New Zealand Chronicles – Adventures of a Washashore in KiwiLand

January 14, 2025January 15, 2025

A Step by Step Breakdown of the “Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa” Application

Wherein I walk you through the nine page application, page by page, so you know what to expect and what you’ll need to gather together ahead of time. This post is for that one person who may or may not ever stumble upon this blog while googling what the PNZerRV application looks like (you’re welcome, internet stranger). For everyone else: proceed at your own risk of potential abject disinterest.

(Because I promised to never post without photos, please enjoy this brief interlude):

Date I applied: January 7, 2025
Cost: $5,360 NZD ($3,024 USD)
Processing time: 80% of these types of visas are decided upon within 7 months.
TIP: You can start this application at any time and save your progress as you go. I highly recommend starting well in advance of the time you plan to submit, especially when it comes to gathering things like letters of support from friends and family and finding a notary.

Page 1: “Identity and Contact“
Basic information about you: full name, date/place of birth, passport number, social security number, phone number, current address, most recent address in your home country, and a few other easy questions.

Page 2: “Visa Details“
What kind of visa you are applying for (that is, are you the partner of, or the child of, the “support person” (aka the person supporting this visa application). It asks if this support person is a New Zealand citizen/resident/expat, and also asks if you are currently living together and have been for 12+ months, which is a requirement for this visa.

Page 3: “Supporting Person Details“
Basic information about your supporting person. Their full name, date/place of birth, passport number, and a few other easy fill-in-the-blank type of questions.

Page 4: “Additional Applicant Details“
Asks you if there will be additional applicants (i.e. a child); a quick Yes/No question.

Page 5: “Principle Applicant’s Health Details“
This has a big block of Y/N health-related questions such as “Do you have tuberculosis,” “Do you require renal dialysis,” “Do you require hospital care,” “Are you pregnant,” etc. It asks you to list any country you’ve lived in for 3+ months during the last 5 years and then asks if you submitted a general medical exam and chest x-ray on your prior visa application, and, if so, were they done within the last 36 months (if not, they will very likely make you get new ones done).

Page 6: “Principle Applicant’s Character Details“
A long list of Y/N questions related to any criminal background activities you may have. My favorite questions are “In any county, including New Zealand, are you currently under investigation, wanted for questioning, or facing charges for any offense?” and “Do you have an outstanding arrest warrant in any county, including New Zealand?”. I’m curious to know, considering that you are giving them your current address, SSN, photo, passport information, and the names and addresses of your parent and siblings, if anyone has actually ever answered “Yes” to any of these.
It also asks if you’ve provided a police certificate from your country within the last 24 months (yes, I have. I talked about the process of getting it here).

Here’s a list of the questions:

Page 7: “Family Details”
They want to know the names, addresses, dates of birth, partnership/marital status, occupation, citizenship, and country of birth for your parents and siblings (living or not).

Page 8: “Apply on Behalf/Assist“
Asks if you are completing the application on behalf of someone else, and if you received assistance from an immigration advisor (a quick Yes/No).

Page 9: “Upload Documents”
Here’s where you upload all the documents they require, as well as ALL the documents you’re not required to submit but absolutely 100% should submit. Uploads must not exceed 10 MB, and if you have multiple things to submit that all fall under the same category, combine them into one PDF.

Let’s cover the required documents first. You’ll need to upload a photo of your passport, a passport-style headshot, your birth certificate, and your” ID card” (this one is optional, but I uploaded my social security number card). If you’ve had your required medical exam, you enter your eMedical reference number.

“Evidence that your relationship is genuine and stable” (I uploaded the letters that my mom, dad, and sister wrote, combining them into one PDF).
“Evidence that you have been living with your partner for more than 12 months” (we used a letter from our landlord).
“Timeline of Partnership” This part of the application took me far and away the most time (I wrote a blog entry about my process of writing it here). Because I’d already completed the timeline through March 2024–when I applied for my partner work visa–I just needed to pick up where I left off and finish out 2024 with significant events and milestones in our partnership, things like when he took me to visit his hometown for the first time, when we spent the day together edxploring Wellington, and when he finally got to meet my family and friends in the States. When I first started compiling the relationship timeline about a year ago, I realized pretty quickly that it was going to be long; I can’t not tell a story if there’s a story there to tell. What I ended up doing, for better or for worse, was to submit an extremely long document that starts off by explaining that pages 1-3 were the abridged partnership timeline of simple dates and events for brevity’s sake, but if the person reading this had time, pages 4-16 were where the real story was.
“Evidence that your partner is a New Zealand citizen” (I uploaded a photo of Stu’s passport).
The completed “Partnership Support Form for Residence (Form NZ 1178).” (Stu had to fill this one out and get it notarized. The form asks for much of the same information I’d already given them, such as full name, date/place of birth, address, etc).

That’s all of the required information. Technically, you can stop here, proceed to the next page, enter your credit card details, and submit your application.

But from everything I’ve read and everyone I’ve talked to, you don’t want to do that. You want to give them a whole lot more. In fact, I possibly gave them too much more; the dropdown list of things you can give them is so vast that I figured “why not!”. Apologies to the immigration officer assigned to my case. 😬

So after you have satisfied all of the required uploads and it says “Are there any other documents you wish to provide in support of your application?”, you’re going to say HELL YES THERE ARE!

Here is the full dropdown menu of options for things you can provide them with to lend more weight to your application:

Wait, there’s more…

I have no idea what some of these mean (“Plans in New Zealand”?) and some of them don’t apply to me (“Australian passport”, Right to remove a child”).

But I did have things I could upload that fell under some of these categories. Here are the categories I used and what I uploaded under said category:

Genuine and stable partnership evidence (I uploaded each of these as its own PDF since they are separate items):
* Letters of Support from our family and friends (all in one PDF). I asked my friends and family back home to write us letters, since they had now met Stu and seen us together as a couple, and then I asked everyone who had written us letters of support for my first visa to update those letters for me.
* A photo timeline I created in Canva. It starts with the very first photo we ever took together and ends with our visit to see his sister last week. It’s 23 pages of well-laid-out and captioned/dated selfies, social media posts (complete with all the likes and comments), pictures we’ve taken of ourselves at concerts, pictures our friends have taken of us at concerts, pictures with the friends who took pictures of us at concerts, pictures of me and the kids, pictures of our trip to the States last October, pictures of Stu with my family. When I began adding fun clip art like guitars and pumpkins, I realized I was back in middle school doing some lavishly illustrated (and totally unnecessary) picture to accompany a one-page book report and that I might be seen as a sycophant vying to be “Immigration Officer’s pet” (as opposed to teacher’s pet). I left the guitar and pumpkin clip art but didn’t add anything else.
* Our WhatsApp chat history. I downloaded our nearly five-year correspondence (minus photos) and then paid 99 cents for PDF Guru to compress that massive 12.86 GB file into a PDF small enough to upload. (And then you have to cancel the 7 day free trial before you start paying for PDF Guru).

Police certificate: I uploaded a copy of my squeaky clean NZ background check, which I requested here. You fill out and sign a very brief form, upload it, and they email you the results within a week (there’s no cost associated with this). Again, I’ll emphasize that at no point had I been asked to provide a NZ background check to Immigration, but since it was free and easy I thought it wouldn’t hurt.

Evidence of Shared Financial Dependency: Screen shots of our joint BNZ account

Evidence of funds: Screen shot of my personal BNZ checking and savings accounts

Evidence of financial dependency: Screen shots of our utility account with both of our names on them, as well as screen shots of every time my half of the rent came out of my account and into his.

