 Hey, welcome back to my YouTube channel guys. Today, I have reflected on five things that they don't tell you about what it's going to be like to live in New Zealand. So you're not going to want to miss this episode and you will definitely want to stay to the end where I'm going to reveal probably the most interesting one. So subscribe below, click the bell. Here we go. Okay, in this video, I am going to talk about five things that you just don't know or that people just don't tell you about what life is like here in New Zealand. Now, I've talked on all sorts of subjects and I've talked about all different things about New Zealand. So these are five things that I don't think that I've ever mentioned before. And I thought, I think you guys need to know this. Okay, so here we go. Number one, the first thing is you don't really know what wind is at all until you come here. And maybe this is just because I live in Wellington, but wow, the wind, wow. It can like, it's like, okay, it's like wind. Like I am from the Chicago area, which is called the Windy City and it is nothing on Wellington wind. Like you can literally be walking down and you could have a dress on and it could go up to your ears. It's happened to me. And the wind can literally stop you and can really affect your daily life and really affect what you can and cannot do because the wind is so strong. And so everybody always talks about here, is it a northerly? Is it a southerly? Where is the wind coming from? Because it affects what activities that you are able to do. And so nobody really told me about that when I considered moving to Wellington. Okay, the second thing that was really noticeable as an American moving to New Zealand that I really wasn't expecting. And I don't really know how to describe this other than to say the fairness of the laws and processes. It was really noticeable to me moving here, the fairness of things. Like the law, I guess the word is maybe logical, the logicalness behind laws. So there's a lot of things that we do in the US that in my opinion don't make any sense and only benefit a certain party. Whereas in New Zealand, like comparatively, they are so much more fair in the way that they look at things. And they think, you know, if you have this certain situation, this should still be covered in healthcare. Like if you have a preexisting, it should be covered. Now there's different rules around that. But like, you know, it's just everything was more reasonable. Oh, you know, it's much harder to lose your job. It's much harder to, yeah, there's just so many things like everything is like reasonable to the point where you don't have to worry too much about somebody really taking advantage of you. Or you being not aware of a situation and you get charged all this money and taxes, for example. Or like there's just so many things like that that were like, I really even noticed like, for example, when I first moved here, I homeschooled my oldest. And they once you submit to the Ministry of Education saying what you're going to do, what your plan is, and they approve it, you know, just to have some sort of accountability that you're actually teaching something which I actually liked. And they do have that in various states as well. But then they sent me my tax money back because if I wasn't using the education system, the public education system that my taxes were paying for, it would make sense to give it back to me. I was like, I was like, what? So that's a great example of, you know, the way that they do things here. It's just, it's all about fairness. Like that obviously makes sense if you're not using the public education that you should get your money back. I don't think in the states that I would ever get my money, you don't ever get your money back. They can always find a reason why you shouldn't in general. But yeah, there's just, the laws are just much more reasonable. I don't know how else to say it. Okay. And number three, along these same lines, you guys, the taxes are so easy to do. In fact, me and a Canadian friend of mine, the first time that we moved here, we actually got on the phone and we're like laughing because we actually, so this is 2013-14 when we did our taxes and they actually send you like a three-fold pamphlet in the mail that you fill out to do your tax, your income taxes for the year. I know we were like, what is this is so easy and straightforward. And now 2021 is even easier. Like it's automatically done for you and you just add in if there's some extra things if, you know, you gave the charity or you had a business that they don't know about or whatever. And it's simple. And it's no stress. You guys, no joke every year. Okay. So if you don't know this, if you are an American citizen and you live anywhere in the world, you have to pay American taxes every year. So that doesn't mean you're paying double tax. It depends on what country you're in. So in New Zealand, they have an agreement. So there's no double tax. So what I have to do is I have to show that I worked here and that I paid taxes here and then the US won't, won't tax me for the income I made here. There, there it is in easy terms. Okay. But if you have real estate, I have a couple of businesses. Everything gets complicated. I spend 40 hours a year doing my taxes before I had an accountant. Now I have an accountant. It's getting all complicated. So, but still, I spend a lot of time. It's a huge stress. If you get something wrong, you don't want the IRS after you. That's the bottom line. Like still like two years ago, I actually was doing my own. So this is before I got an accountant. I was doing my own where I was just saying, this is how much money we made here. This is our taxes and I checked a box wrong, like a little box wrong. And you understand that the paperwork in the US to do taxes is so difficult. Like you have to have a software program to help you. It's just, you know, I like to understand tax law. I think it's important when you own business. So it's not that I shy away from knowing the updated tax information. I'm probably better than like, way better than like your average person, right? But it's still really, really