Cost of living comparison

"I had thought groceries were much more expensive in New Zealand, but it depends on how carefully you select your products"

POMMIE arrivals in New Zealand are sometimes told you spend one Kiwi dollar for every pound you would have spent back home. The inference being that the international exchange rate markets undervalue the local currency, and the Kiwi dollar is much stronger in reality.

So for example, if a pint of beer costs £2 down at the old Bull and Bush, then it will cost $2 in a New Zealand bar.

But This New Zealand Life can reveal today the utter hopelessness of this preposterous idea.

From our analysis of a basket of goods we can reveal.

• 2.5 $NZ to the Pound is roughly an equity exchange rate
• Today's commercial exchange rate reflects the buying power you can expect from your pound.


• Tesco online prices in the UK are good predictors of Kiwi prices at $2.5 to the Pound.


• Kiwi coffee granules are expensive and so are tinned tomatoes.


• Beef and milk are great buys in New Zealand.

This New Zealand Life compared prices at New World in Wellington with Tesco online for the following basket of goods.

• Australian red wine
• Ibupfrofen
• Washing powder
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Bananas
• 3ltr Semi skimmed milk
• Wholemeal bread
• Tin plum tomatoes
• 6 eggs
• 100g Nescafe granules.

Coming to £21.80p at Tesco and $52.27 in New World. Using today's exchange rate of 2.573 dollars to the pound you can see that Tesco is marginally more expensive at $56.14.

A few things to mention. Tesco online has a different pricing strategy to the stores and, being used by customers that can afford computers and online accounts, you might expect the prices to be a bit higher than they are if you visit the shops.

Brands are not like for like. I have tried to select similar brands and items but the methodology for this very inexact survey is er... inexact.

Included in this basket was an extremely good wine purchase from New World. It swayed the survey as the best I could manage at Tesco on the day was £3.69 compared to a $5.99 bottle of Lindemans Merlot.

Overall, however, this is good news. I had thought groceries were much more expensive in New Zealand, but it seems to depend on how carefully you select your products. A bit like the UK really.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if there was a Lidl?

Comments

[Mladen]

#

Hi,

this is good information, but perhaps you can consider to use it to contribute to our worldwide cost of living free online software :

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/
?

[lavenderbongo]

Very useful info. I would have said that food was more expensive here - however as you point out some of the meat is very cheap.
"Pack n Save" is obviously cheaper - but a nightmare to shop in with kids!

[William Knight]

Thanks for the comment, Lavenderbongo. (Nice name). I do think it's easy to spend more on basics, but things like meat and petrol are cheaper... and if you're careful, rent is not so bad.

[John]

Cost of living isn't so simple in New Zealand. Check out what real people who live there are saying:

http://www.earthcosts.com/new-zealand

[Alan]

Sorry John, 'what real people who live there are saying'?! Wot, like those of us living here aren't real or something?
I took a quick look at the Wellington posts on earth costs, $300 rent - for what? where?The information from William is far more useful, and with a very practical slant on every day costs which are easier to manage. It's simple enough to shop around once a week for better food prices. Not so simple to shop around every week for somewhere to live.

If you've got a budget, and it's only got three or four items in it - it isn't detailed enough.
We were shocked by the cost of living when we got here, we'd under estimated a lot, and based on the wildly biased figures from Stat's NZ giving lots of 'averages'. Too many people in NZ live in what many people would consider the bread line. That doesn't make for useful stats.
A

[Mark]

The above is interesting but assumes that your salaries are 2.5 times as high in New Zealand. If you earned £50,000 in the UK, it is extremly unlikely that you would walk into a job in NZ on $125,000. In reality it would be $85-90k therefore the actual cost of living as a percentage of what you earn is far higher in NZ

[William Knight]

This is absolutely right, Mark.

It's why so many expats are surprised at the cost of living in NZ compared to the UK when all the stories are about it being cheaper.

NZ goods and services are much cosltlier (is that a word), in general for the population to purchase.

[John]

Alan, I didn't mean any offense, when I said 'real people who live there' I was trying to describe how opinionated the cost of living in New Zealand can be.

I was also attempting to point more in the direction of this post

http://www.earthcosts.com/new-zealand/37-extremely-high-col-no-value.html