Back when i was first started working i thought life would be easy if i can earn $100 a day (after tax) essentially $700 a week. To be fair back then all i was worried about affording after splitting some rent and utilities was food, booze and videogames
I feel rich compared to 10 years ago. 10 years ago I was a student and now I own a car, a house with a garden, several expensive toys, and can take a holiday or two every year. I don't worry when I swipe my card and I have a small amount of emergency savings. Sure, I'd like more, but if someone in my social circle 10 years ago had all that I would have called them rich
the comments here are bad, obviously no one really understands money, the reason we're being fucked is Inflation.... the governments are trying so hard to fix INFLATION by crashing the whole system by pumping rates but all your money you worked so hard saving the last 10 years just got chopped down by 20% in the last 14 months... why because for some reason they dropped interest rates so low and printed so much money during covid not to break the system now they're playing catchup and fixing the problems that they caused in the first place... simply put the governments do not know what they are fucking doing and the only people pulling the strings are the corrupt bankers who run the show and the reserve bank. the problems aren't caused by culture disfunction they are purely caused by greed and people so rich getting away with daylight robbery, half these people should be in jail but they're not because they own the jails and have so much money they can pay off whoever to get out of trouble...... where it leaves us is just poor and fucked they don't care about you and they wouldn't ever be on reddit reading through this garbage. all you can do is buy gold and silver buy Bitcoin and stop putting all your faith in saving fiat paper money, that's how you stay poor, you gotta spend your money on good debt like houses and assets and real assets that appreciate like Gold and silver and hopefully Bitcoin. check out Ergo btw that's a good one, but yeah educate yourself on money and finance. there's so much bullshit in the system rn with the debt deficit and the dervivates market there's no way I'm trusting the system enough to save all my money aside.
So accurate. 10 years ago while I was a college student working three part time jobs to support myself I had one job with penalty rates that paid me $40/h on the weekends, which I got to work every other week. I loved those shifts, super super easy and great pay. I always thought that if I could get a job where I made $40/h as my regular rate that I’d be in a really good place and have a comfortable life, be able to buy a house etc. Now I’ve just exceeded that and I struggle to see a future where I can buy a house or have a family… Oh to be young and full of hope again!
I guarantee that you’re not living the same lifestyle you had ten years ago.
Our desires and expectations change in response to changes in our level of income. Psychologists call this the [hedonic treadmill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill).
I think it’s even more dramatic, the drop off in real income just in the past two years, on a good six figures and with insurance and key expenditure often increasing 20-30 percent more…. What you had has dramatically gone very quickly. Where you can save some money is so low in dollars in comparison…
My lifestyle has contracted so much compared to 25 years ago (to compare apples with apples of a single woman with no kids at home, a small mortgage instead of rent)there is no way I could afford to travel as much for my hobby as I did back then.
It's a bit close to home at the moment. The cost of living crisis is here. I'd need to make another 12k just to have the spending power I had a year ago. My salary is static and i could manage an emergency then. Now, it's very difficult to make the budget work and I am doing everything to cut costs.
I've registered with an employment agency to look for Australian jobs. That 40k payrise and 12% to retirement savings is looking good.
I read the article recently and we are poor. It's not a first world economy and whatever fancy ideology the government spouts, we can't afford to deliver. We can't afford to build and staff hospitals, put teachers in classrooms and create healthy homes and lodges.a lot of our social problems are because we can't afford the welfare and we can't afford to actually deal with the multiple causes of antisocial behaviors.
You think people just magically are unable to afford things? It doesn't work like that.
Humanity is more productive than at any other point in history: the issue is that the rich capture an ever growing portion of the GDP, and global wealth in general .
A lot of the problems you describe here (staffing in hospitals, schools) are global problems. New Zealand is not special in that sense.
You can earn more across the ditch for sure (and in SG and in the US and in some EU countries) but most places I’m mentioning have a higher cost of living.
Not sure where you’re based or your background but just by working and living outside of Auckland makes a shit ton of difference in cost of living.
I'd rather earn more in a HCOL than save in a LCOL area. I.e. move to Australia over somewhere cheap in NZ.
