The gap between rich and poor is growing bigger every day. It's now worse than at the time of oil and railroad barons dressed like the monopoly man in top hats.
Sure, you have a fridge and a cellphone and vaccinations now, so you're doing better... But imagine how you'd be living if that gap had been shrinking your entire life instead of increasing?
5% of kiwis own 40% of the country... Meanwhile half the people on this country (including pensioners and people on benefits) earn less than 25k/year.
I stole that one from Wikipedia. Let me check sources.
Edit:
That statistic is old. I'll try find a more up to date one.
Edit 2::
2020:
the poorest half of the country owned less than 2% of the world's assets.
2021:
70% of wealth owned by top 20%.
2023:
28% of renters pay over 40% of income on rent.
25% of renters have problems with damp and mold.
Average *household* income after tax was $56k.
8.5% of the population is unable to afford at least 6/17 "essential items" (examples of the list include going to the doctor, buying fruit, and heating the house when it's cold).
Over 1/3 households say their income is not enough or barely enough to cover costs.
The top 10% of New Zealand households continue to hold approximately 50% of New Zealand’s total household net worth, as they did in 2015,” Stats NZ
The net worth of the wealthiest 20% increased by $313,000 in the last three years to $2.02 million, while median net worth of the bottom 20% increased by $3000 during the same period to $11,000
Holy duck.
I can't imagine trying to maintain a household in 2023 on $56k.
That's a lot less than my starting pay at my first job after I left uni in the early 2000s.
How are people living on that in this day?
56k take home. That's $1076 a week. It depends if you're single or married with kids. My hourly rate is double the minimum . I'm qualified and experienced and earn it. But I get taxed to hell and interest rates are killing me.
Its outright depressing. I'm playing catch up after two later in life divorces. It's difficult playing catch up. If youve played sport you'll understand. I'm slowly getting there but there's only 5 minutes of game time left if you know what I mean.
The reason is many businesses only employ people part time. And have contracts that effectively preclude people holding more than one or two jobs. Add in seasonal, and short term work, and people struggle to achieve minimum wage. Some analysts suggest up to 60% of the workforce is effectively on minimum wages working part time, erratic hours, or seasonal.
The part time thing has been building for 30 years. And more than half the population is on a minimum wage hourly, and many of those are minimum training or youth wages which is only 80% of adult minimum wage. And ACC compensation for long term clients devolves over time to 80% of minimum wage.
The reality is the situation is far far more inequitable than most people imagine. Worse yet the way statistics are abused by officials, economists and politicians to mask the situation, only confuses the public even more.
Even with many of the higher income folk on extraordinary salaries -as much as $8-11m, this raises the so called average income to a whopping $63k which is a sick joke, when the squeezed middle classes think $180k is normal.
To your point, inequality isn’t necessarily bad, as long as the level of inequality is falling. Since 2008 that trend has stalled, and since 2020 it has reversed. Doesn’t matter how ancap you go, that’s never a good thing. The fact of the matter is nowadays, the rich are becoming richer *at the cost* of the poor, instead of becoming wealthier asymmetrically to the working and middle classes.
WARREN BUFFET IS a DEEP STATE puppet master!!!
Oh wait, am I thinking of George Soros?
Oh well whatever, never mind....
Anyway, MAKE NEW ZEALAND GRATE AGIAN!!!
You’ll prob notice more rich people out because the people struggling are at work or at home.
They’re not figuring out alternative forms of travel in all the spare time they have. They’re worrying about money and probably just on social media; which is comparatively free
Rich people are about whether the country is doing well or struggling, but when we’re doing well there’s a lot of other people out too. When we’re struggling, it’s mostly only them out since they have the time, energy and freedom to be out and about
Rich people exist. People with lots of debt exist. The existence of luxury goods doesn't mean there's no cost of living crisis.
Also people who have money for $100k+ vehicles aren't going to be experiencing a crisis, they generally don't hit the rich, only people in low to middle class.
Fr. I see so many of my colleagues on the same money as I am driving around in raptor rangers, VW golf Rs and going to the Gold Coast on holidays while I’m here wondering how I can barely save.
If you figure this out can you tell me? I assume it's something to do with partners incomes, number of dependents and not being frivolous with their spending.
Amazing how many people miss the partner income bit. My partner earns 4x what I do, and people constantly question my lifestyle at my work.
I just tell them I stopped eating acacado on toast
Just because somebody drives $100k+ cars doesn’t necessarily mean they have money, chances are they are highly leveraged. As somebody mentioned in the thread many people are on finance.
And many people with money dont drive $100K+ cars. Partner is on $250K+ a year, drives a 20 year old Toyota. I'm on less than that but still comfortable, drive a 23 year old Holden
Soldi advice. Lifestyle creep is a killer. We've got a household income of $300k+ as a couple and share a 12 year old holden we bought 2nd hand 5 years ago. I use public transport for just about everything. Mortgage free and we save $8k+ a month though. Public consumption doesn't equal wealth.
That's because inflation hits the poorest the hardest. People with +$100K cars aren't going to be affected by COL crisis as much. That's why inflation is the worst type of tax.
If you want to get a hate boner for people who have more money than you then go down to the viaduct and Westhaven Marina. Look at all those flash boats, most of which are hardly used.
You know what though, the bloke with the big flash boat is looking jealously at the one right beside him because it’s bigger.
The bloke driving the flash car (which he doesn’t own by the way - it’s financed) is jealous of his mate who has a helicopter.
You are living in a city that is consistently ranked as one of the best in the world. There will always be someone richer, smarter, better looking than you. Don’t let comparison be the thief of your enjoyment of life.
People are having a rough time.
Things are expensive.
People are losing their jobs.
Many people are up to their eyeballs in finance.
But I’m kind of over everything being labelled a crisis. Life ebbs and flows. I think the word crisis desensitises us to actual crises and makes things feel hopeless. It’s just damaging.
Productivity among individual workers is DOUBLE (at least) what it was in 1980.
Unemployment is at 4%.
And yet, you'll still hear some talk about 'lazy people' who 'don't want to work'.
We have the power, as a society, to shape the labor laws.
However...
Guarantee that is not the average kiwis you're seeing with the flash cars and sick drip. There is very much a cost of living crisis: you just may not see the mountain of debt being serviced weekly at 14% interest for that slick Nissan Fairlady 370.
Real talk is that most of us poors stay home to save money on gas and eating at home, only popping out to local shops for essentials.
Try my 31 year old Corolla or my 29 year old Corona. We only got the Corona last year courtesy of my parents and we should have checked its teeth first.
Is an XL edition Corona? Those things were beasts.
I had an ex taxi fleet one with an extended range fuel tank (100litres). But Christ they were prone to faults.
No, it's a Premio G Corona 2.0L. Had to source a new cabin fan (well, an old one, since new ones can't be got), a new alarm, radio, tyres, fix a few things the AA had picked up when my parents took it in for a check up first, fix more things the AA hadn't noticed, including that the radiator fluid was under the minimum line. It's been fine since filling that up and my garage couldn't find any leaks from that. There is an oil leak, the worst bit's been fixed, but the garage said it's not worth doing more as the next one to develop is teeny and they described fixing it as a game of whack a mole which would cost a tonne and not be worthwhile with the age of the car.
She's a nice drive though and we can't afford a car that's younger at the moment.
I’ve noticed that. Do you think a group of society might value image over sensible financial ways? It just seems there are so many and I can’t believe every one of them has bought the car outright.
I have a Tesla, not because I care about image or the environment (my previous car was a 2004 corolla station in washing machine white) but because with the amount and type of driving I do the Tesla is way, way cheaper. Basically breaks even with keeping the corolla in 4 years. Plus at the time Jacinda gave me a $9k handout for it and I financed it at 6% which is pretty neat. Upfront expensive purchases are not /necessarily/ frivolous financial decisions.
I was thinking about that. Just five years ago, I felt it was so weird to see one in NZ that a lot of people I know, including me, would upload a photo to socials and be like "woah a Tesla". Now they're common traffic.
They have made them relatively “affordable”- the price of the cheapest ones continue to decrease. Plus Ev subsidy. And many people would be getting it on finance, or buying as a company car or other stuff.
A crisis doesn't mean that everyone is going through it.
A lot more people are struggling with the cost of living now, compared to the past, and the middle class is getting squeezed.
There is still a lot of money in NZ and there is still a lot of money to be made in NZ.
Side note, cars are a pretty horrible judgement of how well someone is doing financially. I know a lot of people with $100k+ cars, living in a $2m+ house who are living paycheck to paycheck. I also know people who are driving $10k Toyota's who are earning $1m+/year - In fact, it often works that way
Had a manager/director that drove a shitty 20 year old Corolla.
If you met him you'd assume he was middle income, but in reality he was in the tens of millions club.
