Nelson Budget Services is seeing an all-time high demand for financial mentoring and support.
“We're booked out about a month in advance as people come through with all manner of financial issues, with the cost of living crisis and general housing issues,” says coordinator, Tessa Bell.
It comes as a new report shows the average wage earnings in the region - at $60,048 a year - are the lowest in New Zealand, 14 percent below the national average ($69,585) for 2022.
Tessa says the service was looking for a larger premises in order to see more people.
“We're seeing a change from the lower-income into the middle-income, we're seeing an increase in people as their mortgage rates increase, people needing to look at a whole raft of changes in their personal finances.”
She says two or three people a week are seeking help accessing their KiwiSaver due to financial pressures.
People can withdraw money from KiwiSaver for a number of hardship reasons, including not being able to pay a mortgage, being unable to cover minimum living expenses or needing to pay medical costs.
Data from Inland Revenue shows the number of people making withdrawls from their Kiwisaver for financial hardship has increased in the last year.
In March, there were 2662 withdrawals totalling $20,291,093 for financial hardship, up from 1641 withdrawals totalling $7,872,419 in March last year.
“People find that that's one simple way where they don't have to get into further debt, to pay off existing debt,” Tessa says.
“We do explore other options, because obviously, KiwiSaver's purpose is to be saved for retirement, but on the other hand, a crisis in the short-term needs to be remedied and that's often the only source of money people can access.”
Tessa says the service was seeing an increase in retirees on fixed incomes, for whom the cost of living increases and rising interest rates were having an impact on their quality of life.
“We might see someone who's not putting the power on and that leads to health outcomes that aren't very positive.”
Tessa said for some, using their KiwiSaver to pay their mortgage and bills was the only path forward.
