Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

Hi All

I was wondering if you could give my husband and I some insight on moving to NZ.

We are in a situation now where we want to settle down somewhere with our children as a family of 5 (6 years, 3.5 years and newborn in Jan). NZ has come up as obviously there is a chance of PR status and also allows a bit more stability for us all (as we have travelled a bit in the past 14 years) in terms of lifestyle and education. We've not really looked into any specific location, although Wellington, Christchurch or Auckland are the locations that comes up in our mind.

One of the things that we are worried with are the costs involved in moving over, shipment, settling in etc. We want to make sure we have enough money to get ourselves over if we decide to move to NZ and a little as backup if need be rather than finding get stuck with no money etc! I am a bit of a technophobe (!!) and not been able to find posts/thread re: cost of living etc, and was wondering if anyone could help especially if they are a family of 5 to give us an idea of costs, transport, what is schooling like, whether it is sustainable to depend on one sole breadwinner, if not, then how does it work with both parents working.

Thanks in advance :)

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

Hello and welcome,

A lot of what you're asking depends on what you do for a living and how much you can earn. In general the cost of living is high in NZ so you may struggle being a family of 5. However it comes back to what salary you are on...
If you are a high wage earner then you may be fine.

There are plenty of threads on cost of living on here. To do a search: go to the right hand side of the blue horizontal bar just above this main section. Click on 'search this forum' and a space will appear to type in your search terms. Then hit go!

Another aspect will be whether you can get a visa and whether you need a job offer first in order to get a visa. Have you looked here? http://www.immigration.govt.nz/
What jobs do you do and what qualifications do you and your husband have? We can better help you if we know a few more details. Not just being nosey!

P:)

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

Hello; welcome to BE :)

It's hard to advise you on costs involved with living here without knowing the sort of wage you are likely to be on and which of those cities you are considering. Having said that, we have forum members in all three so if you could be a bit more specific about the likely salary range you will hopefully get some input. Although there is some disagreement about this, a salary of about $100k is a reasonable minimum for considering Auckland, and even that is unlikely to put you in the position of being able to buy a house unless you are being a decent wodge of cash over.

The actual cost of getting over here including visas, flights, shipping, and initial set up costs are likely to be in the range of £10-20k.

We are a single income family on <100k outside of the metropolitan areas and it is doable but not easy but we do have a very expensive teen to support :lol: Again, if you give us an idea of salary range we can be much more helpful :)

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

Hi Persephone & bourbon-biscuit - many thanks for your reply - much appreciated :) We plan to have job offer first before moving. We have started looking around in the job aspect - we were told that hubby would qualify under SMC (but no degree, but found a link on the forums re: points system so will look into that :), where hubby is recruitment consultant (specialising more in infrastructure/engineering). We haven't looked into my skills yet - I have a degree, but haven't been working for 5.5 years, but was working in the Investement Banking world (operations) before so would try and get back into this field of work...

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

I do not believe that recruitment consultant would be on the skills lists so you would probably need to be looking at an accredited company to offer you a position and possibly a work to residency visa.

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

Recruitment consultant is classed as a skilled job but isn't on any of the skills shortages lists. Requirements are:
Recruitment Consultant Visa Options – Skill Shortage Lists, Immigration New Zealand

It is very likely you would need a job offer to get enough points to guarantee progressing further under the SMC. Just because you can submit an EOI does not mean you have a good chance of success.
As for where to live, that might depend more on where you get offered a job rather than where you would like to go. Have you tried looking at Seek and Trademe for jobs? I don't know whether there are any trade specific sites you could try.

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

Wow 10-20k you spent on set up costs :eek:

I have 2 young children and me n my husband. Everything including furnishing a house cost 6k.

We have basic salary of well below 100k.we live mid canterbury so not the city. We have plenty of money for things. We came out here with nothing.

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

So 2x flights, assume children sat on your Knee/ bassinet (So circa £2.5k GBP)
"you came with nothing" So no shipping costs?
Your Visa costs etc.. say £500 - £1k all things considered

So furnishing your house cost: about £3kGBP or so...

Just so readers compare like for like.
£10-20kgbp isn't unrealistic or even top end if you factor in shipping all household possessions - assume an established family home in the UK (inc insurance), plus flights, full residency costs, interim accommodation- possibly furnished. etc

if you are young, limited possessions relocation costs will be low....

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

I'm not saying it's unrealistic but I wasn't willing to spend that sort of money. What I'm saying it can be done cheaper. If I'd have come on here before a genuinely thought it would def be 10 to 20k I'd have never considered coming over.id imagine the flights and visas alone for family of 5 would be very costly.

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

No, I didn't. We got a relocation that contributed to flights and shipping as well as initial accommodation and a hire car. We got less the second time but we had friends that could lessen the costs for us. £6k all in is cheap. Sometimes people forget to factor in all the costs of emigrating, including: visas and medicals, flights, shipping (and/or replacement furniture), initial accommodation and money for the period when you are without income. That lot can easily cost £10-20k, so it's not an unreasonable estimate at all :)

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

I've lived in NZ for 11 years now and my advice would be ensure you choose a warm home. NZ summers are long but one winter in a cold damp house is awful. Either go for a brick house or ensure the house you choose has full insulation, a good heat source such as log burner or heat pump or a moisture removing system.

Auckland is a fab city BUT the traffic is chaos and they don't have great public transport like in the UK. Auckland is very expensive for housing too.

Over all NZ is great, try not to compare to the UK otherwise you will be disappointed. Good luck!:fingerscrossed:

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

10-20K GBP is a good ball-park figure for a family set up costs.

It would perhaps make a good thread of it;s own. A listing of all that will cost you a lump of pound or dollar notes.

Um. A better statement would be "Over all NZ is great, try not to compare to the UK" as not everyone is disappointed. Some feel they have imprived their lot.

Re: Thinking of NZ - family of 5
 

Very true, didn't mean for it to sound like moving to NZ would be a disappointment, lol! Maybe try not compare in general as all countries are so different. ;)