Paradise tax – CI v NZ supermarket comparison, May 2023

 

With the cost of living crisis top of mind for us all – and even coined ‘Cozzie Livs’ by one uni student on the NZ news last week – I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do a comparison of some of our standard grocery shop items here in Rarotonga v one back in New Zealand. There are three supermarkets here on the island, with the main one, CITC, also owning most of the petrol stations here which stock a decent range of groceries 7 days a week (all but one of the supermarkets is closed on a Sunday which takes getting used to). Supermarkets are supplemented by locals selling their produce on the side of the road, dotted around the island and at the main market on week days and especially on a Saturday when the market’s in full swing.

A recent snap of the imported fruit and veg section at the main supermarket here

We get most Countdown/Woolworths brand foods here, plus Pams items. Often items won’t be in stock for weeks – like mealmate crackers, or the Countdown brand butter, or chicken nuggets for a few weeks there (the kids managed to survive). There’s no basmati rice on the island at the moment, which is less troublesome than late last year when the island ran out of petrol, but it’s still something to get used to. I’ve certainly become far more flexible with what I’m aiming to buy and there is no point sticking to a meal plan. Sometimes there are no apples or oranges aside from extremely expensive ones ($24kg mandarins today for instance), but we can usually find apples, and always bananas or tinned fruit. This means we tend to stock up on things when they are in the supermarket and are glad for our chest freezer and good sized pantry to let us do so.

When it comes to milk, we buy a carton of 12L of long-life milk at $33, compared to $2.20 a litre for long life milk at Countdown. The price of bread is regulated and there is only one provider of loaves of sandwich-type bread. It all tastes bland but is passable for toast or a toasted sandwich but is 1.5 times the price for similar bread at Countdown. The real killer for us is the cost of butter which is currently $11.50 for 500g compared to $6.50 in NZ. Perhaps we should become vegan?

Oddly, the price for 400g of dried apricots is pretty much the same, at $12 in NZ compared with $12.30 here. It looks like mince is about the same price too, and a 12 pack of Corona is $1 cheaper here.

The really big difference is the lack of range here. There aren’t specials with brands competing against each other on price – the selected is too limited. It’s interesting to compare that to the number of special prices/discounts on my fake Countdown order. The main time there are specials is for stock that’s expired or near expiry, and yep, we buy expired stock all the time, especially if it can go in the freezer (we currently have 8 bags of 6 mini bagels at half price, $3.70, on special for school lunchboxes, and chocolate chips for baking are often on special and live in our freezer). Nor can you get a 3-for-the-price-of-2 deal, or things like baked beans in a three pack. Often biscuits have had a rough ride on the boat to get here so are crushed before they’re even open, so they get saved for baking.

Our diets are much simpler here, with far less variation. Frozen chickens are always in stock so we have roast chicken on the bbq once or twice a week, with local veggies (, cucumber, lettuce) topped up with imported veggies like carrots, potatoes and capsicum ($10.50 a kg this week). If we’re lucky, a friend’s avocado tree has just produced, or we spot someone selling tomatoes on the side of the road, or we saw expired feta at the shop to jazz things up, and we supplement with frozen veggies too. When in season, there are plenty of fresh fruit around, with J a fan of starfruit especially, but none of us that hot on pawpaw. We make our own easiyo which works out at half the price of a kg of Fresh and Fruity or similar here, although J hates it and E isn’t a massive fan so they don’t get yoghurt unless it’s in a smoothie. And as I’m not working full time, I do much more baking for lunchboxes, although with the price of butter I don’t think that makes financial sense some weeks tbh.

An interesting exercise to do, with the cost of my fake shop here in Rarotonga coming in at $203.90 compared to the Countdown online order at $162.95. A whole other framing for this is that the minimum wage here in the Cook Islands is $9 compared to $22.70 in New Zealand, and Dean’s salary is half what it was in NZ, but it’s too nuanced a comparison to capture fairly in a blog post, so I won’t!

Instead, come visit, bring us groceries, and see for yourself.

