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16 September 2022
A follow-up to my 2019 “How I money”, showing how my wife and I actually structure our savings, investments, insurance, and spending three years on. Don’t treat this as a guide — it’s illustrative onl…
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3 June 2022
Bonds have been performing terribly, yet I still call them defensive assets. Every asset class has bad years; regression to the mean is real; bond losses remain smaller than share losses; and your cap…
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12 June 2020
Every time I run the numbers, the cost of private secondary education stuns me. Retiring early is expensive too. Neither is wrong — just know what you're trading off.
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29 November 2019
When it comes to the things that really matter, focus on what you can control. Checking your KiwiSaver balance every week isn't one of them — and yes, I'm a hypocrite about this when it comes to Trump…
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18 October 2019
"Wealth" isn't just about money, and "success" is personal. Don't over-complicate your financial life — make it boring so the rest of your life can be interesting. Everyone has a financial plan, wheth…
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14 June 2019
Kiwi personal finance forums are full of smart people endlessly debating which fund or platform is "best". I get frustrated with those debates, because they're operating in shades of good. Get your as…
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7 June 2019
New Zealand and Australia have very different approaches to funding pensions. Despite many other similarities between our countries, you can consider us at opposite ends of the spectrum on this set of…
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9 October 2018
The 4% rule says you can safely withdraw 4% of your retirement portfolio each year — so multiply your desired spending by 25 to get your number. I don't like it. Retirement planning is not the place f…
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14 September 2018
Paying off the mortgage ASAP is usually the smartest move — a guaranteed, tax-free, risk-free return. But I often recommend clients also put some excess income into investments: it builds liquid asset…
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27 August 2018
Simplicity is now cash flow positive, sooner than its founder expected. Even when it wasn't, I was sanguine about recommending it. The underlying assets are highly liquid, and the Public Trust holds t…
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30 July 2018
The future is uncertain — but we still need to plan for retirement. Plenty of variables are unknowable: when you'll retire, how long you'll live, what returns you'll get. The one I want to focus on is…
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8 March 2018
You're lazy sometimes. I know this because you're human. The trick is to use that laziness — or, more charitably, behavioural inertia — as a feature rather than a bug. Set things up once so wealth-bui…
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1 March 2018
Some high-level financial advice for 16-year-olds, and anyone who still feels young. The biggest investment in your early adulthood is in yourself. One of the best (or worst) financial decisions you'l…
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8 February 2018
The NZ news media keeps warning of "frightening" long-term consequences when people use KiwiSaver to buy a first home. This is a false dilemma. Owning a mortgage-free home by retirement is one of the…
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29 December 2017
Once you've captured the employer match and the Government contribution, the tangible benefits of putting more into KiwiSaver largely stop. So why does my wife contribute 8% of her income? Behavioural…
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11 August 2017
I haven't written any "Weekend reading" articles recently. This hasn't stopped me from collecting a pile of clippings and links. I'll have missed many good articles, but some that are on my pile/list…
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2 July 2017
A weekend round-up of money writing worth your time. Susan Edmunds on divorce after 50 and the case for contracting out before you marry. Edmunds again on creating a sense of wealth by knowing your ne…
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11 June 2017
A quieter weekend for personal finance coverage. Susan Edmunds on ten fairly standard ways to reduce money stress — tackle it head-on, be open with your partner, avoid high-interest consumer debt. Mar…
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3 June 2017
A few weekend pieces worth a look: Liz Koh on why financial resilience sits inside a broader picture of physical, emotional and psychological resilience (and why I'd push further, towards antifragilit…
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28 May 2017
Two articles from the weekend's Your Money section worth reading. Janine Starks on the long-run cost of staying in a default KiwiSaver fund — roughly $600,000 over 40 years for a 25-year-old. And Susa…
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11 March 2017
Young professionals at the start of their careers face a genuinely different financial situation from people nearing retirement. Different circumstances, different needs, different objectives — which…
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10 February 2017
Note: my views on this have evolved — I'm more comfortable with debt now and less inclined to treat a mortgage as an obstacle to investing. The original argument was that a 30-year term leaves too lit…
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29 July 2016
Two biases stop us saving: present bias (we weight now over later) and exponential-growth bias (we underestimate what a dollar today becomes). KiwiSaver's opt-out, locked-in design fights both.
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14 July 2016
After working in Australia for ten years, I have a fair amount of money locked away in an Australian superannuation fund. As a resident of New Zealand, I have the ability to transfer these funds into…
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24 October 2015
If you can't afford to buy a home in the current property market, don't despair. You can still build wealth and end up in a good long-term financial position. Owning a home is a legitimate goal for ma…
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7 December 2014
A will is only one piece of estate planning — and often a small one. Superannuation, jointly-owned property, life insurance nominations, and trust assets often bypass the will entirely. Plan the whole…
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5 December 2014
Common advice is to save a fixed percentage of your income every year for retirement, starting as early as possible. It's reasonable in the abstract. But it doesn't really match how life actually work…