Realistic Budget for two week stay in New Zealand?

[geospyder]

We will be spending two weeks in New Zealand in April.  Lodging, car and some attractions are already paid for.  We are staying one week in Rotorua and the second week in Wanaka. Have a couple questions.

 

What would be a realistic budget for food and misc spending for two weeks?

 

If we bring cash, what is the most common denominations most people carry and accept?

[Chiliburn]

1 hour ago, geospyder said:

We will be spending two weeks in New Zealand in April.  Lodging, car and some attractions are already paid for.  We are staying one week in Rotorua and the second week in Wanaka. Have a couple questions.

 

What would be a realistic budget for food and misc spending for two weeks?

 

If we bring cash, what is the most common denominations most people carry and accept?

NZ is expensive, a lot of  hotels have cooking facilities.

Its hard to tell your habits but I would suggest $100 each and they use $NZ

[OzKiwiJJ]

I budget NZ $250 per day for meals and general spending for two of us, and that's eating at moderately priced cafes or restaurants. A top class meal out could cost $250-350 with wine.

 

NZ ATMs dispense $50 notes usually so effectively all denominations are acceptable.

 

Credit cards are widely accepted in NZ so you don't have to carry much cash however if you have a debit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees then use that to get cash from ATM's, the exchange rate is usually better than buying it before you leave home.

[possum52]

I would budget a similar amount to what OzKiwiJJ suggested. Although if as Chilliburn said, of your accommodation has cooking facilities you can certainly save. It depends on your own perferences and whether you have snack, coffess and drinks through the day. I would have some smaller denominations if using cash. You will find most places will take credit or debit cards.

 

Enjoy your trip down under.

 

Leigh

 

 

 

[Chiliburn]

4 minutes ago, possum52 said:

I would budget a similar amount to what OzKiwiJJ suggested. Although if as Chilliburn said, of your accommodation has cooking facilities you can certainly save. It depends on your own perferences and whether you have snack, coffess and drinks through the day. I would have some smaller denominations if using cash. You will find most places will take credit or debit cards.

 

Enjoy your trip down under.

 

Leigh

 

 

 

Depends on the spending habits Leigh.

 

We like to stock the car up and have picnics,cook our own food.

Our self and our friends are great cooks and we find it hard to be satisfied eating out.

 One friend likes to eat out and spends a fortune but he only has 1 good holiday a year.

 

You could quite easily spend $200 each in Queenstown for dinner.

[lcmortensen]

New Zealand ATMs typically dispense $20 and $50 notes. You can only get $100 notes from a bank, so they're rare.

 

Pretty much every brick-and-mortar retailer in New Zealand accepts EFTPOS (i.e. the New Zealand debit card system), and most, but not all, accept Visa and Mastercard (including their debit variants).

[Globaliser]

13 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

NZ is expensive ...

 

Although those who are used to tipping may want to remember that you don't need to tip in NZ. So any "sticker shock" should be ameliorated by this: eating out in NZ is not quite as expensive as it might seem to someone who's accustomed to adding 20%-25% to menu prices to work out what to pay.

 

I should add that I don't mean this to sound snarky, because the question is about budgeting for incidental costs, of which eating out will probably be a large proportion. And it is something that even Londoners can usefully remember, given that we are used to adding 10%-12.5% to menu prices.