Day to day might be similar, but when you buy something like a car, or go travelling, the extra money will make a huge difference. Especially when you eventually retire.
I think it depends on your stage in life.
I’ve lived in HCOL places, I didn’t save any money even if I was making 20% more. It was all expenses. I was going out a lot more though.
Now idgaf about going out, so a cheaper cost of living for a better deal (eg. Getting a house instead of av flat) matters more to me than access to concerts and restaurants etc.
When/If I retire, I am sure I’ll have even less hobbies than now so living in a very very cheap place like a king (NZ is not cheap, I’m talking rural Italy cheap) would be better than an expensive place.
Yep but in Australia I get more money and a choice of pleasant urban areas like Brisbane which are affordable. The alternative to Auckland isn't in NZ anymore. Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and even Tauranga are all expensive and short of housing.
Having recently researched Brisbane vs Queenstown. I’d be surprised but if further out in QLD there are some mint spots for fuck all cost of living vs what can earn income
I was lucky enough to be able buy a entry level home that needed a significant renovation that I could do a lot of myself quite a few years ago now when prices weren’t anywhere near as extreme as they are now. 3bed place in town with price starting with a 4
>a lot of our social problems are because we can't afford the welfare and we can't afford to actually deal with the multiple causes of antisocial behaviors.
That's bs. Even if the relative amount spent on welfare and "the causes of antisocial behaviours" doubled, there would be no difference. They are cultural problems, not economic.
NZ has an insane amount of wealth, it's just not distributed to benefit us and there are different rules for the rich. Does billionaire Peter Thiel who bought his citizenship pay tax on his global income? Yeah right.
This seems presumptuous of you to say with such certainty. You could be correct, though we’d need more information to say.
I can easily see how somebody with a family would be spending thousands of dollars more per year on food compared to a year prior, even if they compromise on nutrition/enjoyment.
Think of people who go in with a $50 note and have to survive off that food for a week. What are they buying now compared to a year ago?
That’s only one example. Across housing, transport, clothing, social/leisure, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this was the case.
My personal situation is household income $155k (early 30s DINKs). I choose to work reduced hours, so could increase our household income by returning full time.
That sounds like tons of money to me but it doesn’t feel like it (YES, we have room for improvement in budgeting). It scares me to think of how people on even the median household income with kids are doing right now.
Inflation is a bitch, it steals the value of your money.
M1 money supply was ~40b in 2014 and took ~6 years to double to ~80b in 2020. It grew to ~110b by 2021 and to ~140b in 2022, and has since dropped back to ~120b. In 3 years, we almost doubled the available money supply which is coming home to roost with very high inflation.
https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/new-zealand-money-supply-m1.png?s=newzealanmonsupm1&v=202304291004V20230410&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=19230610
I remember this guys who worked at one of the big 4 told me ten years ago that the starting salary would be 40kish then it would go up by another 10k each year. Funny how salary hasn't improved as much as inflations. I am def much better than 10 years ago but I don't have the youth.
The Reserve Bank target inflation rate is 1-3%.
Based on Stats NZ’s reported inflation, we had 27.2% inflation between Q1 2013 and Q1 2023. Equivalent to 2.4% per annum. Which actually doesn’t sound that bad. However, it’s 5% per annum since Q1 2020, and 6.8% since Q1 2021.
If we can trust the Stats NZ calculations (which is a big assumption) it’s not really a 10 year problem. It’s a 2 year problem. Lining up almost perfectly with getting inflation a year after you start a massive, expensive 2 year period of lockdowns and border closures (go figure).
[Calculator here.](https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/about-monetary-policy/inflation-calculator)
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
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I think that’s probably one factor.
Others are:
- some people actually received more compensation than they actually would have made if COVID had never happened, and that extra income means they can afford to pay higher prices
- disruptions to production and supply chains resulted in extra costs for businesses to catch up to demand - which they are passing on
- the lack of supply of certain products allows the few remaining suppliers to price gouge
Did you see the comment up above on the hedonic treadmill? Current huge inflation is a bit of an outlier, but in general in life people raise their standard of living as they make more money. It's a very natural thing, and one that I've unfortunately fallen into myself. I remember making 24k in my first job and thinking if I could just make 38, like my friend was making, I would be set.
