Taranaki is enjoying one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, but is also having to deal with sky rocketing rents.
File image: New Zealand housing Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Like everywhere else in the country the rising cost of living is taking its toll.
The latest six-monthly economic snapshot from development agency Venture Taranaki shows rents have grown faster than anywhere else - up a whopping 18 percent.
The median rent in the province has now hit $530 a week - about the same as the average weekly mortgage payment.
That was no surprise to this woman who lived in expensive emergency housing in New Plymouth.
"I live in a studio with my daughter and that's $550 a week, so that's real expensive, and it's just one bedroom and there's just no room there for that amount of money."
She was also feeling the impact of rising food prices which were up 8 percent.
"It's real hard. I've got to cut back on meats, so it's hard, and vegetables have gone up too as well and we love our kūmara, but we can't even afford to get one. One's like maybe $5 for one kūmara."
Maraea was visiting from Hawera where she lived in a rental with 10 mokopuna.
Life was a struggle.
"It's quite hard when you have to budget and you have to go to the supermarket and the prices for food are going up all the time.
"I budget every week, you know, if there's some dearer I'll get it somewhere else. This is how we are in our family."
New Plymouth Foodbank manager Sharon Wills said such stories were now commonplace.
"We're getting more and more people everyday who are in paid employment that can't afford to live and people on benefits are struggling as well.
"I had a guy today who's paying $500 rent a week for emergency housing which is massive. That's just nuts, it's craziness."
The foodbank is handing out more food parcels than ever.
Wills said pre-covid it distributed 45 parcels a week and now it was doing more 30 a day.
"They may be employed, they may look outwardly like they are doing okay, but if there's no money in the bank when bills come in and the kids need new school shoes or you've got a big dentist's bill that's where the money goes.
"The one thing you can choose to cut back on is food. You can't stop paying your rent or your mortgage, maybe you can use your car less, but you know with food you can say 'oh I just won't buy that this week, I just won't go to the supermarket'."
The economic snapshot also shows Taranaki wages rose by 3 percent the highest level since 2009, but that's still well below the Consumer Price Index of 6.9 percent.
Most people in the region do have a job - the unemployment rate is at just 2.4 percent -but the flip side is that businesses are struggling to fill vacancies and find skilled staff.