What do you do

I'm quite astounded with the relatively low salary available to people who have masters, post grad degrees and who have also had years in their field

Man...if I had opted to be an Insurance Underwriter, even here in New Plymouth, I would be looking at $70-90k plus.

Emz - my sister is 27 and earns $90k as a Financial Controller in Aus. Her DP is a welder, and is on around $30ph+ in Aus also. When she was in NZ a couple of years ago (they moved over when she was maybe 24??), she was on over $80K as an accountant, in Christchurch.

DH is a digger operator, on not great wages ($15.50ph) while I get a huge amount of just over minimum wage working at the Warehouse part-time. We definitely earn less than $60K, probably around $47K all up for both of us??

Wow what a varied bunch we are. I'm an Office Manager for a financial services company and get around $65k, I could get a better job and get paid more if I acutally had the motivation to look and go through the recruitment process...

caliandjack wrote: Kate everyone I know in Aus is earning more than they did here.

True, but she's not on much more there, then what she was on down in Christchurch.

I understand about the smaller towns having lower salaries than a "city" but Wellington and Christchurch I thought would have been on par with Auckland, in fact Wellington has the highest median income in the country.

I was offered a job in Chch (head hunted) and the salary was actually higher than what I am on now as an incentive so above $90k which for what I do is pretty good money, but its cold down there .. I probably would have spent the extra dosh on keeping warm.

freckle - I totally get working for the love, im just one of those few people who actually loves their job and it pays well enough to support my family (although I obviously dont have the disposable income we had as a two income family).

Ooops double post!

Edited by BooBoo

I found on average salaries in Welly for Office Admin/PA work were 45-50k they've actually come down in the last year due to the recession with more people looking than jobs. In the Manawatu the average is 35k sucky cause our living costs certainly aren't 10-15k less a year.

DH is in the military and they pay the same salary for the same job regardless of where in the country it is, hence the reason we don't want to get posted to Akl as his 65k goes a lot further down here.

lilfatty wrote: freckle - I totally get working for the love, im just one of those few people who actually loves their job and it pays well enough to support my family (although I obviously dont have the disposable income we had as a two income family).

the love only goes so far... we need more money now LOL

We find that the military pays very well . DH gets compensated financially for going away to sea which is great. When we had a mortgage we got paid extra $$ for that. Of course it means he's away sometimes but that's just the way it is for us at the moment.

Greens LF?!! I prefer white

The only reason I went back to uni to do Masters was because I knew the job prospects were good & the salary I could earn pretty good. I wouldn't have bothered otherwise. Simple as that.

Raspberry, I'm pretty sure Massey at Albany do a planning/resource management qual. Might be worth looking into. Not sure of the details

The military definitey isn't for everyone. My DH is in command of a ship & gets paid accordingly - we think anyway

Maybe your DH should look at leaving if the pay is more in the "real world"? Got to take into account their super as well I guess.