Trying to Cook in NZ

Nina and I have been in New Zealand for six weeks now and are still trying to figure out how they create the prices for things. Our first horrible discovery was when we tried to get a cell phone. When we left the US, we each were using free cell phones and were paying $45US a month for Verizon that gave us 450 minutes and free calls to other Verizon customers, texts were 5 to 10 cents and free night and weekends. I never got close to using all of my minutes. It seemed like a pretty good deal, but I had no idea. There are two companies here Vodafone and Telecom, they are identical in nearly every way. Here the closest thing to a new cell phone is a buy one get one, but the first one costs $450NZ. The cheapest phone we could find had a black and white screen and felt like it would shatter if you dropped it, it was $80NZ. We decided on the color $90NZ model that had a unit converter built in that feels like it would shatter if you dropped it. Then we had to choose a plan. Let me tell you, it wasn’t tough. The $50NZ plan would give us 20 minutes a month. That is 20 minutes we could use any time of day. If we used up the 20, it would be $.99NZ for each additional minute. The 450 minute plan cost around $300NZ a month. We opted for the pay as you go plan which costs $.89NZ a minute, but we don’t pay for incoming calls so that is nice.

A few other strange schemes are gas at about $5.02US per gallon, that seems normal for anywhere that has no gas and isn’t America. Nina noticed that Keen shoes are a bit expensive. The pair that she almost got at REI before we left for $60US cost $191US here. And people still buy them. I am probably going to need some new shoes before I leave here, so I am going to buy them from REI and have them shipped here. Broadband internet costs by the MB downloaded. Books are the really insane thing. A new paperback will set you back $20NZ, a hardcover will cost $40. Meanwhile, used books cost $6NZ-$10NZ. It is a very difficult country in which to shop.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.