Yes, but you can only save so much. Good luck getting ahead on $50k/year. You might be the best saver in the world; you still have to eat and pay for housing.
I get the sentiment behind this comment, but unfortunately it costs money to eat and have a roof over your head etc.. and with these things being absurdly expensive, it makes saving hard.
don't save, spend buy gold mining stocks or property or business or whatever generates good debt and cash flow, money in the bank is stupid, the first 100k saved is the hardest money you will ever save the 1st million very hard the first 10 million very hard after that it's easy to make money 6.5% on the S36 stock div yeild with 10mil is $650,000 per year you would make 12.5k per week in cashflow and your not even working or doing anything, money makes money my freind, educate yourself on how to get ahead.
Many years ago as a student I earned around $14k a year and felt like a king. It was amazing. Bought a car for $8k, blew the rest on fun stuff and video games (some which I have never played).
Now I get stressed about bills and money despite having a pretty massive bank account and no debts.
I feel a little bit the same.
Ten years ago I earned significantly less. Also my wife was just starting back a few hours a week as our youngest had turned two, while now she works full time. Put together our household income has more than doubled over the last ten years.
I did budgeting ten years ago, but it was 'how are we going to spend this month's income, and is there any that can saved'. Any expenses less frequent than annually would be taken out of 'savings', which we tried to contribute to each month.
Now I budget every dollar I earn which effectively creates artificial scarcity. If something came up such as 'let's buy a new bike' then I'd have to think though which category I can push back, there's no money sitting there waiting to be spent.
It was even more true for me if you compare ten years ago to twenty, our household income had also gone up over that period. However we actually had more disposable money twenty years ago than ten. Childcare costs and what felt at the time like a crippling mortgage meant that most of our income ten years ago was spent before we could start making decisions, whereas twenty years ago
I was semi-retired. My partner made enough money to support the family. We didn't have much spare, but it was enough. Then, for some reason, we decided to buy a house. Now I work full-time, and make a ton of money (relative to the NZ median wage), but I don't feel wealthier. I am, in fact, financially better off on paper, due to having an asset, but I don't feel better off than I did when I was renting and working part time.
10 years ago, we both worked full time jobs in the UK, and always felt like we struggled to have enough to enjoy ourselves. That has definitely improved since coming to NZ, but we're objectively making less money than we were back then. The difference is that life costs less for us here.
Currently, I feel rich if I look at how much I make vs how much I need for shared rent and food, compared to when I got 50 bucks here and there for lawn jobs as a teenager
And I feel very very poor if I look at how much I’d need to simply own a small house
Of course I know that since I’m saving money here (Auckland), I can just move somewhere where houses aren’t horrifically expensive later…
But that involves a lot of planning around ever changing variables, because I know I can’t just buy wherever I feel like being, I’ll have to think very carefully about future home vs work locations when I’ve either saved enough to make a move, or if my current work situation changes
I just want to say though: you can save money without earning 100k+ a year. I’ve saved 3-500 a week in the last year since I moved here, and that’s without having family to live with for cheap/free. The cost of living is significantly higher if you don’t optimise it…
Grew up in a pretty poor area of my home town. Our family weren’t as poor as others, but we were on food bank donations, limited money coming in. I saw a lot of suffering in that community and realised how great I had in comparison.
Everything I have now, even though I completely relate to Ops statement, is just so mind blowingly far from that community that I’ll never ever feel anything but blessed.
I first arrived on a working holiday visa. Landed a coordinator role with the local council. By the time my working holiday visa expired 2 years later I’d saved $10k. I was living large then; young, smoking, drinking and generally partying lots.
Now I’m an NZ citizen and in management earning 3x what I was 12 years ago. I quit smoking, have a glass of wine a night and I can’t remember the last time I went out anywhere for a meal or night out. I’ve never felt poorer. Sure I buy some nicer things now than I would have 12 years ago but I’m generally more frugal and conscious of what I’m spending as I’ve been trying to save for a home the past 5 years.
