As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a deputy headmaster in a small town explains how they save and where they spend.
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Gender: Male.
Age: 49.
Ethnicity: New Zealand European.
Role: Deputy headmaster.
Salary/income/assets: %145,000, own home with about 80% equity.
My living location is: Small town.
Rent/mortgage per week: $600 per week mortgage. Sounds wrong to say I live alone and my partner comes to stay 1-2 nights a week and I stay at hers 1-2 nights a week. We like to say that we live between two houses.
Student loan or other debt payments per week: N/a.
Typical weekly food costs
Groceries: $150.
Eating out: $70.
Takeaways: $30
Workday lunches: Usually take lunch from home or skip it.
Cafe coffees/snacks: $10.
Other food costs: I’ve got a productive summer veggie garden and good citrus in winter, but gardening is not something I’ve ever thought of as a food cost.
Savings: I think I usually save about $500 per week, but it’s not for any particular purpose, just what’s left over after the everything else. The money finds a way of disappearing on home improvements or holidays or things like surfboards or musical equipment.
I worry about money: Rarely.
Three words to describe my financial situation: Fortunate, lucky, grateful.
My biggest edible indulgence would be: Lurpak butter.
In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: $20 on a nice zero percent six-pack.
In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: $100 including petrol, car insurance, WoF, maintenance etc.
I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: $1,500?
My most expensive clothing in the past year was: Fjallraven sweatshirt, $240.
My last pair of shoes cost: $260, a nice pair of Campers.
My grooming/beauty expenditure in a year is about: $500 – haircuts, sun cream and moisturiser.
My exercise expenditure in a year is about: $1000 – yoga classes and running shoes.
My last Friday night cost: Too tired to go out on Friday nights and prefer getting up early on Saturday. Sounds boring but fuck it, it helps me feel better.
Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: Electric chainsaw. Gutless and the battery barely lasts 15 minutes.
Most indulgent purchase (that I don’t regret) in the last 12 months was: A Strymon guitar pedal for $600.
One area where I’m a bit of a tightwad is: Given the wealth spectrum in New Zealand, I don’t think there is one. But neither am I particularly loose in any one area.
Five words to describe my financial personality would be: Cautious, considered… no other words.
I grew up in a house where money was: A prominent subject. My dad grew up very poor and worked in a bank for many years. My mother was also from a working-class background. They belong to that group of boomers who were very focussed on not ever being poor again. For them, poverty was a kind of moral failing and they were frightened of its shadow. They passed this fear onto their four children.
The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: Can’t remember this ever happening.
In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Almost mortgage-free and hoping that I can use that freedom well.
I would love to have more money for: Buying back my own time. I often think of that line from Thoreau: “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life, which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
Describe your financial low: At one stage my student loan was around $90,000. That brings a man pretty low.
I give money away to: Forest and Bird, local arts centre, Surf Life Saving NZ.
