Rip Off New Zealand ??

[clg]

Shameless, between moore wilsons and farmers markets you will be fine in Wellington, you can get very high quality food here but you will have to shop around a bit more.

For utilities our electricity is ~110 in summer and more like 150 in winter. But we spend another 2500 a year on diesel for heat. We have a large house. Our phone is not that bad, about 80 for phone and broadand. We also keep a vonage # though which is US20 a month but that covers all of our calling back to the states and makes it cheap (or free) for people there to call us.

Rates include water/sewer and I want to say that they are around .6% of the valuation of your house, so something like 600 per 100k of house valuation.

[Avalon]

Rates include water/sewer and I want to say that they are around .6% of the valuation of your house, so something like 600 per 100k of house valuation.

{{{{GULP}}}}

[clg]

As crazy as it sounds I think rates are a good deal here compared to property taxes in the US. We paid more there and got almost nothing. Property taxes support local services (schools/fire/polic/local government). Local services were very bad, libraries doubled as homeless hangouts, public schools fairly dire and we still had to pay seperate bills for water/sewer/electricty/gas/trash. You also end up paying extra by doing things like private school, private security, buying new books all because the services are so poor.

MUCH better public services here, outstanding I would say compared to LA at least so at least I feel like we get something for our rates. Wellington Council sends out these quarterly magazines that talk about what is going on and I really like that. I don't like writing the checks but at least I feel like I get something for it. I REALLY used to hate paying my property taxes!

[K&CS]

We haven't had a summer here yet, so I don't know how much our summer bills would be, and we are in a 3 bed rental (although there are 5 of us), so we don't pay rates, but we pay around $100 on leccy per month, $100 on telephone and we've spent about $600 on wood which should hopefully last through to the end of the winter (that's from about April). We are pretty careful, I have to say, and given that June was freezing and we managed to stick to this, I can't see it being any more expensive than that. We are paying a lot less for utilities at the moment, but I am sure that will change once we have our own house which will be bigger and we will also have to pay rates.

[Rizak]

Alright, time for some more numbers. All have been converted to NZ$.
Here is a non-comprehensive and somewhat general amount for what I pay here in Canada each month:
mortgage $1120
insurance $175
phone/internet $135
natural gas $200
electricity $100
property tax $370

TOTAL OUT $2100/month

This is without paying for a car (or two) or gasoline, food, entertainment, etc. And we do like to eat!


I need better numbers. I may need to make them up.

Everything is either more expensive or less expensive and it all depends on where you live. GAH! It is enough to make a man crazy. I don't even know if I'd be making more money based on income taxes. It's hard to tell based on my pay stub because a huge chunk of money is put into a retirement fund and I don't yet know if/when I can get at that. I know that I only 'see' about 60% of what I 'make'.

Beer make pain go away.

[Super_BQ]

If you're coming to NZ from N. America, you'll find prices of most goods are more expensive in NZ. One only has to look at the "buying power" a nation has to say ie. import goods from China.

I often notice the very same items sold at The Warehouse are 5 folds more than what can be bought at Wal-Mart. Tons of factors contribute to a higher price and never really a "rip-off". The logistics is a major cost factor in getting the goods on the shelf. Container shipping is always cheaper from China -> USA than from China -> NZ.

Then there's taxation. NZ is currently talking about free trade with China but nothing is set in stone yet (politician gossip). Meanwhile goods from China going to the US have an extremely low duty rate (in the area between 1 - 3%). Don't forget, NZ has GST which is separate to Duty & Excise tax. Even with free trade, NZ's 12.5% GST will still put goods higher than in the US.

It's not really the matter of "RIP-OFF" prices. It's more to do with the fact that NZ is a small country and thus, has limited buying power, complicated with higher tarrifs on imported goods.

As for locally produce goods? Well even in produce and farming, I doubt it would be cheaper than in N. America. Most veggie produce sold in NZ is dependant on "in season or not" whereas living in Canada, one can buy a head of lettuce at $1 each anytime of the year.

Besides the import barriers and taxation, local macro factors are a big concern. For eg. electrical power is at least 3 times more expensive than in Canada. What does that mean to a manufacturer plant? It means that local NZ made products can not be made cheaper if other countries have "cheaper resources" - power, labour costs, gov't regulation, etc.

BQ

[stu70]

Have they thought of some sort of economic association with Ozzies (hope that term is kosher)? When you are such a small economy, would it not make more sense to be part of a trading block and then negotiate imports as a block rather than as a country with less population than say a major north american city?

[Carol]

Kiwis doing business with Aussies!!!!!!!!!!


ha!