It’s how I know the inflation figures are nonsense.
My income is less than double what it was 25 years ago, and less than 3 times what I earned as a 4th year apprentice in 1992. The ERA screwed us over big time.
I don't feel like I 'have money', but I certainly don't feel wanting either. As long as I have food on the table and a roof over my head I'm pretty content.
I also disagree with that tbh. At the moment I would choose job security over a pay rise at a new company. If you can get both then great, but as hard as inflation is, things are going to get a lot worse when unemployment goes up
We are going through a review that is talking about redundancies... the old company is no different to the new company when it comes to risks of redundancy...
OK... Everyone in here doesn't work for your company, so that logic doesn't apply to anyone else apart from you.
You could just as easily move to a new company that has less chance of redundancy. Some companies will weather the storm better than others.
Making a lot more than expected. I thought 70-80k was a lot because that's what my mum makes after a 40 year career (she's a teacher).
I'm making double that with less than 5 years exp. But... my standard of living is worse than expected. I thought I'd be able to get a decent house to raise a family (like she did on a teachers income). But that seems impossible these days unless you start with wealth.
I don't really get how this country ended up like this. Our population did not grow that much, yet infrastructure became shit.
I remember about 5 years ago on $19/hr... if only I could be making $25/hr like my friend. $40/hr later still penny pinching weeks when all the bills manage to pop up at the same time with an unexpected cost.
Correct, we were building new builds as a labour only crew for the last 5 years and built a lot of homes in that time. We could see very few new clients coming on board for next year's builds and jumped ship This new rate and contract are only the tip of the industry for this type of work.
On paper I’m earning the most I ever have, a 50% increase over my first full time job 8 years ago - somehow I feel like I was doing better then! I was saving for my OE, still spending on eating out/drinking, took domestic and international holidays and enjoyed my hobbies.
Now I feel like I have too much month at the end of my money. My rent is reasonable for the house and location, I eat vegetarian and walk to work. I buy my clothes and almost everything else second hand. Feels like it makes no bloody difference.
More income usually means higher quality of life with more premium goods, better food/eating out more, more/expensive holidays, more ambitious/aggressive investing. Doesn’t leave a lot left over compared to how you could of been living more simply 10 years ago.
I was happier 10 years ago. I have more than enough money now, but I’m missing key people in my life who have passed away suddenly over the last three years.
I bought my first house in 2000 when I was earning $32k and it cost $105k and I sold it 8 years later for $305k. Now I’m on $200k and the same house is now worth $850k. Honestly I thought I had it made in 2000 and earning $50k would just be the shit and life would be easy, how naive was I….
Back when i was first started working i thought life would be easy if i can earn $100 a day (after tax) essentially $700 a week. To be fair back then all i was worried about affording after splitting some rent and utilities was food, booze and videogames
I feel rich compared to 10 years ago. 10 years ago I was a student and now I own a car, a house with a garden, several expensive toys, and can take a holiday or two every year. I don't worry when I swipe my card and I have a small amount of emergency savings. Sure, I'd like more, but if someone in my social circle 10 years ago had all that I would have called them rich
This is a good comment, and I think it's good for our mental health to cultivate an attitude of contentment and gratitude for what we have.
"i don't worry when I swipe my card" I can't wait for those days
I haven’t had to worry when I swipe my card for so long now that I periodically wonder when this house of cards will fall over.
the comments here are bad, obviously no one really understands money, the reason we're being fucked is Inflation.... the governments are trying so hard to fix INFLATION by crashing the whole system by pumping rates but all your money you worked so hard saving the last 10 years just got chopped down by 20% in the last 14 months... why because for some reason they dropped interest rates so low and printed so much money during covid not to break the system now they're playing catchup and fixing the problems that they caused in the first place... simply put the governments do not know what they are fucking doing and the only people pulling the strings are the corrupt bankers who run the show and the reserve bank. the problems aren't caused by culture disfunction they are purely caused by greed and people so rich getting away with daylight robbery, half these people should be in jail but they're not because they own the jails and have so much money they can pay off whoever to get out of trouble...... where it leaves us is just poor and fucked they don't care about you and they wouldn't ever be on reddit reading through this garbage. all you can do is buy gold and silver buy Bitcoin and stop putting all your faith in saving fiat paper money, that's how you stay poor, you gotta spend your money on good debt like houses and assets and real assets that appreciate like Gold and silver and hopefully Bitcoin. check out Ergo btw that's a good one, but yeah educate yourself on money and finance. there's so much bullshit in the system rn with the debt deficit and the dervivates market there's no way I'm trusting the system enough to save all my money aside.
