Salary/Cost of Living

[Ado80s]

Hi All,
Quick question. I have a job offer and will be moving to the North Shore with my wife and 2 kids in Jan. We previously lived there so know a lot about how our quality of life will be etc. What I'm not so certain of is whether the salary package I have been offered is sufficient for our needs. The salary is $60-80k (dependent on comission). This will be somewhat supplemented by rental income from our UK home but not by much. We are not materialistic in any sense and have funds for start up costs such as car etc, but longer term does this salary seem reasonable for living on the shore??
Thanks

[James A]

I don't even live in NZ, but I've been doing research. If you have to rent a house I think life would be tough at $60k and okay at $80k. If you were headed to somewhere cheaper the $60k would be okay. All just my opinion based on what I've read mind.

[Moomette]

It's a difficult one to answer as so much depends on your individual spending habits, but for me personally I think even 80K would be pretty tight on the Shore depending on your rent/mortgage. Would your wife be looking at staying at home with the kids long term or working as well?

It might also be helpful for you to do a search for some previous threads, where people have done estimated breakdowns for their living costs as it might give you a better idea of how far the salary would stretch.

[batgirl1001]

I would say it is possible if you are earning on the higher end of the scale of your salary. But it can be tight. A lot depends on your family's spending patterns and whether you rent or decide to buy, your wife working to supplement income etc. We were in the same situation as well, we had overseas rent helping into our expenditure, only had 1 kid then, I didn't need to work. We managed nicely- splurging on luxuries we wanted and being careful on money when it comes to other stuff. We bought a house and used our rental income to pay off a substantial part of the mortgage. Didn't need to count the pennies. Nevertheless it would be nice to have a lot more liquidity if we could sell the overseas house as the mortgage amount was high and the interest rates were above 7.5% then when we bought.

[kiwihusker]

I agree it totally depends on your spending habits, number of kids etc. Hope it all works out for you. Remember to check TradeMe to get an idea of the rental market. I know we had in mind of spending no more than $550 per week and had to increase to $650 per week, because at the time we were looking there was only moldy crap for rent. Good luck to you.

[hail_91]

As a family of 2 adults, our income is 45000. We do live in Invercargill though, so cost of living is cheaper but we dont go without. In saying that we dont pay any rent. I think 60000 is plenty personally