banking circa 1957
5 major bank chains here in nz – westpac, bank of new zealand, national bank, anz and kiwi bank. surprisingly only kiwi bank is nz owned – the rest are australian. my bank is westpac and so far it has…
Tag Money
make a postie happy – give them mail to deliver
i was having a few issues getting mail delivered (all mail gets delivered to a sister hotel and they didn’t know who i was and were returning it), and realizing that i’m likely to have several addresses in the next…
it’s a match!
most daily financial transactions in nz are made by eftpos (electronic funds transfer at point of sale). very similar to a debit card that is tied to your bank account and has a pin. unlike a credit card you don’t…
well covered
medical care in new zealand is a provided by a network of public and private providers and insurers. the primary insurer is the national government. the national plan provides deeply subsidized day to day care (a trip to the gp…
heading west
our stuff is finally on it’s way to new zealand. first a cross country trip on the rails to long beach california, then sailing on the MSC Japan, voyage 634. thats the good news. the bad news is that after…
how much for the doggy in the window
after spending most of thursday and friday prepping we had our moving sale today. everything priced to move. unfortunately once again i didn’t take any photos, so this picture will have to serve as my approximation. i promise to do…
autographs
the p&s for the framingham house was signed by all today. very reasonable terms. fix a broken outlet, a toilet the rocks a bit and treat a few ants. i would do the same if i were buying but it…
when 20 is better than 40
we had our first estimate for our move by allied international today. very professional and gave a strong sense that they had experience with nz moves. it won’t be cheap, but it could have been much worse. thanks to w’s…
36 hours
we got our first offer on the house (framingham) today. after less than 36 hours on the market. it is a very good offer and i have no regrets that perhaps we priced the house too low. sometimes good is…
luxury accommodation – 8 sq ft
gromit’s immigration agent strongly suggested that we get his travel crate as soon as possible to begin the acclimation process. lots of rule on the crate including amount of ventilation, sturdiness of closures and size. the crate has to be…