We have been living in Aotearoa (New Zealand) for over a year now, and what a ride it has been! We have hit some bumps along the way for sure, but what road doesn’t have a few? Ours was particularly bad in places, but we also had some amazing times and found friends when we least expected it and needed it the most.
We couldn’t have done this without a working holiday budget. We had planned to give you a breakdown of our van life budget, but given that for quite a few months of this year, we had no road worthy van that seemed kind of pointless. So instead we have a breakdown of all our costs from living a working holiday lifestyle in New Zealand. Hopefully, this gives you some idea of what to expect on your own year of travel and work in this stunning country.
First off let me start by saying we haven’t included any of the costs incurred from all our van problems and struggles. These costs are so uniquely us (yay for us sarcasm) that it seemed pointless to give a full breakdown of these issues. Just keep in mind that we did have a working van for about two to three months of this time in New Zealand, so our cost of transport is slightly lower in that time. However, we were still paying for petrol so it kind of evens out, anyway.
This cost breakdown is for a two person working holiday budget in New Zealand. As such, we used NZD as the currency, so remember to convert that back to your own currency to see if you can afford a similar lifestyle! Obviously, as it is a working holiday, we were earning money whilst we were traveling. We didn’t have this exact amount sitting in our bank account from the very start of the year. As it’s a working holiday, you need to keep in mind that the more you work, the less you end up spending. Why? You simply have less time to spend money and go on fun adventures whilst you are working.
For this year, we worked a total of about 6 months. We definitely hadn’t planned on working that much, but as we said before, we hit some major bumps in our road when it came to our van. That is a story for another time, but let’s just say it left us stuck in one place for a good 4 months.
Be sure to check out our Instagram to follow along on our working holiday in New Zealand!
New Zealand Working Holiday Budget Cost Breakdown Per Category
| Food | Activities | Accommodation | Boring Stuff | Vehicle | Total | |
| Total | $19,714.10 | $11,151.30 | $10,506.70 | $8,018.34 | $7,452.90 | $56,843.34 |
Food: $19,714.10
We are big foodies, so it comes at no surprise to anyone that our biggest cost over the year was food.
This includes cooking our own as well as eating out at restaurants and cafes at varying levels of fanciness. Any drinks we got also fell under this bracket. We did a lot better in some months than others on food.
Our best month was November, where we managed to spend only $606.73 on food. We managed to keep this month so cheap for food because we had to fly back to Perth for 2 weeks for a funeral. We stayed with family and were fed by them for most of the two weeks. However, our second cheapest month for food came close to this, with only $722.81 spent in August on food. This was when Tiff was working and we mostly cooked for ourselves in the apartment. We went out for cheap meals with friends maybe twice in the month and had shared food for other gatherings that we all made.
The worst month we had for food cost was September, when Tiff’s parents came to visit for 2 weeks and we ate out for lunch and dinner. Something we never do! Paying for two meals a day makes a huge difference in your monthly cost for food. So be aware of how much you are eating out if you want to keep this cost down.
Activities: $11,151.30
Coming in at our second biggest cost is activities!
This is all the tours and guided adventures we went on this year. It includes things from soaking in hot pools to zip lining through the trees in Rotorua. We also included things like ferry rides to Rangitoto Island, hiring kayaks on the Whanganui River and the shuttle ride to get to the start of Pouakai Crossing.
Our last-minute flights back to Perth fell into this category too, making November the most expensive month for activities.
Our second most expensive month for activities was June. No surprises here as June is Birthday month!! Our Birthdays are a day apart so we spend all of June celebrating and going big! We spent a lot of that in Rotovegas (Rotorua) doing the luge and visiting different hot pools.
Accommodation: $10,506.70
Sadly accommodation is the third largest cost for us this year.
The biggest reason for this is our van troubles. No van means paying to stay in accommodation instead of freedom camping. When we did have the van in June, we found we had to mainly stay at powered camp sites as it was not insulated enough to keep us warm without a heater going all night.
We freedom camped when we could and were super excited to be freedom camping in summer in our van. However, it sadly got written off before we could do this. We did however get our new van in time for the cyclone in Feb which meant not as much freedom camping as we’d have liked but still enough to make Feb a cheaper month for accommodation.
