By The Cost of Being

Copyright thespinoff

As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a CEO of two small businesses lays out their financial situation, and makes the argument for a Universal Basic Income and Capital Gains Tax.

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Gender: Female.

Ethnicity: Pākehā.

Role: CEO of my two small businesses, one of which includes a small farm with 80 pets and livestock to look after!

Salary/income/assets: $175,000 p.a. plus my husband’s salary and a lot of land which we are subdividing.

My living location is: Rural.

Rent/mortgage per week: Three person household – two are paying off an $850K mortgage (including from our business), one is paying us rent. 50 cows we farm regeneratively are “paying us rent” for grazing, plus we Airbnb a small cabin during tourist season. With the rental / grazing income deducted, we pay off around a $550,000 mortgage.

Student loan or other debt payments per week: $250 car loan, $500 for various insurances, and I’m still paying off a stonking IRD bill from 2023.

Typical weekly food costs

Groceries: About $500 a week on groceries for two people, but we grow a lot of our own kai (including meat and eggs). However, our animal feed and vet bill is about $500 a week too.

Eating out: Hardly ever, as we live so remotely, maybe $40.

Takeaways: Not happening since we moved to the end of the world!

Workday lunches: All eaten at home.

Cafe coffees/snacks: All eaten at home.

Other food costs: We spent quite a bit on planting our own kai, including about $3,000 on almost 100 fruit and nut trees. Hopefully, they’ll start producing either this summer or next! Also around $150 a season on a vege garden, and thousands on native and riparian planting as we regenerate 10ha of our land.

Savings: Often in the tens of thousands when big contracts come in, but then that money can go out real quickly for major infrastructure like a new driveway and fencing which cost us almost $150,000, and a $45,000 solar and battery system to become self-reliant as we have so many power cuts here. For a long time it felt like no matter how much I earned, there always seemed to be 10% more going out, but in the last five years or so, it feels like money actually stays in the accounts for longer.

I worry about money: Rarely.

Three words to describe my financial situation:Very privileged and lucky. I grew up extremely poor with a single mum, sharing a bedroom in a tiny flat until I moved out at 17. I’m the first girl in my family to have gone to university, which set me up to break the intergenerational shackles of poverty. My mother was also extremely frugal and had saved all her meagre earnings to help me out when I decided I was going to go to the other side of the planet to do several degrees that would cost almost $200,000 in international student fees!

My biggest edible indulgence would be: We love artisanal local cheeses, and spend quite a bit on expensive booze (even though we also distill and make our own).

In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: Too much to feel comfortable admitting haha.

In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: Maybe $80, but that’s mostly farm vehicle expenses. We rarely go anywhere but the local beach with the dog.

I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: $2,500 – I got a serious Dangerfield addiction!

My most expensive clothing in the past year was: A €300 Ripley-style jumpsuit bought on an overseas work trip. Great for hooning around the farm and dealing with cow shit!

My last pair of shoes cost: I mostly live in jandals and gumboots, depending on the season. My Boonies were around $150 and they are fantastic when you wade through Pākihi mud half the year!

My grooming/beauty expenditure in a year is about: Around $300 in hair colouring (a third of what it cost in Wellington!) and I pay my glorious rongoā Māori soul sister around $150 in koha for homemade Pani Raurekau creams and oils, which are basically a fountain of youth in a jar!

My exercise expenditure in a year is about: $300 for Pilates classes, otherwise I get my exercise from hooning around the farm and running after animals all day.

My last Friday night cost: Part of our weekly booze bill.

Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: Our extremely expensive driveway (but it was essential to get our subdivision consent)!

Most indulgent purchase (that I don’t regret) in the last 12 months was: Our new Hilux ute – utterly essential when you are running a farm at the end of the world, and doing a million building projects. We had so much grief and repair expenses with our 15-year-old Triton, so having a new vehicle that always works and performs its workhorse duties remarkably well is everything. (I’d normally never buy a brand new car!)

One area where I’m a bit of a tightwad is: I don’t think I’d ever be accused of being a tightwad… to my mother’s eternal chagrin!

Five words to describe my financial personality would be: Hedonistic, lucky, generous, know how privileged I am (and what poverty feels like), spontaneous.

I grew up in a house where money was: Extremely tight. I worked shitty summer jobs from the age of 10, otherwise I’d never have had any pocket money. We grew and scavenged a lot of our own food, and I was bullied mercilessly for wearing second-hand clothing when everyone at my poncy school was dressed in Benetton, Ralph Lauren and Burberry gear (something to be said for school uniforms there).

But I always had food and a roof over my head, which means I was still better off than the 100,000s of children and adults living in abject poverty and housing insecurity here! No one should have to struggle with the basic necessities of life in a country as rich in resources as ours.

This is a political failure, and we need to break out of those neoliberal oligarch-imposed shackles and insist on a Universal Basic Income and redistribute the wealth from hoarding centi-millionaires and billionaires to make up for the horrors their greed causes to both people and our planet. 100% tax for every cent over $100 million in assets could fix both world hunger and the climate and ecosystem collapse they have caused.

Also: just bring in a Capital Gains and Wealth Tax already! I’d happily pay that so that renters and young people can stop living like feudal slaves in Aotearoa.

The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: Probably back when I was a starving student for 10 years!

In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Freehold and retired, living as self-sufficient a lifestyle as we can physically manage.

I would love to have more money for: More land to regenerate and protect from future development, pests and pollution. Plus, a tractor.

Describe your financial low: My entire childhood after my dad abandoned us when I was three. Then, when I emigrated and was a student living on less than $20K a year in a super tropical climate and couldn’t afford a house with air conditioning. So I often suffered 45C+ hot summers with nothing more than a plug-in fan. Now I know I probably boiled my organs with the wet bulb heat of 100% humidity and those temperatures! I lived on less than $20K a year until I was 30 when I finally got my first full time job. Now I sometimes have $20K+ monthly outgoings for various building and infrastructure projects, and am just stunned how much my life changed!

I give money away to: A ton of environmental and conservation charities, Ukrainian animal shelters and children’s education, and pay a lot of my favourite Substack writers in subscriptions. I also do volunteer, pro bono or cheaper hourly work for community organisations, and freely share our produce with our neighbours and friends. One of the nicest things when I finally started earning proper money in my 30s was being able to pay something back to the greater good.