{"id":514882,"date":"2026-03-03T00:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/514882\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T00:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:36:08","slug":"the-cost-of-being-a-london-based-new-zealander-slumming-it-on-terrible-espressos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/514882\/","title":{"rendered":"The cost of being: a London-based New Zealander \u2018slumming it on terrible espressos\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0part of our series<\/a> exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, an analyst living in London explains where they pay more and where they pay less compared to New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gender: Woman.<\/p>\n

Age: 32.<\/p>\n

Ethnicity: P\u0101keh\u0101.<\/p>\n

Role: Senior analyst living in London.<\/p>\n

Salary\/income\/assets: $143,000 a year.<\/p>\n

My living location is: Urban.<\/p>\n

Rent\/mortgage per week: My partner and I pay about $1,000 a week to rent a little one-bed in London. <\/p>\n

Student loan or other debt payments per week: $0. I really hated being in debt, so I paid off my student loan aggressively over two years.<\/p>\n

Typical weekly food costs<\/p>\n

Groceries: $130 for two adults, which covers four or five dinners, lunches and breakfasts, plus snacks, delivered to our door. The blessings of supermarket competition! <\/p>\n

Eating out: $184 per week. Across a month, this looks like one dinner out, multiple bakery stops every weekend, and semi-regular coffees and drinks. I\u2019m aware this is a bit ridiculous and am working on reducing it.<\/p>\n

Takeaways: $0. We ate pizza last week, but it\u2019s the first takeout we\u2019ve had in over a year.<\/p>\n

Workday lunches: $20. I try pretty hard to pack lunch, but forgetting even once means an instant $20, easy. <\/p>\n

Cafe coffees\/snacks: $50. I am a recovering coffee snob who slums it on terrible $3 work espressos. A decent flat white costs $9-10 in London, and even then is but a pale memory of Coffee Supreme or People\u2019s. <\/p>\n

Savings: I save about $2,300 a month. When I lived in New Zealand, I could do almost double that, on a similar salary, but it gets eaten up on rent here.<\/p>\n

I worry about money: Never.<\/p>\n

Three words to describe my financial situation: Solid, hopeful, informed.<\/p>\n

My biggest edible indulgence would be: Fancy olive oil and Maldon sea salt\u2026 someone got a little bit too excited by Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.<\/p>\n

In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: $50 for a few pints. <\/p>\n

In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: $90 for the tube. Expensive but genuinely brilliant compared to the half-hourly buses back home.<\/p>\n

I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: $3,000. I had to buy a bunch of new winter and work clothes, all on the pound. <\/p>\n

My most expensive clothing in the past year was: $700 for a new mint green winter coat. I love her.<\/p>\n

My last pair of shoes cost: $250 for some casual trainers. <\/p>\n

My grooming\/beauty expenditure in a year is about: $1,000 or so, predominantly on hair cuts and fancy skincare. <\/p>\n

My exercise expenditure in a year is about: $500 for my multiple social rugby teams!<\/p>\n

My last Friday night cost: $300 for tickets to the theatre and fancy cocktails. This was super unusual, but we were celebrating a much loved friend\u2019s birthday. <\/p>\n

Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: $300 for a TV that gets progressively more broken by the day. <\/p>\n

Most indulgent purchase (that I don\u2019t regret) in the last 12 months was: I took my mum, sister and partner out for a really fancy meal to celebrate my sister\u2019s graduation. It cost at least $900.<\/p>\n

One area where I\u2019m a bit of a tightwad is: Replacing things like bras, socks and PJs. <\/p>\n

Five words to describe my financial personality would be: Learning discipline for first time!<\/p>\n

I grew up in a house where money was: Available, and then all of a sudden, not. I had a very fortunate childhood. My parents were able to afford things like music lessons, extra tutoring and occasional trips overseas. I wanted for nothing. Then my mum got sick and our financial situation changed overnight. These days, I try and fund nice treats like dinners out to make my parents\u2019 situation a little more bearable. <\/p>\n

The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: Can\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n

In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Owning a house and paying for childcare. Starting to properly save for retirement.<\/p>\n

I would love to have more money for: A house deposit, and paying off my parents\u2019 debts. <\/p>\n

Describe your financial low: I went through periods of intense financial stress at university, while many of my friends received stipends from their parents. It makes me a little mad to think that we often loan students less in living costs per week than their rent. <\/p>\n

I give money away to: Family members in need and charity appeals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As\u00a0part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, an analyst living in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,6212,186,187,184,185,6213,177499],"class_list":["post-514882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-comments-enabled","tag-finance","tag-money","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-society","tag-the-cost-of-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}