The only reason that accommodation wasn’t our biggest expense is that Tiff gets it provided for her when she is working. Luckily, it includes Nathan as well. Also lucky that she could get a job for the length of our living without our van which equated to a little over 4 months!
That is the beauty of a working holiday! Free accommodation is definitely its biggest perk.
Boring Stuff: $8,018.34
All the boring stuff. Bills, medical expenses and miscellaneous items.
Things like paying to do our washing when living on the road. We also included gifts home in this category, along with all the other odd stuff you never think about until you need it.
Tiff has to renew her radiation licence every year to keep working. That covers a large part of this cost too, coming in at $469.20 every year, ouch! Another reason this is so high is Nathan has been trying to get contacts that work for him. He has a rare eye condition that makes a this time consuming and expensive process.
So fingers crossed that next year, this will be much lower! It’s good to budget for this kind of stuff though, as you never know what medical expenses will come up on your adventures.
Vehicle: $7,452.90
This is mainly fuel. Slightly lower than planned due to the van issues and being stuck in Hamilton without a car for months.
However we did have to hire a car every now and then when we were stuck in Hamilton and that cost is included here. We also included the insurance we paid on the old and new van. Things like road user chargers also fell into this category.
So it should give you a good idea of vehicle costs. If you can get a job that gives you a car that would be handy to keep this part of your budget down! We had a hire car covered by Tiff’s work when we first got into Auckland. We still payed for the fuel but just getting the cost of the car covered is amazing!
Total: $56,843.34
Our entire cost of living and traveling for a year in New Zealand.
We think that’s pretty good! That works out at just under $156 a day. That’s for all your food, accommodation and activities! Don’t forget that’s for two people as well.
We wanted to do this without spending an arm and a leg but we also wanted to have fun and not feel like we were missing out on anything because of a budget.
After all, what’s the point in coming to a new country and exploring it if we have to miss out on half the amazing things due to our budget? We had originally allocated $160 a day to our working holiday budget so we are pretty excited that we fell under that without having to try too hard.
We kept our budget in mind when spending money but we never felt restricted or like we were missing out. If we wanted to do something we did it and spent less else where that week.
Cost Breakdown by Month for our Working Holiday Budget
| Table | January | February | March | April | May | June |
| Food | $2,394.11 | $1,724.26 | $1,512.17 | $1,227.13 | $1,717.57 | $2,209.43 |
| Activities | $384.39 | $37.00 | $27.00 | $164.00 | $533.60 | $1,985.79 |
| Accommodation | $852.60 | $778.98 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $2,295.27 | $2,647.40 |
| Boring Stuff | $320.28 | $512.00 | $751.77 | $1,181.95 | $570.24 | $494.77 |
| Vehicle | $380.00 | $435.87 | $321.48 | $481.19 | $1,085.36 | $293.06 |
| Total | $4,331.38 | $3,488.11 | $2,612.42 | $3,054.27 | $6,202.04 | $7,630.45 |
| Table | July | August | September | October | November | December | Total |
| Food | $1,666.81 | $722.81 | $2,904.56 | $1,363.35 | $606.73 | $1,665.17 | $19,714.10 |
| Activities | $243.99 | $90.00 | $1,643.70 | $563.48 | $4,598.20 | $880.15 | $11,151.30 |
| Accommodation | $349.22 | $0.00 | $1,917.69 | $0.00 | $377.00 | $1,288.54 | $10,506.70 |
| Boring Stuff | $470.88 | $516.31 | $589.95 | $1,078.81 | $323.95 | $1,207.43 | $8,018.34 |
| Vehicle | $1,329.79 | $55.31 | $799.53 | $364.44 | $1,431.29 | $475.58 | $7,452.90 |
| Total | $4,060.69 | $1,384.43 | $7,855.43 | $3,370.08 | $7,337.17 | $5,516.87 | $56,843.34 |
Overall Thoughts from our First Year and our Working Holiday Budget
Our most expensive month really surprised us.
We thought for sure it would be June. We literally had no restraint in June. It is birthday month after all! We stayed at some super fancy hotels and canopy camping getaways.
Quick side note: if you are looking for a stunning off the grid escape in New Zealand, check out the properties at Canopy Camping. They are stunning!!
