With Christmas Day just four weeks away now, you’ve probably got your vacation destination in place and are counting down the days. Whether it be your new beach house in the Cormandel, your uncle’s fishing hut in Kaikoura or a rented holiday home in Invercargill, baches are quintessential to the Kiwi Christmas.

There’ll be one slight setback for the holidays - an unlikely chance of internet access! For those who don’t have mobile internet solutions, you’re probably pretty unlikely to encounter a broadband connection at your bach. Sure, the holidays are a time to relax and get away from the stresses of work and daily life - but more than a day without going online may be quite hard for the many of us who rely on the internet for personal e-mailing, banking, weather, maps, and entertainment guides.

Fear not, because you do have a low-cost solution, you can connect to dial up! Dial up internet access can be the perfect solution for those on holiday or in a temporary location. There aren’t any fussy routers or setup involved, all you need is a dial up account (which you can prepay by month), and a house with a connected phone line. Dial up may not be of the lightening speed that you’re used to, but it’s a great way to get online with no set up costs or contracts, and it certainly gets the jobs done that you need. Thinking about how you’re going to stay online this Christmas? For a cheap internet provider, dial up is the easiest and most convenient holiday internet solution.

Constant reminders of the current world economic state may be hard to dodge in our media-filled lives, but that doesn’t mean scrimping on luxuries - just a change in the kind of luxuries we consume.

The entertainment industry believes that sectors like video games and DVDs will be buffered from the effects of the financial crisis that are hitting many other industries. When the film Iron Man hit DVD stores on September 30 in the US, the same week that the $700 million bailout bill was in proposition, the movie sold a record 500,000 copies on Blu-Ray for the first week. Similarly, the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace, which opens in New Zealand today, pulled in nearly US$30 million more on its opening weekend in the US in mid-November than its predecessor, Casino Royale.

While there is no question many are tightening their belts on luxuries, it seems lower-priced entertainment is taking a bit shift to replace the luxuries of the past. While parents may have taken their children on a waterskiing holiday over Christmas in previous years, the trend this year may be buying a gift in the form of a Nintendo Wii console and a few supplementing Wii Fit games to virtually ride the waters.

With options for NZ shopping online just a click away, consumers are expected to buy up larger this year on in-home entertainment. Instead of buying a new car or taking a trip, consumers are moving to a more cost-conscious way of enjoying their disposable incomes, so don’t be surprised when you find yourself with more video games and high-def entertainment than you can shake a stick at this Christmas!

Image from Flickr.

The festive calendar really ticked over yesterday: just five weeks until Christmas. While shopping malls have had decorations up and yuletide tunes playing since the start of November, consumers throughout New Zealand can really now starting thinking about managing their Christmas this year.

Planning your Christmas needs to start early, so it’s a good idea to start a list now. Cook a Christmas meal, or order everything from the deli the day before? Decorate the Christmas tree with last year’s ornaments, or take advantage of the many stores already offering discounted Christmas products? Buy New Zealand made products, or imported gifts? Decisions, decisions! NZS.com is here to help you out with many of your common Christmas queries, and we’ll be regularly featuring tips and articles on the blog in the lead up to Santa’s visit.

While we’re five weeks out, you should get onto planning your Christmas party and start putting together your Christmas cards list. More tips to come next week!

Image from Flickr.

Do you have a No Circulars sign on your letterbox? I don’t, and for good reason. I’m always eager to snap up a bargain, and revel in clipping coupons for half price dinners, free DVD rentals and cheap lawn mowing services.

There are certain days of the week when my mailbox is full of circulars, and some days it gets a bit much. Sure, one of them will have a bunch of great deals, but the rest of it is just physical spam. The pre-digital version of what we can reasonably easily keep out of our inboxes in the online world.

Being a truly ‘green’ country, it is surprising that there aren’t more regulations on circulars production and distribution - we’ve all seen hundreds of ad campaigns focusing on recycling, but never think about cutting waste off at the source.

The good news, times have changed and I don’t even need to scour the circulars and clip coupons anymore - online voucher companies now offer printable vouchers (and for the super eco-friendly, TXT voucher downloads). They’re simple to search for in your region, and you can print off as many as you like on one page - so you’ll never have to pay full price for pizzas, DVDs, haircuts and car regos again! Saving money doesn’t get easier when it’s on demand like that.

I’m off to buy one of those No Circulars signs…

At 11.08am this morning, Prime Minister-elect John Key signed his warrant of office and just seven minutes later was sworn in under oath as the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

John Key is the youngest PM New Zealand has ever seen at just 47 years old, the same age as recent President-elect of the United States, Barack Obama. Prime Minister Key is the 38^th sworn into the role in New Zealand history.

Alongside Act and the Maori Party, the National party will govern New Zealand over the next three years. Helen Clark of the Labour party officially resigned her ministers’ warrants earlier this morning at Government House.

While food prices have risen 9.9% this year, the weekend’s weather proved that summer is definitely on its way - and so are fresh summer food prices.