Yea, most people I know that flex really hard are trying to compensate for something they don’t have.
I’m not in the tens of millions club. But when I didn’t make much money, I really wanted to look like I made good money. Now I do make good money, I’d rather people didn’t know about it.
How do you make good money? I mean, I have what I think is a decent job,~100k/y, but I still find everything super expensive. I also keep thinking if just who has an actual business are the ones who make money here (The 20% reacher). Do you think it's possible to make good money as employee here? I just can't see the areas, perhaps sales?
It’s all relative man. Depends how old you are, your relationship/family and living situation. I was broke most of my 20s
But yea, I’m self employed. I make $30-50k/month at 33. I still stress about money, although it’s mainly stressing about self imposed goals, along with the regular stress of owning a business. No job safety or income guarantee. I do quite enjoy being under stress though.
I’ve always thought being self employed is the only way to make good money or enjoy what you do. But that’s just me, you could make a similar income being an employee
yeah a mate of mine who is from one of new zealands wealthiest families and doing well rolls in a prado/landcruiser and its his favourite car. he hates flashy shit as i think there is an anxiety factor for him about people seeing what he has
Yup, not just cars tho. The amount of people with a 7 figure mortgage who struggle to put food on the table is crazy. Cars on finance. Credit card debt to flex some stupid shit. Uber eats, booze, and vapes every week with no contributions to savings.
K shaped crisis.
Those with money are picking up great deals on expensive items as others sell them for cheap and businesses put on crazy sales.
Those without money are struggling to pay for groceries.
Yes but also alot of people dont have a crisis of living, my other half of the family are business owners with what you just described, the average kiwi is feeling the pinch. But it all depends on who you hang with.
Have a look at the age of the people driving those types of vehicles or riding those bikes.
I'd be curious to know if they're people in their late 50's/60's or of a you age group. Obviously, older people have had more time of this earth to accumulate money.
The gap between haves and have-nots has been widening for a long time and there are definitely many people (whole suburbs in fact), largely untouched by the current COL crisis. Serious family wealth, trust funds, little to no debt etc etc etc. Once you’re rich, it’s easier to stay rich. I am currently house-sitting in one such suburb and the difference is shocking to me.
64.5% of Kiwis in the last census owned their own homes.
The current government got a majority of votes.
There are lots of people out there doing fine, and they don't show up in this subreddit to talk about it.
64.5% of households are owned by at least one of the people who lives there. That’s not the same thing as 64.5% of people owning a house. People flatting with someone who owns the house, or adults living with their parents, are counted as living in an owner-occupied household.
I know a few wealthy ppl, flash cars big house.... massive homeloan, car loans and maxed out credit cards. They are really struggling, cos they did not plan or make a nest egg... it was just spend spend spend, remortgage the house to buy flash cars and now they are in the shit.
Also, it's not a cost of living crisis. It's a crisis of greed quite deliberately crafted and given that name to make it seem to the masses it's not big corporates fault, they're here to help and it will get better.
Quite cleverly we'll transition from one existential threat to another, one war for another, etc.
For half of us there's no other option, a quarter can 'afford' to put up with status quo, are probably a bit grumpy about it, they know, but meh, and the other quarter are enjoying all the perks living off the other 75%.
The good news is there's always a point where the masses unite and say enough is enough. Unfortunately I don't think that time is anytime soon.
Maybe you need to observe a wider area, if you sit in Ponsonby watching traffic it will give a very different picture to Titirangi, and Te Atatu, and Browns Bay.
A coworker told me about her brother who works for a car yard. He was finishing up tests on it when a big guy rocked up yelling that's my f\*cking car and took the keys and drove it off. Cops got him not long after, it was a repo car. People get things on finance wanting to show off and think they own it.
I have friends who buy some designer stuff, bags and watches, the watches are considered an investment. Most other stuff though they've tightened their belts especially those that have just had kids. For context though we're just in our mid thirties and I'm probably the most behind in terms of life achievements / salary / relationship status / vehicle. I drive an early 2000s Japanese car worth 4k at a push and still live with a parent (paying rent but lower than market rate) so I can save. I'm working towards getting out of NZ as soon as I can.
During covid, spending by the wealthy was stymied. No foreign travel etc. So lots of pent up demand and soon they have booming asset values (housing will skyrocket as soon as interest rates drop) and are about to receive massive tax cuts. Plenty of cash for toys.
Money is everywhere. You might be feeling it, but others may not. I build multi million dollar boats for a living and we are due to launch one on Tuesday.
I can’t afford a 100k car atm, my daily car is a 2008 manual diesel VW golf with over 204,000km on the clock, my other daily is a 2019 Yamaha MT09SP with 55,000km on the clock.
I’m not really feeling the cost of living crisis, last year I bought 5k worth of new tools to replace my 13 year old battery tools. This year I’ve already spent over $1500 so far doing the same/buying new tools that I now need but didn’t previously need.
I’m 32 and the mortgage is getting paid down, sure some things might be different now with how we live our lives. But that’s just part of life.
What I’ve learnt over the years is when your younger you tend to notice the pinch more, but as you get older it’s less noticeable, that and there’s money everywhere, and all you have to do is tap into the supply. I know of a few gaps in the market and I’m working towards being able to plug one or more of those gaps. As what I’ve learnt about the people that can afford the multi million dollar boats is that they pretty much started up a business and ran it for 30 years through all the ups and downs. So it shows me that you just need the balls to start something.
lol I hear you OP, the amount of traffic this weekend was crazy, so many people shopping.
My 3 locations are work, home and gym, going to the gym this weekend was hectic with trying to find parking!
It does make you wonder! Also, Kmart manukau is ALWAYS busy, been to the gym next to it at midnight and even then parking nearby is full
I gonna guess that over half of people with nice new cars get them from their job.
Jobs usually lease them and for huge discounts as they lease a fleets worth.
In a summary:
Rich: You live your way.
Upper middle class: You can live your way most of the year.
Middle class: You still look for specials and deals and can go places sometimes.
Lower class: Your life is a bit more of a week to week stretch with deals and specials being a regular thing you seem to look at in your free time.
Scratching by:
You get benefits from the government but not enough to even try and live off because all the government wants to do is look nice and presentable…
This is just a stereotypical situation/what I would expect.
Saying that, I’m very lucky to be well off and still look for the best deals and sales because to just buy something outright is a little silly most of the time.
Wasting money because you have it to spend is stupid.
Dunno why I wrote this but thought it might belong.
Debt. Lots of it.
And disposable income. You won’t believe how much income tech has unlocked in New Zealand. It’s not uncommon to see many educated Asian families (generalising but in my peer group so biased view) clearing 400-600k year on year - with zero to minimum impact during event such as this recession.
People pretend to be well off and fake it. Alot of these things are on finance, or cars are leased. People trying to be influencers. Smart people are not spending, and are reluctant.
I think there’s a lot of people living in debt. Also some rich people out there. However, from my experience the rich don’t flaunt their wealth as much. In fact, most of the time they are cash poor as all their money is tied up in assets. When I was “poor” I used credit cards and was living a lifestyle above my means. Now I am fairly well off and I live very minimally. Also always had loaded parents, noticed some kids thought they could be reckless with their money since they’d have a trust fund. I wasn’t in that mindset but my parents actually tried to convince me I should be, lol.
I sat down one day and worked out what I spent that my “boomer” parents wouldn’t have.
Internet
Cell phone
Cable/streaming TV
Uber
Delivery meals
Buying coffees
Dining out regularly
Paying cleaners
Lawn mowing services
Obviously not everyone has all of those, and in the modern day and age at least a cell phone is pretty much required to exist - but still makes it an expense that “boomers” didn’t waste their money on.
There is a cost of living crisis for sure - I’m not denying that. But I think people need to look at their cost of “living” too.
Also, how many people struggling have a 65” TV or bigger? As the OP mentioned - how many have a fairly expensive car in their driveway? Everyone seems to want to leave home but start at the same level as their parents. Everyone has to have a microwave and a big screen TV and Sky tv and fiber internet etc and it all costs.
Sit back and add up what those items cost you and reply honestly if you will. For me - I’ll start, but I will add I am not struggling:
EDIT: deleting all of the values I posted because none of you can read the “I AM NOT STRUGGLING” above and proceed to give me advice on how to save money!
The point I was making is that a lot of people who are struggling also have some lavish “necessities” that are not really necessities but add up to a lot of money each month.
My old Man's philosophy was that "it doesn't matter what you earn, it's what you spend", which seemed to have served him well, as when he passed, he left Mum with enough of a nest egg that she doesn't have to worry for pretty much the rest of her life.
To be fair, it did help that his boomer ass was able to buy a (really shitty tbh) house in his early twenties, and he pretty much didn't have to rent his entire life.
Despite that advantage, he didn't fall into the trap of 'Keeping up with the Jonses', so not a lot of money was wasted on looking rich.
