Kija

Great info here thanks, still not sure whether to sell house if and when we can go or hang on to it. We won't buy right away, would need to see where we'd settle down and find jobs etc!

Take a look a this:

New Zealand cities more affordable for global expats – Mercer Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2009

lardyl

come on Genesis you keep on about how poor/thrifty you are and how little you had in the UK and then you are always asking how to get the best rate on the money that is still squirrelled away offshore and are unhappy how the exchange rate is hitting you.
you are the case in point - you must have plenty of $$$s still to bring over and/or brought over quite a wad - and before you think it I'm not having a go (really!!), as I feel for you with Hannover, I had several very good friends who lost more money that they'd want to imagine with Equitable Life. It's just that you are coming from the one perspective and other people have another.
And I do believe you that your life is better as you choose to live somewhere that is "socially" better than where you were in the UK and that makes a big difference to your perceptions.
But come on, what do you need all this cash moved over here for if you are so much better off here? And why didn't you use that cash to move to another area of Northants where there weren't working girls sitting on your doorstep? So really you are comparing apples with pears are you not??
I reckon that (as others have said) these calculations are based on "cash wealth" vs. "asset wealth" and in the UK you came out of the property boom with enough to make it work in NZ (or perhaps a nice payoff/retirement from the boys in blue )....... so UK-plc did you lots of favours, just as NZ-plc and the property-friendly policies in both countries have helped many people.....again as has been suggested

and if you boil it down this is what most people are saying here......I'll restate it.....
if you come with plenty of equity or whatever behind you life should be good here,
if you come with little then even if you are well qualified and would have commanded a good salary in the UK then don't expect to live the same way here, unless you are lucky or particularly hard working.
which is what you are saying......I think

lardyl

you'll probably find that this has quite a lot to do with the rental costs for expat workers (as the survey blurb talks a lot about renting) - the rental costs are held artificially low here as there are very substantial tax breaks for landlords to make losses on property.........its all part of the NZ tax system that the govt. comissioned a review on and seem to want to ignore - I wonder why Mr Key? ........... it's known as political suicide.

not that I mind as this is keeping our costs down as we rent a nice place by the sea

odd isn't it that Wellington is so close to Auckland on the survey and Auckland "sucks you dry"........probably tells you a little about the criteria for the survey.

DrL prescribes a large pinch of salt

especially as the NZ$ is back on a high and:

so they'll be back up again now ???

mudblood21

scary thread - but incredibly useful, thanks everyone.

I am widowed, so (if I make it) it will just be myself and son initially. Daughter is in Uni and wants to finish her course before shipping over.

I am immediately going to stop applying for jobs in Auckland. My theory was - get in anywhere ( just to get into the country) and then try to get into the south island later. Now i know I would be better of waiting here for a job somewhere cheaper.

As a teacher i would have hoped to make enough money for son and I to survive. we don't have a high cost lifestyle here in the UK so hopefully we won't have too much to miss.

I expect to have to buy health insurance, but that's the only additional expense i was really expecting.- I know there are charges for seeing the GP, but I was under the impression that they were less than $25 and we don't usually need much doctoring anyway.

I have a house in the Uk (with no mortgage) which i was let out- and hoped to rent something in NZ myself. I don't think I'd get a mortgage anyway as I am 47.

When you guys say 'do the sums' - what is there in the sums that we need to do? what are the surprises that you didn't budget for?

ta
Jax

Madmaxdeux

So in plain English what you just said there is that for my own situation we are doing ok

Just dont expect the grass to stay greener in the neighbouring paddock.

Genesis

Don't think I have ever cried penury, except when I lost my life savings to Hanover. We were on the bones of our arse for a while there. If it was not for Kate's dad doing a living will we would have been in a tricky spot as a huge bill came 2 days after Hanover fell over that I was going to pay with said wedge when the investment matured in the following 9 weeks. My thriftness is something I have always had..I know the value of money and don't waste it. The exchange rate is a bugger at present cos we have Kate's dads willed money earning nothing in the UK..over here we could get 5%. It will have to wait over there for a few years aye? We could not move to a better part of Northants as our property's value was not sufficient to move. We owned a very big victorian pile in the 2nd worst post code of the shire. The only way to be better off financially was to cash the house up and up sticks here to be mortgage free. Yes we did bring 20 years of UK equity which helded significantly. Anyway I had finally had enough of the Uk and had wanted out for eons. No regrets there. Finally as I said I would like the cash over here getting interest. I would also like to TOTALLY burn my bridges with the UK..I would like all our funds in Nz save for a wee bit over there for Kate when she visits..I have no wish to go..atall. And I don't think you are having a go and I realise my veiw is personal mand not relative to anyone else. I was just making the point that some people are doing well over here and life is not a fiscal trial every day. Even without Kate's 'new' money and the Hanover loss we still would be better off here. We would have gotten out of last years money mire just in a bit more time without said fortunate generosity. Cheers mate.

