{"id":587079,"date":"2026-09-01T17:08:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/587079\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:08:27","slug":"the-cost-of-being-a-young-new-zealander-looking-for-work-on-their-oe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/587079\/","title":{"rendered":"The cost of being: A young New Zealander looking for work on their OE"},"content":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0part of our series<\/a> exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a New Zealander in Germany explains the pros and cons of living and spending in Europe.<\/p>\n

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

Gender: Female<\/p>\n

Age: early 20s<\/p>\n

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

Role: Unemployed \u2014 just started an OE in Europe but struggling to find work.<\/p>\n

Salary\/income\/assets: Currently zilch. I get $350 a month from family. Right now I\u2019m living off savings.<\/p>\n

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

Rent\/mortgage per week: My partner and I share one bedroom in a flat with two others, so my rent works out to be roughly $200 NZD per week. Sharing a room is definitely the only way we can afford to live in our chosen city.<\/p>\n

Student loan or other debt payments per week: I have a student loan sitting in the background but since I\u2019m not working right now I\u2019m not paying anything towards it. I try not to think about the accumulating interest.<\/p>\n

Typical weekly food costs<\/p>\n

Groceries: Hard to say as we\u2019ve just moved into a new flat where we\u2019re sharing some essentials with the other tenants, but my partner and I probably spend about $60 per person on groceries. Groceries are much cheaper in Germany and insanely better quality. <\/p>\n

Eating out: $0. While we\u2019re still jobless we can\u2019t afford to eat out.<\/p>\n

Takeaways: $0, one because we can\u2019t afford that kind of luxury and two because we\u2019re in the middle of a huge city, everything you could ever want is always right there.<\/p>\n

Workday lunches: We always eat lunch at home. <\/p>\n

Cafe coffees\/snacks: Maybe $20 max, mostly on snacks while out and about. Coffee is fucking terrible here so I don\u2019t even bother. <\/p>\n

Savings: Currently living off savings as we just left NZ about a month ago. I\u2019d managed to save about $10,000 before we left, about half of which I\u2019ve converted to Euros and the other half I\u2019m keeping in NZD in case we have to bail out suddenly. <\/p>\n

I worry about money: Always.<\/p>\n

Three words to describe my financial situation: Precarious, dwindling, conservative.<\/p>\n

My biggest edible indulgence would be: I do love a giant pretzel or basically anything from a German bakery.<\/p>\n

In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: Maybe $10 a week. Booze is so cheap here \u2013 you can get a bottle of wine for \u20ac2 and it\u2019s still better than a cleanskin in NZ. <\/p>\n

In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: We pay \u20ac63 a month ($126ish NZD) for the Deutschland Ticket, which gives you unlimited access to trams, buses, the underground, overground and even the regional trains throughout the whole of Germany. It\u2019s a pretty pricey upfront cost but I\u2019d say we definitely get our money\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: Maybe $150? I buy most of my clothes secondhand and try to repair old clothes where I can.<\/p>\n

My most expensive clothing in the past year was: I bought a secondhand shirt from the designer rack which was $30, but it\u2019s high quality, looks great, and is a super comfy material for summer.<\/p>\n

My last pair of shoes cost: $40 for some Birkie knockoffs from Number One Shoes.<\/p>\n

My grooming\/beauty expenditure in a year is about: I went to the hairdressers for a cut and colour at the start of the year and that set me back nearly $300, so I\u2019ve been living with my badger stripe and split ends since then. My mum stockpiles skincare and lends me products from her fountain of youth, so I\u2019m currently still coasting on that nepotism. Makeup costs me about $100 a year for my three essentials: Benefit eyebrow gel, Too Faced eyeliner, and Maybelline mascara. <\/p>\n

My exercise expenditure in a year is about: My gym membership in NZ was $400ish a year. I haven\u2019t found a gym\/can\u2019t afford a gym yet in Germany, so running is my main form of exercise at the moment. <\/p>\n

My last Friday night cost: About $8 for some frozen pizza and wine.<\/p>\n

Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: I had quite a big opshop haul about a year ago and a lot of it is stuff I don\u2019t actually wear. I\u2019m usually quite good with keeping a small wardrobe so idk what was going on for me that day. <\/p>\n

Most indulgent purchase (that I don\u2019t regret) in the last 12 months was: Flights to Europe.<\/p>\n

One area where I\u2019m a bit of a tightwad is: Groceries. I\u2019ll always buy the budget brand, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s \u201cworse\u201d. <\/p>\n

Five words to describe my financial personality would be\u2026 Disorganised, frugal, short-sighted, easily overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

I grew up in a house where money was: Abundant. It wasn\u2019t splashed around, but it was always there.<\/p>\n

The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: Probably a couple years ago, when I was still studying and living off the weekly living costs loan.<\/p>\n

In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Hopefully still living overseas, but with more stability and freedom. <\/p>\n

I would love to have more money for: Travelling around Europe.<\/p>\n

Describe your financial low: When I was still at uni and paying a ludicrous amount of rent for a box room with no window, and I was in between jobs so my only income was student loan, and since most of that was going on rent I\u2019d have maybe $60 leftover for food and activities. <\/p>\n

I give money away to: The Green Party. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As\u00a0part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a New Zealander in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,300,111,139,69,2935,13087],"class_list":["post-587079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-money","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-society","tag-the-cost-of-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}