Driver’s license: I uploaded photos of my Massachusetts and NZ driver’s licenses

Evidence of employment and business being undertaken. I uploaded screenshots of my paystubs for my landscaping job

Records of previous travel: Screen shots of receipts for all of our flights to and from the US (with our names on them), as well as Air BnB receipts from our travels around New England

Once you have finished uploading everything you feel will help Immigration make a positive determination on your application, you save your progress, go back to page 1, and neurotically proofread the whole nine pages. And then you click “Next,” check a box saying that this was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and enter your credit card number to pay them a s**tload of money. A few days later you will receive an automated email saying they’ve received your application and will be in touch if they need more information. Otherwise, you will be notified when they have made a decision on your application.

January 12, 2025January 12, 2025

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I Just Submitted My Next Visa!

And I’m sorry that this post is SO LONG. I have sprinkled in beautiful photos of New Zealand to hold your interest.

When I was visiting my family and friends in the States last October, I had a number of people ask me to report back on what it was like to have Christmas in summer. I am reporting back to tell you that, much like my December “birthday,” Christmas felt like “Christmas,” in quotes. Don’t get me wrong; it was an absolutely lovely day. It just didn’t feel like Christmas as I know it.

I spent the day at a friend’s house with Stu and the boys. Temperatures were in the mid 70s and sunny, and the backyard was filled with vibrant blooms of flowers. We barbecued in the back yard (as one does in New Zealand on December 25th) and played with the boys’ new presents. And then I had the utmost honor/honour of decorating the pavlova, which is a traditional meringue-based dessert that originated in New Zealand NOT IN AUSTRALIA. This is a hotly, hotly contested subject, and since I am applying for residency in New Zealand, I feel it necessary to emphasize that the pavlova is, without a doubt, obviously, a dessert of Kiwi origin. Wherever it originated, pavlova, particularly when homemade and slightly gooey on the inside and slightly crusty on the outside, is delicious.

Ta da: my first pavlova! Baked by Stu, decorated by me and the boys.

But man oh man, does it feel bizarre listening to Christmas carols and unwrapping gifts in summer. At one point, while helping to tidy up the wrapping and tissue paper, I reflexively turned to throw them into the fireplace. Muscle memory, I suppose.

And even though we didn’t end up making it to midnight, it was also a trip celebrating New Year’s Eve doing something other than standing around a bonfire in the snow wearing a winter jacket, boots, scarf, mittens, and a hat, feeling 50% festive and 50% miserable, drinking beer just to stay warm. By the way, New Zealand is one of the first countries in the world to enter the New Year. The first country is the tiny island nation of Kiribati, but they only beat NZ by an hour. (Hawaii is one of the last places in the world to see the New Year).

On to the visa update...

Five days ago, I submitted my application for the second of three visas. I should hear back in about 7 months [nervous exhale].

Since it’s been a while, let me reiterate my visa situation as it stands:

I am currently here on a one-year Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa, which expires May 21, 2025. The next one, which I just applied for, is the Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa. Before you freak out with excitement, this is not “THE” visa that grants me permanent residency, which is the end goal. What this visa does is allow me to continue to live and work in NZ, and travel to and from NZ, for two years. Basically, it extends my current situation by 24 months. (Something puzzling that I recently worked out: Immigration has the length of stay for this visa as “Indefinite,” but it also says “Your travel conditions will expire 2 years from the date you first arrive in New Zealand as a resident.” Confused by this seeming contradiction, I did a deep dive and found out that apparently, you can live and work in NZ for the rest of your life just on a Resident Visa–so long as you never leave NZ after your “travel conditions” expire).

Please enjoy this picture of a full rainbow over Mercury Bay that I took back in September:

After two years of being on the Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa, I apply for a Permanent Resident Visa. That is the biggie: the one that will allow me to live in New Zealand, and travel in and out of New Zealand, forever. 🍾 🥂 🎉 🌟

After five years of being a Permanent Resident, I can choose to, but am not required to, apply for New Zealand citizenship. For those of you wondering what the differences are between a Permanent Resident and a Citizen, I have put all of that information at the very end of this post. To answer a common question: yes, being a Permanent Resident gives me the right to vote. To answer a question no one has asked me because who would think to ask this: I recently found out that if I become a NZ citizen, the oath of citiizenship I have to recite begins like this: “I, Hilary Emerson Lay, swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles the Third, King of New Zealand…”. Then, according to Wikipedia, “new citizens then join in the singing of God Defend New Zealand before enjoying a cup of tea.” Americans are allowed to have multiple other citizenships, but I’m legitimately worried that my U.S. citizenship will automatically be revoked upon my swearing allegiance to the Crown?!

So that’s my visa timeline. One visa under my belt, one visa application in the works, one visa left to go after that. If all goes as planned, I should have Permanent Residency around September 2027. 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

Here is a pretty picture of nasturtiums growing along a fence in Kaimarama:

It wasn’t until mid-November, when a fellow American I met at a concert here in NZ reached out to commiserate with me about the outrageous visa price hike, that I found out about the outrageous visa price hike. On October 1 of last year, Immigration New Zealand quietly doubled the cost of all visas.

I say “quietly” because I never read a thing about it. After googling it I found this announcement back in early August saying that Immigration New Zealand would be “significantly” raising its costs as of October 1. It was not a widely covered news story, but it damn well should have been. I find it a horrific oversight that those of us here on any type of visa wouldn’t have gotten a heads-up email from Immigration about the doubling of fees. There’s not much any of us could have done about it, but it would have been nice to at least know.

Here’s how crazy the new prices are: the Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa–the visa I am currently here on–cost me $860 NZD when I applied in March. It now costs $1,630.

(Here is a pretty picture of the view from a customer’s back yard in Matarangi to soften the upcoming blow:)

The one I just applied for, The Partner of a NZer Resident Visa, which has always been the most expensive of the three, went from $2,750 NZD ($1,530 USD) to………….

$5,360 NZD. $3,024 USD. 😱

This sudden, massive increase in visa fees is apparently the doing of the National Party, who claim that more money is needed to process the large number of visas they get every year. Opponents say the move will discourage people from moving here, which they claim is National’s intended goal.

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford stated that “these changes aim to shift the cost of the country’s immigration system from taxpayers to those benefiting from it,” and that “the new charges reflect the costs associated with visa processing, assessing, and managing more high-risk applications, and increased compliance costs as we deal with higher levels of migrant exploitation, managing more asylum claims, and maintaining and upgrading Immigration New Zealand’s ICT systems.”

I’m all for reducing migrant exploitation and helping people seeking asylum, and I don’t know or care what an ICT system is. But the “high risk” thing really pisses me off. Because a quick internet search told me that a “high risk” risk visa application would be one where “the applicant is considered likely to pose a potential security risk to the country due to factors such as criminal history or concerns about their character, which leads to a more thorough vetting process by Immigration.” Why should I have to pay more for my not-security-risk-to-the-country visa application so that Immigration can better process a visa application from someone who is “likely” to pose a potential security risk to the country? Shouldn’t they just charge them more??

But some good news did follow the bad news: the processing time for the visa I just applied for went from 9-12 months down to 7 months. The original idea of having to be away from my loved ones back home for 12 months was killing me. So in all honestly, I’d rather have to pay this surprise extra $1,500 and spend less time away from everyone I love back home. The power of positive thinking, right? Also, the exchange rate right now is the best I’ve ever seen ($1 USD to $1.79 NZD), so I put the application fee on my credit card that I pay off in USD—and I get a bunch of airline miles that I’ll use for my next trip home in only 7 (not 12!) months. Win/win.

All of this visa Googling gave me a thought: could I apply for my Resident Visa earlier than May 21, 2025? Did I have to wait until right before my current visa expires to submit my next application? I called Immigration and spoke with a lovely woman named Linda who proceeded to take me on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.

She said that no, I did not have to wait until May to apply for my next visa. The requirement for the Partner of a NZer Resident Visa is that you and your partner have been living together for 12 months. As soon as Stu and I hit the 12 month mark on January 4, I could submit the next visa.