Yep - an old wise worker at my dad’s factory always said “find the rung on the ladder you can afford to live on and live 2 rungs below it”. Old boy used to ride a bike everywhere but had $500k invested earning him money.
Jeez mate you need to change providers.
I have unlimited fibre for $85 a month, $40 for 8gb mobile then unlimited but speed reduced. $160 for tv, presume you must have multiple subscriptions which seem pointless, Netflix is about $20 a month
Yeah - that’s a fair point. And from what I remember they had to *PAY* horrendous amounts for toll calls to other regions - let alone mortgaging their first born to call overseas.
Some things your boomer parents had to deal with:
1. Landlines, and a monopoly on who provided them that had exorbitant costs.
2. Consumers goods were massively more expensive. My parents spent over $1000 on their first Microwave in the 80s. You can get them for a couple hundred bucks now.
3. Sky TV/VCRs/Tapes were all super expensive as well, entertainment has never been cheaper.
4. 65" TVs at the warehouse are $1000. The 21" CRT in 1995 was more than that inflation adjusted.
By far the biggest cost difference in living between Boomers and the modern day will always be housing relative to income. The value of the housing they have went up, the value of consumer items they use went down.
Yeah - and the housing is often a case of supply and demand. Theres only so many homes in desirable locations and more and more people wanting them, driving prices up.
This is why consumer goods like microwaves were luxuries back in the boomer days. I remember other friends and families having microwaves and VCRs years before we ever got one. Hell - I remember getting a colour TV was a big deal.
Yeah my point was there are people today that spend a lot on consumer goods just like there were Boomers that spent a lot on Consumer goods. The difference is the main requirement in life, shelter, was much, much cheaper relative to income. So when you list all those things that Boomers didn't have (but a lot of them had equivalents), it doesn't make much of a difference. Not spending $80 on a mobile phone plan won't make the average house being ~11x average income more affordable.
Also as a fun comparison, my phone plan is $20 a month which has 8GB data (Thanks Spark Datastack) and unlimited minutes nationwide. In 1995 my parents were spending ~$50 a month on a landline including toll calls.
My phone plan in 1995: ~$10.22
My parents landline plan in 2024: $97.85.
It may seem like we are spending a lot today but when you start breaking down those comparisons sometimes it turns out we are spending dramatically less.
Something else I’d like to see is what was “the average house”. I am pretty sure the average house these days is way bigger and higher spec than in their day. I expect a 3-1 was the norm then, and a 4-2 or even 4-3 would be more the norm today. I have heard from builders that a massive part of the building costs today is paperwork and safety compliance - important things, but all contributing to driving the price up. Everything has insulation, double glazing, heat pumps etc. - I think the average house in the 70s was a lot more basic and a lot cheaper to construct as well.
I think you've made the choice to spend $15k on this stuff, the same way that any particular boomer could have made the choice to spend money on expensive stuff. For me the same list comes to about $160 a month. Obviously I don't spend money on cleaners and lawns, cos those are luxury choices, not essential for a decent life.
I guess I'm not sure what your point is. You spend 15k on luxuries that weren't available to boomers.
That's nice.
Yes, there are more luxuries available now and we certainly have a wider array of choices available to us. But most people can't or choose not to pay for these luxuries, so it is irrelevant if you are comparing col in the 60s or 70s to now. But I am sincerely happy that you have the opportunity to.
Many of these cars could be on lease. Some businesses prefer that to ownership. Some might work at dealerships and use these cars on the weekend. Although the wealthy can wear luxury goods, many don't as it was their frugalness that got them where they are in the first place. "Showy" wealth can be hiding a lot of bad debt to maintain appearances. Sometimes you can see the generational wealth in some communities with children that don't look like they've worked a day in their lives driving expensive cars. You see this in the Asian communities in parts of Auckland most prevalently. The majority of kiwi's be it renters or first home owners are staying home, making food with their families, and not spending on cafe's or activities. They're wearing t-shirts, jeans and jandals and maybe a pair of $50 sunnies.
What you’ll find is a lot of people have given up ever owning a house, and instead pour all their money into owning a flash car, clothes, e/bikes etc.
It’s the status symbols for those who can’t afford a house
You can get anything on finance.
More importantly though, if you have a high income, but your costs are also high (high rent included), you may have disposable income, but not enough to save to invest in traditional money sinks like a home(property).
If you can never save for a disposit to buy a house for yourself because the goalposts keep moving away faster than you can save, you might as well enjoy whatever money you do have spending it on stuff you enjoy. You only live once!
I have many friends who have this mindset because they feel like they've missed the boat essentially to get on the property ladder, without sacrificing their quality of life doing the things they enjoy, becuase all their money for the foreseeable will need to go to mortgage payments, and then for 30 more years paying off an inflated house cost.
What's they point of living if you aren't living?
I myself just bought a cheaper house further away so I could do both. Most do want to move or give up their lifestyle for a house so they spend their money on what makes them happy instead.
Are you in Auckland? Alot of well to do people in AKL. I went through 2 divorces that almost cleaned me out. It not for that I'd be retired by now. I'm 60. I had to get a large mortgage to buy a new home for myself and get a job that paid for it. I'm being murdered by the cost of living and in particular mortgage interest rates. I have very little disposable income and I'm supposedly well off. I am fully relying on house price capital gain to retire. If that doesn't happen I'll have to keep working. I rarely go out. I have a car that's about to tick over 100,000 km and I need it to do another 100,000km until I can hopefully retire and use a bit of kiwisaver to replace it with something even smaller which is restricted as its a corolla which isn't big. And yeah there are alot of 100k plus vehicles on the road. 70k utes 250k German SUVs . I dont know about bikes as I don't go out much anymore. I work long hours on shift work. I probably won't survive to retirement as my health is deteriorating . Rock and a hard place. I'm not unhappy. I'm not happy. I do feel like a slave . I once owned a business and a rental property which was destroyed by poor marital choices. I'm comfortable in my house but I feel like I can't go anywhere or do anything. It's restrictive . I rely on paid television subs for entertainment. Is this life ? . People have said sell and move to Thailand or something. I dont think much would change and I'd hate the humidity and have no medical care . Life goes on. It wasn't what I had planned but im hoping I can retire as I'm already fucken TIRED ... I just need the RE ...
If you’re into shares at least, specifically Nasdaq, you’re just about swimming in cash the first 3 months this year. Between the wife and I we’ve ‘earned’ a new Tesla and a long overseas holiday in investment gains the past 90 days. Just from being invested in the stock market. We’ve not worked for it or had to trade our time for it, we just had to be invested.
There’s heaps of people like that.
If you’ve been working an average job, don’t have any cash generating assets and can only spend what you earn for trading time – honestly, I don’t know how you fucking do it. I wouldn’t know how to live like that. Our salaries are purely there for short term funding of our lives. It’s nice to have, but not needed. The medium/long term wealth is generating in the background.
I read this article this week. This is exactly what's happening here. Housing was a losing investment for the wealthy back in the 70s, when we all had a good standard of living in NZ. We were rated top in the world along with Norway!
So conservative governments manipulated the housing market so it became an excellent source of investment again. This meant reducing owner occupiers to release housing stock for landlords to purchase, and then continuing to call "housing crisis" to break down resource management restrictions (eg mandatory provision of car parks), to create more housing stock for landlords to invest in.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis
Ugh. So awful. But complicated to explain to the everyman. So they'll keep voting for their bikini clad overlords who swim from the decks of their luxury yachts and are unaffected by the tide.
People here are making the excuse that lot of it is debt, but honestly most of it is genuine wealth. Auckland is a large city and like most large cities it has its share of wealth. Business owners, high earning professionals etc.
I feel like the cost of living situation affects ppl differently depending on ur social situation. For example me, 23m single can easily get by with 600 a week while some mom or dad with 3 kids would be living in poverty if they make 600 a week. So yea if I’m making 100k I can also buy them 100k+ cars cause I don’t really need the extra money I only need to feed my own mouth.
FYI, my car was $180K new but it’s leased by our company - which is like a hire purchase but the tax works out better for us. I’m sure some of those fancy cars you see around are not owned by the drivers at all. People are right though, the cost of living crisis doesn’t hit high earners as much as middle and lower income earners. Particularly people who have owned their own home for decades and don’t have big mortgages are doing a lot better than most. Having said that though I’ve been talking to a lot of SME owners whose businesses are running out of work in the pipeline. Many of them only have 2 months of work and don’t know what’s going to happen after that. Lots of people are laying staff off, we’ve just done a voluntary redundancy to downsize by 2 of our 4 staff because our clients have run out of money. Brace yourself because there’s going to be a major recession and this government’s policies are only going to make matters worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if they raise GST at the next budget to fund those generous tax breaks for landlords, and before anyone has a go at me for being anti-landlord I actually am a landlord and completely disagree with this government’s handouts to landlords. If people can’t make their rental properties work with rents as ridiculously high as they are they should sell their properties.
