DH wants to move back to New Zealand

[Mightypen]

Trigger warning: we are OK off financially and I know this rationally so please do not read if moaning middle classes annoy you!

We both spent our formative years in NZ and DH was born there so has more of a pull… We moved over to the UK in our 20s.

DH thinks UK is in a dire economic and demographic position and the middle to well off will end up having to pay to bail us out from already taxed income. The rich have already left or have locked down their assets and protected themselves.

DH points out NZ has no stamp duty, virtually no capital gains tax, no inheritance tax. There is a reason millionaires are flocking there (we are not multi millionaires!). The NHS will be even more pressured as we reach old age and I wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped state pensions for anyone who owns a house worth over a certain amount or has, say, whatever the equivalent of £10k is in a savings account.

All dire predictions and catastrophising on my part has come true in recent years eg Brexit, Trump etc.

We (or our children) upon our demise will be handing over hundreds of thousands to the govt of already taxed income. Like many, the last few years have seen our standard of living drop. We are really lucky not to be anywhere near destitute or homeless. But there is no spare cash for any of the extras that made life fun. I can’t afford to pay more into my pension and I really should… there is no real scope to go beyond treading water.

The things that seemed realistic just a couple of years ago are out of reach now eg moving to our dream property.

I can see his point and agree we will be snookered here in old age. The main upside I can see of NZ is it beautiful, has great people and is further out of reach if we have nuclear war. BUT it’s dull and far away.

We have 2 DCs, a tween and early teen (years 6 and 8). They go to great schools which we are paying enormous sums for (sorry) and are getting the sort of opportunities we could only dream of in our youth. If we went back, we could send them to local schools where they at least have playing fields (we live in a city here). I don’t think private schools there offer the same value.

DH thinks we should cut our losses in the UK, sell up and resettle in NZ. He never used to feel like this and was always realistic about NZ’s strengths and weaknesses and the UK’s but he’s now very down on the UK.

The DC eulogise NZ as they have grown up with no close relatives here so think it must be amazing and they would live in sunshine forever more.

I remember it as boring, expensive with poor housing and a tad pretentious (in the circles I mixed in - prob as it was so small). Jobs and wealth were even more dependent on being connected whereas in the UK, if you have the skills, you can carve out a decent and interesting career.

Travel from NZ is expensive unless you want a trip
to Australia or the Pacific Islands. Asia is a short haul trip
and it’s at least 12 hours away…

I love European culture, food, history, architecture and nature. This continent has so much diversity and it’s just a short flight or even drive away. We would NEVER have access to this in NZ. I envisage my retirement as being filled with jaunts to the south of France in September, truffle gathering in Croatia in the autumn, long walks on Sardinian beaches in June, ambling through Seville during orange blossom season, island hopping in Greece in May, Christmas markets in Austria and Germany, summer trips to the Alps, short breaks to Budapest and Berlin…, revisiting the Hermitage in off season (if there is such a thing and if it is ever safe to go to Russia again).

Then there is the small matter of resettling DC. If we don’t go in the next year, it will be too late (and I doubt we can sell up by then). If we wait until DC have finished school, then we will
live on the other side of the world from them. Even if we move
them now, they will probably drift back to the UK for a few years at the very least in their 20s.

I’ve pointed all this out… what more can I say to convince DH this is a bad idea? Or am I wrong? Is there an alternative place I could propose to him? I don’t think anywhere is utopia. But is there anywhere better than here or NZ?

I wouldn't move to NZ as it's so far from everywhere else. I think it would be ok if all your family was there but only if you moved when the DC were young enough that they would be happy to stay put there and not likely to move back to the UK 24 hours away! Although I say that as someone who grew up in the UK and had no ties to any other countries and I now live in SE Asia..

I love living in SE Asia (although this is DH's home country so we have a different perspective). There are plenty of retiree expats here and you can have a decent lifestyle for much less money than the UK. I wouldn't move here with your age children though. We plan to be back in the UK for our kids secondary education (then hot foot it back to Asia as soon as they're independent).

Good shout @Araminta1003 but it’s soooo conservative. I don’t want to say too much outing stuff but we know the country a bit. If you’re mid 50s and above it’s impossible to find a job there due to the pension liabilities for the employer apparently! I’d be going from growing up in NZ, a country that gave women the vote at least 25 years before the UK did to a country that had a canton that only gave women the vote in 1991!

