SocietyJuly 8, 2025

The cost of being: A tourism operator paying back their Covid-19 business loan

The Cost of Being

Guest writer

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As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a small-town tourist accommodation provider talks us through their finances.

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Gender: Female.

Age: 46.

Ethnicity: NZ Pākehā/European.

Role: Self-employed in tourism (own/host short-term accommodation). Husband works in marketing. We parent three kids and I volunteer 4-5 hours per week.

Salary/income/assets: $110,000 p/a after tax (can vary depending on occupancy of the rental). $10,000 in savings (earmarked for end-of-year taxes and bills during the tourist off-season). Approximately $60,000 in KiwiSaver.

My living location is: Small town.

Rent/mortgage per week: Slowly but steadily paying off a mortgage of $474,000 at $850 per week.

Student loan or other debt payments per week: $150 per week for Covid-19 Small Business Cashflow Scheme Loan.

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Typical weekly food costs

Groceries: $500–$600 for two adults, three kids plus pet food for two dogs.

Eating out: Rarely, special occasions only or if we go to the city. Probably works out to $20 per week.

Takeaways: Never (we live 17km from a small town with limited takeaway options).

Workday lunches: None, I work from home.

Cafe coffees/snacks: I get a chai latte every other week, so that works out to $3.50 per week.

Other food costs: None. I’ve got the space for a vege garden but our climate is tough on plants and honestly, it’s cheaper/easier just to buy in season. My husband does grow his own herbs.

Savings: We can easily save a few hundred a week and we’d love to go on holiday but the savings will be going to our end-of-year tax bill and to help with bills over the tourist off-season (ie, our rental doesn’t command the higher nightly rate as peak season).

I worry about money: Sometimes.

Three words to describe my financial situation: Privileged, comfortable, relaxed.

My biggest edible indulgence would be: Vegan cheese – currently $9.50 per 250g so we buy it once a week and make it last!

In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: Zero for me as I quit drinking for health reasons (ie to mitigate increased risk of cancer). Husband still enjoys a good wine so $40 per week for him.

In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: Around $50.

I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: Around $800.

My most expensive clothing in the past year was: $223 for Salomon hiking boots.

My last pair of shoes cost: See above – but they were on special, down from $319!

My grooming/beauty expenditure in a year is about: NZ-made vegan make-up, various “pro-ageing” lotions and potions, hair cut/dye every few months. Annual cost would be around $750.

My exercise expenditure in a year is about: Zero. I walk with my dogs in the hills behind our property and push-ups/sit-ups/planks are free!

My last Friday night cost: Zero. Just the usual dinner then a movie at home.

Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: A $650 refurbished iPhone that had problems from the outset. I’ve now bought a new iPhone for $1,200. That stung.

Most indulgent purchase (that I don’t regret) in the last 12 months was: Books (around $200 total).

One area where I’m a bit of a tightwad is: Accommodation, which is funny because while I run boutique accommodation ($350 to $500 per night depending on the time of year) I wouldn’t stay in a place like that myself!

Five words to describe my financial personality would be: Got lucky but worked hard.

I grew up in a house where money was: Tight. We were pretty broke off and on growing up but I didn’t really notice because I had everything I needed: loving parents, cosy home, good healthy food. It was way harder on my parents.

The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: In the last month because I forgot to transfer enough into my everyday account.

In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Wealthier with our mortgage nearly paid off and money for international holidays with the family.

I would love to have more money for: At least one international holiday with the kids before they leave home!

Describe your financial low: 2011 to 2017 when we were on one income while I was at home with the kids. That was tough but not as tough as people are doing it now. We were lucky to have excellent parental support that got us through.

I give money away to: Local fundraisers, the Green Party, GreenPeace, Know Your Stuff, NZ Rainbow organisations.

We know you know it’s tough out there. We are writing regularly about the economy, the price of butter, local business closures, and the cost of being a person in Aotearoa in 2025. We’ve seen the price of everything go up, cinemas are using off-brand Jaffas, and Hayden Donnell says everything is “rooted”. Sometimes it feels like things are hopeless, but there is still a meeting place for like-minded New Zealanders and a home for local stories, well-researched journalism, humour and hot takes. That place is The Spinoff. If you’ve read this far, then you appreciate what we’re trying to achieve. Maybe you come back for our clear-sighted commentary on politics, or maybe it’s for our cultural offering of books, TV, film, theatre and live event reviews and recommendations. Whatever the reason, we appreciate your company. But it comes at a cost. For every 100 Spinoff readers, only 3.2 support us financially. We need this to be higher to confidently plan for the future, continue to take the government to task, back the cultural sector in Aotearoa, and bring the unique perspectives you love to the biggest stories of the week. If you haven’t already, please consider making a regular donation today. Thank you.

