Image: Ashley Goodall
Auckland, previously the fifth most unaffordable city in the world, has jumped up the ranks to fourth. It sits behind Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver.Something’s not right when living in New York, London and Paris is more affordable than Avondale—and more than anyone, students are having a hard time making ends meet. Even if they’re living in the big smoke, students can only earn up to $217.22 per week before tax without the government reducing their student allowance payments. After tax, it works out to be about $160 a week. So after rent, utilities and transport, students are having to get creative about making cash.We spoke to four New Zealand students sidestepping the taxman in an effort to get booze, food and that necessary cup of caffeine. Note: VICE does not condone tax fraud."After eight years of working fine–dining restaurants, I wasn’t prepared to live on a solid diet of mi goreng and cask wine. To get around this, I enlisted the help of a friend of mine in a restaurant, brokered a deal with the owners: I work, you give me food and wine. The deal: I get $15 an hour which racks up as a tab, AND I get 50 percent discount, I’m basically on a $30/hour wage for my alcohol and fine dining food experience. Obviously, this is a win-win everyone involved. No tax, no superannuation, no holiday pay, KiwiSaver… And I eat really, really well.""I was a bartender in the Sydney. So to get by occasionally I bartend private parties for cash—hen's and birthday parties, that kind of thing. I got into this because alcohol is so crazy expensive in this country when you have a budget of $100 a week for alcohol and groceries, a $40 bottle of vodka is going to break the bank. The money is good, but I’m going to stop doing hen’s parties, I’d rather go sober than be stuck in another room with screeching, flower-crowned, cockstrawed 30-year-olds.""Snitches get stitches, and you’re not going to rat on your blood and bone. I’d had a couple of hospo cash jobs, but they’d cancel shifts at random and occasionally I’d have to wait weeks to get paid. So instead I help out at my brother's bike shop. Every once and a while, someone wants a day off, sick or whatever. Cash comes my way, it works out well. My bike runs real nice too. I may have watched too many episodes of Sopranos. Anyway, moral of the story: family pays.""Generally, selling weed has been my go to, which, interesting enough solely deals in cash. I pretty much exclusively work under the table. Last year I was down in Christchurch working at a potato farm, it was pretty mental, so many potatoes. I also work as a tennis coach, another cashie, seriously, I just work for cash. Recently I've been running a friend's Mexican street food stall and getting 70 percent of all the profits. It’s kinda crazy cause I don’t have any kind of commercial cooking license. So, I think I’m dealing with some extra illegality, but it’s super chill."Names have been changed.
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