There isn’t any objective way of determining where is a good place to live. I’m enjoying London; not that I spent a whole lot of time out in it, thanks to my work and hobbies all being indoors. But I love the sense of bigness and endless choice when I do go out, and I like the perks that a more developed economy brings at home (a.k.a. “proper Internet”.) I’m not sure how I’m going to cope with Wellington’s public transport system if I go back. We get grumpy if we have to wait 10 minutes for a bus.
But I have wondered whether people, in general, are better off financially over here. After all, rent prices are sky high. Yet food is cheaper, and you don’t need a car to go anywhere.
Here is a little spreadsheet that compares a salary in NZ to a salary in the UK. It has a tax calculator built in, and interestingly, NZ and UK taxes are almost identical when you compare the income of two similar jobs, even though the method to calculate them looks very different. I used the expenses of a person sharing a nice flat with two others in both NZ and UK. And at the end, it shows you how much you have in your hand after the bare essentials are paid for.
You can download the spreadsheet and have a play if you like. I started it off on the reasonably good retail wage of £7.50 in the UK or $13.50 in NZ. For that example, it came out £5.4k in the hand for the NZer, £5k for the Brit. But for better paid professions, the UK is normally ahead, and increasingly more as the pay rate increases.
Again, this is not an attempt to determine which is the best place to live, financially or otherwise! It is exceedingly simple, and more of an attempt to get a view of the magnitude of difference. Which, it turns out, is not a huge amount.
You wait 10 minutes? For a BUS? Why would you want to do that???
Mersey
December 1st, 2008
Also, I just used your spreadsheet, very interesting. We are waaaay better off living over here in London. Although I think you should add in transport to your costs.
Mersey
December 1st, 2008
I thought about transport. The problem is that, if you are at all sensible, you use public transport in London, whereas public transport is too crappy (slow/unreliable/inconvenient) to use for most places in New Zealand – it’s much easier to have a car.
Comparing the costs of a car (purchase price, running costs, maintenance, insurance, depreciation…) with a £24 weekly ticket doesn’t really work. I get the feeling that the £24 ticket comes out on top, given that my car devalued $10k in 5 years, and I spent the same again on maintenance and insurance, not to even start thinking about petrol!
Mogest
December 2nd, 2008
Hmm, good point, although I still think you should add it, as it is a component of the living costs. I think in each country it is the case that you would go with the easiest option – in London that is public transport, but in NZ that is a car. How much your car devalues also depends on how much you spend on it in the first place. :-)
Mersey
December 2nd, 2008