 Hey, welcome back to my YouTube channel, guys. If you don't know me, I am Tara Holbert, also known as Kiwi Americans. We are a family of six that have moved to New Zealand from the US and we share our journey with you. So if you have not subscribed to my channel, please do that. All it does is alert you when a new video is up. So do that. And also, if you are thinking about moving or traveling or need any information about what it's like in New Zealand, check out my website kiwiamericans.com and you can also just find out what it's like living here and through my other social media, specifically Instagram and TikTok. So give a follow there as well. But you're going to love the topic. Today I want to talk about 15 things that are totally normal for Americans that may really surprise Kiwis. Now, if you've traveled to America, that's fine, but it's not really until you live there that you understand some of these things. So you're not going to want to miss this video. Here we go. Okay. And number one, Amazon. We're going to have to start there. Because if you aren't American coming to New Zealand, you are in for a surprise. Amazon essentially does not exist here. You can get it. There's Amazon Australia and you can get all the other Amazons delivered here. It's not the same. So if you are a New Zealander, let me tell you, you don't understand Amazon like Americans would. Amazon is kind of everything. It's where you buy everything. Because now it's to the point. And honestly, I haven't lived in the US in a while. So I might be not totally up to date on this, but like you can order and get something the same day. You can order food. I think I believe you can order food by like three o'clock and it's at your door by dinner time. There's stores that you can walk in that you don't need any way of paying. And it's just automatically taken from your account. Amazon for literally everything. So if you have shopped on Amazon Australia, I encourage you to check out Amazon US because it has so much more stuff and so many more choices. And I always get this question from Kiwis because I do have a seller on Amazon in the US and so I'm very familiar with it. But like what you don't realize is that 60% of Amazon business is made up of sellers, like private sellers like me. And about 50% of the items on I would say probably more than that probably closer to 60 or 70% of the items on Amazon.com can be shipped to New Zealand. It just depends on whether that particular seller is allowing that or not or how much that'll charge. So you can order from there and I highly recommend that you do because you do have to pay for shipping and that could be a lot. But it can be not too bad considering you getting access to something that you can't get in New Zealand. But anyway, I'm off track. Amazon, like you don't understand the world like you literally like how many times a day as an American you're like, oh, I need this Amazon. I need this Amazon Amazon. I just don't think you realize if you haven't lived in the US how it has completely taken over kind of all retail. And it's kind of how you do everything and have you checked it. Now there's always things that you can't get in whatever but like Amazon like is life in the US and just thought you'd want to know. Number two, stores are always open. Now this is probably one of the things that I have a hard time communicating because I talk about differences between New Zealand and the US all over my social media. So check it out if you want to hear more about that. So like there's always this argument like, oh, well, we stay late because I like you have to understand that the difference is grand. So in New Zealand, things do not stay open late. They don't value that here. And it's one of the great things about New Zealand. They'll have like Thursday night late nights. There will be stores that will be open late. Grocery stores, the warehouse, you know, like there's different stores that are open later. Okay. Because every time I say that things in New Zealand aren't open late, people are like, there's all these stores. Okay. What you're not understanding is the difference in the US. You can literally get anything that you need at any point of the day. Essentially, unless you're like, you know, there's some small towns in Pona, but in general, it's available. Whether it's Walmart, 24 hour Walmart where you can get your car fixed, your oil change, all these things to be done like anytime of the day. And that's what I'm talking about. Like you're not understanding the difference. Yes, there are some stores that stay open till 10 here in New Zealand, but in the US everything's open and you can get anything anytime of the day. Now, do I think this is a good idea? No. Is it nice for retail people to have some time off? Yes. Obviously they have shifts and whatever, but it kind of, when you have everything open all of the time, it's like life never ends. This is why the pace and the stress level, it contributes to that in the US because there's always something to do. Always somewhere to go. Always something like, oh, I should go check that out. Oh, they're having a sale. I should go do that. You don't have that when everything's closing at 530, but that's another topic. Anyway, everything stays open late. So you may not be really aware of that if you haven't lived in the US. Number three, you may not be aware of the actual size of mega