We interrupt this programme to bring you a pretty picture of a fuchsia from our garden:

But then Linda reminded me about something I knew at one point but must have conveniently blocked out: they do not grant Interim Visas for people applying for Resident Visas. When I was here on my 90-day Visitor Visa back in March and submitted my Work Visa, they automatically granted me an Interim Visa that allowed me to stay in NZ (without working, obviously) until they made a decision on my Work Visa. But they do not do Interims for Resident Visas. And I can’t, obviously, be in the country without a valid visa. And since my Work Visa expires May 21, 2025 and my Resident Visa will likely not be approved until July or August 2025, I have one of two unpleasant options:

1: Reapply and re-pay-for the !!@!@#$% Partner Work Visa I’m already on (to the new tune of $1,630 NZD) just to cover me for an approximate two month gap in visas.

2: Leave the country before May 21 and then come back when my Resident Visa is approved. But that would mean leaving NZ for more than two months, and the $1,630 NZD to renew my Work Visa is cheaper than it would be for me to fly home (or anywhere else) and miss work for two months.

“Maybe,” I said to Linda at Immigration in a hopeful little voice, “my Resident Visa will be approved before my Work Visa expires, so I don’t have to pay for it all over again just for, like, 8 weeks of coverage?”.
Linda hesitated. “It’s very unlikely…..but yes. Maybe.”
I’m going to cling to Linda’s “maybe.”

Linda did give me a bit more good news, though: my “police certificate” (aka the FBI background check from Dec 2023) and my expensive medical exams done here in NZ in Jan/Feb 2024 are all still valid for the next visa, meaning I didn’t need to go through and pay for any of that again. Thank god.

Being the neurotic person that I am, I started my visa application back in June, since you can save your progress as you go and I wanted to see what this application entailed and whether or not I’d need to collect even more evidence ahead of time. It’s essentially the exact same application as the one I did last year except they want a little more information for this one. My next post, likely a boring one for most of you, is a step by step breakdown of everything they ask for in the application.

It’s a huge relief that the final visa I need to obtain–the Permanent Resident one–only costs $315 NZD and has a two week approval turnaround time. I’d rather get the shitty expensive one with the longest wait time over with sooner, rather than have it looming down the pipeline.

Pictures from an overnight in Hahei a few weeks ago:

And that’s al the news from here. New Year, hopefully new visa. Now I wait.

Much love to all of you. I’m glad you’re along for this wild ride with me.
H. ❤️

As promised: for anyone who is interested, this is the difference between a Permanent NZ Resident and a NZ Citizen, as taken from the Pathways NZ website (Pathways is a collective of licensed immigration officers):

New Zealand residence entitles the holder the right to live, study and work in New Zealand and to:
• be eligible for publicly funded health and disability services
• have access to education in state education institutions the same as local students and tertiary fee subsidies and student loans (after a qualifying period)
• be eligible for social welfare benefits
• vote in local and general elections
• service on a jury
• to buy a home and property once settled
• have a career in the New Zealand defence forces

In order to be eligible for the grant of New Zealand citizenship a person normally must:
• have held a New Zealand resident visa and lived in New Zealand for a total of at least 1,350 days during the five years immediately before making their citizenship application; and
• have lived in New Zealand for a total of at least 240 days in each year of the five years immediately preceding the date of their application

Citizenship applications are processed by the Citizenship Office which is part of the Department of Internal Affairs, and each person must meet the eligibility and make a separate application.

In addition to all of the above rights conferred by New Zealand residence New Zealand citizenship provides full economic and social rights including:
• holding a New Zealand passport and being able to travel internationally on this passport
• access to New Zealand Embassy/Consular support and assistance when overseas
• standing for New Zealand Parliament and local government roles
• representing New Zealand in international sports (e.g., Olympics)
• being eligible for education scholarships which are only open to New Zealand citizens
• being able to visit, live and work in Australia (by being issued a Special Category Visa automatically on arrival as a New Zealand citizen)

December 12, 2024December 12, 2024

Where Do I Even Begin? I Have SO Much To Fill You In On.

Let me start by apologizing for not having posted since August. So much for my intention of starting a blog where I’d be “posting regularly” and “keeping my readers engaged”. My only partial excuse for my lapse in posts is that I have a lot less time to write now that I work full-time, but I could *absolutely* be watching fewer Netflix true crime documentaries and making better use of the free time that I do have. I actually have been writing; I have more than two dozen draft posts going at any given time. I just haven’t managed to finish anything since…well, since August, apparently.

Anyway, I have an unexpected day off due to torrential downpours, so I’m finally ripping off the bandaid (“plaster”) and finishing this one.

Moving on to the aforementioned “SO much to fill you in on.”

Last Wednesday was, according to the calendar and the humbling number of messages I received from both sides of the pond, “my birthday.” But it didn’t feel like my birthday. At all. Because in New Zealand, being born on December 4th means you have a summer birthday.

For the ~~majority~~ entirety of my life until this point, I’ve had a winter birthday, which, where I’m from, means 1. zero leaves on the trees 2. permanently overcast grey skies 3. occasional snow 4. utter darkness and despair when the anemic “sunlight” disappears at 4:30 pm 5. temperatures cold enough that you can see your breath outside and 6. all the mini golf courses where as a kid you desperately wanted to have your birthday party are shuttered for the season and all of those alluring, giant, colorful animal and pirate figurines are wrapped up tightly against the damage of a harsh New England winter. So having everyone wish me a Happy Birthday on a 74 degree, humid, sunny day where everyone was out and about enjoying the beautiful weather and the mini golf course was open felt like all of my friends and family had collectively decided to prank me with birthday messages. It was, no exaggeration, surreal. And Stu, who’s birthday is in July–a winter birthday here in New Zealand–would have a summer birthday in the States. It’s like having upside-down birthdays. 🙃 🎂

Sunday, December 1st was the first official day of summer here in New Zealand. Their seasons begin on the first day of every third month: December 1 marks the start of summer, March 1 is fall, June 1 is winter, and September 1 is spring; so easy to remember! It definitely feels like summer, but it doesn’t even remotely feel like December. The weather here right now is in the high 60s to low 70s, mostly full sun, occasionally muggy and humid. The intense sunlight, blossoming pōhutukawa trees (aka the New Zealand Christmas Tree, pictured here), summer attire everywhere, ads on the radio announcing summer events, and stores prominently displaying summer merchandise next to Christmas merchandise while “Santa Baby” plays throughout the building is confusing the hell out of me. IT’S SO WEIRD YOU GUYS.

But a lot more than upside-down birthdays and intense seasonal confusion has happened since August. In no particular order:

1. I got a new car–an equal parts really reliable and really funky-looking old Totoya Echo (an Echo is sort of like a Yaris squished into a cube shape). I found out in September that my dear old Alfa needed a new engine. I don’t know a lot about cars, but I was correct in assuming that I could get an *entire other car* for less than it would cost me to replace an entire Alfa Romeo engine.
2. I booked the Whitianga Town Hall for 9 days in January to run a mini half-day art camp (yay!). My dream is to eventually run a summer-long kids art “holiday programme” here in Whiti, so this is sort of my soft opening attempt at testing the waters.
3. I’ve changed my hair color about six times.
4. New Zealand Immigration significantly raised the prices of visas on October 1st. Significantly raised them. I’ll post about that.
5. A friend from Cape Cod (well; technically the daughter of an old friend, but she’s definitely a friend now!) just moved to my little NZ town for three months. She was planning to live somewhere on the North Island for the summer, and I may or many not have lured her to Whitianga. It’s been wild having a friend from the Cape suddenly living down the road from me!

Oh yeah, and I took Stewart to the United States to meet everyone!

Here’s a photo of me, Stu, and my parents at their house on Cape Cod in October. He finally, after 4.5 years, got to meet my beloved awesome family and some of my closest friends, and they, after 4.5 years, finally got to meet him. It was so. much. fun.

