Thursday, March 5, 2009
The New Zealand $Downer
When I started work on 1 September, 1 New Zealand Dollar was worth 70 cents US. Just this week, the exchange rate actually dropped to below 50 cents US. That means the currency has devalued nearly 30% since I arrived. This is not good for me. If I continue to think of my salary in terms of US Dollars, I make less and less every day. Basically, there is no incentive for me to save any money here as it will not be worth much at all back in the U.S. Depressingly, I converted my salary the other day to US Dollars and realized that I'm making a good bit less than I did when I first started my job in 2005. Oh well, I can't think of it like that. I'm still enjoying my time here and the local prices have not changed (actually, if anything they've dropped due to the problems in the economy - I'm thinking about looking for a new apartment as I can probably get a much better deal now than when I moved here 6 months ago). Have a look at the doclinked GRAPH to see why I'm so poor (Change the dates on the bottom right of the graph to 9/1/08 - 3/5/09). Feel free to send US dollars to your poor friend/brother/son/grandchild/nephew to help me out in this third-world environment. Alternatively, it would be a great time for anyone to come visit as your dollar will go much further at the moment.
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Nate,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the club!! The average state-sider has lost about 50% in their 401k's last year. So far this year its getting worse. We were lucky, only losing about 30% due to more conservative investments. So if you haven't had a chance to build a big nest egg in the stock market over the last few years, consider yourself fortunate. We'll be anxious to get to NZ to take advantage of the local economy, if it is still like that in September. Dad.