hard. Anyway, I checked a box wrong. I got a $20,000 bill, $1,000 US dollar bill from IRS and just trying to get them on the phone to talk to them. And they were just like, oh, too bad. You're screwed. You know, I'm like the stress that that causes me, that nobody can talk to me about this. I don't owe $20,000. I don't know what I did wrong on the thing. So this is how I got hired somebody in the US and said, can you please look at this? What did I do wrong? She's like, oh my gosh, you just checked one box wrong, one little box. And so she redid my taxes. We appealed, we submitted and then every three months I kept getting a letter from the IRS saying, hey, you know, we haven't had a chance to look at your things. It's going to be another three months. Haven't had a chance. You know, so like you just have this kind of weight on your shoulder and you're just waiting for it to go away. And then finally, I think after eight months, I finally got the, okay, yeah, you don't owe us $20,000. So there's just a whole added stress in life. Definitely with different bodies of government in the US compared to New Zealand. Like I talked to previous about things being fair and reasonable. So I just know whenever I hit a situation here in New Zealand that you're just not sure or maybe I did something wrong or I didn't mean to. You can go and talk to somebody and they're always very reasonable about it. Now I've had situations here where they haven't been as reasonable and that's for another day, but the vast majority, the 90% things that you're dealing with so reasonable and it's just, it's just kind of a pleasure to have to deal with and just knowing that I can call somebody and they'll be okay with it and say, hey, you know, oh, I see, you know, you had a bad day, you were late, you didn't know, you didn't, you know, got lost in the mail, like all these things are reasonable in the US, not too bad. Too bad. So yeah, it's a different world. And so yeah, please, it's, it's so nice. Taxes are so much easier in New Zealand. Okay. And number four, one thing, especially as a teacher at the universities here, that you going to have to spell things what feels to you incorrectly. So the way, so in New Zealand, they write British English. And so in America, of course, we have American English because we have just rebelled completely against all British ways. So that's my summary. Oh, what happened? And so America English, American English is not the normal way that you write here. And so there's lots of words that are spelled differently. Z's instead of S's or S's instead of Z's, you know, color, C-O-L-O-U-R, it's different. And so it's, it's very, very difficult for me. Like I'm marking someone's paper and like to me, it looks like it's spelled wrong and it just doesn't, and so that's hard to grade somebody else and just, okay, knowing that. Okay, that's right. That's the British English, but it's super hard for me to actually write and write an email, for example, feeling like I spelled a word wrong and I just have to do it on purpose or I have to like add it to my website like organizations. Oh my goodness, you know, with a Z or S instead of a Z and it's just like, and it's just, it's, it's, it's uncomfortable. I'm just gonna say, nobody told me this, I didn't really think about, so this is just like a little small tip that you're going to have to write in British English if you're an American coming to New Zealand. Okay, and number five, the one thing that I don't think a lot of people talk about, about what it's like living in New Zealand that they don't really tell you is, they don't really tell you how much you might really love it here. Yeah, so so many people, I have heard what feels like hundreds of stories of people that said, hey, we came here for a year, we came here for two years and you know, and now we've been here for 15, for 10, for 20, for 30. And so this is a very common thing that you'll see in New Zealand, people come here for, you know, hey, we want to have an international experience. We're going to live here for a couple of years and then they end up loving it and never wanting to go back to their, their home country or maybe they go back for a little bit like we did and then we ended up moving back. And so yeah, I think that that was one of the biggest shocks coming to New Zealand. I just didn't expect to love it so much. Like I just like in your mind, like you can't comprehend when you're coming from your home country that you would, that something could be anything better or that you could like it better. And it doesn't mean that it is better. It's just that sometimes a certain country suits you and appeals to who you are a lot better. And so you just don't, you just don't expect that because especially as an American when you're told like, you know, there's no place better than this, right? And then you go and you're like, oh, yeah, just, you know, sometimes there's places that you go and it just makes it feel, it just feels more like you, you feel more comfortable there, happier there so that I don't, you know, like the U.S. or that I wouldn't ever move back to the U.S. It's just, yeah, you know, some places that you go and it just feels like, oh, I feel like I can breathe here. I feel like I can relax here. I feel like I can just be myself here and that says a lot and I just hear the story a lot. So if you're thinking about coming to New Zealand for a short period of time, be warned, you may fall in love with it. Well, I hope you enjoyed the video this week talking about the five things that you might not expect coming to New Zealand and please comment below. Let me know your experience of whether you've traveled to New Zealand or whether you've moved to a different country and what has been your experience of things that you didn't expect. I would really love to hear that and don't forget to check out my new American recipe book. The link is in the description. It's only $8. It's an e-book if it's all fun American recipes that are adapted to New Zealand, Australia ingredients and temperatures and that sort of thing. So check that out and subscribe below hit the bell and I will see you guys next week.