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A green blazer, a book labelled "Complete Works by Shakespeare," and a plate with a Christmas pudding are placed in front of a background showing graphs and numbers. The text "The Cost of Being" is on the right.
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SocietyDecember 6, 2024

The cost of being: A pensioner with no car or cellphone, who spends on books

A green blazer, a book labelled "Complete Works by Shakespeare," and a plate with a Christmas pudding are placed in front of a background showing graphs and numbers. The text "The Cost of Being" is on the right.
Image: The Spinoff

As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a 79-year-old writer explains his approach to spending and saving.

Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.

Gender: Gay male.

Age: 79.

Ethnicity: Pākehā.

Role: Writer and pensioner.

Salary/income/assets: About $40,000 pa and own my own flat outright.

My living location is: Urban.

Rent/mortgage per week: Nil mortgage but annual building levy of about $4,000 to cover joint hot water and central heating, maintenance etc.

Student loan or other debt payments per week: Nil.

Typical weekly food costs

Groceries: $120.

Eating out: Maybe once a week – $50.

Takeaways: None.

Workday lunches: I have meals on wheels (costs me $77 a month) and some days pop into a cafe for lunch.

Cafe coffees/snacks: When I am strolling in town (three of four times a week) I have a coffee, and people watch.

Other food costs: Bits and pieces if I run out of milk or bread but not much.

Savings: I have a second occupational pension GSF and save this to draw upon for extra expenditure so I save about $10,000 a year which I invest in bank bonds.

I worry about money: Rarely.

Three words to describe my financial situation: Comfortable and secure.

My biggest edible indulgence would be: Festive foods especially Christmas when I do the whole traditional thing for my family (I am a bit of a hobby cook).

In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: No more than $50.

In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: Haven’t owned a car since 1978 and use public transport/taxis (Gold Card mostly).

I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: A couple of hundred dollars mainly on things like underwear. I have a well-stocked wardrobe of conservative, good-quality and stylish clothes from the past.

My most expensive clothing in the past year was: A new summer jacket ($250).

My last pair of shoes cost: $250 (replacing some Docs which were worn out).

My grooming/beauty expenditure in a year is about: A few hundred dollars (mostly haircuts) but otherwise just basic toiletries.

My exercise expenditure in a year is about: $400 gym subscription (go once a week).

My last Friday night cost: No longer go out on Friday nights (age!)

Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: I always think carefully before I buy so I never regret purchasing stuff.

Most indulgent purchase (that I don’t regret) in the last 12 months was: I am an indulgent book purchaser and spend around $2,000 per annum on some specialist fields that interest me eg Chinese, and gay history, Orwell studies, fascism, Shakespeare. I also like to buy books for my granddaughters.

One area where I’m a bit of a tightwad is: I don’t buy stuff because people say I should, eg I have no cellphone or laptop (although I have a desk computer system which I use daily to run my financial and other affairs).

Five words to describe my financial personality would be: Frugal (but don’t stint myself if I need something).

I grew up in a house where money was: Available but not in excess.

The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: Never.

In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Possibly dead but otherwise much the same as now.

Describe your financial low: When my marriage broke up in 1978 and I had to begin my life again.

I would love to have more money for: Don’t need it.

I give money away to: A number of literary trusts and to the Women’s Refuge.

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Toby Manhire
— Editor-at-large
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A pink pie with a slice removed on a blue grid surface. A hand holds the removed slice to the left of the pie.
Image: Getty Images; design The Spinoff

OPINIONSocietyDecember 5, 2024

Juliet Gerrard: Funding the whole pie

A pink pie with a slice removed on a blue grid surface. A hand holds the removed slice to the left of the pie.
Image: Getty Images; design The Spinoff

Humanities and social sciences research is no longer eligible for the Marsden Fund. It’s a tiny portion of our overall research funding, yet makes a massive impact – and without it, the pie starts to crumble, writes a former Marsden Fund chair.

The frustrating thing about crazy ideas is that most of them are crazy. Worse, they are often hatched in the mind of peculiar individuals who are obsessed with them, the sort of people you might avoid getting stuck with in a bar. 

Funding a single crazy idea is folly because it will probably lead nowhere. But fund a hundred, and a handful will likely strike gold. 

Choosing the hundred is hard of course, and some of the golden ideas might be lost and never shine, but if you work hard to identify the best researchers and nurture a community to focus on their best ideas, then you have a pretty good shot at finding some of them. And in the meantime, you’ve grown a community of researchers that are connected to leading research overseas, can bring that home to a small country in the Pacific, and train students to tackle the challenges that face us and seize new opportunities. That’s what the Marsden Fund has done for New Zealand.

A hat tip to Simon Upton for having the vision and tenacity to set up the fund, and for leaving it unfettered from priorities of the government of the day. The best ideas can come from any discipline and we simply can’t know which of them will serve us best in the future. Who knew that philosophers would be in sudden high demand in artificial intelligence companies?

As chair of the Marsden Fund, I had the privilege of seeing all the applications and listening to the discussion at the expert panel meetings. I read the comments of the world-class scholars who refereed the proposals. Some of the ideas made my head hurt and others made my eyes roll, few were simple to grasp. I saw the different ways of thinking and judging excellence across all disciplines, much of it initially alien to someone trained in chemistry. I saw the enormous value of different perspectives, the traction that could be gained by thinking about problems in different ways, the excitement of genuine innovation, and the sparks of opportunity at discipline boundaries, especially those at the interface of the science I had learned and the social sciences and humanities.

I also saw the rigour with which the near impossible choices were made to fund only those ideas that truly sparkled. And felt the disappointment of those sparkly ones that just missed out. Those funded were high-risk ideas that might just work, and when they did they reaped huge rewards. They created our seed corn for the research programmes that grew out of them, in and across all disciplines. 

Each year, it was impossible to know which of the chosen ideas would fly the highest, but the process, inevitably imperfect, produced a suite of research that did us proud. We nurtured research and researchers that showcased the best of New Zealand, sometimes as part of international endeavours, sometimes working on subjects that could only be researched here at home.

As the prime minister’s chief science adviser, I met with many people around the world who spoke highly of New Zealand research and researchers. Often this hailed from place-based research that earned distinction globally. Many of these researchers had been nurtured by Marsden, which had enabled them to ask a question that could only be answered here. Others had been awarded funds to work on problems that could be researched anywhere, but had brought their unique lens. They hailed from all disciplines.

Not all research funds can be allocated this way and the Marsden Fund has never had more than a small slice of the research pie. Marsden funding for social sciences and humanities is a tiny portion of our overall research funding, and yet makes a massive impact. Without it, the pie starts to crumble. Most of our research dollars correctly go to important research that has to be done to address important issues of the day – our biosecurity, our health, our hazards landscape, etc. Or to grow critical mass in areas of huge opportunity – like space. But underpinning all these is a community of researchers across all disciplines with tendrils around the world to connect to the vast international research landscape. People who can identify opportunities in specialist areas that provide vital input to our wider research effort.

No one knows which ideas will be needed to face future challenges and seize opportunities. But a community of researchers across all disciplines pursuing their best ideas is our best insurance for making sure we have access to those ideas when we need them. A Marsden Fund that is hamstrung by government priorities will struggle to foster this community in a future that needs our best minds chasing their boldest ideas to benefit us all in the long term.

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Calum Henderson
— Production editor