 Hey, welcome back to my channel today. We have a fun topic, strange things that you will see in New Zealand that while it's different than the US, but also maybe different than other parts of the world as well. But you're not going to want to miss it. This one's good. If you don't know us, we are a family of six to have moved from the US to New Zealand and have been here for eight years. I just want to thank Wise right now for sponsoring this video. If you don't know them or not familiar with their company, if you are traveling or moving abroad, you're going to want to use Wise for all of your money transfers. It's just easy to even use different currencies in different countries. If you click the link in the description, you can get free transfers up to like I think almost a thousand New Zealand dollars. I'll talk all about that later on in the video. But thank you to Wise for sponsoring this video. Here we go. So I think you may be surprised at some of the things that I cover in this video because I've been thinking about this for a while and I think it was some good ones. So the first one that we're going to talk about that's a little bit strange in New Zealand is let's talk about their opportunity shops. I love thrift stores. So that is the New Zealand name for thrift stores and it's called Opportunity Shop. I love the name. I use them. I've gotten so many things from there. I go often a lot of Saturday mornings to the opportunity shops. But I just some of them about the way that they do it here just sometimes makes me giggle and is quite different. So unfortunately, like in the US people just get rid of things and they buy new things and they're not very good with sustainability and we're using or just fixing sewing whatever the case may be. But what you'll find that even at like the Goodwill stores in the US there are going to be so many new items and that's not something you would ever see here in New Zealand. So that's definitely different. Obviously the name is different. But I just think some of the things that I see in thrift store or Opportunity Shops here in New Zealand really make me laugh. So I went into a store and yeah, I'm just seeing different things and I'm just gonna I can highlight some of the different things like you just see clothes that are like really worn out like really worn out like you wouldn't give those and it's just like the concept of like you wouldn't give that away in the US because you have the opportunity in the US to buy everything new at a relatively cheap price which you do not have here. I don't think it's wrong that they're putting you know it's just sometimes makes me laugh like while you're selling that I mean and then some of the prices are really high like I just I just walk through of a thrift store that had a mattress and it was like in really good shape. It was $400 for a mattress in a thrift store. I don't know mattresses are expensive here. I mean they go for thousands and thousands but like $400 I don't know. I mean you don't know and okay the whole thing is coming with and they just reuse everything. So you'll see like I found a bag of buttons like just a plastic bag of buttons and it was $10 like wow I don't know. I don't know maybe buttons are expensive in New Zealand but that seemed high also they had like you know they're selling like people had used patterns to like make clothes so like sewing and crafts are big here because they don't have a lot and so like it really makes sense to make your own stuff if you want things a certain way and so they're reselling I don't know I just see so many funny things in the thrift stores here in New Zealand. Sorry I keep calling them thrift stores opportunity shops and it's just really noticeable the differences. So like for example I had a Kiwi friend come this summer when I was in New Zealand and I took her to the thrift stores there and she was like why would anybody go to a regular shop because you can get so many new clothes and like really nice stuff and all name brand at the thrift store and for two dollars you know like we're just used to like really cheap prices in the U.S. at the thrift stores and they're not always some women started to go up but she's like why would you go to a regular retail store because of the difference like she could really see like you know it's sometimes hard to find nice stuff here in New Zealand but in the U.S. it's like walking in you can get brand new stuff you know because stores get rid of their stock and then they give it to good will or whatever so anyway thrift stores. Okay the second one I want to talk about may seem a little bit funny but let's talk about brooms brooms in New Zealand. I don't know what it is but I don't know how you guys clean corners so many years I had to use that you know how you just have you know that thing where you pick up all the stuff after you've swept okay of course I can't come up with the name as I'm talking about it but I used to have to go in the corners and use that because the brooms are you know long and like I don't know how you get in the corners I just think it's so funny like I eventually found one and I think I might have got it at the American store but like how do you guys sweep corners like I don't know what is the deal with the brooms that are only one shape I just want to take a moment and tell you how much I like wise now this is just my true experience I can tell you all the benefits you can see that on their website but let me just tell you about why I use them specifically and I have for years my kids have used it they currently use it everybody has a wise card you can also have that card on your wallet is Apple Pay it's just it's unbelievable so couple of the main reasons why we love it in particular is because the fees are so low when I have tried to use all different other services it doesn't really compare and there's no transaction fees you can use it what it feels like any country it's like I think 175 countries that you can use it in you can take money out of the ATM I mean up to a limit it's just it's so convenient and so good it's so fast that's the other big one is like I could lose money from the US to here and it's like couple hours it's like amazing even though sometimes it says it's going to take X amount of time but it's always shorter than that and it's just so fast I just love it so I just wanted to share that with you because this is a real question that I get probably almost daily from people trying to move here people traveling around that's just kind of my niche and what I talk about and my community is in and they're always like talking about money issues and use wise like seriously don't even go anywhere else the other thing is if you are American and you're moving to New Zealand or anywhere in the world you're going to realize very quickly how hard it is to do any financial transactions abroad it's like the American Institute's where there's a bank or a credit card they just really don't like it when you're abroad and they make everything difficult and so you know what you don't have to work with every specific credit card every specific bank you can just use wise I'm telling you it is like a lifesaver this is a true story I was trying to move money from the US to New Zealand during COVID and they literally said that I had to come into the store and sign the paper like are you living in the world right now like I can even get out of the country anyway it's just so ridiculous what I was and so why is this kind of saves everything you guys I'm just if you don't know what to if you're even traveling if you're just going somewhere for a couple of months just take a wise card it's so much easier than trying to be like okay well how much is the