A screenshot of the 'fake' Countdown order I did as part of this post, demonstrating the items with savings

Living in the Cook Islands

 

In some ways, Rarotonga feels like a tropical small town in New Zealand – perhaps somewhere remote in Northland but hotter and with more coconut trees. You can buy most of the food brands we have in NZ, so the kids still have their weetbix and marmite, and the petrol stations sell the most enormous Tip Top kiddy cones in the world for $1. In others, this really is a different place altogether. The kids put together a few things they have found especially unique about our first few weeks in Rarotonga. 

The kids and me before school began, at one of our favourite spots, Muri beach

1. 1.  The money

While the Cook Islands uses NZ currency, they also have some unique coins and notes: the $5 coin, the triangular $2 coin, the $1 coin, the 50c coin, and the $3 note.

 

 2.   Drinking water

Tap water is not safe to drink here, so the island is dotted with free water stations. Every couple of days we take our huge water bottles down the road to re-fill them with filtered and UV treated water that’s safe to drink and brush our teeth with.

Filling one of our bottles at the free water station near our home

 

 3.   Swimming

Rarotonga is surrounded by a lagoon, with the reef some way off shore. This makes for a beautiful natural 'swimming pool' that’s always warm, shallow, and almost always calm. Perfect for an evening dip, sailing lessons, fish spotting, and even school swimming lessons! No pool, no worries, swimming lessons take place a short walk from school at our local beach.

School swimming lessons

 

4.    4. The animals

One of the biggest culture shocks when we first arrived was the number of animals wandering everywhere – around our house, across the roads, along the beaches, at the market. Everywhere. Dogs are very popular pets here and they are free to wander about during the day. They’re inquisitive and gentle, and leave you alone if you don’t show interest in them. Even E who was frightened of dogs when we arrived has learnt mostly to ignore them. There are also loads of chickens and roosters all around. We have gotten used to the constant noise during the night. Moko (geckos) are also plentiful, especially at night as they crawl along the ceiling of our deck areas. We hear they eat mosquitos, so we’re happy to have them camp out at our place. We're also enjoyed spotting the many hermit crabs on the beaches, especially in the evenings.

 

5.   5. The pace of life

No shoes, nothing open on Sundays, no traffic, no time pressure. Also no tv, no library (well there is one but it’s crammed to the roof with old dusty books so not quite what we’re used to - we are so lucky with our libraries in NZ), no online shopping, no grocery deliveries. The internet is also a lot more expensive and slower, so these blog posts won't be too regular. We have embraced this slower pace, enjoying Saturday morning markets, eating out, swimming, sailing, and spending plenty of time reading in the hammock we brought with us. Chores like grocery shopping also longer, and the house needs cleaning more regularly but that's ok, time is on our side.

We’re also enjoying living closer to school than we did in Wellington, walking most days so long as it’s not too wet or hot (it’s the rainy season so we have some downpours!). J made a video of the walk to school here.

Reading in the hammock

Outside the library and museum

Sunday bike ride - hiding from a downpour!

A long time between drinks - the von Yarralls are on the move again!

Over five years have passed since we last posted here, but we're starting up the blog again having moved to another new country!

A potted history of the past five years so the next posts make sense:

• we moved back from London to New Zealand in October 2017
• baby number 2 arrived in early 2018
• we bought a house in Wellington, we had jobs, we made friends, we had hobbies, we raised kids, we survived pandemics and lockdowns and working with toddlers

Then we got itchy feet, and in January 2023 we moved our family to the Cook Islands where Dean has a job for a couple of years. It's a chance to immerse ourselves in a different culture (English and Cook Islands Maori are both spoken) and a different way of living as a family for a bit.

For our readers outside of NZ or Australia, the Cook Islands is a country comprising 15 islands a four hour flight from NZ. The largest island, Rarotonga, is where we're now living. It has a population of around 11,000 and takes 40 minutes to drive right around. Tourism is by far the country's main earner, and the next posts will illustrate why - picture white sandy beaches, crystal clear water, tropical warmth, and a gorgeously simple, slow pace of life.

Follow us for updates about island life, and please come and visit!

Dean, Lou, J and E x

                                                    Lou, E, Dean and J in winter 2022 in New Zealand