Ooh @LimeSqueezy we have travelled a bit in Asia but not enough to get a proper feel for it. Whereabouts are you if you don’t mind me asking? Won’t it be difficult retiring away from your DC?

I would LOVE France or Italy but the tax system in France is super complicated and makes us look like the UAE while many people who settle in Italy complain about bureaucracy. Spain too has its problems and I believe Portugal has rescinded its golden visa.

In other words, nowhere is perfect - especially if you don't want to pay tax

40 years ago one of my relatives (who was much older than me and his DW) retired with their family to the US. They got by and it worked out fine for them and for the kids. But they had an inexpensive lifestyle (though very nice if you're into outdoorsy things and not high culture etc) and didn't expect their kids to go to top universities.

Do you and DH simply have a very high expectation of how "comfortable" a retirement you can have given your incomes and savings and ages? It's easy to think "We've done very well for ourselves, we have this much money so we should be able to afford this lifestyle, buy my dream home, live in a central location, retire in my early fifities, whatever" but then reality is that prices go up and what you thought you'd be able to have isn't realistic. You can have the things you want but you can't expect to have all of them. You don't have that kind of wealth. You still have to prioritise and make choices.

New Zealand sounds like a bit of a fantasy solution - a place where you (or DH) can "have everything". But you can't, it's just another choice.

And you do have choices. You must be living in one of the most super-expensive parts of the UK and you have two or more children in private schools, and you're wondering why you can't save and retire very early? You and your DH and children seem well protected from whatever economic crisis the UK is having - you're not going to stop being "comfortable" by many people's standards. You might not get everything you want but what you expect sounds like the moon on a stick.

And the bigger problem is that what your DH wants most might be very different from you want. A lot of what you're saying about politics looks like an attempt to rationalise the fact that you can't both have what you want - not because of the evil govt but because you really want different things. Maybe he wants to live in the back of beyond, lead a home/country-based life, not travel, not very interested in international cultural things, etc?

One of the many reasons we don’t live outside of London and haven’t considered it is we don’t want somewhere homogenous culturally or ethnically…

Really? Maybe you and your DH need to spend more time outside of London. Your DH sounds, well, narrow minded. Though to be fair I was brought up in an outer London suburb and you couldn't pay me enough to live in one now.

(And by the way trigger warnings are not meant for irritation or even offense. They are for trauma.)

I want to pay tax @youheard but IHT in France kicks in at a really low amount. And everyone complains it’s complex. No idea about Italian tax but it’s just the nightmare of admin that I hear about

yes, so as I’m saying there is no perfect country for you – every country will have its downsides. I would stick with what you have.

OP why did you and your husband come to the UK? And is your DH not worried that your own kids would do the same? He does seem to be prioritising avoiding tax over all else.

French inheritance tax allowances are way more generous than they are here. Between parent and child it’s 40% - same as here - with the first €1.8 million exempt per child. It goes up to 45% over that among.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay I think you’re right. We thought we were on track to more than we will have. That’s partly been scuppered by various taxes (by Tory govt I might add! And not just on income) but also by the explosion of the super rich and a dearth of housing. So boring family homes that would have been affordable for two working professionals are now just that bit out of reach etc. You’re right we can’t have it all in one place and can’t have everything at once.

As for DH, he doesn’t want a country or outdoorsy lifestyle, he’s just scared financially and I think could benefit from therapy. He grew up with nothing and I think has a scarcity mentality. It’s a bit like if you lose weight (I have been there) it can take years or perhaps forever for you to stop thinking of yourself as overweight. He is still that boy from a council estate with nothing in his own head.

woah really @blossomtoes?! I tried to read a bit on this last month and felt really down as I thought it was at about 300k or so. I must have been looking at the wrong info. This gives me hope!!

Why on earth would someone who wasn’t outdoorsy want to live in NZ?! I thought that was the main thing people went there for?

The isolation would be a killer for me.

From a distance standpoint Australia is bad enough, but NZ is a step further into being in the middle of nowhere.

We are in a good location (albeit too far north), with such quick access to the European continent and western US. Leaving here at noon our time we'd be in New York by noon their time. Leaving here at noon our time we'd be in Auckland tomorrow night their time.

Flights to the continent are cheap as chips. Weekends away in Paris, Rome, Madrid, Berlin etc. North Africa (9 miles from Spain to Morocco) is also on our doorstep.

