Use our Quick Sufficiency Savings Estimator below to see how you can save money and contribute to building community resilience.
If you want to identify even more savings, check out our full Sufficiency Savings Estimator. We are also developing a Resilience Builder tool to help you take steps to strengthen your household against future shocks.
These tools are early access versions and we would appreciate feedback and any additional ideas you have for how to reduce costs, build community and household resilience. Please help us improve this collectively, by sending us your comments here or on our social media channels.
Quick Sufficiency Savings Estimator
Answer each question and select an action to commit to. Your savings build up in the Your Savings Viewer.
Figures are estimates only and do not constitute financial advice. GoZero and the GoZero Foundation disclaim and exclude all liability for any claim, loss, demand or damages arising from use of this tool or the information included on this or any linked site.
📱 Mobile phones ✓ committed
How often does your household replace mobile phones?
📺 Streaming ✓ committed
How many video streaming services does your household pay for but rarely watch?
👕 Clothing ✓ committed
How often does your household buy new clothing, shoes or accessories?
Wellington has active Buy Nothing groups by suburb, clothing swaps, and op shops throughout the city. Buying secondhand avoids the supply chain entirely.
🍔 Chain takeaway ✓ committed
How often does your household order from chain restaurants or food delivery apps?
This concerns chain fast food and delivery apps — not local independent cafes and restaurants, which we actively encourage. Savings estimated from NZ meal cost data: chain takeaway typically costs $35–$60 per occasion for a 2.5-person household; home cooking saves $20–$45 per occasion net. Source: NZ tourism and food cost surveys 2024–25.
🥩 Beef & lamb ✓ committed
How often does your household eat beef or lamb?
Savings estimated from Stats NZ Food Price Index retail prices for beef and lamb versus chicken and plant protein alternatives. Range reflects variation in cuts and substitution choices. Source: Stats NZ FPI 2025–26. Pork sits between beef/lamb and chicken in both cost and environmental footprint — if you’re reducing pork too, your savings will be towards the higher end of the range.
🚗 Transport ✓ committed
How many vehicles does your household run?
Savings shown are net after estimated public transport replacement costs. Operational costs only — depreciation not included. Selling a car you no longer need can also release significant one-off capital — enough to fund an e-bike or quality bicycle outright, cover years of public transport costs, or seed your Resilience Fund directly. Source: AA NZ, NZTA.
A note on using your savings
For many households, cost of living pressure is real and immediate. If your savings from sufficiency actions help cover essentials — food, energy, rent — that is exactly what they are for, and exactly what GoZero’s sufficiency-first approach is designed to deliver. The resilience fund and community contribution suggestions are for households with capacity beyond immediate needs. There are many ways to contribute to your community beyond financial means — showing up to team meetings, volunteering, sharing skills, and building relationships are the heart of what GoZero Teams is about.
Want a more complete picture?
The Full Estimator adds homewares & furniture, heating, food waste, insurance, and more — and often identifies significantly greater savings.
© 2026 GoZero Foundation. All rights reserved. This tool is the intellectual property of the GoZero Foundation.
"It'll take 50 years for us to realize that our institutions are rooted in an inaccurate understanding of the world... And that's when we will need to reinvent and recreate institutions for the human family that are rooted in ... the context of sufficiency." Buckminster Fuller, 1976.
What is Sufficiency?
According to the IPCC, sufficiency is defined as "as avoiding the demand for materials, energy, land, water and other natural resources while delivering a decent living standard for all within the planetary boundaries." For households, this means living well despite a cost of living crisis, by spending wisely on essentials and building resilience. Sufficiency is also a strategy that can be used by businesses as well as local and national governments, in deciding how to make effective use of resources and provide for the wellbeing of all.
Sufficiency First!
According to the science, we should be reducing demand through sufficiency first, before tackling efficiency and deploying renewables, otherwise any gains get swallowed up by increasing demand.
The IPCC states that "decent living standards are a set of essential material preconditions for human well-being, and include shelter, nutrition, basic amenities, health care, transportation, information, education and public space. Sufficiency addresses the issue of a fair consumption of space and resources." (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), Working Group III report on the mitigation of climate change, published in 2022)
Sufficiency differs from efficiency, which is about short-term technological improvements that allow doing more with less in relative terms without considering the planetary boundaries. Sufficiency is about long-term actions driven by non-technological solutions, which consume less and are determined by the biophysical processes.
Demand-side sufficiency measures have the potential to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in by 40% to 70% by 2050, yet these are not being implemented effectively. We believe that the reason for this is that market-based solutions, which dominate the climate sector, typically involve selling a technology or service that can be monetised and consumed, whereas sufficiency involves the reduction in consumption, and is therefore being ignored, despite its potential for impact.