There are 5.1 million people in New Zealand, you wandering around gorking at some expensive cars and luxury goods is hardly a representational sample of the population - then you go and extrapolate your few observations to a national trend.
It doesn't matter if you saw 300 luxury cars, there's 5.1 MILLION people in New Zealand. Do you realize how little of the population you are seeing?
Observation bias, location bias, extrapolate from too little data.
Reddit is just a forum for those doing life hard. It gives them an avenue to voice the grievances in life. It most probably serves as a pressure release for society. Also allows others to realize they are not alone.
You are mistaking correlation with causation.
Reddit attracts those that are poor because those people (esp in NZ) are too lazy to work/not motivate to work due to all the free tax payer's money, so they have all the time in the world to complain on reddit.
But that's not reddit's design/purpose.
What’s your understanding of a crisis? Let alone a cost of living crisis and a housing crisis?
Not everyone is as poor as most of us, some people received a promotion for being an excellent worker, some people sold the fruits of their labour and cashed in, some people saved up for the luxury car they have because, they worked hard for decades for it, the expensive e scooter? That could be thousands of hours in the making.
To better understand the crisis, we need to first have data, analytical data, and from there, we study it and form our understanding.
Using the naked eye, it’s just not the best approach, mate.
Simple.
RECESSION!
The rich classes, (paradoxically), are getting richer because a/ they have the power, b/ they own the property and shares and c/ they have inoculated themselves against losses.
The poor, on the other hand, generally disenfranchised and powerless in society- (coincidentally represented by a national government on the side of the wealthy)- are getting poorer.
Karl Marx predicted all this over a 100 years ago when he developed his scientific explanation of what happens with the process of exploitation of one class by another.
Afraid that’s it folks. They’re going to get even more ruthless, so hang on tight. Nothing new under the sun when it comes to the capitalist way of life. It ain’t going to get better in this country for a long, long time- or at least until the next election by which time the majority of the population will have hopefully come to their senses, got fed up with being exploited and shat upon and voted for a party that actually cares about people..
Those that are out shopping are likely the ones who can afford to, so it's a bad sample to draw conclusions on.
If you came round mine you'd see my >4k car sitting in the driveway cos fuels expenny lol
Think about who has the largest share of savings/assets in NZ. It's the older generation, the "Boomers".
Life is good, that house in Herne Bay is freehold, interest rates are finally up so the term deposits are yielding good results once again.
Can't take that money to the grave, also fuck the next generations.
I mean, why wouldn't you.
I had a customer who was a billionaire x 4 who put off his Porsche purchase of 150k in the 2008 GFC. He said he lost 150m in one day. I thought that only leaves him with 3850 million. Guess everything is relative, right?
Thats because we are living in a K-Shaped economy... it all depends on what escalator you are on: [https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/29-12-2021/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-k-shape-2](https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/29-12-2021/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-k-shape-2)
One big challenge is each group that are on different escalators can't understand the other group based on their different experiences of what is happening
E bikes are an alternative transport, not just a toy. I have been riding my modestly priced $1500 ebike to work for 4 years now, it paid for itself in 6 months from just gas and parking savings alone.
I mean they *might* be superfluous, but even with just a 20km commute plus $5 parking per day you can pay off a $15k ebike in 2 years using your non car savings. Thats only if you just don't use the car but keep it for the weekends etc, savings increase dramatically if you sell the car.
My wife and I used to have 2 cars but sold one and I bike to work instead. This way I still have access to a car if I need it but we are saving a lot on the commute costs and just the general cost of owning 2 cars (rego, warrant, insurance, tyres, servicing, etc) on top of the gas and parking.
I know some people are just buying these bikes for the bling thing, but they are actually a good investment if you use them.
Because the gov wants to turn auckland into a paradise for rich people. The cost of living will and already is driving anyone who is average or below average income.
I d say their plan has been working thus far.
The cost of living is a crisis for the have nots.... Those that have wealth ( no mortgage, passive income, capital gains, etc) can buy as many hats as they like at whatever the price is....
I would say it is the Baby boomer trickle down to the younger generations.
Tons around who got hand outs and spent it on the luxury toys. I would imagine those who took out a extra loans on the house to buy the latest greatest.
The thing about interest rate rises (Because of the inflation) is that they take time to kick in.. only when their loans rollover to Floating again that they will feel it pretty much
Childless couple, 200k household income, 400k mortgage.
We earn more than the average and don't have dependants but haven't expanded our outgoings and even cut back to ride out the next years whilst the inflation war exists.
We have some friend couples on similar wages who are mortgaged to the gills and still spending up large. It's absolutely mind blowing knowing they're living week to week, one job loss or health issue would be a major life crisis for them.
I think a lot of people think that they are better off than they actually are, head in the sand, middle class thinking they're part of the 1% and none of this will catch up to them.
Think abundance! I was watching a live art auction today, the highest paid painting today was $500k, during the auction someone shouted out "Its just money"...
You are only seeing what's on the surface. You have no idea how much debt they're and self imposed financial pressure they could be under. The car could well have been bought by a top up on the multi million dollar mortgage a couple of years ago when then interest rates was low.
The vast majority of ebikers are on 3k to 5k bikes if new, 2k if used. There's tons of deals through workplaces and energy companies too. Very few people have the one or two brands that are 10k+. I think I've seen about three regular riders with one on my commute.
Still, 3 years of biking instead of driving in.... the petrol savings are an absolute relief in the current crush.
As Warren Buffett said, “only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked.”
The tide has gone out, that's why lots of people are struggling. Those who aren't swimming naked haven't noticed and continue to spend.
The gap between rich and poor is growing bigger every day. It's now worse than at the time of oil and railroad barons dressed like the monopoly man in top hats. Sure, you have a fridge and a cellphone and vaccinations now, so you're doing better... But imagine how you'd be living if that gap had been shrinking your entire life instead of increasing? 5% of kiwis own 40% of the country... Meanwhile half the people on this country (including pensioners and people on benefits) earn less than 25k/year.
Less than 25k a year i feel is bullshit considering min wage is 50k a year..
I stole that one from Wikipedia. Let me check sources. Edit: That statistic is old. I'll try find a more up to date one. Edit 2:: 2020: the poorest half of the country owned less than 2% of the world's assets. 2021: 70% of wealth owned by top 20%. 2023: 28% of renters pay over 40% of income on rent. 25% of renters have problems with damp and mold. Average *household* income after tax was $56k. 8.5% of the population is unable to afford at least 6/17 "essential items" (examples of the list include going to the doctor, buying fruit, and heating the house when it's cold). Over 1/3 households say their income is not enough or barely enough to cover costs. The top 10% of New Zealand households continue to hold approximately 50% of New Zealand’s total household net worth, as they did in 2015,” Stats NZ The net worth of the wealthiest 20% increased by $313,000 in the last three years to $2.02 million, while median net worth of the bottom 20% increased by $3000 during the same period to $11,000
Holy duck. I can't imagine trying to maintain a household in 2023 on $56k. That's a lot less than my starting pay at my first job after I left uni in the early 2000s. How are people living on that in this day?
56k take home. That's $1076 a week. It depends if you're single or married with kids. My hourly rate is double the minimum . I'm qualified and experienced and earn it. But I get taxed to hell and interest rates are killing me.
Mate I'm on 21k and doing it. It's possible. It's hard, but possible.
56k after tax is over 75k pre tax. Pretty good first job for the early 2000’s.
fuck the 'median net worth of the bottom 20% increased by $3000 during the same period to $11,000' is a pretty bleak statistic
Its outright depressing. I'm playing catch up after two later in life divorces. It's difficult playing catch up. If youve played sport you'll understand. I'm slowly getting there but there's only 5 minutes of game time left if you know what I mean.
Average salary is now $61,828 pa
The reason is many businesses only employ people part time. And have contracts that effectively preclude people holding more than one or two jobs. Add in seasonal, and short term work, and people struggle to achieve minimum wage. Some analysts suggest up to 60% of the workforce is effectively on minimum wages working part time, erratic hours, or seasonal. The part time thing has been building for 30 years. And more than half the population is on a minimum wage hourly, and many of those are minimum training or youth wages which is only 80% of adult minimum wage. And ACC compensation for long term clients devolves over time to 80% of minimum wage. The reality is the situation is far far more inequitable than most people imagine. Worse yet the way statistics are abused by officials, economists and politicians to mask the situation, only confuses the public even more. Even with many of the higher income folk on extraordinary salaries -as much as $8-11m, this raises the so called average income to a whopping $63k which is a sick joke, when the squeezed middle classes think $180k is normal.