stores. So like super Walmart or some of these huge grocery stores, you don't understand. Like it's an actual, you know, you can get a couple of thousand steps easily walking through from one end to the Walmart or to the other or to the Costco or to any of these mega stores. And you don't really have that here in New Zealand, which is nice. It is nice to go to one place and be able to get everything. You don't really have that, but the choices are there's so much more choice in the US can be overwhelming. But I just think that Kiwis, you'd be surprised at how big these mega stores are. And it's like so hard to just like walk in to get like one or two things when you have to go, you know, what feels like a couple kilometers to get there. Okay, so like, I think you'll be shocked at how big some of these mega stores are. Number four, on the same lines of stores, let's talk about wholesale food stores. Now, it's similar to what would be like how the feel that you get when you go to a pack and save here in New Zealand because it's like a warehousey feel to it, right? That's the same as a Costco, a Sam's Club, you know, a place that's selling wholesale foods. Now we are getting a Costco in Auckland, so I'm excited about that. Don't know what that's going to look like, but like it's it's big and it's enormous amounts of food. There's one thing that Kiwis don't really get. If you've never been to America, it's just the pure quantity, the size. You can get peanut butters that are like this big for $6. You can get the fruit is I think what would probably be the most like I used to be able to get strawberries in a huge container like this for $4.99 or you can get like 12 mega muffins for, you know, I don't know, $10. I don't remember, but it's so cheap. And just the amount of big bulk food that you can and how much Americans really do a lot of bulk food. And so you always have a lot in your pantry or your refrigerator because you can buy in bulk because it saves you money. Whereas they don't have that as much in New Zealand. And so, you know, I find it very interesting when I look at refrigerators, people always come into my refrigerator always look so full my pantry because that's just how we do they I'm just so used to buying in bulk. I buy things in bulk as much as I can like they have the more Wilson's here, the Gilmores, and so they do have it here, but it's, it's not the same. These Costco is huge are giving you free samples and so it's just very different. It's nice that we have some bulk here and so I try to do that but like I think Huey's would be surprised at how much food you can get and how normal that is in society to have, you know, a stock up on a lot of bulk food, even if you were just like a couple. Okay. I think that he was to be surprised about that chain restaurants. Okay. America has so many chain restaurants. Now the reason why I say this is different is that yes, there's barely any chains here it's not even worth saying the chain restaurants in New Zealand are American right McDonald's Burger King Subway whatever. But like chain restaurants are a big deal so wherever you go in the US like you go to a different town or different city or a different state, you can get all the same food chain restaurants. No matter kind of where you go because they're like everywhere. So like franchises are a big, big thing in the US and I just don't think that all Kiwis realize that so it was very hard as an American coming here and you go to a small town or a town you're not familiar with you can't you don't know where to eat. You're guessing and it's it actually feels a bit uncomfortable because when you go to chain restaurants you're getting you know what you're getting you know you're going to like it. But here you know it's great to try new things but some days you don't want to try new things. Some days you just want to know and get something that you like right. And so especially when you have kids and you know the lead that right. And so like when you go to towns here and you have to try something new and you have to figure out it just adds a whole another thing anyway it's too expensive to eat out anyway but it's yeah. So the chain restaurants I think that Kiwis would be really surprised at how many chain restaurants we have. And number six I just need to highlight that I think Kiwis would be surprised at how stressed out Americans are. The number one comment I get from my friends when I go home or when I talk to people like boy you seem real relaxed and chilled and obviously that is a value here in New Zealand and people are chilled out right. But I think that it will be a surprise to a Kiwi to go and see how much people run around how much stress there is and how much daily life. If you've never lived in the US can be very stressful things. People aren't going to say to you hey no worries mate or oh it's okay if you're late or that doesn't happen consequences. If that doesn't work you know oh sorry you missed the date too bad you know and so therefore that causes stress right especially when you have four kids. And like so many things going on and so yeah so I just think that you'd be surprised at how stressed out people are in general. And number seven if you're watching TV in the US I think you're going to be surprised by the advertising. They advertise drugs. I've never seen it advertised here. I don't watch a lot of TV in general so I could be