lardyl

but no we are not doing OK.........when the tax man calls we will be on the bones of our ribs as the they'll have my arse......

the joys of a decent year 1 followed by a totally rubbish half year, meaning provisional tax will be a killer

lardyl

"fair play" genesis and besta luck getting something out of Hannover.

ukkiwi

I returned to the UK because it wasnt financially viable to stay in NZ long term with a non working wife and 2 kids. I was on $80k in Auckland and though not destitute had to use UK savings to bridge the gap on occasions. Also not being able to save, contribute into a pension or get on the property ladder didnt make me comfortable.

The plan was to earn enough to return mortgage free a number of years later (as the kiwi's do), unfortunatley the recession has put that idea to bed for now.

Genesis

They ARE paying us back...8%this year, next year10%, then 12%, in the final 2 years hopefully they will pay back 35% each year. Better than nought. Some have said even if we get it all back by the tyime the last cent is paid in real terms (loss of interest on capital for 5 yrs, inflation etc) it will only be worth about 50 cents in the $. Still I ain't complaining. Hey, the $ reached a heady 2.1732 overnight...how good's that???

terrier2

Hey, dont worry about getting a mortgage over here at 47, I am a lot older than that and I got one. I was talking with my bank the other day and they said that they are happy to give a 60 year old an interest only mortgage on a 30yr term! Now how crazy is that?

lardyl

sounds familiar - we are doing the "treading water" thing too, hoping that it will all hold together and the pension money we put by before we came will not just evaporate forever.......

Our safety net is not as firm as it was either, as the real skills the main breadwinner has are "saleable" only in a very small market (less than 100 practitioners in the UK and less than 8 in NZ), as I doubt 3 years of "NZ experience" will count anything in the UK market and probably be viewed as negative.........particularly as the big players there all know what the standards of "work" are like over here.

Good luck with getting yourselves "cashed up" - funny how that term has disappeared from the forum over the years...........

BEVS

Fair play to you mate & thanks for that honest post. I hope you achieve your goals once recession is out of the way.

Ooo. You'll get a mortgage OK, no worries. We got one when husband was 47 as it happens

Mgee

IMHO, this is a very important point.
If you have had a stay-at-home parent in the UK, it's good to realise that you might not be able to afford that in NZ due to the lower wages. You may need to adapt to a lot more frugal lifestyle or consider the option of both working at least part-time.

I come from a country that is geared up a lot like NZ in the sense that it is a society where both parents are more or less expected to work full time, and that is one of the things that keep the wages here lower than they are in the UK: you're not sort of expected to live on one salary alone. You have to be really frugal with money or earning a lot above the average wage to be able to afford a stay-at-home parent over here. Most women stay at home a few months after the paid maternity leave (9 months) and then return to work -not necessarily because they want to but because they cannot afford to stay at home on a permanent basis due to high living expenses. A normal sparky, plumber or even an average IT person cannot afford their spouse to stay at home on a long-term basis here, especially if they have more than 2 kids. For a short time yes, but not more than that. From what I've discussed with some Kiwi friends I've made, they seem to agree that this is largely the case also in NZ.

lardyl

Kiwis often have more than one job. The mum may do something part-time and keep the books for hubbie's small business. It's a good way to keep hubbie's tax bill down
Many mums do the home-based child care thing where they earn small amounts for taking in other people's kids but get tax breaks, etc as an incentive for providing relatively low cost childcare for the rest of us to go out (or in my case mostly stay home) to work.
Problem with both working part-time or on low wages is that there are no income tax allowances for a low earner to incentivise them to go out and work.
You can get tax credits and help with childcare and OSCAR (<search> for it here to find what is available) but if you have UK rental (and other) income that is taxable in NZ unless you take the 4-year exemption for new migrants which stops the tax credit entitilement. You will still get the WINZ contribution to child care plus once the child is 3 years you can get ECE (early childhood education) subsidy for up to 20 hrs a week in an approved childminder/kindy, although it may not cover all of the hourly rate. One place we send our littlie charges $10/hr and ECE doesnt go halfway to covering that one. But she is worth it