As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a 48-year-old high-earning professional explains how she spends her money.
Want to contribute? Send us an email briefly describing your situation at costofbeing@thespinoff.co.nz
Gender: Female
Age: 48
Ethnicity: NZ Pākehā
Role: Barrister
My living location is: Urban
Living situation/mortgage: I live with my husband, our four children, and my eldest son’s girlfriend. Our mortgage is $600 per week.
Three words to describe my financial situation would be: Fluctuating (but) relatively stable.
Do you save? I have KiwiSaver but there’s not much in it – maybe $20,000? And I have shares currently worth $50,000.
Typical weekly food costs
Groceries: About $850. That feeds two adults, one child and four teenagers (two of whom are there intermittently)
Eating out: $300 (usually for two)
Takeaways: $0
Workday lunches: $25
Cafe coffees: $20
My biggest edible indulgence would be oysters; we buy $40 punnets quite regularly.
My alcohol expenditure is $0.
In the past year the ballpark amount I spent on clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was $3000.
My most expensive purchase in the past year was a cardigan, $650, a Scandi-look thing which wasn’t worth it.
My last pair of shoes cost $280 – Isabella Anselmi work sandals, from Mi Piaci.
My grooming/beauty expenditure is about $4,000. That includes makeup, botox twice a year, dermal fillers once a year, haircut and colour 3-4 times a year, fortnightly nail manicures.
My exercise expenditure in a year is about $1,000 – a cheap $7pw gym membership that I never use, running shoes and exercise wear.
My last Friday night cost $50 – it was just ingredients for dinner.
My most regrettable purchase in the past year was a jersey, bought online for $390. It’s too cropped, I’m never going to wear it.
My most indulgent purchase in the past year was dermal filler, $1500.
One area where I’m a bit of a tightwad is skincare. I use The Ordinary range, it’s pretty cheap.
Five words to describe my financial personality would be erratic, childish, hopeless, uncontrolled, irresponsible.
I grew up in a house where money was relatively abundant but the attitude towards it was tight; there was definitely no “trickle down” to my pocket.
The last time my Eftpos card was declined was a couple of months ago. I’m not very good at keeping track of what’s going in and out of my account.
In five years I see myself hopefully being more mature about budgeting.
My biggest financial low was when I was a single mother of one, building my career. I would save $10 a week so that my son and I could have breakfast at a cafe together once a fortnight.
I give money away to KidsCan, Red Cross, Support Ukraine Now, homeless people.
I worry about money: Sometimes.
Want to contribute? Send us an email briefly describing your situation at costofbeing@thespinoff.co.nz