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Thread: Lifestyle/Salary Question- How Far Does $80k/Year Go in Wellington?

  1. #1
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    Question Lifestyle/Salary Question- How Far Does $80k/Year Go in Wellington?

    My partner and I are considering making the jump and moving to NZ from Colorado, USA.

    We're both 28 and I've got an employment offer in Wellington.

    Between the two of us, we currently earn >185k NZD in Colorado. My salary a bit more than $130k NZD, her income is $55k-ish NZD.

    I've been offered a job in Wellington that pays $80k NZD. We've dreamed for a very long time about moving to NZ, and we're contemplating if the benefits of the NZ lifestyle and way of life are worth a fairly significant drop in income.

    We understand that Wellington has a roughly 40% higher cost of living than Denver, but we're wondering what you all think about how far $80k goes. Would we be able to afford our own rental? Is there any hope of buying a house on that kind of salary?

    My partner plans to work, but doesn't have as much professional experience, so we're unsure how hard it will be for her to find a job.

    Thanks for your help, ENZ!

  2. #2
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    Congrats on getting a job offer from outside NZ!
    The take-home pay for 80k is $4900+ a month, close to $5k. Depending on what type of housing and area you choose to live in, it can cost anything between $350 to $600 or upward a week. If you like to cook, there are many fresh meats and produce to choose from - not cheap cheap but affordable and taste much better mostly without the GMO. Eating out is expensive in Wellington - slightly more dollar-to-dollar compared to eating in America. As for things, everything costs more here but I guess you can still shop from Amazon or the likes.

    Buying a house here requires at least a 20% downpayment.

    Having a budget is the way to go for 80k. (Heck, for any salary in NZ) People will tell you, you don't move to NZ to get rich. You feel rich by eating and living healthy in a beautiful place.

  3. #3
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    I think it's doable but your lifestyle may need to change pretty dramatically to accommodate it (depending on how much you are used to spending in your current income).

    When we were US-based (Tucson Arizona) we made ~$130,000NZD with one of us working. To have the same level of disposable income here (we're in Hamilton now but were in Wellington for the first year) we need to earn $180,000NZD.

    If you want to focus on the experience and are open to starting over I think New Zealand is a great choice, but you'd be facing a significant difference.

  4. #4
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    Nov 2012
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    Wellington is a great place to live
    How far 80K would stretch depends on your own lifestyle choices, but search the forum, I'm sure you'll find couples/families live on this. As the others have mentioned if you can come with a deposit it'll make house buying easier.
    For your partner, there is a range of work available, I've friends without a lot of experience who by taking short contracts are building up a network and experience here. Your partner can look on seek.co.nz to get an idea of the type of jobs available and recruitment agencies that can help. Does she have a field she'd be able to develop in here? Think about what kind of salary, looking at seek, could she start on/eventually earn?
    Good luck with all the thinking you're doing!

  5. #5
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    Thanks everyone.

    We're trying to balance the dream of NZ with the reality of such a huge drop in income. We currently save (mostly in retirement accounts) more than $80k NZD per year.

    We live a very modest (but fun) lifestyle in Colorado and currently spend only about 8% of our income on rent. If we don't jump to NZ, we're on a path where we'd be able to buy own a home outright with no mortgage here in Colorado in 5-7 years.

    We've got the majority of our savings tied up in US retirement funds (IRA, 401k- no way to get the money without substantial penalties) with only a little more than $45k NZD in cash, so this move might require us to put off buying a home for quite some time.

    We really want to make this happen, but it is hard to make the leap when we are on a fairly good path here in Colorado.

    Any words of wisdom about making a choice like this would be very appreciated.

  6. #6
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    We moved from Vermont last year, and I took an $80k job in Wellington. We have a child, and my wife is a full-time mom. We don't struggle, but we don't live comfortably, either. We spend about 45% of our disposable income on housing, and have taken a timeout from saving while we get our feet planted here.

    Housing is extremely expensive in Wellington, especially when compounded with the deficit in quality. In order to get something that you feel comfortable with, you're going to be in the $500-600pw range. When we were planning our move, I used to look at the listings on TradeMe all the time and think $400pw was realistic, but once you're here you realise how misleading the photos are and how deplorably bad the housing really is. It ranks among third world countries. Even at $515pw, we're still in a place that would be bulldozed in most American cities.

    Dining out in Wellington is actually not as expensive as it appears to be. Tax is included, and there is no tipping. The out-of-pocket costs are about identical to the USA.

    Buying a house currently requires a 20% deposit, but that's changing very soon. That was a failed experiment that aimed cool off housing prices. All it did was punish first-time buyers.

    Keep in mind that once you're here, you're going to want to see New Zealand. A lot of your disposable income will go towards touring the country. It looks small, but all the really exciting things to do are still a plane ride away.

