synthie

Hello,
we arrived about two weeks ago in Wellington and love it. Coming from Germany we still expect people to sometimes be rude or aggressive, especially when we make yet another newbie mistake but everybody is friendly which takes some getting used to - in the best possible way!

We hopefully will sign a rental contract for a house soon and will need a couple of things - washing machine, fridge, bed for our son, duvets, sofa, etc. Apart from Trademe, what's a good place to buy this stuff, both used and new?
We don't have a car, yet, but I assume that when I get new whitegoods that they deliver and also connect it?
Speaking of cars, if I get something on Trademe and need to hire a car to pick it up, what's a reliable and not too expensive place to go?

It's all pretty exciting but so far it's been great!

escapedtonz

Give it time, especially after you've endured a couple of years of the excellent weather and a few earthquakes !!!

Briscoe's for the smaller stuff and there's always a sale or promotion on. There's a decent sized store on Jackson St, Petone and Queens Drive, Lower Hutt amongst others in Wellington.
You can rent whiteware, TV's and furniture etc from Mr Rental if that works for you. The longer you have it the cheaper per month it'll be to rent.

Harvey Norman/Noel Leeming/Smiths City/Farmers for whiteware and furniture to buy. Never pay full price. Sales are on almost all throughout the year and stores all over.
Best shopping mall is Queensgate Mall, Lower Hutt, then North City Mall, Porirua. Wellington CBD ok but there's a lot of walking around and the major stores are all out of town so they don't have to pay the high rents of the CBD.
We did majority of our shopping in either Lwr Hutt or Porirua as you can get everything in the same area with loads of free parking and places to eat.

If you're looking at cars on TradeMe, just look in Wellington so you don't have to hire a car to visit it. Depending where you live there are places where people just park cars up for the day that are for sale. Kenepuru Drive just below the hospital in Tawa is one place you'll find loads of private used cars for sale. There used to be a fenced off car park on SH2 at Petone across from the big used car supermarket place that allowed used car sellers to advertise their cars but think that may have gone now ?
Other than that there's many many used car sales dealers all over the area and you'll have the piece of mind that it'll be covered by at least a 3 month warranty and should have a full WOF on it when you buy. When making a purchase privately all are sold "as is where is" meaning if it breaks down the moment you drive away it's tough. There is no comeback for the seller.
Another place to look is Facebook. There's loads of local selling groups on Facebook where people sell all manner of things for free. Just do a search in Facebook - e.g. Wellington buy & sell cars (NZL).

janiejones

There's quite a few used car lots near Western Hutt station, so you could get the Melling train out to look. That line only runs Monday to Friday.

There's other second hand car lots on Lower Hutt High Street, either the 83 or 91 will take you from Wellington to Lower Hutt central.

MrsFychan

which part of wellington are you living in?

LittleGreyCat

For rental, try RentADent.

Very pleased with them the couple of times we have used them.

synthie

All, thanks for the recommendations. We currently live in a hotel in the CBD but will move to Wilton in two weeks hence the questions about whitegoods, etc.
We've been to Briscoe's, The Warehouse, Noel Leeming and a few furniture stores in Thorndon Quay. I slowly understand the comment about not paying the full price for anything but get it in the sale!
So we'll concentrate on getting stuff for the house first and then look at used cars - I may need to get a rental to pick up some stuff for the house.

For power I'm looking at Paua for the people, Trustpower and Powershop - any reason not to use one of those?
For Broadband it's Trustpower, Myrepublic or 2degrees - same, are they good or stay away?
Right now the most likely is either Paua for the People and MyRepublic or Trustpower for both.

Thanks!

scrubbedexpat094

For electrical goods don't just accept the sale price, bargain. Ask them what their best price is and you will likely get another discount. Tell the sales person that yoa are shortly moving into new digs and will require lots of new stuff (even if you don't) and that you would prefer to buy from one retailer and therefore you are shopping around for the best deal you can get.

