NZ salaries - Myth & Mythconception

[ruthyroo]

This quote came off the "other site"...

1... I have been told that the best way to view it is when trying to work out a relevant NZ salary, its 2 to 2.5 times your UK rate.

2... when it comes to actually spending the money, its 1 for 1 so a $50K salary would be like earning 50 000 pounds.

I have to confess that when I first started looking at coming to NZ, both these wee 'rules of thumb' were told to me and I naively believed them... more fool me. ops:

My experience of the reality has been that No 1 is more or less true (gone from GBP 22K to earning $45K here in NZ for a similar position), but that the second is pure fantasy - no way does a salary of $45k in NZ buy the same lifestyle as a salary of GBP 45K in the UK - I wish!!! If so we would have been loaded and never left the UK!!

So I just wondered who else had heard the above myths through word of mouth... Also as the above quote came from a NZ recruitment consultant it's a bit worrying to think that these myths are being casually fed to would-be immigrants!!

[adamsat]

Hi ruthyroo,

Does your 45K NZ buy a better or worse standard of living than the £22K?

Andy

[lynden]

do you live in auckland

[Craig]

Hi ruthyroo,

We understand exactly where you are coming from

The idea of bringing GB pounds to NZ is great, but earning Nz dollars is a different matter altogether.

Again, wages are perhaps double here but then other things are more expensive too . We were trying to work out whether we were better off here than in the Uk but it's not so easy. Proportionately speaking we spend almost half our income on accommodation (only Craig is working at the moment - same as the UK), compared to just over the quarter we were spending in the UK. The same trend continues for grocery shopping and fuel. We are living in Auckland though

The upshot is we are just going to see how much money we have left over each week and work out how much better/worse off we are, and what kind of lifestyle we can expect.
:?

It can be very misleading listening to "experts".

[Moorf]

One of the first posts I read on this site was with regard to salaries etc. It really made us sit up and think of the real reasons for our move?

If we wanted to maintain our UK incomes and standards of living it quickly became apparent that we should NOT move to NZ.... but that's not what we wanted.... we wanted quality of life... so that's why we are here - out of the UK rat race where no one ever seems happy with their lot or insist on keeping up with the Jones's.

[Craig]

Hi moorf,

yeah I guess it depends on your reasons for coming here. and what you want out of life but unless you can get a relatively well paid job your lifestyle can be somewhat restricted.

It really does depend on an individual's expectations. If you want to be able to go diving, skiing, and do the kind of things that are easily available in NZ a minimum salary is essential. On the other hand a quiet life is not so expensive, but you still need to be able to live on a daily basis.

Hope I'm not sounding argumentative, sometimes it's difficult to make a point without sounding so ops: ops:

[ruthyroo]

Hi guys

Cheers for the replies. I was just really surprised to see the 'rules of thumb' that I'd been told, also being put around by an agent - who also got them from another UK immigrant - word of mouth and no basis in fact eh!

Craig, you're so right re lifestyle / salary - it does depend very much what you've come to NZ for. We came for all those things you list - diving, skiing - and more besides i.e. trying out all the excellent wines and food, and exploring the rest of NZ and also using it as a base to explore the Pacific Islands and Oz. For us, it's not about keeping up with anyone - it's about us being able to do the things that give us pleasure and that mean 'good quality of life' for us. And they cost money, above and beyond the basic living expenses, and we are both willing to work so that we can afford to do them. I spent a year in Oz as a backpacker, and it was really depressing being in such a fantastic place but not being able to afford to do anything or travel anywhere because we were so skint - didn't want to end up in that situation again. If I was satisfied with looking at a great view every weekend I would have stayed in Scotland!

Re. rent - we are currently spending about 25% on rent, but if I stopped work for any reason that would jump up to about half. It's a helluva lot, and I can see why coming here mortgage free makes such a difference to people's financial situation. Overall, I think we are spending less , but partly becuase we're doing different things. e.g.we go kayaking or walking at the weekends rather than shopping - got to be cheaper. Food, bills, etc are all more expensive than I expected, but we're getting the hang of it gradually. And Pak n Save do some really good deals on NZ wine!

[ENZ]

Ruthy, what the agent is saying sounds like a garbled version of something I posted on the old forum in Dec 2003.

Here's what I said - and as a rough (but by no means precise) rule of thumb, I think it's not bad.

Migrants to NZ generally do not come to make their fortune. Most come for non-financial reasons. Most migrants from Europe or the USA expect to make less money in NZ than their home countries. Having said that, it is still important to know the standard of living your NZ salary will provide you with.

To figure out your financial well-being in NZ, a very, very rough rule of thumb for Brits is to take your UK income - say £20,000 - and double it in NZ dollars to $40,000. If you can earn in NZ dollars double your UK salary, you should have very roughly the same financial standard of living.

I should emphasise that the effects of regional house price variation and varying interest rates on mortgages can play havoc with this rough guide. For example, if you move from London earning £20,000 pa to Christchurch earning $40,000 you should feel considerably better off financially. If you move from Northern Britain earning £20,000 to the more affluent suburbs of Auckland earning $40,000 you will probably feel worse off financially.

It is also worth bearing in mind when making comparisons that the average house in the UK is a semi or a terraced house while the average house in NZ is detached.

Here's the link:

http://www.enz.org/forum/viewtopic.p...ce84749dd81ea2

[richard]

The financial side was one of my biggest worries before coming to NZ (we arrived 3 days ago). I was on around £60k in the UK and after playing around with figures I reckoned that as long as we could live mortgage free then we would need to earn around $65k to have a similar life style in NZ.

[leslie]

what i find almost hilarious are aussie mig's...

we spent £10,000 last xmas to clarify the oz scenario as a perm dest alternate to nz, only to come back truly confused. the relaxed beach-lifestyle thingy??? maybe if you win the really big lotto. in the end we accepted that city life in oz is more costly than london. were i religious i'd pray for people moving there - its !@£$%& huge money for the return. somehow nz just doesn't feel the same - life is simpler. when you live there you just cannot have all the crap you fortify your soul with to survive in a place like the uk. my big hope is that people there still just dont want it , which is a different thing altogether.[/b]