Statistics New Zealand said yesterday that average food prices actually fell (albeit by a mere 0.3%) in October. The decrease is mainly due to the fruit and vege prices, particularly lettuce (down 50.7%) and tomatoes (down 24.9%).

Conversely, potatoes and bread were big pullers in the other direction, both with increased prices in the last month (potatoes 20.6% and bread 3.2%). Is this the economy’s way of getting Kiwis ready for beach weather by cutting carbs in favour of salads?

The price of cheese isn’t the popular news headliner that it was earlier in the year, but the report also noted that while a block of cheddar has risen by 39.2% this year, the October month saw it drop by 4%.

Image from Flickr.

Are you set with your holiday season travel plans yet? For most of us, the answer to that question is still no, even though we’re only 6 weeks out from the festive break. The reason? Searching for the best travel deals can be such a tasking experience it’s enough to make you want to stay home!

Trying to find the cheapest flights and best accommodation for you and your family isn’t always easy, especially when you don’t know where to start. Scour the daily paper every morning looking for flight sales? Open five windows or tabs at once and compare site after site (and trying to remember which prices included taxes and other costs and which didn’t)? It’s all a bit much, especially at this time of year.

Luckily, NZS.com has just launched a brand new travel deals section - and we’re about to make planning your holiday a whole lot easier for you. Our new travel page is powered by Wego, and searches over 100 different travel websites, including online travel agencies like Zuji, consolidators like Orbitz, airline websites, and hotel websites. This means we can find you the best deals available online, even sale fares and limited promotional deals from budget airlines like Pacific Blue and Jetstar.

It’s fast, it’s easy, and you can customise just about every variable - from flight times to price range - so make sure you plan your travel this Christmas via NZS.com’s New Zealand travel deals section.

For New Zealand’s new National-led Government to be, John Key and future Finance Minister Bill English are rushing to set up shop for reasons far more pressing than the drive to assume power.

Officials from the Treasury and the RBNZ are expected to brief Key and English on the updated economic growth forecasts (or, presumably, growth deficits) any day now. It is expected that employment rates and the Government’s accounts will be looking the darkest. With the NZD exchange rates currently still sitting under 60 US cents, the pre-election fiscal updates that were released are expected to look even worse now than a month ago.

The pre-election fiscal and economic update (Prefu) was released in early October, however the data was finalised at the end of August, meaning foreign rate and other economic forecasts were not representative of the financial crisis to come in later months. It is expected that shortfalls will amount to around $1 billion more than as released in the Prefu.

Not since 1990 has a Prime Minister-elect arrived at Parliament the day after the election has a Government faced such financial disarray. Some 18 years ago, National came to power with Jim Bolger at the helm after a Labour-led term, and was told that the mostly State-owed Bank of New Zealand immediately needed a large injection of cash.

For more information on NZ’s economy and finance, check out our New Zealand finance section, updated daily at 3.30pm.

Last week’s polls were pretty much on the money, NZ elections results were counted and just before midnight on Saturday November 8, the Labour party conceded as the election results showed a clear win by National:

PARTY
National 45.5%
Labour 33.8%
Green 6.4%
NZ First 4.2%
Act 3.7%
Maori 2.2%
United Future 0.9%
Progressives 0.9%

SEATS
National 59
Labour 43
Green 8
Act 5
Maori 5
Progressive 1
United Future 1

Coalition talks begin this week and we can expect an official Government arrangement within 2 weeks. However, it has been made pretty clear by National party leader John Key that National will team up with Act, and talk with both United Future and the Maori Party to create a Government.

While the above are just the preliminary results - special votes must be counted in order for the Government to be officially sworn in - political commentators do not expect the results to change significantly. While the stated confirmation of Government date is November 18, Prime Minister-elect Key wants to fast track this in order to best deal with the current world financial crisis.

The current financial times, coupled with the possibility of political change after tomorrow’s election have meant personal financal decisions have been left in limbo for the past few months for many Kiwis.

Been thinking about buying a house, getting business finance or looking into getting personal finance help, but not sure exactly where to start and what to do? The news over the past few months has been so focused on the darkening state of the world economy that it’s hard to think on a smaller scale into your own personal situation.

Since the cut to the official cash rate a few weeks ago, big banks’ economists have stressed that mortgage rates are coming down and it’s a risky time to fix your interest rate for too long. ASB Bank economists even believe the OCR will drop another percent to 5.5 by early 2009 - again making anyone thinking about loans and mortgages weary about making decisions in current times. You’re probably still wondering, is it the right time to find a mortgage broker?

Talking to a financial broker is a great step at the moment to get a full perspective of your financial situation. They’ll be able to advise how the current New Zealand economy affects you personally, and after looking at the entire picture will able to present you with next step options, and whether it’s the right time for you to act now for financial help. Still wondering broker vs bank for your financial questions? Check out our new article for a round-up on what each offers.