Kiwi households earning more than $200k seeking help from budgeting services

New Zealand households with incomes over $200,000 are among those seeking help from budgeting services as the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite.

David Verry, a financial mentor at North Harbour Budgeting, told Herald NOW’s Ryan Bridge that queues at budgeting services were getting longer.

“I’ve got clients who have household incomes over $200,000 down to people who are purely living on benefit income.

“We cover the entire gamut of people… a lot of people are employed, a lot of people are on benefits, of course.”

Verry said typically those with household incomes of more than $200,000 had mortgages, and they had been stung by increases in their interest costs.

“Over the last couple of years, we saw all the mortgage rates go up, you know, doubling, almost tripling.

“That’s something that’s actually sort of trended off now as the interest rates have come off.”

But relief from interest rates has been countered by increases in other everyday essentials like food, electricity and insurance.

This week, Stats NZ said food prices increased by 4.7% in the 12 months to October.

“You only need to get little variations ... it’s going to affect you and it’s on those it’s all on those basics. It’s all those everyday things that you walk in and get,” Verry said.

Verry said it was very tough on people right now.

“There’s nobody that’s immune from it.

“We used to like to be back to people within 24 hours of them contacting us. Some budget services now have a two or three week wait to actually get in front of a financial mentor to just start discussing their budget to try and find the solutions.”

Record numbers of Kiwis are turning to KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals to seek relief from cost of living pressures.

According to Inland Revenue Department (IRD) data, September was a record month for KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals ($48.9 million) and the number of people dipping into their retirement funds (5530).

Already, in the first quarter of the financial year, $134.6m has been withdrawn from KiwiSaver for hardship reasons, up 22.5% on the same period last year.