RNZ
01 August 2024, 9:12 PM
Tax cuts have taken effect, though you may still have a little wait before you see the impact in your bank account, depending on your pay cycle.
The amount on offer varies depending on your income level. A single pensioner is set to get $4.31 a fortnight. Someone on $70,000 is in line for $30.75. Someone on $110,000 is set to get just over $40 a fortnight.
But what might you do with that extra money?
We've run the numbers based on a $20-per-week tax cut, to have a look at some of the options.
Any extra you can pay off your home loan will have an impact, because it goes straight on to the principal.
If you have a home loan with $500,000 left and 20 years to pay, with a 6.85 percent interest rate, and can now pay an extra $20 a week in repayments, you could save more than $22,000 over the life of your loan.
A 40-year-old with $40,000 saved in KiwiSaver, earning $70,000 a year and contributing 3 percent plus 3 percent from an employer in a balanced fund might be on track to save $195,010 at retirement, according to Sorted's calculator.
Topping that up by $20 a week would lift their savings to $219,949 at 65.
According to Stats NZ, $20 would have got you a 1kg block of mild cheddar (average $10.03) and a dozen eggs ($9.41) in June.
Your heat pump probably costs about 45c to 50c an hour to run, so you could turn it on for an extra 40 hours.
If you could invest $20 a week in a fund giving you 5 percent return a year, you would have more than $70,000 after 30 years - not accounting for fees or taxes.
You could give $20 a week to charity and then claim 33.3 percent of it back in your tax return. Tearfund charges $20 for a donation of a chicken.
You could get about seven-and-a-half litres of petrol for $20, maybe about enough to drive 100km, depending on how economical your car is.
If you have a credit card with a $5000 balance and an interest rate of 20 percent, and you're paying it off at a rate of $500 a month, adding an extra $20 a week will shave about two months off the time it takes you to clear the balance.