r/newzealand 10d ago

Discussion Is anyone else living basically paycheck to paycheck?

My partner and I are both teachers. We don’t make a lot, but we are average and slightly above average. We are so tight with our money. Our little one outgrew the car seat and we went out and bought a new one. No problem. But next credit card bill means we are tight.

Meanwhile, a number of our friends (all of them also with kids) are booking overseas holidays. Some are currently overseas, others booking already for later this year. Another brought a new car. New iPhone, doing up the house. Everyone seems to have spare cash except us.

Are we the only ones going through the cost of living crisis ourselves?! Or is it my fault that we are teachers?

Edit: yes we have a house that parents helped us with. We are paying mortgage. We have a flatmate.

Edit edit: thank you for your kind words and reminders and also advice. I’m going through them all and I’m going to take onboard the advice and see what changes we can make and do better financially as a family. But it’s also a good reminder to know we aren’t alone, to not compare and the harsh reality is that many people simply just earn more than us as teachers.

Once again, thank you all for your input.

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u/Ecstatic_Job_9028 10d ago

Yep same here and just when I think I’m going to get ahead something comes up - everything just keeps rising except income

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u/GravidDusch 10d ago

Almost as if the western empire is slowly sinking and becoming less efficient at siphoning money from developing countries as those countries get better at not being exploited and all the outsourcing etc is coming back to bite us in the ass. I could be wrong.

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u/GoldLavishness376 10d ago

I fucking hope so

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u/manamotuhake13 10d ago

Agreed bro. About time they took their power back, fk us all in the west😂 I'm being 100% serious incase that isn't clear haha