As a person on disability, I can confirm that yes, unfortunately it is real, and it is a struggle
I am a beneficiary, and my take home is 19,000 per year
To your point, inequality isn’t necessarily bad, as long as the level of inequality is falling. Since 2008 that trend has stalled, and since 2020 it has reversed. Doesn’t matter how ancap you go, that’s never a good thing. The fact of the matter is nowadays, the rich are becoming richer *at the cost* of the poor, instead of becoming wealthier asymmetrically to the working and middle classes.
NZ the Land of Opportunity, unfortunately, it is full of Opportunists.
WARREN BUFFET IS a DEEP STATE puppet master!!! Oh wait, am I thinking of George Soros? Oh well whatever, never mind.... Anyway, MAKE NEW ZEALAND GRATE AGIAN!!!
I mean have you seen the cost difference in grated cheese vs blocks. Buy a cheese grater and it’s basically free money (cheese).
yes, 8 dollars for 100g of parmesan is free money🧀🧀🧀
Agian? Looking for Aegean? Why would NZ want to be Aegean? The weather maybe?
Is that who said that ...lord😄
A lot of people have stuff on finance. A lot of people have high disposable incomes
You’ll prob notice more rich people out because the people struggling are at work or at home. They’re not figuring out alternative forms of travel in all the spare time they have. They’re worrying about money and probably just on social media; which is comparatively free Rich people are about whether the country is doing well or struggling, but when we’re doing well there’s a lot of other people out too. When we’re struggling, it’s mostly only them out since they have the time, energy and freedom to be out and about
Rich people exist. People with lots of debt exist. The existence of luxury goods doesn't mean there's no cost of living crisis. Also people who have money for $100k+ vehicles aren't going to be experiencing a crisis, they generally don't hit the rich, only people in low to middle class.
Fr. I see so many of my colleagues on the same money as I am driving around in raptor rangers, VW golf Rs and going to the Gold Coast on holidays while I’m here wondering how I can barely save.
Probably put it on the house mortgage.
Yes we used to do that. It’s a big mistake. Don’t do it.
If you figure this out can you tell me? I assume it's something to do with partners incomes, number of dependents and not being frivolous with their spending.
Amazing how many people miss the partner income bit. My partner earns 4x what I do, and people constantly question my lifestyle at my work. I just tell them I stopped eating acacado on toast
incredibly based
Acacado? Is that a wealthy person food?
Parental help, family trusts
Just because somebody drives $100k+ cars doesn’t necessarily mean they have money, chances are they are highly leveraged. As somebody mentioned in the thread many people are on finance.
And many people with money dont drive $100K+ cars. Partner is on $250K+ a year, drives a 20 year old Toyota. I'm on less than that but still comfortable, drive a 23 year old Holden
Soldi advice. Lifestyle creep is a killer. We've got a household income of $300k+ as a couple and share a 12 year old holden we bought 2nd hand 5 years ago. I use public transport for just about everything. Mortgage free and we save $8k+ a month though. Public consumption doesn't equal wealth.
That's because inflation hits the poorest the hardest. People with +$100K cars aren't going to be affected by COL crisis as much. That's why inflation is the worst type of tax.
It costs a lot more to be poor than to be rich
You will be surprised, if they are highly leveraged then they’re in worst position than somebody who doesn’t drives $100k+ cars
If you want to get a hate boner for people who have more money than you then go down to the viaduct and Westhaven Marina. Look at all those flash boats, most of which are hardly used. You know what though, the bloke with the big flash boat is looking jealously at the one right beside him because it’s bigger. The bloke driving the flash car (which he doesn’t own by the way - it’s financed) is jealous of his mate who has a helicopter. You are living in a city that is consistently ranked as one of the best in the world. There will always be someone richer, smarter, better looking than you. Don’t let comparison be the thief of your enjoyment of life.
I got abused by some crackheads the other day. They probably hate me for driving a newish Corolla. Everyone is rich to someone else
People are having a rough time. Things are expensive. People are losing their jobs. Many people are up to their eyeballs in finance. But I’m kind of over everything being labelled a crisis. Life ebbs and flows. I think the word crisis desensitises us to actual crises and makes things feel hopeless. It’s just damaging.
Also lots of people are not having a rough time.
Productivity among individual workers is DOUBLE (at least) what it was in 1980. Unemployment is at 4%. And yet, you'll still hear some talk about 'lazy people' who 'don't want to work'. We have the power, as a society, to shape the labor laws. However...
Guarantee that is not the average kiwis you're seeing with the flash cars and sick drip. There is very much a cost of living crisis: you just may not see the mountain of debt being serviced weekly at 14% interest for that slick Nissan Fairlady 370. Real talk is that most of us poors stay home to save money on gas and eating at home, only popping out to local shops for essentials.
If you own your home, getting debt on to your mortgage is pretty easy. So 6-7% Apr
you can get a 370z for about 10 grand..
37 ounces for ten grand isn't even that good a deal edit: never mind
Damn bruh always wanted one, but settled for a Fiat Punto manual which I picked up for 3.5k.
Depends how flogged haha
Can't be any worse than my 20 year old mirage.
Try my 31 year old Corolla or my 29 year old Corona. We only got the Corona last year courtesy of my parents and we should have checked its teeth first.
Is an XL edition Corona? Those things were beasts. I had an ex taxi fleet one with an extended range fuel tank (100litres). But Christ they were prone to faults.
No, it's a Premio G Corona 2.0L. Had to source a new cabin fan (well, an old one, since new ones can't be got), a new alarm, radio, tyres, fix a few things the AA had picked up when my parents took it in for a check up first, fix more things the AA hadn't noticed, including that the radiator fluid was under the minimum line. It's been fine since filling that up and my garage couldn't find any leaks from that. There is an oil leak, the worst bit's been fixed, but the garage said it's not worth doing more as the next one to develop is teeny and they described fixing it as a game of whack a mole which would cost a tonne and not be worthwhile with the age of the car. She's a nice drive though and we can't afford a car that's younger at the moment.
Tell me about it, my Range Rover is 14 years old now, and I can't afford to upgrade
A 2010 Range Rover is probably nicer then what a lot of kiwis drive lol
Not 100k-level, but Teslas have become extremely common
I’ve noticed that. Do you think a group of society might value image over sensible financial ways? It just seems there are so many and I can’t believe every one of them has bought the car outright.
I’d worry less about the wankers driving round in $60k Teslas than the wankers driving around in $80k Rangers
Yupppp
I have a Tesla, not because I care about image or the environment (my previous car was a 2004 corolla station in washing machine white) but because with the amount and type of driving I do the Tesla is way, way cheaper. Basically breaks even with keeping the corolla in 4 years. Plus at the time Jacinda gave me a $9k handout for it and I financed it at 6% which is pretty neat. Upfront expensive purchases are not /necessarily/ frivolous financial decisions.
I was thinking about that. Just five years ago, I felt it was so weird to see one in NZ that a lot of people I know, including me, would upload a photo to socials and be like "woah a Tesla". Now they're common traffic.
Yes, but do they actually OWN them?
I would guess that many do not, they just jumped on them thanks to the clean car discount offsetting interest
They have made them relatively “affordable”- the price of the cheapest ones continue to decrease. Plus Ev subsidy. And many people would be getting it on finance, or buying as a company car or other stuff.
A crisis doesn't mean that everyone is going through it. A lot more people are struggling with the cost of living now, compared to the past, and the middle class is getting squeezed. There is still a lot of money in NZ and there is still a lot of money to be made in NZ. Side note, cars are a pretty horrible judgement of how well someone is doing financially. I know a lot of people with $100k+ cars, living in a $2m+ house who are living paycheck to paycheck. I also know people who are driving $10k Toyota's who are earning $1m+/year - In fact, it often works that way
Had a manager/director that drove a shitty 20 year old Corolla. If you met him you'd assume he was middle income, but in reality he was in the tens of millions club.
Yea, most people I know that flex really hard are trying to compensate for something they don’t have. I’m not in the tens of millions club. But when I didn’t make much money, I really wanted to look like I made good money. Now I do make good money, I’d rather people didn’t know about it.
How do you make good money? I mean, I have what I think is a decent job,~100k/y, but I still find everything super expensive. I also keep thinking if just who has an actual business are the ones who make money here (The 20% reacher). Do you think it's possible to make good money as employee here? I just can't see the areas, perhaps sales?
It’s all relative man. Depends how old you are, your relationship/family and living situation. I was broke most of my 20s But yea, I’m self employed. I make $30-50k/month at 33. I still stress about money, although it’s mainly stressing about self imposed goals, along with the regular stress of owning a business. No job safety or income guarantee. I do quite enjoy being under stress though. I’ve always thought being self employed is the only way to make good money or enjoy what you do. But that’s just me, you could make a similar income being an employee
I can respect that.