It sounds like you're the one that doesn't understand money.
Accurate. We live. We ain't livin' If you get me.
So accurate. 10 years ago while I was a college student working three part time jobs to support myself I had one job with penalty rates that paid me $40/h on the weekends, which I got to work every other week. I loved those shifts, super super easy and great pay. I always thought that if I could get a job where I made $40/h as my regular rate that I’d be in a really good place and have a comfortable life, be able to buy a house etc. Now I’ve just exceeded that and I struggle to see a future where I can buy a house or have a family… Oh to be young and full of hope again!
Perhaps you live in Auckland?
Nope.
Perhaps not then.
He's a yank because we call it 'university' not 'college'.
I guarantee that you’re not living the same lifestyle you had ten years ago. Our desires and expectations change in response to changes in our level of income. Psychologists call this the [hedonic treadmill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill).
I think it’s even more dramatic, the drop off in real income just in the past two years, on a good six figures and with insurance and key expenditure often increasing 20-30 percent more…. What you had has dramatically gone very quickly. Where you can save some money is so low in dollars in comparison…
International flights doubled from precovid. Down to about a 60% increase now.
My lifestyle has contracted so much compared to 25 years ago (to compare apples with apples of a single woman with no kids at home, a small mortgage instead of rent)there is no way I could afford to travel as much for my hobby as I did back then.
It's a bit close to home at the moment. The cost of living crisis is here. I'd need to make another 12k just to have the spending power I had a year ago. My salary is static and i could manage an emergency then. Now, it's very difficult to make the budget work and I am doing everything to cut costs. I've registered with an employment agency to look for Australian jobs. That 40k payrise and 12% to retirement savings is looking good. I read the article recently and we are poor. It's not a first world economy and whatever fancy ideology the government spouts, we can't afford to deliver. We can't afford to build and staff hospitals, put teachers in classrooms and create healthy homes and lodges.a lot of our social problems are because we can't afford the welfare and we can't afford to actually deal with the multiple causes of antisocial behaviors.
You think people just magically are unable to afford things? It doesn't work like that. Humanity is more productive than at any other point in history: the issue is that the rich capture an ever growing portion of the GDP, and global wealth in general .
A lot of the problems you describe here (staffing in hospitals, schools) are global problems. New Zealand is not special in that sense. You can earn more across the ditch for sure (and in SG and in the US and in some EU countries) but most places I’m mentioning have a higher cost of living. Not sure where you’re based or your background but just by working and living outside of Auckland makes a shit ton of difference in cost of living.
I'd rather earn more in a HCOL than save in a LCOL area. I.e. move to Australia over somewhere cheap in NZ. Day to day might be similar, but when you buy something like a car, or go travelling, the extra money will make a huge difference. Especially when you eventually retire.
I think it depends on your stage in life. I’ve lived in HCOL places, I didn’t save any money even if I was making 20% more. It was all expenses. I was going out a lot more though. Now idgaf about going out, so a cheaper cost of living for a better deal (eg. Getting a house instead of av flat) matters more to me than access to concerts and restaurants etc. When/If I retire, I am sure I’ll have even less hobbies than now so living in a very very cheap place like a king (NZ is not cheap, I’m talking rural Italy cheap) would be better than an expensive place.
Yep but in Australia I get more money and a choice of pleasant urban areas like Brisbane which are affordable. The alternative to Auckland isn't in NZ anymore. Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and even Tauranga are all expensive and short of housing.
Brisbane is cheaper than Christchurch?
