in their neighbourhood no matter where they live.

We pay local authority rates $2,951.43, divided up into quarterly payments which attract a 2.5% prompt payment discount. This includes the annual water rates of $564.

Plus the annual rates $310.31 to the overall unitary authority for this district in regional New Zealand.

Home Building Insurance is $1241.90 annually. Home contents insurance is $830.22 annually.

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

We live hour from Chch

We rent a huge 4 bed house with an apartment upstairs we can rent out. 350 pw. The house is to a good standard and on. Great section. This is rare!

Electric. We use log burner so don't use any other form of heating. The house is insulated well(again v rare) so we don't spend anymore than 120pm in summer and maybe 160 in te winter.

Car insurance for old car. $90 per year


Food. I'm thrifty and still comes to near 250 sometimes 300.pw
Water is heated through log burner when it's on.


Gas hob; $30 every 6 weeks.

Medical insurance free with husbands job.
$35 for drs visit $5 for script

We don't pay for recycling bin. Black bin bags $2 each.

Sim contract: $59 for unlimited mins and texts plus 2.5 gb a months

Sky: $70 that's for basic package and sky plus(TVs crap lol)
Broadband with spark $75 a month
That's just an example of what I pay :)

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

We're based in Rotorua, Bay of Plenty (N. Island) and live out in Ngongotaha. We're two adults, no children or pets.

- We pay $280/w for a 2 bed/2 bath detached house with a garage and back garden. Technically our house is an annex, but the landlords property is behind trees and their garden, so we're quite separate.

- No rates (council tax) as we went rent and our water costings are covered by the landlord as they pay the rates on their rental properties.

- Electricity - Switching to Flick! and aiming to budget $300/month, but we'll see...Our house is solely heated by a heat pump in the living area.

- No gas at our property.

- Petrol - Work is only a 10 minute drive, so budgeting about $200 a month on fuel, but this will probably be more because we're out and about at the weekend (fuel is cheaper here though).

- Food - Budgeting $800/month, but realistically it's around $650. We shop at a big supermarket for most things, but go to markets for fruit & veg as it's much cheaper. However, we very rarely drink and don't eat meat, so our food costs are probably not very reflective of most peoples costings!

- Broadband - Unlimited (Naked - no phone line) broadband with BigPipe is $79/month (speed is good and we're able to stream Netflix etc. no problem)

- Mobiles & Skype - $16 each/month with Skinny Sim (we brought our iPhones with us from the UK) and we use Skype to video call (free) or phone landlines in the UK with Skype credit, which is peanuts compared to using an NZ mobile.

- We also have a Netflix subscription, which is $13/month, because TV is appalling! No TV Licence to pay though!

- As we're currently classed as Visitors, a visit to the GP cost $50 and a prescription was $16

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

Being a visitor doesn't seem to have made much difference; charges do vary a bit from practice to practice - we're Permanent Residents and our GP charges $51 for adult aged 25 to 65

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

Oh right, I had assumed it was a set price nationwide! Thanks for that.

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

Because we have a 2 yr work visa we are entitled health care wise the same as if we had permanent residency :)

$30 something for drs. $15 nurse
And $5 prescription. Varies by area

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

not much to add...

GP $54 - just gone up from $46
Water for family of 4 usually $85/month - expensive as in Auckland but Rodney council - is cheaper on the shore apparently

Re: Monthly Outgoings
 

I see you have 3 children and are thinking of Cone City. Here are few more expenditures highly recommended

1: The Discovery Centre at the Museum
This is $2 per person (under 3s go free) and if you have youngsters, they will love this area. You could easily spend up to 2 hours in there. Our eldest loves running up and down on the mirror moving picture as well as staring at the fish and the tarantula they have there. It makes the museum trip well worthwhile.

2: Willobank Wildlife Reserve
Huge recommendation - yearly pass. It's $59 an adult for the year and you just need to go 3 times to get your monies worth. Each kid may be different but ours loves feeding the Eels, the farmyard animals, loves the kea parrots going on our little uns pram and loves the place so much, tantrums occur when it's time to go. Normal price is $28 for an adult. It really is a great place to go with kids, and very family friendly.

3: Orana Wildlife Park
Again, i'd look at a yearly pass if you know you will be going more than 3 times otherwise it's around $25 per visit. Kids will enjoy walking round seeing the animals in their cages. You can get close to the Giraffes which our boy loves, as well as going into the Lion chamber. It's a bit of a trek away but definitely worth one trip per year.

4: Mini Golf
I highly recommend Pirates Adventure Golf which is $12 an adult and $5 a kid. Good fun course. Caddyshack is completely different to any Mini Golf you'll ever go in, but chances of hole in ones there etc are zilch. The best one has been removed which was on Blenheim Road, which was a wild west one. There's two out in Ferrymead and another one out Riccarton way but the Riccarton one isn't up to much.

One place I will not recommend at all is Chipmunks. Never again!!!!!!!! Whilst it is great for young kids, it's a housing place for parents that just want to browse Facebook all day and leave kids to their own devices. Our boy loved it there but the 'clientele' of parents resulted in an area we didn't want to be in. It's very reasonably priced, but be wary.

Beaches - who doesn't love taking their kids to build sandcastles, paddle in the sea, have ice creams etc. Where I live, i'm extremely lucky that I have a choice. I can either do all this at our beach, or just go via the beachy areas of the lake. A word of caution, take your sandals as the sand gets very hot during the summer. Much hotter than the sand on Bournemouth beach ever got to (from memory).

There is also a maze somewhere near Wigram which we've not done yet. It's on the to do list but being out in North Canterbury, we rarely go south anymore. The southernmost we go is to the city centre, or Sumner on the rare occasion now. Sumner, lovely place but a long way away. You also have Ice Skating, Tenpin Bowling, Cinemas etc that common in the UK as well. I would add the International Antarctic Centre but we've been twice and both times, it's been pants. The money that they are charging isn't really worth it at all. If any of your kids are afraid of the dark - good luck!

Kiddy activities and attractions are a plenty here. Plenty of fun free stuff to do. Also, during the winter break - Christchurch has kids zone (think Auckland and Wellington may do as well), where there's loads of activities throughout the Christchurch area specifically designed for kids. In the Summer, the council tends to put on a lot of activities suitable for children as well, all free. Favourites of ours include the 'Chinese Lantern Festival', 'Classical Sparks', and the 'Busker Festival'. If you can get a babysitter or a child minder for the day, the wine and food festival is excellent but i'd avoid the beer festival, purely on the basis that the three occasions we've been, there's always been one drunken idiot that thinks he/she is suddenly Mike Tyson.

Drive away but excellent days out with the kids are Kaikoura, Akaroa, Hokitika and even Picton can be done in a day. In the winter months, go up to Oahu Reserve, everyone loves seeing the baby seals play.