We flew over together in late September; he stayed for two weeks (we booked the trip to align with his spring vacation from the school where he is the school librarian) and I stayed until early November. To answer a frequently asked question: yes, Stu has been to the States a couple of times, but not since 2012, and he never went anywhere near my neck of the woods (which is New England/the northeast/the upper right-hand corner of the USA).

We saw so many people and did so many things in those two weeks. We got to spend good chunks of time with my parents and my sister and her partner. I introduced him to some of my best Cape Cod friends, some of my closest North Shore friends, some of my nearest and dearest Western Massachusetts friends, and one of my awesome cousins. Some of them had “met” Stu on video chat a few times over the years, but of course it’s not the same as everyone meeting in person. There was an abundance of big, warm, welcoming hugs from everyone.

For the Cape tour, we stopped in at Instant Karma Records in Orleans (for Stu it was pure love at first sight), drove up to Wellfleet and got Box Lunch which we sat and enjoyed at Wellfleet Harbor–one of my favorite spots on the Cape–and made it up to Provincetown with just enough time to briefly explore Commercial Street and enjoy drinks on a deck overlooking the water before I had to whiz us back for an incredible night with my parents and our longtime family friends Paula and Chris, the latter of whom is a musician. Chris and Stu have had a long-distance musical love affair for a while via social media, and when they finally got to jam together on their guitars it was magic. My Dad put it best when he said that it was like listening to a musical conversation flowing seamlessly back and forth. I think we stayed for four hours that night, and then went back a few days later for another round of duets. Chris let Stu borrow a guitar for the duration of our trip, a guitar which actually belonged to my Dad back when he was a Boston University undergrad. Chris had it restored a few years ago as a surprise. It was touching to have Stu give a new life to my Dad’s old college guitar.
Other Cape Cod adventures included a trip to the Edward Gorey House and then stopping at a roadside farm stand where Stu got to wander through hay bales and pumpkins galore. He tried apple cider and some raw cranberries (Cape Cod is famous for its cranberries. Raw cranberries, in contrast to sweetened cranberry juice, are almost painfully tart, something Stu realized almost immediately, though to his credit he didn’t spit them out).

The beautiful Boston Gardens with a statue of George Washington behind us. Yes, I had to google who the dude on the horse was.

We explored downtown Boston and a bit of Cambridge for an afternoon, where I took him to the Boston Commons and Gardens, the Boston Public Library, The Harvard Bookstore, and an off-the-beaten-path vinyl shop.

I introduced him to the glories of Halloween by taking him to Salem, Massachusetts in the middle of October, when “Witch City” is at the height of Halloween frenzy (Halloween is a fairly recent addition to New Zealand and, compared to what we’re used to in the States, is very small-scale). He played an open mic at Gulu-Gulu Café with my friend Jenne, which was something I’ll never forget. He tried candy corn for the first time, and when we got back to the Cape he got to carve jack-o-lanterns with my family (his was fantastic! Photo below).

I couldn’t wait to take him out to Western Mass and show him the overwhelming beauty of a real New England autumn. Due to a particularly dry summer, the foliage wasn’t *as* stunning as it can be, but for the uninitiated, it was spectacular. We had dinner with friends, explored downtown Northampton, and hiked to the top of Mt. Sugarloaf for an extraordinary view of the Pioneer Valley and Connecticut River. And he played another open mic, this one at Luthier’s Co-Op, a legendary spot.

We packed so many adventures and experiences into just ten days. I took him to a real American diner where he got steak and eggs for breakfast. I introduced him to the glory of sour beers, which unfortunately don’t seem to widely exist here in KiwiLand. I took him to my beloved Trader Joe’s grocery store. We went to Fall Festival at a city park just north of Boston and he got to hold his first snake (no, they don’t have snakes in NZ, and no, I don’t know why they have a snake guy at a fall festival). I am not including a photo of Stu and the snake because I know my Mom will be reading this and she strongly dislikes snakes (you’re welcome, Mom) but I’m happy to send it to anyone who isn’t my Mom and wants to see it.

And then he flew back for the start of the last school term and I stayed an additional 3.5 weeks to spend more time with everyone. And now I’m back in New Zealand and it’s somehow summer but also December.

We had such an incredible trip. Thank you so much to all of you who helped make Stu’s time in the States unforgettable. We can’t wait to see you all again!

And to everyone else, thanks for reading. It feels good to be writing for you again. I’ve missed you guys!

Love,
Hilary ❤️

PS: As always, you can follow my New Zealand Chronicles Instagram account here, where I regularly post beautiful photos (like these ones), which will hopefully help all of you back home get through the winter.

August 2, 2024August 2, 2024

Getting Fired in New Zealand? Don’t Forget Your Emotional Support Clown.

I was chatting with someone the other day who recalled the time she left her longtime job and requested an exit interview. She had a lot to say to her employer and knew it could get heated and emotional, so she brought a support person to help keep her thoughts on track.

Under New Zealand employment law, employees have the right to bring a support person to meetings. This person can be anyone the employee chooses: a friend, family member, union representative, colleague, or lawyer. The purpose of this is so that the employee has emotional and/or legal counsel in the event that they receive distressing news. The support person can take notes, keep the employee on track with what they mean to say, and clarify points with the employer. From my understanding, support people are most often brought in for disciplinary meetings and meetings where the employee suspects they are getting laid off [made redundant] or fired. (Or, in the case of the person I was chatting with, to make sure they’re making all of their points).

This reminded me of a story which made its way around the world a few years ago, a story which I’m sure some of you remember but which nevertheless deserves resurrection.

In 2019, a Kiwi man received an email from HR requesting a meeting to “discuss his future at [name of company]”, which is never a good sign. Since he was fairly sure he was about to be laid off, he decided to bring a support person. What happened next is covered quite nicely in this BBC article.

“[The clown] accompanied Josh for the redundancy meeting, where the clown made balloon animals, although he had to be told to stop a few times as it was difficult to hear above the screeching of plastic.”

You can watch a hysterical interview with Josh and “Joe” the clown here. The whole thing is worth watching, but for those of you who don’t have five and a half minutes to spare, Joe demonstrates the distraction of screeching balloon animals at 2:15.

My favorite quote from the interview is “I thought the news was going to be quite bad, and I thought if it’s going to be bad news, I’d best get a professional in. Obviously family and friends are the usual support people, but to be honest, my mum can’t even juggle, so…..”.

July 23, 2024July 23, 2024

Finally, A Short Post!

Hey, everyone! It’s been a while. Anything interesting going on back home that I should know about?

Kidding. As my friend Anne said, “You know, I wouldn’t mind living in precedented times for a little while.”

This is going to be a short post because I promised that I’d intersperse long, rambling blog posts with short, to-the-point blog posts and we have yet to see any of the latter. And also because I haven’t anything posted in six weeks—!

Before the short post, here’s a photo of a bouquet of flowers that I picked from our garden yesterday. Just a reminder that it’s the dead of winter here. Winters where we live are mostly in the 50s/60s during the day and the 40s overnight with a fair amount of sporadic, driving rain. It’s nuts that we have daffodils and hellebores coming up in what roughly equates to November back home in New England. Daffodils and hellebores herald the end of winter/arrival of spring back home. It’s very hard to wrap my head around.

Okay, here’s the actual post. It’s short. Ready?

When someone asks me where I’m from. I always start geographically small (“Cape Cod?”), and if the person hasn’t heard of the Cape, I start expanding the search until they hear something they recognize (“Just south of Boston? Massachusetts? New England? The upper right-hand part of the United States”).

Three times so far when I have said that I’m from Cape Cod, the other person has exclaimed “Oh, with the rockets!”.

