Sunday, February 13, 2011

So, as most of you will know, this wee project finished on Waitangi Day. I have spent the last week trying to think of the right thing to say, something along the lines of "yay for NZ made" but to tell the truth, I am almost relieved the year is over. I spent the last few weeks dreaming of all the foreign made things I could soon buy which felt almost like cheating and I considered giving up early.

I spent the year going without so many everyday things like gum, lighters and sunscreen, most of the NZ made things I did buy caused massive financial strain. Thankfully I had friends and family that took pity on me and bought me things like gum, bananas and razors for my birthday and Christmas though I guess this is almost cheating too, though I didn't actually buy the products.

When I went to Aussie I decided I would buy Aussie made, as well as New Zealand made. I figured I wouldn't find too many NZ made things and thought it would make a good comparison, seeing how well I could live off Australian made products. Turns out it is very easy to live off Aussie made products - from the supermarket at least, funds were a little too low to buy much else! Everything we bought at the supermarkets, without even trying, was Australian made even dried pasta! Because we were on such a tight budget we pretty much only bought stuff that was on special but like I said above, it was all Aussie made. A lot of New Zealand made products seem to be the more expensive ones on our shelves but over there, the cheapest options were usually the Aussie made ones. I realise their country is a lot bigger, as with their population, so they can support larger locally made/produced industries, I guess that is the difference between our two countries.

Though this year has introduced me to a lot of great New Zealand made products, I don't think living entirely off New Zealand made products is feasible for anyone on  budget, in fact, probably not for anyone except the very wealthy. It is possible to buy everything foreign made second hand, that way the money still goes to a New Zealander. That way you can still get cheap clothes and shoes but I found this quite hard too. To get the good second hand stuff you have to go op-shoping regularly, otherwise you miss out. It can become very time consuming though.

I will continue to buy NZ made when the choice is comparably priced though and I don't mind paying a wee bit more for NZ made things, for Trilogy skincare for example. Both Trilogy and Skinfood were two of my fav buys during the year. It seems New Zealand is rather good at producing skincare, there were a few more ranges around than I expected, unfortunately most were rather expensive though. Skinfood is cheap and accessible, it is sold in most supermarkets at $12.99 each. Trilogy is a bit more expensive, around the $30 mark and is sold in pharmacies and Farmers which are just as easy to get to as the supermarket.

Buying NZ made food was hard at first until I learnt what is and what isn't made here. Sometimes it seemed unfair, for example, a can of Home Brand creamed corn costs $1.09 but it is made/produced in Thailand. Watties on the other hand costs $2.14 for a can. It was similar for canned tomatoes. Trying to survive on a student budget meant that if I was going to buy these, usually something else had to be sacrificed. Fresh produce was ok though, I just had to buy what was in season which I normally do anyway. I did miss bananas though.

Other stuff I got that I really liked was from a more niche-like market. Kurtovich notebooks for example, are very cool (sold in Whitcoulls) but also a little on the expensive side ($15). I also found a lot of cool jewelery makers selling mostly through Trademe or Nest. Their stuff was surprisingly cheap too, maybe because it was sold online, I'm not sure. It does seem though, there is a lot of people out there making some very funky jewellery that is definitely worth a look.

I talked to a couple of economists lately who told me that buying strictly NZ made is not such a great idea for the economy, not if the whole population does it anyway. For a start, we need to encourage overseas investment in our country and we need other countries to buy our goods. New Zealand relies heavily on exports and if we start buying less and less overseas goods then are those countries really going to be so keen to buy our stuff? What surprised me the most was when I was told that people buying our exports pay American dollars for them. Apparently, to get those American dollars back into our economy we have to first buy goods from overseas and bring them back here where people will buy them with New Zealand dollars.

So, when the option is there to buy a New Zealand product, I will take it if I can afford it or think it is a good deal (like clothes, shoes and electronics...we don't produce stuff like computers anyway). Otherwise I'll probably stick with the cheapest option. When it comes to fresh produce though, I previously usually bought stuff grown here and will continue doing so.

Doing this project has taught me a lot about my spending habits but unfortunately they're not going to change too much.