The worst they can say is "no deal". Just be polite and have a figure in mind that you are prepared to pay for an item. It's all about negotiation .

S_and_T

Couldn't agree more with this. We were in Noel Leeming in Tory Street and didn't know to ask for a further discount. The Irish lad serving us (Patrick, no seriously!!) actually told us what the best price he could sell the TV for. A good 15% less than the ticket price. Result!

synthie

That's one of the things you have to be told about, I'd never have imagined that discounted items get sold off even cheaper. Thanks a lot!

Can anyone comment on the power and broadband companies or are they all sort of the same? Ta

janiejones

We're with 2Degrees, just switched to them for broadband, we get a discount becauseI've got a cellphone plan with them. No problems to report so far.

We used to be with Powershop, but switched to Trustpower because they were offering a large credit. We only switched recently, so not much to report yet.

We liked Powershop, we bought the power packs in advance, so we didn't get big lumpy power bills in winter. The updates on usage saved us a lot of cash, as it turned out we had a problem with our hot water cylinder, and the increase in usage in the weekly update tipped us off to the problem.

I'd highly recommend them. Once you've got a few months worth of useage, you''ll be better placed to do a price comparison.

escapedtonz

Power and broadband companies are all pretty much the same.
Depending on usage one power company may be slightly cheaper than another for you depending on the plan/tariff you go on and the prices you'll be paying but in all honesty there's not hundreds of dollars a year between them.
Will be hard to judge which is the best for you until you have some historical data to compare. Maybe try not enter into any long contracts from the start so when you have a bit of data you can then go online to compare tariffs etc and maybe switch over. We left Wellington on Genesis and have stayed with them up here in Tauranga as it was easy to transfer and we wouldn't have saved much by switching.
Before that we were on elec and gas with Contact and they were expensive times, not really because of Contact but more to do with the size of house.
We're in a 3 bed bungalow now. 2 adults 2 kids and we pay between $150 and $350 a month for power and we are all electric.

For the broadband we went with Vodafone as we also have a landline with them and they had a deal on to get discounted sky TV through them and all on one bill and we've also stayed with them. We pay $145 a month for 80GB ADSL, landline and basic sky package with MY SKY Hdi which should be around $64 a month but we get it for $50. We'd also get $10 a month off pay monthly mobile accounts if our mobiles were with Vodafone but for that we've been with 2Degrees since we arrived and not had any reason to change over. We pay $39 a month each for that and get 1gb data, 400 mins to nz and Aus landlines and mobiles plus unlimited texts to nz and Aus.
We may move the broadband to 2Degrees at some point but if we do we'd lose the sky discount and ease of having it all on one bill so will have to weigh up the pro's and con's one day.

synthie

That's all very helpful, thanks a lot. :-)

MOSO

As you're in Wellington, you may be a Government employee? If you are then you can get discount from the main white goods places such as Harvey Norman, Noel Leeming etc. They also give discount to teachers and healthcare workers etc. I got an extra $50 discount off the sale price of a fridge/freezer in Harvey Norman last week - just ask (no need to barter).

Westpac bank also do cheaper mortgages/insurance for those workers too.

synthie

I decided to go with Trustpower but they don't want my business. Apparently as an immigrant who's new to the country they don't trust my credit rating enough to give me broadband - they were happy enough to supply me with power though which makes no sense to me. Unless they think I run away with the modem. What made Trustpower interesting was the package they offered, without that there's plenty of cheaper companies out there.

So as a warning to other newcomers, don't bother with Trustpower but go somewhere else, most likely Paua to the people and 2degrees.

scrubbedexpat094

And further to this, first negotiate a discount then when you get to the till mention that you work for xxx and can they offer you any further discount. Sometimes you will get even more off, sometimes the discount they have given you is better than your company discount. It's worth a try.

My OH isn't a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply for nothing and I've learned the odd thing or two along the way