The first time it happened I was confused, and they were confused that I was confused, and then I figured it out. Absolutely good for them for even having heard of Cape Canaveral, but I thought my Cape (Cod) people would get a kick out of hearing this. And it’s happened three times! 🚀

June 10, 2024June 10, 2024

My New Job, Along With a Brief (“Brief”) Rundown of New Zealand’s Workers’ Rights, How Taxes Work Here, and How a Stranger Saved Me From a Lifelong Financial Nightmare

Yep, that’s right; I got a job! I actually got a job like…..less than a minute after I was granted my work visa. You may remember from my previous post that I was at my volunteer nursery gig when I got the punctuationally-deadpan but nevertheless thrilling email from Immigration saying that I had been granted a one-year work visa. I happened to be working alongside the co-owner of the nursery/landscape company, who offered me a job on the spot (and then–which I found very sweet–she immediately added that I should take some time to think about it, since I’d literally *just* gotten my visa, and that they’d be open to full- or part-time employment; whatever worked best for me, and that we could chat about it once the news had settled in). I’ve gotten to know the couple who own the company and some of their employees during my volunteer time, and I really like all of them. So a few days later I sat down with them and voilà: I’m employed! I’ll be doing a bit of nursery work and a bit of landscape work.

I spent the past four years working for a landscaping company on Cape Cod, so in a lot of ways this will feel familiar to me. But the one glaring difference between my job back home and my job here–aside from the wildly different flora and the fact that the guys I work with speak English (well; if Kiwi English counts 🤣)–is the fact that I am legally entitled to a whole bunch of what I can’t help but think of as “job perks,” even thought they are in fact national laws designed to help Kiwis maintain a healthy work/life balance. What a novel concept, eh?

The landscaping company has hired me as a “casual employee” for my first 6-8 weeks there, both because they will only have part-time work available until one of their full-time employees leaves in August, and also as a way to make sure I’m a good fit for them (and vice versa) before we move into my being a “permanent employee”. “Casual employee” is a term used to refer to an employment situation where the employee has no guaranteed hours of work, no regular pattern of work, and no ongoing expectation of employment. As defined by the Employment division of the New Zealand government website, “Each time a casual employee accepts the offer to work it’s considered a new period of employment. If an employer decides to stop offering work, this doesn’t count as a dismissal because the employer has no responsibility to provide work”. The employer doesn’t have to offer work to the employee, and the employee doesn’t have to accept work if it’s offered. Casual employees are entitled to the same rights as contract employees, but the way in which annual holidays, sick leave, and bereavement leave are applied can vary for these employees. I’ll explain that further down.

Disclaimer: before I launch into everything I’ve been learning about employment in New Zealand, I want to state unequivocally that although I try my best to research and fact-check the hell out of everything I post on this blog, citing official government websites as much as possible, there is always the possibility that what I write may not be entirely accurate, either factually or in a lived day-to-day NZ experience. This whole “living in a new country” thing is a learning process for me as much as for everyone reading this. If I find that I need to go back and amend or clarify anything, I will always mark it as “Edited” so everyone knows that I was actually talking out my tuchus.

A picture of me with one of the nursery’s farm dogs, just to break up the monotony.

There are several different categories of employees in NZ:

A permanent employee–be it full or part-time–have the full set of rights I’m about to list for you. New Zealand has no law specifying the number of hours which differentiate full-time and part-time work, though 35-40 hours is generally considered to be full-time.
A casual employee is an employment situation where the employee has no guaranteed hours of work, no regular pattern of work, and no ongoing expectation of employment.
A fixed term (or “contract”) employee is someone hired for a specific amount of time; their employment has an end date (think someone hired to cover someone’s maternity leave).
A seasonal employee is exactly what it sounds like. There’s a ton of seasonal work in NZ thanks to the thriving fruit, vegetable, fish, and meat industries.
A contractor, or independent contractor, is essentially the same thing as being self-employed. Contractors earn income by invoicing the principal for their services. A contractor pays their own tax and isn’t covered by most employment-related laws, which means they don’t get things like annual leave or sick leave.
Triangular employment situations. This is where someone is employed by one employer (the agency), but is working under another business or organisation that directs or controls their day-to-day work (controlling third party). An employee is employed by a recruitment or employment agency, and is sent on work assignments to another organisation. In other words, temping.

Here is a quick summary of the rights which Permanent Employees (full or part-time) are entitled to, taken directly from the employment.govt.nz website:

Vacation Time:
Employees get a minimum of 20 days annual paid leave. Annual leave is accrued every full year with the company rather than the calendar year, and employees can only take their paid leave after completing a full year with the company unless agreed upon otherwise.

Holidays:
There are ten national public holidays, plus one regional anniversary day. Employees are given the day off, but are paid for, public holidays that fall on a regular working day. Employees who work during a public holiday are entitled to 1.5 times their regular pay plus an alternative day off.

Sick Time:
Sick leave entitlement is 10 days per year after six months of continuous employment and can be accumulated to 20 days. Employees can use sick leave when they themselves are sick, or when a child, spouse, or someone else in their care is sick.

Maternity Leave:
Maternity leave in NZ is more commonly known as “primary carer leave” or “parental leave” and is available to someone who is pregnant, a new mother or their partner, an adoptive parent, a Home for Life parent, Whāngai (Whāngai is the Māori tradition of children being raised by someone other than their birth parents — usually a relative), a grandparent with full-time care, or a permanent guardian.
The length of leave is as follows:
* Six months before the due date: 26 weeks (half a year) of paid primary carer leave, and a further 4 weeks of unpaid extended parental leave
* Twelve months before due date: 26 weeks (half a year) of paid primary carer leave, and a further 26 weeks of unpaid extended parental leave

Miscarriage Leave:
Three days of paid leave for miscarriage or stillbirth at any point during the pregnancy.

Domestic Violence Leave:
Domestic violence victims can claim up to 10 days of paid domestic violence leave in every 12 months.

Because I am starting out as a casual (part time, non-consistent) employee, I’m not eligible for the legally mandated paid vacation and holiday times. However, rather than just getting screwed over, my employer–by law–has to pay me at least minimum wage (which, as of April 1, 2024, is $23.15/hour) plus at least an additional 8% “casual loading fee” per hour. Casual employees are also entitled to sick leave and bereavement leave after 6 months of starting work if, during that time, they have worked an average of at least 10 hours a week, and at least one hour a week or 40 hours a month.

Filling out the paperwork for my new job was a trip, since of course I’ve never had the pleasure of filling out new-job-paperwork in another country. It was refreshingly brief and straightforward: I had to write my name, IRD number, and tax code. You need an IRD (Internal Revenue Department) number in order to have a job in New Zealand; I applied for mine online as soon as I got my visa and it was automatically generated and emailed to me within an hour. The “tax code declaration” was made easy thanks to the helpful flowchart that came with it:

Lastly, I had to sign a special form declaring that I was opting the hell out of something called KiwiSaver.

KiwiSaver. Oh, my dear, sweet, complicated KiwiSaver. Where do I even begin with you.

KiwiSaver is a voluntary savings scheme set up by the government to help New Zealanders easily and affordably save for their retirement. As an employee, you can choose to contribute 3%, 4%, 6%, 8% or 10% of your gross wage or salary to your KiwiSaver account, and employers are required to contribute close to 3% of your gross salary (unless they are already contributing to another superannuation fund for them). Additionally, as long as you’re eligible, for every $1 you invest into your KiwiSaver account, the government may contribute 50 cents, up to a maximum amount of $521.43 every year until you’re 65 (to get your full KiwiSaver government contribution, you need to contribute $1,042.86 to your KiwiSaver account, which works out to just over $20 a week. This $20/week can be through your wages/salary deductions and any voluntary contributions you may decide to make. Any contributions from your employer do not count). Your KiwiSaver savings are invested on your behalf by the KiwiSaver provider of your choice. If you don’t choose a provider, Inland Revenue will assign you to a default KiwiSaver fund.

It sounds pretty great, right? [Insert annoying buzzer sound].