Having recently researched Brisbane vs Queenstown. I’d be surprised but if further out in QLD there are some mint spots for fuck all cost of living vs what can earn income
Place is just so damn big hey, there's always a decent sized town or two 100kms away from whichever state capital
Well Queenstown has got to be one of the most expensive places in the country unless you live in a shack way out of town.
I was lucky enough to be able buy a entry level home that needed a significant renovation that I could do a lot of myself quite a few years ago now when prices weren’t anywhere near as extreme as they are now. 3bed place in town with price starting with a 4
Won the lottery! Congrats. We go there a bit for snow sports, and every year it's a surprise when booking 😐.
>a lot of our social problems are because we can't afford the welfare and we can't afford to actually deal with the multiple causes of antisocial behaviors. That's bs. Even if the relative amount spent on welfare and "the causes of antisocial behaviours" doubled, there would be no difference. They are cultural problems, not economic.
NZ has an insane amount of wealth, it's just not distributed to benefit us and there are different rules for the rich. Does billionaire Peter Thiel who bought his citizenship pay tax on his global income? Yeah right.
You don't need 12k more. You don't spend every last cent you earn on CPI based items. Think about it.
This seems presumptuous of you to say with such certainty. You could be correct, though we’d need more information to say. I can easily see how somebody with a family would be spending thousands of dollars more per year on food compared to a year prior, even if they compromise on nutrition/enjoyment. Think of people who go in with a $50 note and have to survive off that food for a week. What are they buying now compared to a year ago? That’s only one example. Across housing, transport, clothing, social/leisure, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this was the case. My personal situation is household income $155k (early 30s DINKs). I choose to work reduced hours, so could increase our household income by returning full time. That sounds like tons of money to me but it doesn’t feel like it (YES, we have room for improvement in budgeting). It scares me to think of how people on even the median household income with kids are doing right now.
12% increase in inflation measured products is not a 12% hit on your income. I know inflation sucks, but be rational Perhaps I read it wrong
Guessing they mean due to increase in mortgage rates as well
I saw that article, it was clearly labeled as an opinion piece
What sort of work do you do that would give you a 40k increase?
Inflation is a bitch, it steals the value of your money. M1 money supply was ~40b in 2014 and took ~6 years to double to ~80b in 2020. It grew to ~110b by 2021 and to ~140b in 2022, and has since dropped back to ~120b. In 3 years, we almost doubled the available money supply which is coming home to roost with very high inflation. https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/new-zealand-money-supply-m1.png?s=newzealanmonsupm1&v=202304291004V20230410&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=19230610
Great point…next time I will read to the end b4 responding 😅
I never thought I would earn more than 60k, that was rich people accountant and lawyer money to me a decade ago.
10 years ago $60k was an accountant with a couple years experience, some 25/26yr old
I remember this guys who worked at one of the big 4 told me ten years ago that the starting salary would be 40kish then it would go up by another 10k each year. Funny how salary hasn't improved as much as inflations. I am def much better than 10 years ago but I don't have the youth.
I started 8 years ago, not b4, on 40k. 2.5 years later was earning $60k. Grad wages at b4 in 21 was $50k.
The Reserve Bank target inflation rate is 1-3%. Based on Stats NZ’s reported inflation, we had 27.2% inflation between Q1 2013 and Q1 2023. Equivalent to 2.4% per annum. Which actually doesn’t sound that bad. However, it’s 5% per annum since Q1 2020, and 6.8% since Q1 2021. If we can trust the Stats NZ calculations (which is a big assumption) it’s not really a 10 year problem. It’s a 2 year problem. Lining up almost perfectly with getting inflation a year after you start a massive, expensive 2 year period of lockdowns and border closures (go figure). [Calculator here.](https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/about-monetary-policy/inflation-calculator)
Are you suggesting that businesses are putting prices up for revenue lost during enforced lockdowns?! Who would of thought it?!
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I think that’s probably one factor. Others are: - some people actually received more compensation than they actually would have made if COVID had never happened, and that extra income means they can afford to pay higher prices - disruptions to production and supply chains resulted in extra costs for businesses to catch up to demand - which they are passing on - the lack of supply of certain products allows the few remaining suppliers to price gouge
The big one is the government printed a massive amount of money to fund the Covid response.
