Having goals focuses your mind on what you need to know and do to be successful, so that you can make the most of your life. The start of a new year is great time to set goals. However, if you want to be able to achieve your goals there a few secrets in how you set them. Take time to plan your goals. Find a quiet place free of distractions where you can really focus on what you want to achieve for the year. Start by ...

The New Year is a chance to make resolutions to eat healthier food, exercise more often and manage money better. Just like diet and exercise, money is something that people feel often guilty about. Opening your credit card bill after Christmas and the New Year sales can certainly create the feeling that you have done something wrong or spent money you weren’t supposed to. However, while an initial rush of guilt can trig...

Starting out in life after school or tertiary education is an exciting milestone. It is one of the best times in life, with a future full of potential opportunities, without the responsibilities of dependent children to support and with few financial commitments. Anything is possible at this stage of life. However, it is also a critical time as making the wrong financial decisions when starting out can have long term co...

Whether you are investing money, setting up a business or gambling on horses, your first consideration, before parting with any money, should be how much risk you can afford to take. Risk is not necessarily the probability of loss – it is the probability that an outcome will be different than you expect. For example, an investment might make a positive return, but a lower (or higher) return than you expected. There a...

Giving to others brings great pleasure and happiness and there is no better evidence of this than the joy of Christmas. However, giving is often loaded with emotion and purpose. We place various meanings on the act of both giving and receiving. In some cases, people give to make themselves feel better – perhaps by absolving themselves of guilt - or as a way of demonstrating love, particularly if they have trouble expres...

KiwiSaver is an easy way to invest. Your contributions are deducted automatically, along with the contributions from your employer, and every year the Government pays you a tax credit. You could argue that KiwiSaver is a ‘set and forget’ type of investment. However, paying little or no attention to your KiwiSaver is not wise. There is a great deal of variation between providers and between the different types of funds...

There is no doubt that Christmas is one of the most expensive times of the year. Many families find themselves still paying off Christmas debt months later. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of the cycle of debt over Christmas: Set a budget for Christmas and stick to it. Set your budget now before you get caught up in the Christmas frenzy. Decide how much you will spend in total and keep track of how much you actu...

Now, more than ever, it is time to make sure your KiwiSaver investment strategy is matched to your investment time frame. KiwiSaver was introduced ten years ago and since that time we have seen strong growth in the share market. KiwiSaver members have not yet experienced a period of high volatility. The share market is overdue for a correction, and with all the uncertainties in the world at the moment the next few years c...

One of the biggest mistakes retirees make is to underspend in their retirement. Retirement is full of uncertainties, so the safest strategy is to spend as little as possible. There is nothing wrong with that approach if you don’t mind going without for the benefit of your children. However, most retirees these days are happy if their children inherit the house and whatever money is left after their own needs have been m...

The apparent impossibility of buying a first home has many young people questioning whether owning a property should still be part of long term financial plan. Does it really make sense to put aside other things in life such as travel, having children, paying off student loans or simply having fun, just to save a deposit and pay off a mortgage? The answer is yes. Taking a very long term view, there is no doubt that to ow...