I cannot throw enough gratitude towards an American woman named Melissa who has been living in NZ for ten years. I first made her acquaintance on the Americans Coming to Aotearoa/New Zealand Facebook group last year when she posted a link to a book she’d just self-published called So You Want to Move to New Zealand. I fully admit that after a decade of running an independent bookstore, I will forever be a bit dubious about self-publishing. It’s come a long way since I left the bookstore in 2012, but back then anyone who shelled out a bunch of money could have a book published. They tended to have terrible cover art, were rife with cringey typos, and more often than not came with pushy authors who demanded front and center displays in the store. However, all of Melissa’s posts in the FB group were eloquent and informative, and I decided that shelling out a mere $5.97 for a copy of her ebook couldn’t hurt. It turned out to be fabulous. She is indeed a terrific writer and her book has been a massive financial lifesaver for me (disclaimer that I know she’d want me to put: she is not a financial adviser or CPA and nothing that she’s written should be taken as legal advice. She’s just done her homework and knows her s**t). Despite my many many many hours of diligent research about moving to NZ, I had never come across this whole KiwiSaver thing. And it sounds great, so I absolutely would have signed up for it and then royally screwed myself over…for life.

Here’s the deal: Most of my (non-self-employed) Kiwi friends agree that KiwiSaver is awesome and has allowed them to save up a nice chunk of change. I mean, it sounds awesome, right? And I’m sure it is awesome, if you’re a Kiwi. I, however, am–and always will be–a United States citizen, and it is most decidedly not awesome for me. Although I first learned about all of this KiwiSaver stuff from Melissa’s book, it’s been verified over and over again on a tax-centered FB group for American expats living in NZ.

The United States Internal Revenue Service has this thing they call Passive Foreign Investment Companies (PFIC). They define PFICs as something where at least 75% of a corporation’s gross income is passive and at least 50% of the company’s assets are investments which produce income in the form of earned investment, dividends, and capital gains. PFICs came out of a tax reform law passed in 1986 to close a loophole which some U.S. taxpayers were using to shelter offshore investments from taxation, as well as to discourage Americans from seeking tax advantages in foreign mutual funds. PFICs are subject to strict and extremely complicated tax guidelines by the Internal Revenue Service.

Funds and investments with KiwiSaver are seen as passive foreign income by the IRS. And PFICs are taxed up to 50% annually on realized gains (realized gains are when an asset is sold for a higher price than it was originally purchased for; a gain is the difference between the purchase and sale price) and up to a cute little ONE HUNDRED PERCENT when you withdraw funds. And once you open a KiwiSaver account, the only two ways you can ever close it are if you 1. Die or 2. Permanently leave New Zealand, neither of which I plan on doing. Melissa’s “Avoiding Banking Blind Spots” chapter saved me, literally and figuratively. One of the biggest topics of conversation in the aforementioned tax-centered Facebook group for American expats living in New Zealand is the whole KiwiSaver thing. Most posts are by people who unwittingly signed up for it and were desperately begging for information about how to get out of it. It’s heartbreaking. They are never given good news. You either have to leave NZ or die.

Needless to say, there wasn’t an ice cube’s chance in hell that I was opening a KiwiSaver account, and I could not have signed that op out form any faster if I’d tried. Because I opted out of KiwiSaver, the only thing coming out of my paychecks (thus far) is something called PAYE: Pay As You Earn. PAYE is a New Zealand system where the employer deducts a certain amount from every employee’s paycheck, which goes towards income tax and Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). The employer is responsible for paying this to the IRD.

For 2024 and 2025, the PAYE tax rates are as follows:

$0 – $14,000	10.5%
$14,001 – $48,000	17.5%
$48,001 – $70,000	30%
$70,001 – $180,000	33%
$180,001 +	39%

So there you have it! I am gainfully employed, starting to understand employment laws and the tax system here, and, thanks to an internet stranger, do not need to get myself deported or throw myself off Shakespeare’s Cliff to get out of having opened a KiwiSaver account. I have no idea if anyone back home aside from my CPA and New Zealand-loving friend Hazel had any desire to know any of this, but hopefully this deluge of information can help someone down the road.

I hope all of you back home are doing well! As we are now in the early stages of a mildly chilly, somewhat overcast, damp winter, I’m loving seeing all the photos from people’s gardens (especially my mom’s). Keep ’em coming!

Lotsa love from the Antipodes,

H.

PS: In a future post I’m going to get into the fact that I still have to pay taxes to the US government, though because I’ll be making under a certain amount of money I may be exempt from this. 🤯

May 22, 2024

So, now what?

I want to include photos in all of my blog posts, so although this is a complete non sequitur, please enjoy this picture I took a few weeks ago of the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis). It was unreal.

Back to our regularly scheduled blog post.

A few people have asked me what happens next with my visa, so I thought I’d lay it all out for everyone here.

My Work Visa is valid until May 21, 2025 (one year from the date of issue). Partner of a New Zealander Work Visas are good for 1-2 years depending on how long you and your partner have been living together. If you’ve been living together for fewer than twelve months (as is our case), the visa is good for one year.

Sometime around February/March 2025, I will apply for a Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa (processing time: 80% within 9 months, 20% within 12 months), since we will have at that point been living together for more than 12 months (January 2024-January 2025). At that time I will also resubmit my Work Visa, as I need to maintain that until the Resident one is approved. During the 9-12 months that I’m waiting for my Resident Visa to come through, I cannot leave the country or else I have to restart that whole process. This 9-12 months will be the longest time frame during which I’m not allowed to come home.

Once granted the Resident Visa, it is valid for two years, during which I can continue to work (and study) here, as well as come and go from the country as I wish.

Towards the end of those two years, I can apply for a Permanent Resident Visa. Processing time: 80% within 3 weeks. You must have held your Resident Visa for at least 2 years when you apply. The difference between the Resident and Permanent Resident visas is that Resident Visas have travel conditions that only allow you to re-enter New Zealand as a resident for those two years, whereas a Permanent Resident Visa allows indefinite re-entry to New Zealand. If I am granted a Permanent Resident Visa it will, as the name suggests, allow me to live and work in NZ, coming and going whenever I wan to, forever, which is my goal.

After five years of being in NZ on the Permanent Resident Visa–so long as I have spent 240 days of each of those five years living in NZ–I am eligible, if I so choose, to apply for Citizenship, which would give me a New Zealand passport. The U.S. allows dual citizenship, so I will still legally be American and won’t have to surrender my passport.

Approximate timeline breakdown:

February/March 2025, apply for Resident Visa
November 2025-March 2026, Resident Visa should come through 🤞🏼
October 2027-February 2028, apply for Permanent Resident Visa
November 2027-March 2028, Permanent Resident Visa should come through 🤞🏼
November 2032-March 2033, if all goes as planned, I will be eligible for New Zealand Citizenship.

Oh, I also wanted to mention that Immigration did indeed require me to get a psychiatric exam because of the medications I’m on. I had anticipated this happening, so I went ahead and booked an appointment. And I’m glad I did, because they were booked out two months and my entire visa was waiting on that exam. I drove to Auckland (5 hours round trip) and met with a psychiatrist for 90 minutes to the tune of $600 NZD ($370 USD). He was very friendly and kind and told me to just call him “Dr. Karim,” which I thought was super nice of him until I later found out that his name is Dr. Karim Abdelrahaman Nabil Mohamed Aly Salem (yes, really). As irritated as I was when I first found out about the unexpected expense and hassle of a psych exam, I also found out that the only way for me to have my local clinic refill my medications here is for me to meet with a psychiatrist, so I would have had to do it anyway. Dr. Karim wrote a letter to Immigration on my behalf, and less than a month later, my visa came through. 😊

May 21, 2024May 21, 2024

GUESS WHAT I GOT??? (Visa Update #6)

Two things of significance happened today.

