• nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image nivo slider image

Money: the cost of living in New Zealand

Life in New Zealand is undeniably most pleasant, but the cost of living in New Zealand is high — often quite inexplicably so. I’ve been reminded of this fact once again this week, as I prepare to have a cooker shipped here from the UK. We’re having our kitchen remodeled — it’s part of an extension that was added to our 1920 bungalow in, we believe, the 1960s, and it’s showing its age — and as part of the project, we decided to look at a new cooker. The model we decided we wanted — oh, we really wanted it, when we saw it at Harvey Norman — was a fantastic piece of kitchen technology, but one that, at six and a half thousand dollars, was, well, just a little out of our reach.

When we got home, though, I decided to have a little bit of a shop around on the Internet. I found the very cooker we had been pining for, on offer in various British retail outlets. The price in Britain — about $1,800, or considerably less than one third of the NZ price. [Read More...]

About us

I moved to New Zealand with my family in 2009. For this English-American family, coming to New Zealand was a radical upheaval in our lives, and one that has proven to be one of the best decisions we've made.
This blog tells the story of our new life in New Zealand, our observations and adventures, and the challenges and rewards that have come from living here.

Recent posts

Matiatia Harbour, Waiheke Island

Seeing things anew: a fresh look at our life in New Zealand

After three and a half years in New Zealand, I’ve started to take things just a little for granted. It’s time to see things through fresh eyes. So when friends came to visit from America, I took the opportunity to experience New Zealand once again as a newcomer. And I liked what I saw.

On racism and New Zealand

Before I came to New Zealand I lived in the United States, and before that in Japan, and so there is one constant that has followed me through all three countries — a steady inescapable and very real sense that the country I live in is rather racist. Japan‘s famous, and quite unapologetic, for it. [...]

Slow: trying to get round Auckland

New Zealand is not a huge country. It’s comparable in size to Great Britain — a manageable, comfortable, country-sized country. Australia, next door, is far bigger than a country needs to be; America, my previous home, is unnecessarily huge. Europe is home to countries smaller than a typical Australian cattle station — Luxembourg is so [...]

Older posts

The right-hand sidebar