We ate out for one meal pretty much every day. The few days we didn’t, we cooked extravagant 3 course meals for each other. We did so many paid activities too! 
Eating out is expensive!
But it was all less than what we spent in the 2 weeks that Tiffs parents came to visit in September. Sure, there isn’t a huge discrepancy in the two months, but we were as cheap as possible in the time her parents weren’t here in September. Honestly, it shocked us how big a difference it makes to a budget when you eat out for two meals a day instead of one.
We did a lot of paid activities and tours with Tiff’s parents, too, which definitely contributed to the cost, but we really think it came down to how much we ate out. It was a great lesson for us and hopefully it helps you too! We would often question how much cooking our own meals really saved us, but seeing what a difference it made eating out for 2 out of 3 meals a day, we no longer question this at all. Even with the cost of groceries rising, we are definitely saving by cooking ourselves.
When you’re working, life is cheap
The cheaper months (March, April, July, August, October and January) are the months when Tiff was working. Not paying for accommodation, cooking our own food during the week and having less time for activities results in us spending less money. During the week we would go on little adventures after work to explore our new surrounding but they were generally free walks to new parks and beaches. Weekends saws us exploring more and is when we spent most of our money in these working months.
January came in at the most expensive work month as we were in Hawkes Bay, a beautiful wine region on the North Island of Aotearoa. I think we went out for dinks and lunch every weekend and inevitably got a bottle of wine to take home as well. We are still drinking the wine we got from these outings and its midway through May! 
Life at home doesn’t stop
We weren’t too sure if we should sub November out for a different month outside of this first year in Aotearoa, as it includes having to fly home for 2 weeks for a funeral. In the end we decided to include it in the budget we are sharing with you all as it’s real and what we had to do. Sadly, this is something you need to consider when going away for any amount of time to a new country to live. Life still happens back home and sometimes you’ll need to fly back, whether that be for a funeral or a happier event like a wedding.
When we decided to come over on this working holiday adventure, we made a promise to ourselves and each other that any big life events happening back home would see us jump on a plane and be there for our families and friends. It isn’t always going to be possible in every situation to make it back home for the big things in our important people’s lives, but we promised we would give it our best shot to make that happen. This may or may not be something you will need or want to do when you are on a working holiday, but it is for sure something you should think about before you take the leap and go explore the world.
A working holiday budget can be whatever you make it
This is literally our entire years’ worth of spending, being as honest and upfront as we can be with you all! We wanted to give you a good idea of what a working holiday will cost so you can figure out how much to save and if you can do it too.
If we had someone else’s budget to pour over before we made the leap to Aotearoa, Tiff would have felt so much better about it all. Trying to figure out how much you’ll spend on a year long holiday is like asking how long is a piece of string? It’s impossible to figure out until you’ve done it, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what to expect.
We are optimistic that next year we can give you all a proper van life budget for a year spent in Aotearoa, New Zealand!
We are trying to get to around $100 a day for this current year. Now that we can freedom camp as planed with think this is going to be achievable for our travel style and love of food and tours. Getting the budget down is necessary given all the van troubles we experienced, we have found our savings account to be shrinking a lot faster than we planned.
Again, we haven’t included the van related expenses here because they are a lot and still not properly resolved. Fingers crossed once they are resolved, they won’t add up to as much. Once we finally get to close the chapter on that particular headache, we might do a little blog about the cost of buying a van in New Zealand and what not to do. A story for another day, though.
Working holidays can be tough, but always rewarding
A rounded cost of $156 a day as a New Zealand working Holiday budget is pretty good, even if we do say so ourselves.
Sounds rather achievable, don’t you think? Especially when you consider the prospect of earning money for part of the year you are traveling.
There is plenty of work to pick up in New Zealand right now. Whether you are a medical professional like Tiff or looking for seasonal farm work or hospitality. All sectors are still calling out for staff so what are you waiting for?
Time to start your own travel dreams, if we can do it anyone can! Hit the road and start writing your own adventure. In the mean time we will keep sharing ours.
Keen for some travel inspo? Be sure to check out:
- Top 5 Free Things to do in Auckland
- The BEST New Zealand Freedom Camping Spots
- 5 Must Visit Auckland Beaches
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