transaction fee on my debit card so that was really cool about the card is that you can load money and you can just load it in from your phone as you need as well so you don't have to like decide how much cash do I get to bring to this country you can just load it on the debit card of the wise card it's it's amazing you guys definitely check out wise if you click the link in the description you can get free transfers up to like I think almost a thousand New Zealand dollars it depends on whatever currency that you're running in right now but you get you know a free if you're new if you're already used wise then you can't get that but like if you're new check it out it's amazing I highly recommend wise okay next thing I want to talk about is the wind I live in Wellington I know this is unique to Wellington but we're gonna talk about it today the wind in New Zealand is so strong that like it feels like your whole house is gonna fall over like it's like it wakes me up at night it keeps me up at night when I'm in the city the wind will literally if I have a skirt on it'll go up to my ears one time I was getting my ATM I had like you can't have an umbrella like people kind of laugh at you if you're walking around Wellington specifically with an umbrella because like the wind that just takes it like there's no point I would say that's 99% of the time sometimes you can but so like the wind is like so shocking like you know like Chicago is the windy city but now it has nothing on Wellington the wind is just it's just I don't know when I've had people stay here from the US and they're like we'll come knock on my door like what's going on like are we in a tornado the wind is shocking and it's just I've never seen anything quite like that and see was really strange but people just act like it's normal you know I think things flying everywhere outside but like that's just normal here that's windy normal in Wellington anyway okay let's talk about McDonald's in New Zealand I give this question a lot like is it different is the food different okay let me highlight some differences okay so first of all the name here they call McDonald's Maccas and it took me literally years to realize that they're talking about McDonald's I thought they were talking about a different way anyway so Maccas is McDonald's and a couple of different I mean they have a lot of the same menu to me it tastes the same I guess I don't go home into the US and try at McDonald's so I probably should do that but the sizes of things are going to be different the fry sizes the drink sizes are going to be much smaller and they always have a Mccafe like an actual cafe where you can buy cafe goods which is also not something that exists generally in the US but when I traveled over around Europe they had them in a lot of the McDonald's so I think it's just something that's not as big in the US because cafes aren't the same now if you are in the US anything what do you mean cabbies are saying okay well you haven't been to other places then because cafes are kind of everything where you go all the time and they're everywhere compared to what I've seen in the US even in different cities so the the Maccas is a lot of the same I'm trying to think of some of the food that's different would be like they have like the kiwi burger sometimes it's not always out but it has like beetroot on it and a fried egg and so that's definitely different I don't know if they have this in the US but right now they have like the chicken sandwich big Mac so two chicken patties instead of beef patties do they have that in the US I don't know I didn't go and do like all this research I mean obviously they have different soda they have L and P and you know different phanta flavors are always into raspberry they're not into cherry here so those are some of the difference is about McDonald's when I went there recently I used my wise card like you so wise you can use like they have an actual card that you carry around or you can just add it to your Apple pay and you can just pay so boom you just use wise to just pay for your maccas when you're traveling around the world wherever and whatever currency you want to use that's also amazing okay another strange thing that you will see in New Zealand is people walking around barefoot like a lot of places and then places you're not expecting like in stores and you know just go into school go on the class go in a church bare feet now not I wouldn't say the majority of people are bare feet but it's very common and very accepted going into stores you see people with bare feet so it just will seem strange if you're coming here you're new here you're like oh they don't have shoes okay so just be aware that you will see some bare feet generally in the US you're going to get that no shirt no shoes no service sign on the door so you can't necessarily do that there but yeah just walking around barefoot barefoot in the summer is very common they don't have any like insects or deadly creatures that get you so this is why they can do that I don't think you really do that in Australia but correct me if I'm wrong but yeah that's a strange thing if you've never been here another strange thing is that there are more sheep than people here in New Zealand and you'll just see them everywhere and they will walk in front of your car like if you're in a country road they'll be they'll just be out in the road you just see because everything is grass-fed here so even the cows and and whatever and so it's you see them on the side of the road or sometimes in the road so it's not uncommon for you to you know kind of have to slow down and stop for the sheep so be prepared if you're traveling here there are a lot of sheep and the last one that I want to talk which is a big one is the way that they manage money here it's I wouldn't I guess strange wouldn't be the word for but it is very different and it's one of the things I end up talking with my clients outer people coming here like I'm trying to explain to you that you just give somebody your account number and the money gets moved immediately into your account you know depending on the time of day and what bank you're with but it's like really wait what wait how do I pay you know check no Venmo no none of that they don't have Venmo here number one you can use PayPal but nobody does everybody just does bank transfer that's what's called you just give each other your accounts and you pay each other it's really nice so if you buy something off the basic marketplace off of trade me and just what I just want to give somebody money is put it in their account or somebody buys the dinner and you just put your share into their account like it's really really nice really nice I hate it when I go back to the U.S. and I can't just give somebody money and there's like it kind of eliminates you having to have cash like I rarely need to have cash because everybody who takes a card or I can do a bank transfer it's so nice and so that's a really big difference it's very it feels very strange I guess I thought of this one because American struggle with like what do you mean I'm just gonna it feels uncomfortable it feels unsafe to give somebody my bank account but the security of the banks here are very good and I'm putting money into account is that the same as trying to take something out so it's perfectly safe to do so but if you are uncomfortable you can use wise or you can you know because you can transfer money on wise if you want to do it that way but embrace it it's great the way that they do money here okay well I hope you enjoyed the video this week thank you to wise for sponsoring this video and definitely check out their link for a free transfer below and I will see you guys next week