2007 into 2008

[dharmin]

I've already partially filled my EOI, looking at the Unix/Linux Sys Admin Salary puts me off completing the EOI. So if I am offered good salary then sure in 2008 will move to NZ.

For me a good salary is where I can save little after all the expenses for future use when I retire. Sorry but I don't trust pension fund.

Any of you in NZ looking to hire a Unix/Linux Sys Admin from UK can email me at dharmin98 <at> hotmail <dot> com

Dharmin - London

[MotherBear]

Originally Posted by heidi

2008 has arrived with no final decision but it is looking very very doubtful we will be able to take up this fantastic potential offer. Our house isn't ready to sell yet, despite long hours of renovating and the financial prospect of living in nz looks bleak. I'll probably spend the rest of 08 wrestling with longing for nz, frustration at my calculator, and trying to find a way to be happy in Canada or if not trying to find another job (but higher paying) in nz.

That's a sad plight to find yourself in, Heidi . I wonder how many other people are going to make the decision not to go to NZ or, if they are there already, are going to decide to either move on elsewhere or return home purely because of financial restraints.

It would be a good idea to continue the job search in the hope that you can find one with a better salary. You never know when you might come up trumps. Good luck and fingers crossed you can do it.

[ebianca]

On the subject of finances............

What sort of wage would be seen as a good wage so to be able to have a 4bed house (we have 2 kids) and 2 cars and be able to live comfortably.

I know this will vary depending upon area so I will narrow down to Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton.

[heidi]

Thanks for the sympathy mother bear, I'm very weepy at the moment.

When contemplating giving up high salary, pension, benefits, house in canada to move to one's version of paradise/home (nz) one has to really think hard about what is best for the family. With record numbers of kiwis leaving its hard to make sense of why we'd want to fill their shoes (the emotional element of loving the country is a hard one to quantify/justify on a spread sheet!)

which leads me to ebianca's post...

I'm beginning to think that more important than wage is how much $ you bring in with you. If we could go in and be mortgage free we'd worry less about living on half the salary. I agree with Dharmin, money left to put into a pension (when so many of the jobs down there don't have one!!) is crucially important.

No matter how many ways I calcuate it a salary of 60K nzd will leave us short $343/week compared to what we earn (and need to live on) here. We live frugally (family of 5, one tiny car, mortgage of 75K) --and that is with a Can. cost of living which is cheaper than NZ and that is with dental etc benefits which we wouldn't have there.

Most days I say I'd sacrifice it all just to be back in enzed at any cost....and that gets me back onto this roller-coaster -lol-

[Ginabridget]

2007 was a great but very frustrating year, I got married in March which was exciting, our two houses went on the market in March as well, we thought that we would be in NZ by October. Sold our main residence in November and moved into our terrace that has been rented out to students for the last five years. Christmas and New Years has been spent renovating/redecorating in a hope to get the estate agents out again next week to re-market this house.

After all that I guess 2008 is going to be a waiting-game kind of year, will be going on holiday somewhere just to get the kids on a plane to see what their reactions are before we load them up on the long trip to NZ. Also a year where we spend our time worrying about housing markets, cost of living, will we like it.....so many questions that we can't answer until we're actually in NZ. Also, there is the scary prospect of getting to know my family in NZ again after spending 9 years abroad and introducing my kids and my husband to them.

I made the mistake of looking at NZ properties last night, and I couldn't get to sleep because I kept on daydreaming about what kind of house/what part of the country we're going to end up in.

All in all I'm looking forward to having a great 2008 (fingers crossed).

[Dawn]

Heidi, it's so hard to help you with the cash side of things i.e. the cost of living etc because us Brits have such a different perspective on things than you guys. The cost of living in America is so cheap, we haven't been to Canada so can't say but imagine it's not that much different to USA, please correct me if I'm wrong. Everything is cheap in USA, groceries, clothing, cars, petrol, houses, land, utilities, cd's, dvd's, all leisure activites, even the things that you guys think have become more expensive are much, much cheaper than in the UK.

With that in mind, us Brits find NZ much less expensive than you guys. We look at property and compare it to UK prices and think we've gone to heaven. In UK you would spend ?175,000 on a semi-detached house i.e. joined with another, with no garden, on a housing estate surrounded by similar houses no more than 2 metres apart, usually less. Convert those ?'s into NZ$ and you can buy a 5 bedroomed house with 6 acres of land and a swimming pool!! Brits aren't used to having land or houses that aren't overlooked by other people. Usually, whilst you're washing your dishes in the kitchen you're looking into someone elses house, yes honestly. When you hang your clothes out, your washing line is 5 metres from the next persons along, yes, honestly! And you have to pay all that money for the privilege. In USA, you don't do dishes or hang washing out, coz everyone has and can afford the time saving devices that replace the physical action. And in NZ it's different again.

On top of these measurable differences, there are the immeasurable? differences that are individual to you personally. What's important to you, what is of value to you, what you feel is necessary and what you consider dispensable etc.

So many threads/posts have been put on this forum of conflicting opinion on these matters that they sometimes obscure the very basis of everyone's action/intention. We all have personal thought and reason, we all make sense of things in our own unique fashion and that there will be argument of that there is no doubt. We all create our own lives, we live the life we make for ourselves. We can't blame anyone else for the things that do or don't happen, we have to shoulder whatever goes right or wrong and acknowledge that we are responsible for the outcome. The sooner people accept that the better, things don't just happen to us, we make things happen, intentionally or not.

I'm going off tack now so I should close this post before I get more bashings for being a hippie out of era You rotten lot

[heidi]

not to worry, I never quite left the hippie era myself ;-)

it is the housing costs and mortgage rates that are the shocker for this spoiled north-american, but for the record I do my own dishes (haven't trained those rotten kids yet) and hang out my washing (in the summer anyway!) lol

nz has arrived here this january day where it would normally be minus 20, it is raining and plus 10 (jumping up and down with excitment), time to plant pongas?