    It sounds like the dream is there for you, especially being from Colorado, and I imagine you'd love your lifestyle in NZ, but the one thing I underestimated was just how far the material aspects of our life would fall. It is a very reduced standard of living, and there are things you enjoy in your American life that you have no idea are luxuries. We're on holiday right now visiting family in the USA, and I can't even believe all the subtle quality-of-life details that I'm enjoying that I never even thought about before.

    By the content of your post, it seems like you're really into the number-crunching and objective analysis, and for that reason, I'd say the move may not pay out for you. In order to get a return, you really need to embrace that intangible asset of the New Zealand lifestyle on which you cannot put a dollar figure. You don't want to live your life over here constantly thinking about the opportunity cost of leaving the USA.

  7. #7
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    Double post...
    Last edited by K2.; 29th July 2014 at 06:06 AM.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by A.C. Slater View Post
    We moved from Vermont last year, and I took an $80k job in Wellington. We have a child, and my wife is a full-time mom. We don't struggle, but we don't live comfortably, either. We spend about 45% of our disposable income on housing, and have taken a timeout from saving while we get our feet planted here.

    Housing is extremely expensive in Wellington, especially when compounded with the deficit in quality. In order to get something that you feel comfortable with, you're going to be in the $500-600pw range. When we were planning our move, I used to look at the listings on TradeMe all the time and think $400pw was realistic, but once you're here you realise how misleading the photos are and how deplorably bad the housing really is. It ranks among third world countries. Even at $515pw, we're still in a place that would be bulldozed in most American cities.

    Dining out in Wellington is actually not as expensive as it appears to be. Tax is included, and there is no tipping. The out-of-pocket costs are about identical to the USA.

    Buying a house currently requires a 20% deposit, but that's changing very soon. That was a failed experiment that aimed cool off housing prices. All it did was punish first-time buyers.

    Keep in mind that once you're here, you're going to want to see New Zealand. A lot of your disposable income will go towards touring the country. It looks small, but all the really exciting things to do are still a plane ride away.

    It sounds like the dream is there for you, especially being from Colorado, and I imagine you'd love your lifestyle in NZ, but the one thing I underestimated was just how far the material aspects of our life would fall. It is a very reduced standard of living, and there are things you enjoy in your American life that you have no idea are luxuries. We're on holiday right now visiting family in the USA, and I can't even believe all the subtle quality-of-life details that I'm enjoying that I never even thought about before.

    By the content of your post, it seems like you're really into the number-crunching and objective analysis, and for that reason, I'd say the move may not pay out for you. In order to get a return, you really need to embrace that intangible asset of the New Zealand lifestyle on which you cannot put a dollar figure. You don't want to live your life over here constantly thinking about the opportunity cost of leaving the USA.
    Thanks very much for your insights! It's great to hear your perspective. We've been following your blog, specifically about how you brought your dog over.

    We've both spent time in NZ, but 99% on the South Island. I'd say we are pretty aware (and somewhat concerned) about how far the things we love (skiing, alpine climbing, etc) are from Wellington. The thought is that maybe we'd eventually be able to move south.

    You sound like you're pretty fed up with the housing situation. Do you regret moving to Wellington?

    We're in a situation here in Colorado where we feel like we'd be able to buy a house and potentially pay it off entirely before having kids. If you had that opportunity, would you still move to NZ?

    Can you please shed some more light on whether the 20% down requirement is really going to change? Is that for sure going to happen?

    Thanks again!

  9. #9
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    How easy was it to find a job in your field in NZ? If you don't think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, career-wise, why not stay in Colorado a while longer and amass some more wealth, in regular savings rather than an IRA, which you could then bring to NZ as a deposit on a house, etc? If you're planning on starting a family in the next 10 years, I would figure that into your calculations as well - if you're not able to save over the next several years because of your move, you might regret it later when you have the added expense of kids (and they're particularly expensive if you need to fly across the ocean to visit grandparents!)

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by parpalhou View Post
    How easy was it to find a job in your field in NZ? If you don't think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, career-wise, why not stay in Colorado a while longer and amass some more wealth, in regular savings rather than an IRA, which you could then bring to NZ as a deposit on a house, etc? If you're planning on starting a family in the next 10 years, I would figure that into your calculations as well - if you're not able to save over the next several years because of your move, you might regret it later when you have the added expense of kids (and they're particularly expensive if you need to fly across the ocean to visit grandparents!)
    It wasn't easy. We've been looking for ways to move to NZ for years, but the stars kind of aligned for this job offer- It just happened that a company who I've done a couple business deals with realized that I have a skill that they need, so they recruited me. I'm somewhat doubtful that I'd be able to find a job on my own without living in NZ. I have a specialized skill set for publisher side mobile advertising and vendor side product marketing. This is really one of the only companies in all of NZ (to my knowldege, the only one actually based in NZ and not a small branch office) that does things in line with my skill set.

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