September 2026 Budget: Unemployment & US Distractions

September 2026 Budget

This month's theme/summary: unemployed for the first time in 18 years (but still too much to do) + US travel distractions.

The main portion of my income came from a pay out of my unused holiday leave from my 0.7 FTE post-doc job.

I had to finish cleaning out my office and then pack for my US trip. Some things that happened in Sept:

• The flight to the US was completely full :( They changed to a smaller plane with fewer seats so my entire row to myself turned into trying to not bother the lady who fell asleep almost instantly next to me. 
• The good thing is that I only had one layover in Houston. The bad thing was the security line was so long that I had to RUN to my gate afterward and I was still the last person on the plane and I was hot and sweaty and did the walk of shame down the aisle. I was sitting in the next to last row :/
• Home is weird without my Dad. So many memories. So much sadness. The first night I was home a train on the railway near our house blew its horn like crazy! It went for like five mins straight. No train has done that since. I am pretending it was my dad welcoming me home and congratulating me on passing my defense. :)
• What would have been his 78th birthday happened while I was home. We went to his gravesite.
• Mom and Sis are not coping well. The house is in shambles. Mom has completely given up trying to keep it clean. This meant that a bag of sweet potatoes in the potato bin had gone rotten and she had been dealing with a fly infestation for a month already. We even bug bombed the house while we were away at the beach and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I happened to look one layer down in the potato bin and found tons of bugs. 
  
  Also, she knocked my toothbrush in the toilet and didn't tell me - I happened to notice because it was wet many hours after I had used it and the topper I put on it to keep it protected from ~the bathroom~ was on backwards. She said she cleaned it but...we have spare toothbrushes. Why?! If I hadn't have asked I would have just...used it?! In my mouth!!?!
•  My thesis revisions were due while I was at home. It was super annoying to have to do them and not spend that time with family. I had meant to get them in before I left, but you know...I lost my job and had to do all sorts of things that I hadn't planned to really do. They have stolen time with my family away too now. I hate the Uni.
• The union rep emailed and needed stuff from me that they said they already had! Luckily I had made some scans of the important documents before I left...
• Speaking of, the rep said the employer was negotiating a settlement deal. I haven't signed anything yet and nothing is final but I'd better be careful when posting it. No doubt I will have to sign an NDA when its finalised...but all I'll say is that I was surprised at what they offered in terms of $$. It is a semi-substantial starting point, solidly into 5 figures. My jaw dropped when I read the figure. It would mean that I can maintain my current lifestyle over the next 9 months on a 0.25 FTE salary (but not much longer). 
• Speaking of again, the 0.25 FTE job offer came through. I'm still filling out paperwork but hopeful it'll get completed by the time I am due to start on 19 Oct.
• I visited my best friend from college and had a good time hanging out with him and his new puppy.
• I love the heat! It's supposed to get up into the 80s again before I have to leave. I loooove it.
• As usual at the start of the trip I cannot believe how my family lives and can't handle all of the social interaction. I'm so used to being on my own! But at the end, here I am, as usual, wishing I could stay forever and missing them already. I even miss the US.
•  My mom sold some of my dad's guns and things (tons of ammo) and used that $$ to pay for a weeklong booking of a very nice beach house with pool in the Outer Banks, NC. We invited my cousin, her husband, their kid, and my aunt along. We had a good time exploring places on the drive down - supposed to be 3 hours but we took about 6 or 7 because we stopped for lunch and shopping at a cute place and at a SUPER cute, historic, little coastal town to stretch our legs. We had a blast and ate good food and played in the surf and pool and napped and relaxed. But unfortunately on Weds AM my cousin and her family left early because the Nor'Easter was blowing through and they might have closed the bridges and they needed to get back for their jobs. It was crazy! We had a beachfront house and had to watch the sea carefully to ensure it didn't reach over the single dune keeping us from being inundated. The winds were only ~35 mph but they felt much stronger. The entire house shook for about 2 days. And you'd get completely sandblasted when you went outside! The sea turtle nest in front of the house sadly got inundated by the ocean. Ever the emergency planner, I even made my mom and sis pack their essentials in go bags just in case we had to evac quickly. We didn't get affected by the flooding, but the barrier island just south of us did, and the road washed away in some spots. I read that the people there were all stuck and running out of food until about a week and a few days after the storm passed! Yikes.
•  I've been shopping a little for the essentials to replace what I need in NZ - this is the ONLY time in the entire year that I actually shop for clothes and kind of go crazy, so I feel justified. I got some nice new stuff for working in an office. I haven't had to really work in a real office since about 2012. And PhD students aren't required to dress up for going into work, so I've really just let those nice clothes die / get donated as I've gained weight over the years...
• Unfortunately, I wasn't approved for a new credit card (I'm at the 5/24 limit) so that spending is not earning a bonus. Because of that, I decided not to replace my laptop and smartphone again this year. I will try to eke out another year on these old Bessies...they are 7 years old now. While they work...okay, they are not ideal. For instance, the keys keep popping out of my laptop and the space bar only works 25% of the time on the first try. My phone doesn't get 5G and some apps cannot be installed on it. Crossed fingers I can get approved next year and earn some good bonuses when I dole out the $$. 
• Because of all that, plus unemployment, I have a relatively low spend this year in the US. I'm only spending the total $5K NZD I saved up ($3K of that was on flights) plus $$ that came in for various reasons (Mevo refund, unclaimed funds refund, PhD defense $$ gifts from family). That is still about $3K USD but that's OK. 

