New Zealand - British Expat Forum

My hubbie and I are heading out to NZ for a 3 week campervan holiday in September (taking our CVs with us - yay!), and I'm trying to plan our spending money.

The van does 11litres per 100kms (the specs we were given - I'm going to plan for a slightly worse mpg...), and we are trying (with bits of string and an atlas) to work out roughly how far we will travel. However, I'm aware that, as with the rest of the world, the price of diesel is shooting up - the latest price I was given is $2.10 per litre for petrol. How does this compare to diesel, and is it even worth me making these calculations so soon?

Also - I found a website that advised about $275 per week for two people for general groceries, but it wasn't obvious how in date it was - would that sound about right (if I then put restaurant costs on top)?

Hi Toonster
Fuel prices seem to change weekly (even daily) at the moment, diesel especially - when we landed in 2003 it was 99c/ltr for petrol and 46c/ltr for diesel - now it's $2.14.ltr for petrol and $1.86/ltr for diesel + you need to buy diesel km's too (not sure how much now - we sold our diesel truck)
So you would need to see if the petrol companies stop holding us to ransom in the near future - they are talking of introducing a new carbon tax to fuel - so any decrease will be probably swallowed up with that - so budget for $2.20/ltr and you should have enough left over for a beer or two.
Groceries aren't that expensive - unless you buy all brand name stuff - each town usually has a fresh market on a Suturday/Sundat morning and we normally get all our veggies and eggs for about $20. We buy our meat from a discount butcher chain - $8.99/kilo steak, $16/kg boneless chicken - and the rest we go to the supermarket - which for a family of 4 adults costs on average about $200/week (thats with 3 women a cat and a dog) we don't buy the most expensive stuff - but we also don't buy the cheapest. Eating out can be quite inexpensive too.
Hope this helps

Kevin

Thank you very much Might have to check back a bit closer to our departure date for the current costs, then! What are diesel kms?

All diesel vehicles are taxed seperately, a left over from when only commercial/agricultural vehicles were diesel - you buy a ticket for 5000 or 10000km's, most Campervan companies will add this to the rental cost.

Ah - cool - thanks for that - I shall have to remember to budget for it!