wrong but there's the advertised drugs which has like a whole disclaimer that takes a whole minute to go through. You know this is going to cost. Don't use this if you have this and like I think you're just going to be surprised at certain advertising. The advertising that's done to children in New Zealand you are not allowed to advertise the children in the US. I mean you know there's some rules but like you can and so there's a lot of appealing things for children and especially around Christmas time or you know kids don't know that they need something until someone shows them. Oh you could have this they're very easy to target and they are very it's a very big money maker because you know they're really selling to the parents so the kid wants it then the parent gets it right. Is this what you want okay you know and so yeah so I think you'd be surprised at the advertising in general there's a lot of it. You're going to see billboards everywhere. You're going to just see ads on everything and then just like it's just way more prominent. One of the best things about New Zealand when I first came I'm like whoa like there's no billboards there's no people constantly vying for my attention. It was just such a relief and like so nice and they have a lot of rules around that here in New Zealand which I think is great. And number seven I think you'd be surprised if you're a Kiwi how much people eat out. There is restaurants everywhere and there's all different price ranges but there's a lot of restaurants and they're not that expensive. Especially like when I had like little kids like you can order off the kids meal or there's I could literally I literally used to be able to figure out what night of the week kids eat free. So me and my husband would go we would each get a meal sometimes we even shared a meal the kids all eat for free and our bill was $20 $15 and it was good food like food that you would have in a nicer restaurant here. In New Zealand right and so I just think you'll be surprised because in a lot of ways it can be cheaper to go out to eat than to make it depending on you know how savvy you are right. Not good for you not the best obviously not the best idea and so that was an adjustment so Americans that are coming here know that you're going to be cooking a lot more at home because at number one is really expensive to eat out but also it's just not what people do here. Things shut down so that you can go home and have dinner with your family which you know you make or I mean you can do take a takeaway is like once a week and you know even that could be hard depending on you know your income and how many people you have. But like yeah you'd be surprised how much people go out to eat. I mean it's not just once a week sometimes people go out to eat every night. Especially like couples it can get really easy like why don't we cook let's just go set that expensive or it's like I don't get one free night or 25 cent tacos or you know it just it can be cheaper than cooking food. If you're an American living abroad listen up we are entering or we are currently in the worst time of year tax season. And if you hate doing your U.S. taxes so if you don't know if you're an American citizen no matter where you live and work anywhere in the world you have to pay American taxes. So if you dread that as much as I do and how hard American taxes are compared to where I currently live in New Zealand then I just wanted to put a little something on my YouTube channel this week that I have been working with right tax. I will link them below and they are giving my community $50 off if you wanted to do your taxes with them because it is so hard to find somebody to do your U.S. taxes when you live abroad. So if that's you check them out get a discount and let's do our taxes. And number nine kiwis I think you're going to be surprised at how few cafes there are. Now if you go to bigger cities there's going to be a lot more cafes and it's growing the coffee culture has definitely grown over the last five or so years. But in addition to like when I talked about chain restaurants the coffee the main coffee Starbucks caribou coffee you know I can't remember all of them they're chains. So wherever you go like whatever city or whatever state you're in you can go and get the coffee that you know you like right because it's Dunkin Donuts coffee or you know it's it within a chain. It's not like these private cafes that you have literally everywhere in New Zealand like everywhere like you can be in the middle of nowhere but there's a cafe. So yeah you'd be surprised. And number 10 I think you would be surprised at how much red tape and paperwork there is. Now I've had many arguments on my social media with people from New Zealand saying oh you have to do paperwork and it doesn't compare. No it doesn't. I literally just bought a car and it was one sheet of paper when I just signed my name and they gave their bank account number and I just paid them. No no no when you're going to buy a car it's like so much paperwork and like you feel like you're giving them your life your blood everything you have to sign all these disclosures because suing is a thing as a lawyer is going to involve so every purchase becomes like enormous amounts of disclaimer that you essentially have to sign. Like it takes like an hour to buy a house to fill out all the paperwork and that's with the agent being