Kiwi house and food prices led a Wellington woman and her American husband to make some tough decisions.
How many people live in your household? Generally five, but it fluctuates. We bought the house with my mother; so it's my husband (52) myself (42), my brother (39), my Mum (62) and her partner (65).
Do you shop communally? Yes we do. We have shared meals.
About how much would you spend each week? Probably between $450 and $600. Everybody puts in $200 into a joint account each week. So, effectively, our budget is about $1000 a week for everything – utilities and food. We’re lucky to have five adults contributing, so we have a little more wiggle room with the budget.
How much income do you receive as a household, per week? OK, hold on, let’s say between the income of my husband and me, my mum and brother, and my mum’s partner’s superannuation, I’m going to say [approximately] $4325 per week.
What’s your profession? I work in HR in the public service.
Is there one person who does the shopping every week? Yeah, it's me.
Do you shop around, or do you mainly go to one supermarket? Mostly, I go to Woolworths. I shop online and pick it up – I like the convenience of that because I’m dealing with so many people and all their preferences.
We don't buy many vegetables and fruits from the supermarket now, because the prices are absolutely ridiculous. We’ve switched to using [produce delivery service] Wonky Box. It was quite a lot cheaper to get that and go with whatever is available in the area and in season; and just be a bit imaginative with cooking. I'm the main cook and I don't mind being experimental. I'm more able to do that because we don't have any children in the house.
What essentials do you always buy? I do a lot of baking, so butter, flour, milk and baking supplies in general. Cheese. All the staples you’d expect like pasta and the old meat-and-potato situation.
I try to buy meat on sale, and I am a little bit of a squirrel. We have a deep freeze and so occasionally lamb will go on sale, and I'll buy three lamb roasts. But I mostly buy chicken and pork, because red meat is really expensive. Ground beef or mince, or whatever you want to call it, used to be like a staple, now it's luxury.
What luxuries do you allow yourselves? I'm not even joking, probably at least 30% of the food bill is drink-related: coffees, milk, fruit juices, colas. We have an Nespresso machine, so the coffee pods for that and, of course, everybody has their preference, so it's like 15 different flavours. We’re not very good at tightening our belts in that particular sense.
What about alcohol? That’s not part of the grocery shopping, that’s everybody's personal expense.
What would you like to buy but don’t because of cost? I would buy healthier food. Better, less fatty cuts of meat. More whole foods – yoghurt. I love nuts, so I might buy cashews if they happen to go on sale. It feels like it's more expensive to be healthy. Like your chicken nuggets and fish fingers are pretty cheap but I’d much rather have an actual piece of fish.
How did you end up with this unusual household? My husband and I were in the US, and we moved back to New Zealand in about mid-2020. The housing market in New Zealand is diabolical compared to the States. We owned our house there – we were in San Antonio, Texas. It was a five-year-old, four-bedroom home on a quarter-acre lot, with three living areas, formal dining, massive kitchen, three bathrooms. We bought it in 2010 for US$130,000.
Ten years later, we sold it for $190,000. But, when you come to New Zealand and you’re looking at the prices here... it was pretty bad.
My mum was separating from her husband at the time; and in that situation, people often end up not being able to buy a new house for exactly the same reason – the house prices are insane. So we ended up buying together. We bought a house with a flat attached.
Then my brother had an accident and ACC [declined] him. So he ended up moving in here.
Everything seems like it gets harder. You get to the end of your shopping, even if you tried to be good, and it just adds up. Twenty items cost you $200 and you're like, how did that happen?
My husband is American and he just cannot understand how people actually survive in New Zealand with the cost of living. We have a reasonable income, my husband and I, between us, but my entire pay check goes to our mortgage, it's a bounce-in-and-bounce-out situation.
I can't fathom having children. We did think about having children when we got back to New Zealand. We legitimately looked into it, and then, after doing the math, I was just like, 'there's no way'. We literally could not afford to do it. If I wasn't working full time, we wouldn't be able to make the mortgage. That, basically was what it came down to.
When you were growing up, was money closely watched in your household? Oh, absolutely. It was a single mum household, so it was always a struggle. I have literally zero understanding of how my mum managed to white knuckle it through it – because we never missed out on anything. She sacrificed a lot. So yeah, it’s definitely a mindset we’ve always had.
I think I lost a little of that mindset in the States because you could get a whole trolley of food for $120. But, at least here, you don't have to deal with an orange toddler as your ruler.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The views expressed are not those of TVNZ.
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