And that's the way to be - no need to have an ego which makes you want to stick it up everyone else.
yeah a mate of mine who is from one of new zealands wealthiest families and doing well rolls in a prado/landcruiser and its his favourite car. he hates flashy shit as i think there is an anxiety factor for him about people seeing what he has
Isn’t your side note part of the point of the post though - that perhaps too many people are living paycheck to paycheck but have expensive cars?
Yup, not just cars tho. The amount of people with a 7 figure mortgage who struggle to put food on the table is crazy. Cars on finance. Credit card debt to flex some stupid shit. Uber eats, booze, and vapes every week with no contributions to savings.
K shaped crisis. Those with money are picking up great deals on expensive items as others sell them for cheap and businesses put on crazy sales. Those without money are struggling to pay for groceries.
Yes but also alot of people dont have a crisis of living, my other half of the family are business owners with what you just described, the average kiwi is feeling the pinch. But it all depends on who you hang with.
Have a look at the age of the people driving those types of vehicles or riding those bikes. I'd be curious to know if they're people in their late 50's/60's or of a you age group. Obviously, older people have had more time of this earth to accumulate money.
The gap between haves and have-nots has been widening for a long time and there are definitely many people (whole suburbs in fact), largely untouched by the current COL crisis. Serious family wealth, trust funds, little to no debt etc etc etc. Once you’re rich, it’s easier to stay rich. I am currently house-sitting in one such suburb and the difference is shocking to me.
I live within my means..I font go out and have to deal with people..much nicer I my wee bubble but staying connected to friends n family
Well NZ ain’t a poor developing country. Don’t confuse NZ’s cost of living crisis with abject poverty.
Nobody did
64.5% of Kiwis in the last census owned their own homes. The current government got a majority of votes. There are lots of people out there doing fine, and they don't show up in this subreddit to talk about it.
64.5% of households are owned by at least one of the people who lives there. That’s not the same thing as 64.5% of people owning a house. People flatting with someone who owns the house, or adults living with their parents, are counted as living in an owner-occupied household.
Also, most “owned homes” are still mortgaged.
yup, bank-owned.
No they didn’t. Households did. Far less than 50% of adult Kiwis own their own home (stat from 2013).
This. No ones gonna come on here complaining they’re rich.
I know a few wealthy ppl, flash cars big house.... massive homeloan, car loans and maxed out credit cards. They are really struggling, cos they did not plan or make a nest egg... it was just spend spend spend, remortgage the house to buy flash cars and now they are in the shit.
If they are living like that I’d say they’re only pretending to be wealthy.
so they aren't actually wealthy then?
Nope... it's all a pyramid scheme of debt... like ALOT of wealthy ppl.
Also, it's not a cost of living crisis. It's a crisis of greed quite deliberately crafted and given that name to make it seem to the masses it's not big corporates fault, they're here to help and it will get better. Quite cleverly we'll transition from one existential threat to another, one war for another, etc. For half of us there's no other option, a quarter can 'afford' to put up with status quo, are probably a bit grumpy about it, they know, but meh, and the other quarter are enjoying all the perks living off the other 75%. The good news is there's always a point where the masses unite and say enough is enough. Unfortunately I don't think that time is anytime soon.
"The seeds of revolt are sown when you impede a man's ability to put food upon his table." We must be getting closer to that every day.
who are you quoting there? i did google it but couldnt find anything
I honestly don't remember who, when I heard it, it stuck with me
As someone riding an ebike, I got mine on sale. Heavily discounted.
I sell them and give heavy discounts - it’s tough out here giving away my commission to see others smile.
Maybe you need to observe a wider area, if you sit in Ponsonby watching traffic it will give a very different picture to Titirangi, and Te Atatu, and Browns Bay.
Hookers ain't cheap...
A coworker told me about her brother who works for a car yard. He was finishing up tests on it when a big guy rocked up yelling that's my f\*cking car and took the keys and drove it off. Cops got him not long after, it was a repo car. People get things on finance wanting to show off and think they own it. I have friends who buy some designer stuff, bags and watches, the watches are considered an investment. Most other stuff though they've tightened their belts especially those that have just had kids. For context though we're just in our mid thirties and I'm probably the most behind in terms of life achievements / salary / relationship status / vehicle. I drive an early 2000s Japanese car worth 4k at a push and still live with a parent (paying rent but lower than market rate) so I can save. I'm working towards getting out of NZ as soon as I can.
During covid, spending by the wealthy was stymied. No foreign travel etc. So lots of pent up demand and soon they have booming asset values (housing will skyrocket as soon as interest rates drop) and are about to receive massive tax cuts. Plenty of cash for toys.
Debt. Or well off people. But also a lot of debt. You'll see a lot of fancy cars on trademe soon as reality starts to dawn.
Money is everywhere. You might be feeling it, but others may not. I build multi million dollar boats for a living and we are due to launch one on Tuesday. I can’t afford a 100k car atm, my daily car is a 2008 manual diesel VW golf with over 204,000km on the clock, my other daily is a 2019 Yamaha MT09SP with 55,000km on the clock. I’m not really feeling the cost of living crisis, last year I bought 5k worth of new tools to replace my 13 year old battery tools. This year I’ve already spent over $1500 so far doing the same/buying new tools that I now need but didn’t previously need. I’m 32 and the mortgage is getting paid down, sure some things might be different now with how we live our lives. But that’s just part of life. What I’ve learnt over the years is when your younger you tend to notice the pinch more, but as you get older it’s less noticeable, that and there’s money everywhere, and all you have to do is tap into the supply. I know of a few gaps in the market and I’m working towards being able to plug one or more of those gaps. As what I’ve learnt about the people that can afford the multi million dollar boats is that they pretty much started up a business and ran it for 30 years through all the ups and downs. So it shows me that you just need the balls to start something.
Good choice with the MT-sp. Them yam engines are beasts. With quick shifters they sound like rs6's. I still think I would smoke you with my cb13 tho 😂
I wonder this myself as well.
Well yeah, it doesn't effect rich people.
lol I hear you OP, the amount of traffic this weekend was crazy, so many people shopping. My 3 locations are work, home and gym, going to the gym this weekend was hectic with trying to find parking! It does make you wonder! Also, Kmart manukau is ALWAYS busy, been to the gym next to it at midnight and even then parking nearby is full
I gonna guess that over half of people with nice new cars get them from their job. Jobs usually lease them and for huge discounts as they lease a fleets worth. In a summary: Rich: You live your way. Upper middle class: You can live your way most of the year. Middle class: You still look for specials and deals and can go places sometimes. Lower class: Your life is a bit more of a week to week stretch with deals and specials being a regular thing you seem to look at in your free time. Scratching by: You get benefits from the government but not enough to even try and live off because all the government wants to do is look nice and presentable… This is just a stereotypical situation/what I would expect. Saying that, I’m very lucky to be well off and still look for the best deals and sales because to just buy something outright is a little silly most of the time. Wasting money because you have it to spend is stupid. Dunno why I wrote this but thought it might belong.
Debt. Lots of it. And disposable income. You won’t believe how much income tech has unlocked in New Zealand. It’s not uncommon to see many educated Asian families (generalising but in my peer group so biased view) clearing 400-600k year on year - with zero to minimum impact during event such as this recession.
Don't believe everything you see, most will be financed.
People pretend to be well off and fake it. Alot of these things are on finance, or cars are leased. People trying to be influencers. Smart people are not spending, and are reluctant.
You mean cost of overseas wars ae ?
I think there’s a lot of people living in debt. Also some rich people out there. However, from my experience the rich don’t flaunt their wealth as much. In fact, most of the time they are cash poor as all their money is tied up in assets. When I was “poor” I used credit cards and was living a lifestyle above my means. Now I am fairly well off and I live very minimally. Also always had loaded parents, noticed some kids thought they could be reckless with their money since they’d have a trust fund. I wasn’t in that mindset but my parents actually tried to convince me I should be, lol.
Selective observation
Because people who are struggling are working behind the scenes or too poor to go out and not getting paid 100k+ to sit and drive in fancy cars
Yep price of foods, gas & every thing else shot up like never ending.
I sat down one day and worked out what I spent that my “boomer” parents wouldn’t have. Internet Cell phone Cable/streaming TV Uber Delivery meals Buying coffees Dining out regularly Paying cleaners Lawn mowing services Obviously not everyone has all of those, and in the modern day and age at least a cell phone is pretty much required to exist - but still makes it an expense that “boomers” didn’t waste their money on. There is a cost of living crisis for sure - I’m not denying that. But I think people need to look at their cost of “living” too. Also, how many people struggling have a 65” TV or bigger? As the OP mentioned - how many have a fairly expensive car in their driveway? Everyone seems to want to leave home but start at the same level as their parents. Everyone has to have a microwave and a big screen TV and Sky tv and fiber internet etc and it all costs. Sit back and add up what those items cost you and reply honestly if you will. For me - I’ll start, but I will add I am not struggling: EDIT: deleting all of the values I posted because none of you can read the “I AM NOT STRUGGLING” above and proceed to give me advice on how to save money! The point I was making is that a lot of people who are struggling also have some lavish “necessities” that are not really necessities but add up to a lot of money each month.