1. I learned that I am not the sort of person who can call two of my closest friends out of the blue and go “GUESS WHAT I GOT???”, because apparently I’m enough of a wild card that even my sister and my significant other were so utterly perplexed that they ventured tentative speculations ranging from “a pet?” to “a tattoo?” to “a kitten or a puppy?” to “a kitten and a puppy?”. I assumed it would have been obvious what I’d just gotten that I was so damned excited about, but to be fair, I did almost pick up a cat on the side of the road last week and bring it home to live with us, so it’s entirely within the scope of possibility that I could be calling my sister and/or significant other to tell them that I’d just kidnapped someone’s cat and gotten its likeness tattooed on my arm.
In actuality, I was calling to tell them that…

2. I got my Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa!!!!

Yep! I am now allowed to legally work and live in New Zealand for one year. ☺️

I was pulling weeds out of hundreds of potted plants this afternoon–one of the assortment of volunteer jobs that have kept me busy while I’ve been treading the water of the visa waiting game–when an email came through my phone from “[email protected],” which I almost ignored because what the hell is that. But the subject line caught my eye: “Your Communication with Immigration New Zealand.”

Immigration. OMG. Could it be…?? I mean; the turnaround time was supposed to be 11 weeks and it’s been 9 weeks, so….

The body of the email just stated my name, date of birth, client number, and application type, casually adding “Attached to this message is a letter about your application with Immigration New Zealand.”

OMGOMGOMG…..

I had to read it several times to make sure I had, in fact, been granted the visa. I was honestly confused by the lack of exclamation points. Despite this being a piece of formal, legal correspondence on Immigration letterhead, I strongly felt that there should have been at least seven exclamation points scattered throughout the document. But it definitely said the words “approval” and “approved,” the former in bold, which I took as Immigration’s way of giving me a secret little thumbs up.

The very first person I told is the extremely funny Australian woman who works at the nursery, who happened to be weeding next to me when the email came in. After responding with enthusiasm and a bunch of s**t yeah!!s and f**k yeah!!s followed by a good on you!!, she asked if I was allowed to work any job in New Zealand. I told her I’m not allowed to work as a prostitute and she said “Awwww. All that hard work and you can’t even follow your dreams”. 🤣

(That’s actually true. Sex work is legal here in NZ, but it specifically states in the fine print of my visa that I am not allowed to engage in prostitution).

What happens next, you ask? Well; I find a job. What kind of job do I want, you ask? That’s an excellent question, and I’ll let you know when I figure that out. For now, the world is my (non-sex-work) oyster. I am utterly delighted and immensely relieved. It has been a celebratory night in our house, a night filled with flowers and chocolate and lots and lots of exclamations of joy when one or the other of us are hit by the realization all over again that I actually got my visa!!

I’d like to extend a massive thank you to all of our friends who wrote letters on our behalf–really beautiful, heartfelt letters–and to my family and friends back home for having always encouraged me to live in my own wild, weird way, to the point where a phone call out of the blue asking “Guess what I got??” leaves you with absolutely not a single goddamned clue. ☺️

April 29, 2024April 29, 2024

The Story of How I Came to Own Two Different Cars in Two Different Countries, and Why I’ve Felt Weird Telling You All About It Til Now

Kia Ora, everyone!*

*This is the standard greeting in New Zealand which you will see and hear everywhere. It’s te reo Māori (“te reo” means “the language of”) but used by everyone across the board here, Māori or otherwise. It literally translates to “have life” or “be healthy,” but everyone uses it in place of “Hello”.

I can’t believe this is my first post in a month; so much for my goal of 2-3 posts a week. I actually have been doing a lot of writing for my blog, and have about a dozen drafts going right now. I just get so bogged down in the details and fact-checking that I get overwhelmed and decide to “come back to it later.” I do post regularly to my NZ Chronicles Instagram account, so if you’re not already following that, you should (I don’t think you need to have an IG account to see my posts…?). I’ve started posting videos as well as photos, and with the help of my new car dash mount, I’m about to start posting videos of what it’s like driving around the Coromandel Peninsula. You will be astounded by the beauty of it.

Anyway: my car!

When I lived in New Zealand for three months last year and told people back home that I was thinking about buying a car to use while I was here, most of them thought I was nuts. One friend even said “Do you mean bring a car? Like bring your car over?”, because apparently the idea of paying god knows how much money to ship my own car to and from New Zealand for three months was somehow less insane than buying a used car while I was here and then reselling it when I went home.

Believe it or not, buying an old(er) car when you land in New Zealand, using it while you’re here, and then selling it back when you leave is a surprisingly common practice. Purchasing a car or campervan for your NZ road trip can be significantly cheaper than renting a car (I’m talking if you’re here for a month-long road trip, not like a 3-4 day road trip). I have a friend from the States who is studying here for six months and just bought a 23 year old Subaru which she’s going to resell when she leaves (I should say “if” she leaves. Chuck, I am in no way convinced that you won’t be canceling that return flight at the end of your semester 😊). A lot of older cars are imported to NZ from Europe and Japan, so it’s not uncommon to see “fancy” older cars being driven around (ahem…).

When I got here in January 2023 for three months and decided to buy a car, Stu knew just the guy to ask. One of his friends is a skilled self-taught mechanic who has a little side hustle finding used cars for friends; he knows how to spot a good deal and he loves the thrill of the hunt. Stu called him and asked him if he could find me a car. Within a few hours, his friend sent him a listing off of TradeMe (which is like a combination of Craigslist and eBay and is used by tons of people here). I took one look at the listing and thought his friend was joking. “There’s no way I could drive that”, I laughed. I forwarded the listing to my sister and said “HA, could you imagine if this was my car?? 🤣”. I forwarded the listing to my Mom and said “Could you imagine if I drove a James Bond car?!” to which she responded “You wouldn’t be driving a James Bond car. He drove an Aston Martin.” (I’d gotten the fancy car names mixed up).

I laughed because the car was one of those fancy kinds that make you reflectively say “Oooooo 💅🏻” in a fancy way when you hear the name. But Stu’s friend was not joking, and an hour later he showed up at the house with the car so that I could take it for a test drive.

Wait, let me sum that up in Kiwi English: my partner rang his mate, who rocked up later that arvo with the car. Speaking of Kiwi English: one of my best friends here is a fellow American who has lived in NZ for 6 years. I told him that I’d started saying “reckon” to Stu in a *wink wink nudge nudge* way, as in “I *RECKON* we should go for a walk before it rains….eh??”. My friend chuckled and said “Yeah, that’s how it starts. You start using Kiwi slang a joke and before you know it, you’re just saying it.”
I reckon everyone back home is allowed to slap me upside the head if I rock up at your house with an accent.

Back to the car. So the friend shows up with the “Oooooooo 💅🏻” fancy, albeit very old, car for me to test drive. When I sheepishly said that I couldn’t possibly drive an [insert make of car], both Stu and his friend were confused and surprised. Me: “But it’s so fancy!!” Stu and his friend: “Seriously?.” (I later spoke to my American friend about this, with Stu present to witness the conversation. Me: “Back me up here: if I post on social media that I’m driving an [insert make of car], people back home are going to think I’m some spoiled little princess, right?”. Friend: “Oh, yeah, totally, you can’t post that online.” Me to Stu: “See?! I told you!” Stu: “[baffled]”).

So Stu’s friend rocks up with the car for me to test drive, only…I couldn’t. I couldn’t drive it because it was a stick shift. To clarify: I am a lifelong diehard stick shift driver, but I was completely unable to wrap my head around the idea of driving manual transmission and shifting with my left hand while sitting in what my brain still thinks of as the passenger seat. So Stu took my potential new car for a test drive while I rode in the (actual) passenger seat. He said he liked the way it handled, and I said I liked the way it felt, and even though I still felt suuuuuuuper weird about buying this “Ooooooo 💅🏻” car, it was a really good deal and I went for it.

That, my friends, is how I ended up the owner of this cherry red, five speed 2002 Alfa Romeo 147.

💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻

I purchased it with the agreement that his friend would buy it back from me when I left, at a slightly lesser price to be determined when the time came. I paid $2,200 NZD and sold it back for $1,800 NZD, meaning that I ended up paying $400 NZD–around $236 USD–to have a car for two and a half months. I would have paid that much to rent a car for a week. Like I said, it was a fantastic deal.