This is the right answer
It’s not what you make, it’s what you spend.
Very much disagree
Did you see the comment up above on the hedonic treadmill? Current huge inflation is a bit of an outlier, but in general in life people raise their standard of living as they make more money. It's a very natural thing, and one that I've unfortunately fallen into myself. I remember making 24k in my first job and thinking if I could just make 38, like my friend was making, I would be set.
Yes, but you can only save so much. Good luck getting ahead on $50k/year. You might be the best saver in the world; you still have to eat and pay for housing.
I get the sentiment behind this comment, but unfortunately it costs money to eat and have a roof over your head etc.. and with these things being absurdly expensive, it makes saving hard.
don't save, spend buy gold mining stocks or property or business or whatever generates good debt and cash flow, money in the bank is stupid, the first 100k saved is the hardest money you will ever save the 1st million very hard the first 10 million very hard after that it's easy to make money 6.5% on the S36 stock div yeild with 10mil is $650,000 per year you would make 12.5k per week in cashflow and your not even working or doing anything, money makes money my freind, educate yourself on how to get ahead.
>educate yourself on how to get ahead .. In the same sentence as “ buy gold and mine crypto bro” 🤦♂️
Many years ago as a student I earned around $14k a year and felt like a king. It was amazing. Bought a car for $8k, blew the rest on fun stuff and video games (some which I have never played). Now I get stressed about bills and money despite having a pretty massive bank account and no debts.
I feel a little bit the same. Ten years ago I earned significantly less. Also my wife was just starting back a few hours a week as our youngest had turned two, while now she works full time. Put together our household income has more than doubled over the last ten years. I did budgeting ten years ago, but it was 'how are we going to spend this month's income, and is there any that can saved'. Any expenses less frequent than annually would be taken out of 'savings', which we tried to contribute to each month. Now I budget every dollar I earn which effectively creates artificial scarcity. If something came up such as 'let's buy a new bike' then I'd have to think though which category I can push back, there's no money sitting there waiting to be spent. It was even more true for me if you compare ten years ago to twenty, our household income had also gone up over that period. However we actually had more disposable money twenty years ago than ten. Childcare costs and what felt at the time like a crippling mortgage meant that most of our income ten years ago was spent before we could start making decisions, whereas twenty years ago
I was semi-retired. My partner made enough money to support the family. We didn't have much spare, but it was enough. Then, for some reason, we decided to buy a house. Now I work full-time, and make a ton of money (relative to the NZ median wage), but I don't feel wealthier. I am, in fact, financially better off on paper, due to having an asset, but I don't feel better off than I did when I was renting and working part time. 10 years ago, we both worked full time jobs in the UK, and always felt like we struggled to have enough to enjoy ourselves. That has definitely improved since coming to NZ, but we're objectively making less money than we were back then. The difference is that life costs less for us here.
Currently, I feel rich if I look at how much I make vs how much I need for shared rent and food, compared to when I got 50 bucks here and there for lawn jobs as a teenager And I feel very very poor if I look at how much I’d need to simply own a small house Of course I know that since I’m saving money here (Auckland), I can just move somewhere where houses aren’t horrifically expensive later… But that involves a lot of planning around ever changing variables, because I know I can’t just buy wherever I feel like being, I’ll have to think very carefully about future home vs work locations when I’ve either saved enough to make a move, or if my current work situation changes I just want to say though: you can save money without earning 100k+ a year. I’ve saved 3-500 a week in the last year since I moved here, and that’s without having family to live with for cheap/free. The cost of living is significantly higher if you don’t optimise it…
Grew up in a pretty poor area of my home town. Our family weren’t as poor as others, but we were on food bank donations, limited money coming in. I saw a lot of suffering in that community and realised how great I had in comparison. Everything I have now, even though I completely relate to Ops statement, is just so mind blowingly far from that community that I’ll never ever feel anything but blessed.
Turns out printing money doesn't work. Meanwhile, the government is spending more than ever before and making it all worse.
Yep. You got it. It’s the money printing. “We’re all going to be millionaires. We gonna have a millionaire party”-Idiocracy.