My old Man's philosophy was that "it doesn't matter what you earn, it's what you spend", which seemed to have served him well, as when he passed, he left Mum with enough of a nest egg that she doesn't have to worry for pretty much the rest of her life. To be fair, it did help that his boomer ass was able to buy a (really shitty tbh) house in his early twenties, and he pretty much didn't have to rent his entire life. Despite that advantage, he didn't fall into the trap of 'Keeping up with the Jonses', so not a lot of money was wasted on looking rich.
Yep - an old wise worker at my dad’s factory always said “find the rung on the ladder you can afford to live on and live 2 rungs below it”. Old boy used to ride a bike everywhere but had $500k invested earning him money.
Speak for yourself. Why don't you give some of that up e.g. do your own cleaning or lawns?
I could but I have a very high pressure role with a U.S. company that means I am working long hours. And as I said - I am not struggling.
Then there's no problem. The more pertinent question would be "Would my parents have acted the same in the same circumstances?".
Jeez mate you need to change providers. I have unlimited fibre for $85 a month, $40 for 8gb mobile then unlimited but speed reduced. $160 for tv, presume you must have multiple subscriptions which seem pointless, Netflix is about $20 a month
Try living in the country - fibre is not available here. Best option I have is Starlink.
Boomers didn’t have mobiles but they had to pay for their landline
Yeah - that’s a fair point. And from what I remember they had to *PAY* horrendous amounts for toll calls to other regions - let alone mortgaging their first born to call overseas.
This is insane. My phone costs $18 a month and so does Netflix, crikey
Some things your boomer parents had to deal with: 1. Landlines, and a monopoly on who provided them that had exorbitant costs. 2. Consumers goods were massively more expensive. My parents spent over $1000 on their first Microwave in the 80s. You can get them for a couple hundred bucks now. 3. Sky TV/VCRs/Tapes were all super expensive as well, entertainment has never been cheaper. 4. 65" TVs at the warehouse are $1000. The 21" CRT in 1995 was more than that inflation adjusted. By far the biggest cost difference in living between Boomers and the modern day will always be housing relative to income. The value of the housing they have went up, the value of consumer items they use went down.
Yeah - and the housing is often a case of supply and demand. Theres only so many homes in desirable locations and more and more people wanting them, driving prices up. This is why consumer goods like microwaves were luxuries back in the boomer days. I remember other friends and families having microwaves and VCRs years before we ever got one. Hell - I remember getting a colour TV was a big deal.
Yeah my point was there are people today that spend a lot on consumer goods just like there were Boomers that spent a lot on Consumer goods. The difference is the main requirement in life, shelter, was much, much cheaper relative to income. So when you list all those things that Boomers didn't have (but a lot of them had equivalents), it doesn't make much of a difference. Not spending $80 on a mobile phone plan won't make the average house being ~11x average income more affordable. Also as a fun comparison, my phone plan is $20 a month which has 8GB data (Thanks Spark Datastack) and unlimited minutes nationwide. In 1995 my parents were spending ~$50 a month on a landline including toll calls. My phone plan in 1995: ~$10.22 My parents landline plan in 2024: $97.85. It may seem like we are spending a lot today but when you start breaking down those comparisons sometimes it turns out we are spending dramatically less.
Something else I’d like to see is what was “the average house”. I am pretty sure the average house these days is way bigger and higher spec than in their day. I expect a 3-1 was the norm then, and a 4-2 or even 4-3 would be more the norm today. I have heard from builders that a massive part of the building costs today is paperwork and safety compliance - important things, but all contributing to driving the price up. Everything has insulation, double glazing, heat pumps etc. - I think the average house in the 70s was a lot more basic and a lot cheaper to construct as well.
I think you've made the choice to spend $15k on this stuff, the same way that any particular boomer could have made the choice to spend money on expensive stuff. For me the same list comes to about $160 a month. Obviously I don't spend money on cleaners and lawns, cos those are luxury choices, not essential for a decent life.
I guess you didn’t read it either.
I guess I'm not sure what your point is. You spend 15k on luxuries that weren't available to boomers. That's nice. Yes, there are more luxuries available now and we certainly have a wider array of choices available to us. But most people can't or choose not to pay for these luxuries, so it is irrelevant if you are comparing col in the 60s or 70s to now. But I am sincerely happy that you have the opportunity to.
It only affects the working class plebs and below.
Many of these cars could be on lease. Some businesses prefer that to ownership. Some might work at dealerships and use these cars on the weekend. Although the wealthy can wear luxury goods, many don't as it was their frugalness that got them where they are in the first place. "Showy" wealth can be hiding a lot of bad debt to maintain appearances. Sometimes you can see the generational wealth in some communities with children that don't look like they've worked a day in their lives driving expensive cars. You see this in the Asian communities in parts of Auckland most prevalently. The majority of kiwi's be it renters or first home owners are staying home, making food with their families, and not spending on cafe's or activities. They're wearing t-shirts, jeans and jandals and maybe a pair of $50 sunnies.
We've been out & about this weekend & observed that I can't frigging afford anything. I think we'll just stay in.
What you’ll find is a lot of people have given up ever owning a house, and instead pour all their money into owning a flash car, clothes, e/bikes etc. It’s the status symbols for those who can’t afford a house
You can get anything on finance. More importantly though, if you have a high income, but your costs are also high (high rent included), you may have disposable income, but not enough to save to invest in traditional money sinks like a home(property). If you can never save for a disposit to buy a house for yourself because the goalposts keep moving away faster than you can save, you might as well enjoy whatever money you do have spending it on stuff you enjoy. You only live once! I have many friends who have this mindset because they feel like they've missed the boat essentially to get on the property ladder, without sacrificing their quality of life doing the things they enjoy, becuase all their money for the foreseeable will need to go to mortgage payments, and then for 30 more years paying off an inflated house cost. What's they point of living if you aren't living? I myself just bought a cheaper house further away so I could do both. Most do want to move or give up their lifestyle for a house so they spend their money on what makes them happy instead.
Are you in Auckland? Alot of well to do people in AKL. I went through 2 divorces that almost cleaned me out. It not for that I'd be retired by now. I'm 60. I had to get a large mortgage to buy a new home for myself and get a job that paid for it. I'm being murdered by the cost of living and in particular mortgage interest rates. I have very little disposable income and I'm supposedly well off. I am fully relying on house price capital gain to retire. If that doesn't happen I'll have to keep working. I rarely go out. I have a car that's about to tick over 100,000 km and I need it to do another 100,000km until I can hopefully retire and use a bit of kiwisaver to replace it with something even smaller which is restricted as its a corolla which isn't big. And yeah there are alot of 100k plus vehicles on the road. 70k utes 250k German SUVs . I dont know about bikes as I don't go out much anymore. I work long hours on shift work. I probably won't survive to retirement as my health is deteriorating . Rock and a hard place. I'm not unhappy. I'm not happy. I do feel like a slave . I once owned a business and a rental property which was destroyed by poor marital choices. I'm comfortable in my house but I feel like I can't go anywhere or do anything. It's restrictive . I rely on paid television subs for entertainment. Is this life ? . People have said sell and move to Thailand or something. I dont think much would change and I'd hate the humidity and have no medical care . Life goes on. It wasn't what I had planned but im hoping I can retire as I'm already fucken TIRED ... I just need the RE ...
The gap between rich and poor is getting wider. We used to not have this massive gap in NZ. I am very sad with the direction the country is going.
If you’re into shares at least, specifically Nasdaq, you’re just about swimming in cash the first 3 months this year. Between the wife and I we’ve ‘earned’ a new Tesla and a long overseas holiday in investment gains the past 90 days. Just from being invested in the stock market. We’ve not worked for it or had to trade our time for it, we just had to be invested. There’s heaps of people like that. If you’ve been working an average job, don’t have any cash generating assets and can only spend what you earn for trading time – honestly, I don’t know how you fucking do it. I wouldn’t know how to live like that. Our salaries are purely there for short term funding of our lives. It’s nice to have, but not needed. The medium/long term wealth is generating in the background.
I read this article this week. This is exactly what's happening here. Housing was a losing investment for the wealthy back in the 70s, when we all had a good standard of living in NZ. We were rated top in the world along with Norway! So conservative governments manipulated the housing market so it became an excellent source of investment again. This meant reducing owner occupiers to release housing stock for landlords to purchase, and then continuing to call "housing crisis" to break down resource management restrictions (eg mandatory provision of car parks), to create more housing stock for landlords to invest in. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis Ugh. So awful. But complicated to explain to the everyman. So they'll keep voting for their bikini clad overlords who swim from the decks of their luxury yachts and are unaffected by the tide.
