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Fighting Against Inflation

Pan left school without any qualifications and went to a Business College in Wellington, "I don't know why I went there, my art teacher wanted me to go to polytech and do a design course, but I left school in the fifth form with my other friends... I managed to stay there for eight months, but it was far stricter than school, so I left. I couldn't stand their authoritarianism."

For nearly two years Pan has been a wages clerk in a soft drink factory, "I do everyone's wages, including management's. I suppose I pay an average of fifty people a week."

Pan brings home $72.00 and, with her husband Peter, they have a combined weekly income of $163.00. In 1974 they bought a modest home in Melrose, a suburb reasonably close to Wellington's city centre, for $26,000. So their task right now is paying off that home. "Who wants to pay rent all your life? Anyway," Pan says, "you never put as much into a home which isn't your own. It's also a way to keep up with inflation: it's security. We know people who throw away their money, and in the end they don't have anything to show for it."

Having bought their home, they are certainly tied down for the moment; they don't go out a lot, nor have many people over for dinner. "We can't afford to be out of a job, nor can I study for the job I'd like to do. I'd like to be a dietician but the mortgage repayments mean I can't train for it now. I didn't do it earlier because, as a Greek, I was not brought up to assert myself. But I'm only 21, and by the time I'm thirty our situation will be completely different."

Of the $163.00 a week income. $100.00 a week goes towards mortgage repayments. They've been paying out $100 a week since August 1974 and will continue until November 1976, they will have to refinance then if they can't, they'll have to sell up

They live on $62.00 a week and get by on it easily: $25.00 goes into kitty for food and household supplies; $22.00 into a cheque account for electricity, rates, doctors bills, and so on; and they have $8.00 each a week for lunches and movies.

"I don't spend much on myself. I'm given most of my clothes, the rest I make or buy from a second hand shop." Pan wears her black hair long and straight and has comfortable flat shoes which show beneath her black floor length skirt: neat and nice.

"Fortunately we get a car with Peter's job, and we only spend about $5.00 a fortnight on it. We wouldn't be able to have a mortgage if we had to run our own car, and out where we live you need a car because the bus service is terrible: with only a couple of buses in the mornings and evenings and none in the weekends.

"As costs go up we will have to put more in our household kitty, we've only just increased it by $5.00 a week. It means we will have less to spend on things like Christmas presents and doctors bills, even now we can't afford to get sick.

With mortgage repayments of $100.00 a week, they need every cent of their combined income: what would happen if one of them loses their job, or Pan falls pregnant?

Pan and Peter's Weekly Budget

Combined take home pay	$163.00
Food and household supplies	$ 22.50
Petrol	$ 2.50
Cheque Account used for: rates, electricity, phone, doctor's bills Christmas presents, clothes etc	$ 22.00
Entertainment, treats, lunches	$ 16.00
Mortgage repayments	$100.00 $163.00