New Zealand

So, most of you probably think of one of three things when New Zealand is mentioned: Lord of the Rings, Sheep, or Flight of the Conchords. Right? Well I thought I'd mention just a couple of other things that make NZ financially a good place to live and work.

1. Interest free student loans

You may have noticed that I have a fairly large student loan, $67 799 at last count. The reason I'm not too worried about this, and aren't making any effort to pay it off, is that it is 100% interest free, as long as I stay in the country. This very convenient financial policy was introduced by the current labour government, mainly to get the student vote. What it means is that anyone with a loan has no incentive to pay it off above and beyond the compulsory repayment (10% of your income above $18,148). In fact there is a strong incentive to pay it off as slowly as possible, as any spare money can be invested in order to gain passive income, and also the real value of the loan is decreasing every year due to the effect of inflation. So all in all, a pretty good deal for today's students and graduates.

2. High interest rates
This is a bit of a two edged sword, as anyone with a mortgage will tell you. However for people like me without any interest-bearing debt, high interest rates at the moment are a great way to keep your money working for you while the share market is a bit dismal. I can currently put any spare money into a online, on call account with zero fees and earn 8.35% on that money with zero risk.

So, just two of the reasons why NZ is a great place to be.