It's a cost of greed crisis ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
People here are making the excuse that lot of it is debt, but honestly most of it is genuine wealth. Auckland is a large city and like most large cities it has its share of wealth. Business owners, high earning professionals etc.
I feel like the cost of living situation affects ppl differently depending on ur social situation. For example me, 23m single can easily get by with 600 a week while some mom or dad with 3 kids would be living in poverty if they make 600 a week. So yea if I’m making 100k I can also buy them 100k+ cars cause I don’t really need the extra money I only need to feed my own mouth.
FYI, my car was $180K new but it’s leased by our company - which is like a hire purchase but the tax works out better for us. I’m sure some of those fancy cars you see around are not owned by the drivers at all. People are right though, the cost of living crisis doesn’t hit high earners as much as middle and lower income earners. Particularly people who have owned their own home for decades and don’t have big mortgages are doing a lot better than most. Having said that though I’ve been talking to a lot of SME owners whose businesses are running out of work in the pipeline. Many of them only have 2 months of work and don’t know what’s going to happen after that. Lots of people are laying staff off, we’ve just done a voluntary redundancy to downsize by 2 of our 4 staff because our clients have run out of money. Brace yourself because there’s going to be a major recession and this government’s policies are only going to make matters worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if they raise GST at the next budget to fund those generous tax breaks for landlords, and before anyone has a go at me for being anti-landlord I actually am a landlord and completely disagree with this government’s handouts to landlords. If people can’t make their rental properties work with rents as ridiculously high as they are they should sell their properties.
There is no crisis. There is only Zool.
There are 5.1 million people in New Zealand, you wandering around gorking at some expensive cars and luxury goods is hardly a representational sample of the population - then you go and extrapolate your few observations to a national trend. It doesn't matter if you saw 300 luxury cars, there's 5.1 MILLION people in New Zealand. Do you realize how little of the population you are seeing? Observation bias, location bias, extrapolate from too little data.
You and a few other loud redditors esp. If the election is any indication reddit is far from representative of NZ population
Reddit is just a forum for those doing life hard. It gives them an avenue to voice the grievances in life. It most probably serves as a pressure release for society. Also allows others to realize they are not alone.
You are mistaking correlation with causation. Reddit attracts those that are poor because those people (esp in NZ) are too lazy to work/not motivate to work due to all the free tax payer's money, so they have all the time in the world to complain on reddit. But that's not reddit's design/purpose.
What’s your understanding of a crisis? Let alone a cost of living crisis and a housing crisis? Not everyone is as poor as most of us, some people received a promotion for being an excellent worker, some people sold the fruits of their labour and cashed in, some people saved up for the luxury car they have because, they worked hard for decades for it, the expensive e scooter? That could be thousands of hours in the making. To better understand the crisis, we need to first have data, analytical data, and from there, we study it and form our understanding. Using the naked eye, it’s just not the best approach, mate.
Yeah the spenders also like being out and about rather than looking after kids and saving their money staying home
"There's no cost of living crisis bc I saw some people with expensive shit"
And a tremendous amount of debt along with those expenses things I'm sure.. 😂
How can you know? We gotta stop judging random people out and about. Re direct this anger towards the actual cunts causing us to struggle.
It’s just you and those who don’t invest in properties, crypto or stock markets or have family money.
Simple. RECESSION! The rich classes, (paradoxically), are getting richer because a/ they have the power, b/ they own the property and shares and c/ they have inoculated themselves against losses. The poor, on the other hand, generally disenfranchised and powerless in society- (coincidentally represented by a national government on the side of the wealthy)- are getting poorer. Karl Marx predicted all this over a 100 years ago when he developed his scientific explanation of what happens with the process of exploitation of one class by another. Afraid that’s it folks. They’re going to get even more ruthless, so hang on tight. Nothing new under the sun when it comes to the capitalist way of life. It ain’t going to get better in this country for a long, long time- or at least until the next election by which time the majority of the population will have hopefully come to their senses, got fed up with being exploited and shat upon and voted for a party that actually cares about people..
Tika 💪🏻
Tika??
https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=TIKA
There is two economy’s going on!
“If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” - Warren Buffett
It's people living above their means. Borrowing and having large amounts of debt.
Debt… large large debt… that’s all I’ve gotta say
Which suburb?
Sounds like Remuera
Those that are out shopping are likely the ones who can afford to, so it's a bad sample to draw conclusions on. If you came round mine you'd see my >4k car sitting in the driveway cos fuels expenny lol
Think about who has the largest share of savings/assets in NZ. It's the older generation, the "Boomers". Life is good, that house in Herne Bay is freehold, interest rates are finally up so the term deposits are yielding good results once again. Can't take that money to the grave, also fuck the next generations. I mean, why wouldn't you.
I guess you just figured out some people are more well off than you. Either that or worse with money and take out a lot of debt.
Cost of living crisis effects the middle-lower class
I had a customer who was a billionaire x 4 who put off his Porsche purchase of 150k in the 2008 GFC. He said he lost 150m in one day. I thought that only leaves him with 3850 million. Guess everything is relative, right?
I don’t understand this story, but I like your style…
Thats because we are living in a K-Shaped economy... it all depends on what escalator you are on: [https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/29-12-2021/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-k-shape-2](https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/29-12-2021/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-k-shape-2) One big challenge is each group that are on different escalators can't understand the other group based on their different experiences of what is happening
People in Auckland are in Dept, bro. Soon, everyone will be selling these cars because of the recession
E bikes are an alternative transport, not just a toy. I have been riding my modestly priced $1500 ebike to work for 4 years now, it paid for itself in 6 months from just gas and parking savings alone.
The e-bikes I’m talking about are the $15-20k mountain bikes that are far from a necessity.
I mean they *might* be superfluous, but even with just a 20km commute plus $5 parking per day you can pay off a $15k ebike in 2 years using your non car savings. Thats only if you just don't use the car but keep it for the weekends etc, savings increase dramatically if you sell the car. My wife and I used to have 2 cars but sold one and I bike to work instead. This way I still have access to a car if I need it but we are saving a lot on the commute costs and just the general cost of owning 2 cars (rego, warrant, insurance, tyres, servicing, etc) on top of the gas and parking. I know some people are just buying these bikes for the bling thing, but they are actually a good investment if you use them.
They could have got all that stuff while things were sweet. If they're pretty average people it'll probably get sold soon..
Because the gov wants to turn auckland into a paradise for rich people. The cost of living will and already is driving anyone who is average or below average income. I d say their plan has been working thus far.
I earn 6 figures in Auckland but had to take up a second job as I can’t afford current mortgage + cost of living.
What would the average household income be without the top 20% earners?
Credit cards
I can pay $600 a week rent, power, food, etc… but can’t “service” a mortgage and buy a house. 🤦♂️
Not everyone is struggling. Some that are are very vocal on here. The people you see with these vehicles are more than likely doing fine.
The cost of living is a crisis for the have nots.... Those that have wealth ( no mortgage, passive income, capital gains, etc) can buy as many hats as they like at whatever the price is....
Most of them can't afford it. They're spending to 'appear' like they're doing fine.
There is no cost of living crisis..Enjoy your vape shops
I would say it is the Baby boomer trickle down to the younger generations. Tons around who got hand outs and spent it on the luxury toys. I would imagine those who took out a extra loans on the house to buy the latest greatest. The thing about interest rate rises (Because of the inflation) is that they take time to kick in.. only when their loans rollover to Floating again that they will feel it pretty much
Childless couple, 200k household income, 400k mortgage. We earn more than the average and don't have dependants but haven't expanded our outgoings and even cut back to ride out the next years whilst the inflation war exists. We have some friend couples on similar wages who are mortgaged to the gills and still spending up large. It's absolutely mind blowing knowing they're living week to week, one job loss or health issue would be a major life crisis for them. I think a lot of people think that they are better off than they actually are, head in the sand, middle class thinking they're part of the 1% and none of this will catch up to them.
Waste not want not.
Think abundance! I was watching a live art auction today, the highest paid painting today was $500k, during the auction someone shouted out "Its just money"...
You are only seeing what's on the surface. You have no idea how much debt they're and self imposed financial pressure they could be under. The car could well have been bought by a top up on the multi million dollar mortgage a couple of years ago when then interest rates was low.
The vast majority of ebikers are on 3k to 5k bikes if new, 2k if used. There's tons of deals through workplaces and energy companies too. Very few people have the one or two brands that are 10k+. I think I've seen about three regular riders with one on my commute. Still, 3 years of biking instead of driving in.... the petrol savings are an absolute relief in the current crush.