 

Income: $5,481.32

Salary: $4,247.91 - unused holiday leave pay out

Entrust Dividend: $377 

Lending Crowd repayments: $25.72

Zagga repayments: $7.81

Garage rent: $260

Overage from last month: $562.88

Spending: $2,049.98 (37.4%)

Remainder: $3,431.34 (kept in my banking account to use when I'm back in NZ prior to my new job starting)

Spending categories (budgeted amount in parentheses):

Rent: $1,100 

Groceries: $0 - any spending for this while I'm in the US is pulled from my travel budget

Electricity & Internet: $209.46 ($200) - flatmate paid half; this is my share

Eating out: $0 ($250) - any spending for this while I'm in the US is pulled from my travel budget

Charity: $0 ($60) 

Cell phone: $17 ($20) - Skinny top up

Medical: $237.49 ($100) 

Misc: $436.03 ($1K)

alcohol: $0 

entertainment: $0 

self care: $0

fees: $436.03 - $10 fee for Cityhop membership; NZ IRD taxes

gifts: $0

goods and wants: $0

transportation: $0

travel: $0

Savings and Funds Activity Update

• Since I've met all of my short- and medium-term savings goals, I'm no longer saving money, just investing it. But since I'm unemployed, the unspent funds from this month are staying in my bank account to use when I'm back in NZ and before I get my first new paycheck.
  
  If the FIF limit increases later this year, I'll be investing a large chunk of my savings within my US brokerage account.
  
  
• My Squirrel balance sits at about $61.7K, with $9,124.03 of that invested in various peer-to-peer loans at $100 each at 5% to 5.5% p.a. 
  
  
• I keep investing in peer to peer loans since I do not have another vehicle in NZ. They seem to get paid off faster than I can invest $100 at a time, though. 
  
  
• I have about $95K in Rabobank earning between 1.75 and 2.85% p.a. 
  
  
• I have one Zagga investment ($1K total). It gets paid off to me at like $10 per month. I cannot figure out how to track how much I'm still owed, etc. as the platform does a terrible job at showing me those figures (or they are not available. This was a trial and I do not think I'll be investing more money using this platform in the future. 
   
• I am (still) waiting for Lending Crowd to start up again.
  
  
  

Net Worth Tracking

NZ Savings (cash): $149,675.93 NZD. This does not include investments in peer to peer loans.

Peer to peer lending: $9,124.48 (Zagga, Squirrel, open principal at Lending Crowd)

• LendingCrowd: $309.71 NZD - principal still owed, repaid with interest in weekly installments
• Zagga: ~$900 NZD 
• Squirrel: $9,124.48 NZD

Kiwisaver: $149,675.93 NZD - this is down right now

US investments: $81,339.45 USD (includes SoFi Berkshire Hathaway and Vanguard taxable, Roth, and Traditional IRAs)

Total Net Worth - NEW METHOD (Sept 2026): $362,306.73 NZD

I now only count long-term savings and investments in my Net Worth. This month's NW represents an increase of $124.50 NZD since last month, and an increase of $60,012.76 NZD since the beginning of the year. 

What is counted in my Net Worth now: 

• $60K NZD Former House Down Payment Fund (I will drip feed this into US investments)
• Kiwisaver (NZ retirement)
• Roth IRA
• Traditional IRA
• Berkshire Hathaway investment fund (non-dividend yield fund)
• Non-retirement investment account
  
  
  

FIF Tracking

NZ restricts foreign investments to $50,000 NZD (cost basis), otherwise you end up paying lots of NZ tax each year on it - 5% of the total value of the investments each year, regardless if you sold any shares or not. That sounds horrible and complicated, so I am tracking the cost basis of investments in my US brokerage account (I invested in my IRAs prior to moving to NZ and retirement accounts are exempt from the FIF), so I do not go over.

To avoid accidentally going over, I have turned off automatic reinvesting of any dividends and capital gains. Those go into a settlement fund account (not money market fund) at Vanguard, where I will have more control over when they get invested and be able to track them better. 

Some hopeful news here: the current NZ government has said it will increase the FIF threshold to $100K, and also change how the tax is levied if you go over the FIF 'de minimus' threshold. The changes would mean I could not only invest more than $50K NZD (cost basis) but also exceed the $100K FIF threshold and only pay tax if I sold the investments:

"This expansion would also allow all New Zealand residents who are subject to double tax due to citizenship or right to work in another country (primarily migrants from the United States) to use the RAM for their listed shares as well, regardless of the date they migrated. This is known as the extended RAM and is required because tax paid under traditional FIF calculation methods may not be creditable against United States taxes." 

This would be AMAZING for my ability to invest, as I cannot invest from NZ without running into PFIC issues which would require complicated US tax forms that accountants charge thousands and thousands of dollars to fill out each year. 

Crossed fingers that the current NZ government does something good for once. They are mostly good-for-nothings right now.

Cost basis value of US investments in NZD: $34,165.24

Able to invest without hitting FIF in NZD: $15,834.76 ($50K limit currently)