I travel alot and I'd feel trapped being so far away. That's besides the other things mentioned.

My Tw was about privileged moaning @dogfishman . The thing is, the money invested was already taxed as it was from earned income. Culture and lifestyle does come down partly to affordability!

DH grew up poor @ThatsNotMyTeen and has been paying major taxes for two decades. Even when contractors were paying minimal tax, he always played it safe and paid two lots of NI etc.

Know what you mean @Drinkdrinkduuurink . I already feel a bit isolated living so far north and on an island! Sometimes in toy with living somewhere on the continent where I can just drive across borders with ease!

So DH doesn’t think DC into uni here (which they will I’m sure). So the plan is for them to go to uni in NZ instead, is that a better option?

I'm on the other island (Ireland), but except for being roughly 500 miles too far north, we are in a great location distance wise.

London is the centre of the world (literally of course), which is probably a major reason why it is the busiest airspace in the world. Flights nowadays (and compared to just a couple of decades ago) are so cheap, that we can decide to go somewhere for a weekend (or week) without having to break the bank. Being in NZ (or Aus) this would not be possible.

If someone wasn't that interested in travel or meeting up with family then none of this would matter. I just couldn't be so far away from things. NZ, Aus, or even west coast US would be just too remote for my liking.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen and @pinkgrevillea I think you’re right. He’s going through Manopause. He hates his job. He hates feeling poor. He’s probably watching negative media.

To those accusing me of being some anti-tax right winger, I’ve pointed out that it’s the Tories who f’d our family financially! And sadly Labour are about to inflict more pain.

The demographics comment was about an ageing population - not a less white one.

And I don’t have a problem with benefit claimants and think the idea that people would purposely stay off work to get the shitty UC is a joke.

Most people wherever they’re from just want a better life!

Just to throw another random thought out there, when we first arrived the weather and summers were surprisingly glorious. This summer was shite. Is the Gulf Stream really ending and will that take away the OKish weather have in the south east, despite us being positioned so far north as an Island?

Beware of Resentful Rich Man syndrome. Sounds like your DH has it in spades, to be honest.

A friend of my dad moved himself and his wife to one of the “tax haven” islands off the UK a few years back.

They don’t actually like it, especially his wife. She is actually an unpretentious person and all she really wants is to spend time with her grandchildren. But her time with them is limited because they can only dodge the taxes by staying on this blinking island for most of the year. Moving and living there has engendered all kinds of costs, so that “not paying all that tax” isn’t actually the financial boon for them you might think, when everything is considered. But my dad’s friend still won’t consider moving back. It’s all about dodging that horrible taxman, you see. He is obsessed with not paying tax, and is bitter and resentful about the whole matter, which is why he’s making decisions that basically amount to cutting off his nose to spite his face.

NZ is a wonderful country and I know people who’ve moved out there and loved it, but it’s not a good idea to move ANYWHERE unless it is for the right reasons.

Good points @GreenTeaLikesMe . Plus I have pointed out the NZ or ANY government can decide to change taxes or rights to benefits or even immigration status at any point. Just look at how the UK has tried to strip those with dual citizenship of their British passports…

I kind of agree @MumblesParty . I meant he’s not a hiker/boat person. He enjoys nice scenery. But he doesn’t have masses of outdoor hobbies as he grew up in the city in Auckland.

Positives: there are nice beaches, nice restaurants, lovely decent people, good (not always great but decent enough) state education, your children grow up without being judged on their ‘class’. In fact a pp said Kiwi grads are very employable and I agree. I’m sure if I had a different accent and had come to the UK I would not have done as well as we are liked over here.

dull and far away

4 words you said that sum it up

Who'd give up Europe for that ?

Back to the French IHT, @blossomtoes you sound like you know more than me about it but this pic shows that it’s a progressive tax so is levied on even small amounts! It’s 45 per cent on amounts over 1.8m euros. And each child gets 100k tax free.

@Mightypen - Switzerland is not all conservative, different cantons are completely different. My brother moved to Zurich - there is a massive expat community now in all the major cities. And they all seem to be having a great time. I think that country has changed a lot in the last 15 or so years. Much more international and liberal and lots more going on too. However, it’s incredibly expensive.
Italy is changing right now - not sure how that will pan out. It seems you can’t predict the next 20 years so clearly anymore. Who would have thought in the late 90s/mid 2000s that we would end up where we are now?