The high price of cutlery

Greetings all,

Well it has been a whirlwind few days and I haven't had a chance to post much. We viewed a small house in Remuera last Wednesday night and another group was also viewing the house just after us. They wanted it and were even willing to pay more than us, but I guess the landlords thought we would be a better fit for the place so they gave us a shot at it. We had to decide under pressure wether to get it or not. Jen was kind of opposed due to the cost and the pressure and I was a tiny bit leery of the location being down a 4 block hill from the main road and having spotty bus service. The neighborhood is beautiful though and we have a park across the street, a Kwik-e-mart (not the real name) around the corner and a bus stop 1 block away (although it runs rarely and doesn't go directly where we want). If we walk the half mile hill we are about another half mile from New Market which is a HUGE shopping district and if we go the other direction we get to Parnell which is a ritzy boutique style area with cafes and restaurants.

At the last minute we decided to go for it since the place is just gorgeous and deceptively close to everything.

I will post some pictures shortly and address information. We have spent the last few days shopping to get the essentials for the place. Everything is VERY expensive here. For instance we went into a discount plastics store and the cheapest garbage pale was $30. They go up to $100+ We also found a small plastic chest of bins (think Target for $20 to put your kids toys in).....$399. We went to a fancier home store and found cutlery sets for $1000.00+, A $69 can opener (cheapest was $20) and many other things to blow your fiscal mind. For reference the US dollar is only about 21% ahead of the NZD so 21% off $1000 worth of spoons is still $790 USD. Also I am not picking the most expensive things we found at really expensive shops. Everything is this price. For instance a trip to Alaska at one of their discount travel places was quoted at something like $18,000. I am sure it included lodging but still... wow!

If you are moving to New Zealand keep in mind that things are quite expensive here, especially manufactured stuff and electronics. TVs go for $1500 +, nice furniture is about $1000+ per piece and simpl things like a set of measuring spoons can run $20-80. I recommend filling box after box of EVERYTHING you think you might use here. Shipping a few large boxes of small stuff might cost around $300 vs. buying that stuff for $3,000-10,000.

We have found that almost everyone has specials and sales constantly and if you shop around you can find these deals. For instance groceries and meat seem to be affordable and even though cafes are expensive, there is often a special on the menu that is about 1/2 price. Things like paperback books might run $15-30 a piece but you can get DVDs for around $20 I think. We packed all our DVDs in a case logic case and left the boxes in storage and we converted all our music to MP3 and will probably just I-tunes anything new we want. There is a company called www.Fatso.co.nz that we were going to check out and it is like a www.Netflix.com service. We need to get a TV still and a Multi-Zone? (Region Free) DVD player that will play our US DVDs as well as the ones here. We found a used TV/DVD combo for $200 which is amazingly cheap, so we might grab that.

For everything else we have been using www.trademe.co.nz (think www.Ebay.com) and have gotten a nice futon to sleep on until our bed arrives. The futon will double as our guest bed after that. We also are looking for a desk and won some nice kitchen stuff. It is expensive to pick this stuff up without a car and taxi's don't like to lug a bunch of stuff around. We found a company called www.taxitrucks.co.nz that will rent you a burly man and a truck at $60 an hour + $30 call out fee. This is nice for our refrigerator that we need to get still. Also another company is www.moveit.co.nz with cheaper rates but less flexibility.

Our place doesn't have a fridge and although it has 3 bedrooms and a parlour, doesn't have a dining room and the kitchen only has space for stools at the counter breakfast bar. We plan to eat at the counter and get a nice table for our deck to eat outside when the weather is nice. Weather is similar to San Francisco in the winter, so you can still go outside, although this week was really wet and cold and our place was freezing. No central heat here, so we had to go buy our own. We bought 2 oil electric 5 blade heaters which don't do much at all. One is in the hallway and one in the living room. We have our own fireplace though and have been running it a lot. We actually burned a bag of coal yesterday. I feel so old school all of a sudden. We also do not have a dryer, but do have a washer. People hang their clothes out to dry here almost exclusively and we have some lines on the porch for this. It took my clothes over a day to sort of dry in this weather though, so you have to plan ahead and make sure the stuff is out in time for the sun in the afternoon.

Well definitely some stuff to get used to, but some simple shifts are enough to enjoy the lack of glutenous comfort we were used to. Everything here is very conservation based. All the outlets even have on/off switches which people actually use. The toilets have 2 flush modes, half/full. People just generally try to use less, plan out exactly what they need and buy that and schedule things more. We are used to doing anything we want exactly when we want. Need a taxi, there it is, need a bus, one will be by every 3 minutes, need an ATM or a Starbucks, no problem, 2 on every corner. I think in the long run I will appreciate the fact that things are a tiny bit more spread out here and you have to think about what you want to do more and pay for what you use.

Till next time,

Matthew