SocietyJuly 8, 2025

An open letter to Jacinda Ardern on open letters to Jacinda Ardern

Hayden Donnell

Contributing writer

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Jacinda Ardern, I have a problem: people keep writing open letters to Jacinda Ardern. It has to stop.

Hello Jacinda Ardern,

Thank you for reading this letter, which I have sent in a genuine effort to contact you, and not as a hackneyed vehicle for a tedious, self-aggrandising sermon relitigating some bugbear from years ago. Anyway, I remember years ago, New Zealanders aired their disagreements the traditional way, by either getting drunk and arguing with each other or getting drunk and fighting. If the dispute was of national significance, it could be resolved through warring newspaper opinion columns, or in the case of Winston Peters, by calling someone a cuck in parliament.

I yearn bitterly for those more sweet, innocent days. Back then I could go weeks or even years without seeing some minor gripe or whinge escalated into an open letter to the former prime minister of New Zealand, the Rt Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern. Jacinda, hi, I’m sending this letter to see if you can do something about the scourge of people sending you open letters all the time.

It didn’t start with you, of course. Writers have been penning open letters for decades. Who could forget Paul’s open letter to the Ephesians, Jacinda Ardern’s open letter to MediaWorks chief executive Mark Weldon, or more recently, Spinoff fool’s open letter to the Waitangi Dildo? But over the last six or so years, these missives have increasingly been addressed to one person alone. Open letters to Jacinda Ardern have been published by The Spinoff, The 13th Floor, the Herald, the Country, the Outdoors Party, the Taxpayers Union, and The Spinoff again.

Whenever a New Zealander has a quibble or setback, their first port of call is to contact the nearest media outlet and fling a letter out in the general direction of our former prime minister. In 2021, Stuff published an open letter to Jacinda Ardern from a woman complaining she’d been forced to put her “bi-hemispheral life” on hold and miss “pea season” over the trifling matter of a global pandemic. Just last week, Sir Ian Taylor published what scientists estimate to be his 73rd open letter to Jacinda Ardern complaining that seeing your book in the airport made him spend 22 hours obsessing about the Covid response, which was definitely justified, your fault, and not cause for self-reflection.

Enough! Jacinda, I know you’re reading this. There has to be a way to put a stop to the madness. Maybe set up a PO Box where people can send their gripes about climate change and vaccines without subjecting the rest of us to their grousing. Lobby the government for a bespoke, financially crippling open letter tax. If all that fails, maybe quit politics and move to the US, where surely only the most desperate or deluded would continue to write you open letters.

Dame Jacinda Ardern, I expect quick action over this issue. This letter is my attempt to effect meaningful change for our great nation. If it wasn’t, you could be forgiven for thinking I’m shoehorning your name into the world’s most parasocial media format for the sake of attention and clicks, and cloying, folksy, first-person sentences like this one are kind of a bit disingenuous and patronising.

But we both know that’s not the case, eh mate. How’s the fam? Let’s catch up soon to talk progress on this one.

Yours sincerely, Hayden

We know you know it’s tough out there. We are writing regularly about the economy, the price of butter, local business closures, and the cost of being a person in Aotearoa in 2025. We’ve seen the price of everything go up, cinemas are using off-brand Jaffas, and Hayden Donnell says everything is “rooted”. Sometimes it feels like things are hopeless, but there is still a meeting place for like-minded New Zealanders and a home for local stories, well-researched journalism, humour and hot takes. That place is The Spinoff. If you’ve read this far, then you appreciate what we’re trying to achieve. Maybe you come back for our clear-sighted commentary on politics, or maybe it’s for our cultural offering of books, TV, film, theatre and live event reviews and recommendations. Whatever the reason, we appreciate your company. But it comes at a cost. For every 100 Spinoff readers, only 3.2 support us financially. We need this to be higher to confidently plan for the future, continue to take the government to task, back the cultural sector in Aotearoa, and bring the unique perspectives you love to the biggest stories of the week. If you haven’t already, please consider making a regular donation today. Thank you.