Cost of living in New Zealand - 2017

The cost of living in NZ is extremely HIGH.
Everything is expensive, whether it be food, power, water, bus fares, entertainment, schooling and particularly housing. In Auckland you'll easily pay $500 per week for a simple 3 bedroom house and you won't get much change from $1,000,000 if you prefer home ownership. In the other bigger cities prices are only a bit more reasonable and even in the countryside at some 150+ km distance from the city prices of $500,000+ are not unheard of. And wages? $15.50 is the minimum hourly rate.....
My advice: forget about NZ, unless you bring a few bags filled with cash and don't need to find a job.

If you need to live in a city for work reasons then things like rent and housing (to purchase) will be high especially in the main cities (eg Auckland) and in some of the satellite cities/towns such as Hamilton and Tauranga. Average  cost of living items are giving below. These are based on my own records over the last 3 years for a retired couple on an total income of around NZ$50k per year.

Groceries (food and all other typical household items) $40 per day
petrol 1.829 average per litre
Phone and Internet (adsl) 80gb plan) $100 per month
Electricity $6 per day (winter heating is by wood fire - wood free)
Cellphone (2) $40 per month pre=paid both on $19 plans (100 free minutes unlimited texts 50mb data)

If you don't have to live in a city / large town for work then consider the country. Better quality of life, no traffic and can be cheaper overall.
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I live in a small town on the South Island where I paid nearly $300,000 (about 150,000 pounds)  4 years ago for a 3 bedroomed house that by European standards is very poorly built and has no insulation with hardboard on the inner walls (although wall papered about 40 years ago I would say) although my builder who checked the house out didn`t mention it because its the norm here! and my house was built in the 70s. We actually bought power socket blanks like childrens safety plug inserts because the wind howls through the empty plug sockets as the common building system down here is a wooden frame with  some sort of outer wall ie wood, thin bricks, or weather boards and like mentioned above no insulation and in my particular case there was 6mm gaps between the window frames and the wall you could actually see the inner wail when you looked through!
Fuel is approx. $2.10 per ltr as there is no competition down on the South island for fuel.
Food, bloody expensive! for 2 people we spend approx. $200 + per week and that's for basic food nothing fancy.
Doctors , its $45.00 per visit.
Transport costs $00000! as we have no public transport at all. Away from the bigger cities there is no train or bus service at all.
Coffee is $4,50 per medium cup.
Internet (very slow!) approx. $100 per month.
Electricity about $140.00 per month on average ( no mains gas )
Firewood about $300 for 6 cubic metres and we burn about 12 to 15 cubic metres per year.
All in all, New Zealand is a fab country but very expensive to live in.

Heck .. you were royally ripped. Sadly for older homes that arent renovated, or non-state ~ it is typical. I can believe the petrol costs easily, same as many places all over the North Island and its going to increase. Every year around Christmas/New Year petrol prices rise. The govt and oil industry make some weak excuse but really its about profit margins. Every year without fail since the 1980s.

My comments 27 Feb 2017 remain largely unchanged. Costs for us (married retired couple own home, rural) have remained largely unchanged. Petrol costs in 2018 have increased. Average annual price per litre: 2016 $1.794 ; 2017 $1.904; 2018 $2.049. The 2018 price is likely to average around $2.50 by year end.

Housing in the large cities is almost affordable for working couple and impossible on one income unless you are "c" type executive of a large organisation. Annual costs like rates and insurance add to the burden of paying  a large monthly mortgage.

I don't know the detail but couple with children face high education and medical costs though the government have recently introduced zero doctors fees for children up to the age of 13.

In summary I have to agree with other comments that New Zealand is not a cheap place to live but can be a good place to live but you have to choose your style of living; urban or rural.