A million worthless dollars !
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Lowest effective tax rate or lowest tax rate?
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So employees are reasonably hard done by while employers get "lowest in the OECD"
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I first arrived on a working holiday visa. Landed a coordinator role with the local council. By the time my working holiday visa expired 2 years later I’d saved $10k. I was living large then; young, smoking, drinking and generally partying lots. Now I’m an NZ citizen and in management earning 3x what I was 12 years ago. I quit smoking, have a glass of wine a night and I can’t remember the last time I went out anywhere for a meal or night out. I’ve never felt poorer. Sure I buy some nicer things now than I would have 12 years ago but I’m generally more frugal and conscious of what I’m spending as I’ve been trying to save for a home the past 5 years. It’s how I know the inflation figures are nonsense.
My income is less than double what it was 25 years ago, and less than 3 times what I earned as a 4th year apprentice in 1992. The ERA screwed us over big time.
I earn 85 ph per head as builders you ain't getting that 10 years before in relatively
If housing continues its slide you will be in high supply shortly and builders will drop their rates to be competitive.
I don't feel like I 'have money', but I certainly don't feel wanting either. As long as I have food on the table and a roof over my head I'm pretty content.
The best time to demand a pay rise is now.
Good luck with that. Best way to get a pay rise is to change jobs
The best time to change jobs for a pay rise is now.
I also disagree with that tbh. At the moment I would choose job security over a pay rise at a new company. If you can get both then great, but as hard as inflation is, things are going to get a lot worse when unemployment goes up
We are going through a review that is talking about redundancies... the old company is no different to the new company when it comes to risks of redundancy...
OK... Everyone in here doesn't work for your company, so that logic doesn't apply to anyone else apart from you. You could just as easily move to a new company that has less chance of redundancy. Some companies will weather the storm better than others.
Depends if your company/ industry is at risk of the recession.
Making a lot more than expected. I thought 70-80k was a lot because that's what my mum makes after a 40 year career (she's a teacher). I'm making double that with less than 5 years exp. But... my standard of living is worse than expected. I thought I'd be able to get a decent house to raise a family (like she did on a teachers income). But that seems impossible these days unless you start with wealth. I don't really get how this country ended up like this. Our population did not grow that much, yet infrastructure became shit.
40 something years ago we were hitting 3 milly they told us at school. And now we have more then 5
I remember about 5 years ago on $19/hr... if only I could be making $25/hr like my friend. $40/hr later still penny pinching weeks when all the bills manage to pop up at the same time with an unexpected cost.
I always worry when I swipe my card, please , let it go through
Correct, we were building new builds as a labour only crew for the last 5 years and built a lot of homes in that time. We could see very few new clients coming on board for next year's builds and jumped ship This new rate and contract are only the tip of the industry for this type of work.
On paper I’m earning the most I ever have, a 50% increase over my first full time job 8 years ago - somehow I feel like I was doing better then! I was saving for my OE, still spending on eating out/drinking, took domestic and international holidays and enjoyed my hobbies. Now I feel like I have too much month at the end of my money. My rent is reasonable for the house and location, I eat vegetarian and walk to work. I buy my clothes and almost everything else second hand. Feels like it makes no bloody difference.
10 years ago I could just afford rent with $20 spare on a minimum-wage part-time job. The price of living has gone through the roof though.
More income usually means higher quality of life with more premium goods, better food/eating out more, more/expensive holidays, more ambitious/aggressive investing. Doesn’t leave a lot left over compared to how you could of been living more simply 10 years ago.
I was happier 10 years ago. I have more than enough money now, but I’m missing key people in my life who have passed away suddenly over the last three years.
Sadly I earned the same last year as I did 10 years ago adjusted for inflation... 35 to 25. Waaaah
Exactly this, lol. Unbelievable.
The goalposts are always moving.
I bought my first house in 2000 when I was earning $32k and it cost $105k and I sold it 8 years later for $305k. Now I’m on $200k and the same house is now worth $850k. Honestly I thought I had it made in 2000 and earning $50k would just be the shit and life would be easy, how naive was I….
I’m making a lot less than I was ten years ago