It took me several dozen slow, hesitant trips around and around and around our little cul-de-sac before I was suddenly able to drive with ease and confidence, and within a few days of owning it I drove the incredibly windy and scary road from here to Tairua and back (which is about an hour and a half round trip). It was a zippy little car in great condition, but it came with a whole bunch of charming quirks. The radio was held together with a paper clip which had to be twisted around every time the stereo shut itself off. The fabric lining the interior roof of the car was held up with push pins. The entirety of the car’s cherry red paint was covered in little bumps due to a poor paint job on someone’s part. And at one point the driver’s side window fell down and got stuck inside the door somewhere (Stu’s friend fixed it immediately). But I adored it, paperclips and thumbtacks notwithstanding. And at 10.87 km per liter, or 25.58 miles a gallon, it was really good on gas/petrol.

I fell in love with that little car, and as luck would have it, Stu’s friend was so taken with it himself that he ended up keeping it, sprucing it up, and then selling it back to me–for good this time–when I got back this past January. I paid him $4,000 NZD ($2,370 USD). The paperclipped radio and collapsing roof fabric were both taken care of, and he’d always wanted to try his hand at repainting a car, so the exterior is now smooth and gorgeous. It still has some charming little quirks–some fun, different ones this time!–including the fact that the power window buttons rattle around like loose teeth and there’s a 50/50 chance that if you roll down the driver’s side window it’ll either roll back up with ease or take five minutes to s-l-o-w-l-y squeal its way back up, which is really fun when it starts raining.

So that, my friends, is why I’ve been so shy about sharing the fact that I’ve been zipping around New Zealand in an Alfa Romeo 💅🏻. I promise you that I’m not a spoiled little princess 👑 😊. Things just work differently here.

Before I left, my friend Myra gave me a Cape Cod sticker for my car!

SOME Q&As ABOUT BUYING A CAR IN NEW ZEALAND AS A TOURIST

HOW THE HELL WOULD I GO ABOUT BUYING A CAR IN NEW ZEALAND?

Facebook Marketplace, TradeMe, and Turners Cars are the best places to look, which you can do before you even get here. You may be able to line up a sale from the States, which will save you valuable time when you arrive. Heads up that you’ll encounter lots of car models you’ve likely never heard of, such as Toyota Starlet, Toyota Wish, Honda Jazz, and Subaru Exiga, all of which sound like jokes that would be used in a round of “Bluff the Listener” on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me .

This website has some good basic info about buying a car as a tourist. You want to make sure the WOF is up to date, which you’ll be able to tell by the sticker on the windshield. WOF is a Warrant of Fitness; it’s the same as our inspection sticker. You should also check for a valid “rego” (registration) sticker on the windshield (or “windscreen,” as they say here).

HOW WOULD I GO ABOUT PAYING SOMEONE FOR A CAR?

For a small fee, you can do a bank transfer via the Wise app, which usually goes through within a few hours. Tip: if you know you’re going to be buying a car in NZ, set up the Wise app on your phone ahead of time so that you’re ready to go. You’ll need to input your bank account/routing information and add money to your account. The Wise fee varies depending on the dollar amount and currency being exchanged. When I sent Stu’s friend $4,000 NZD in January, I paid a fee of around $11 USD.

DO I NEED A SPECIAL DRIVER’S LICENSE TO DRIVE THERE?

NO! As long as you have a valid US license, you can drive for up to one year in NZ, after which you’ll need to get a NZ license. I made the mistake of paying about $25 for an international license before my first trip to NZ only to find that it was a total waste of money.

HOW EXPENSIVE IS GAS?

It’s expensive (and it’s also called “petrol” here, and is priced by the litre rather than the gallon). I talked about the price of gas in this blog post dated January 12, 2024. At that time, it was about $6.75 USD/gallon, so you’ll want to find a car that gets good mileage.

I highly recommend downloading an app called Gaspy. The adorable logo icon indicates that it’s supposed to be “Gas Spy,” though I can only ever say it as “Gasspy” in my head. No matter how you pronounce it, it’s invaluable. When you open the Gaspy app, it detects your location and tells you where the cheapest gas is around you.

Another way to save a little bit of money is by purchasing something at a New World, a national grocery store chain. It tends to be a bit pricier than the other grocery stores, but if you spend more than $1 NZD at New World, you get 6c off a litre at their petrol pumps. Your fuel voucher is printed off along with your receipt, so don’t toss it. The discount is good for a week, but the one catch is that you have to redeem it at THAT location, so make sure you use it right then and there. If the New World that you’ve visited doesn’t have its own pumps, the fuel voucher is redeemable at Z Petrol stations.

As an American, I was thrown off by the prices listed on gas station signs. Using the photo below photo as an example, I would go “Oh wow, gas is only $2.05 a gallon here??,” but of course it’s not. They go by liters (“litres”) rather than gallons, so that would have been $2.05 a litre. One litre is about ¼ of a gallon, so if the gas station has a sign saying $2.05/litre, that’s around $8.20/gallon, not $2.05/gallon.

Generic NZ petrol station photo. Confusing as hell to my American brain.

DO I NEED CAR INSURANCE?

Crazy but true: no one is required to have car insurance in New Zealand. That being said, I’ve found that it’s quite a bit cheaper to insure a car here than it is back home, so you should at least consider getting third party insurance. AA Insurance seems to be the biggest and easiest-to-work-with car insurance company in New Zealand. As long as you have a valid US driver’s license, they can cover you for as long as you’re driving in NZ. Before I got here, I chatted with AA Insurance on WhatsApp (having WhatsApp on your phone is an absolute must when you’re traveling abroad). They were able to answer all of my questions, which was handy since I then had everything in writing. Their number for WhatsApp is +64 9-966 8131.

To insure my 2012 Toyota Yaris back home, valued at $4,900 USD, it costs me $585 USD/year. To insure my Alfa here, I pay $274 USD/year. Anyone else who drives my car, as long as they’re over 25 years old and hold a valid license, is automatically covered by my insurance; I do not need to add their name to my policy.

In addition to having AA Insurance, I also pay for a roadside assistance program through AA Roadservice, which is essentially what AAA is back home (yes; it’s confusing: AA = insurance, AA = roadside assistance, and AA = support group for alcoholics). I have read that AAA members in the States can get a discount as an AA member in New Zealand, but I have yet to talk to anyone at AA who has ever heard of that.

IN CONCLUSION: Let me know if you have questions about anything that I didn’t cover here! I may or may not be able to give you an answer, but I’m happy to try. 😊

I hope everyone back home is doing well and enjoying the arrival of spring! I promise I’ll post more regularly.

Aroha (that means “love”!),

Hilary

March 27, 2024May 19, 2024

Visa Update #5: Interim Visa Granted!

Keep those champagne bottles corked; this isn’t THE visa that I just applied for. This just means that my case has been assigned to an Immigration Officer who has determined that yes, I provided them with all of the documents they need and that yes, I can now remain in New Zealand for six months until they make a decision. It doesn’t mean they won’t be contacting me with questions or asking me for more information once they actually begin reviewing my application in depth, but it’s still a relief knowing that I’m rubber-stamped to stay here in the meantime. And it feels especially good because a year ago today, I was weeping into my suitcase as I packed to fly home to the States 24 hours later, not to return to NZ for ten whole months. There shall be no suitcase-packing today! (Also hopefully no crying 😆).

The basic parameters of my Interim Visa are that I do not work (duh) and that I don’t leave the country or else the visa is nullified and I have to start all over again.

Current processing time for the Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa is 11 weeks. Stay tuned. 😊

For those of you keeping track: I submitted my visa application at 5:30 PM on Friday, March 22 and this email from Immigration was in my inbox when I woke up on Wednesday, March 27.