very efficient. It still takes an hour but just in general signing your kids up to do anything to everything so much paperwork. Number 11 in addition to that you don't give out your bank account number guys. It doesn't happen. You know that's not the way you transact. It's one of my favorite things about New Zealand making all my life so much easier just hanging out paying bills. It's easy whereas in the US there's not that there's processes of which you can pay you know online through online banking but yeah it's not the same. You just don't pay with bank accounts it's not the security of the banking system in the US is not as good as New Zealand. That's the bottom line. And number 12 in addition to that they use checks. Yes they do Americans still use checks and don't get stuck behind the person at the grocery store who's got to write a check because they're not going to do it quickly and it's going to take a while and it's annoying. You still get checks from people you get them in the mail. It's so annoying. I have told everybody in the States do not such that you can't even cash checks in New Zealand anymore. Like they're not even accepting it and so like don't send me checks and they don't understand that because everybody I mean you can still use checks in the US. It's getting less and less and less and less of course but I think Kiwi would be surprised people still use checks. Number 13 I think Kiwis would be quite surprised at what a crowd is that most places are crowded. Of course if you're in a small town or you know you're in the desert part of the US I'm just speaking in general I think that Americans are just going to be much more comfortable and used to being in a crowd. Whereas in New Zealand you don't have to. Like it's totally normal for my kids when we go back to the States to be or all of us really when we see a crowd they're all like I don't want to be here because we've gotten a bit spoiled with not having crowds like anywhere. If you see people on a beach just go to the next beach. Like I'm not I'm not joking. Like there's no crowds and so Kiwis would be surprised that so many things that you're doing are quite crowded. Restaurants are very crowded especially Friday and Saturday night. Things that you go to are like huge crowds so I think that's an adjustment. And number 14 Kiwis people drive fast. People drive fast and we have big four lane highways where everybody's going fast and you need to keep up with traffic or good luck to you it's not going to be good. Where the US you're taught to keep up with traffic here it's like slow down. We have billboard to say slow down and OK so I have a lot of discussions about this topic as well. Obviously it's windy here. There's a lot of mountains but in general people drive slow slower. People are stopping for people in the crosswalk. It's required but that doesn't always matter in the US. There's no rules in driving in New York City. If you haven't been there like so don't just walk out on the road because there's no none of the rules nobody follows any of the rules. The taxis run the show. You'll get that real quick when you go there. But yeah so I think you'll be surprised at just the pace like it's normal for Americans to drive 10 miles per hour over the spin like that's then actually the speed limit at that point. And then if you're driving under that then it's slow so like you just going the speed limit is going to be slow especially in cities like Chicago New York. You know anywhere where there's just the four lane highway so watch out when you get off the plane in LA people are going to be moving fast. And number 15 last but not least Kiwis are going to be very shocked. And I know you've seen things on TV but you're going to be shocked at the political environment. You're going to be shocked at how that is just embedded itself in culture in relationship and what side you're on. And it is such a big deal and there's no telling someone it's not a big deal. And so that's going to be a big shocker. If you're moving to the US that is going to be a big adjustment. Now New Zealand has its own political climate honestly a lot easier. I know that we've had a lot going on recently with that aside in general it is it doesn't compare it is way easier. It's not what everybody talks about it's not you know but it is all the time and it's on the news all the time and it's just exhausting. In fact I meet with clients all the time that are moving here and they're number one number one thing that everybody says to me they want to get out of the US because of the political climate. Because it's just breaking down families it's great it's just getting worse and worse and worse the divide is getting greater and it's not getting fixed. And so just be aware I think it would surprise you. Well I hope you enjoyed the video this week please comment below and let me know any things that you think would shock you when you went to America or shocked you when you came to New Zealand. And please subscribe below if you're interested in this content and just hearing more about the differences and please reach out to me. If you are moving here if you're thinking about traveling here I have a lot of resources and I'm creating a new membership program that you're going to want to get involved in. So just head to my website or just you know message me or email me is fine. I do a video every week I'll see you next week.