Get Ready for 2014 It’s time to down tools, tidy the office, leave a holiday message on the answer phone, prepare for guests or pack suitcases. It’s as if 2013 can be put in a box and filed away, with a clean start to be made in 2014. Now is a good time to think about tidying up your financial records, particularly if you are intending to travel. The days of keeping huge piles of paper are long gone. Bank statements,...

How to Deal with Irregular Income Being self employed comes with greater independence and flexibility of working hours but it can also mean an irregular income. Real estate agents, commission sales people, contractors, temporary or casual workers and a host of other occupations come into the same category as small business owners in this respect. One of the fundamental principles of good financial management is to have a...

More Happiness for your Money One of the world’s most successful investors, Warren Buffet, made a pledge in 2006 to give away 99% of his fortune during his lifetime or on his death Since making this decision to give away his wealth, Buffet says he ‘couldn’t be happier’ and ‘the asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends’. In a recent Harvard Business Review blog ...

Extreme Ideas for Avoiding Christmas Debt Whether you survive the Christmas period without getting into debt depends very much on your mindset. Everyone knows and understands the basic principles of staying out of debt, but the success of putting theory into practice is often sabotaged by emotion. Budget advisers recommend starting early to save for Christmas, setting a Christmas budget, making lists of who to buy for and...

What to do With an Inheritance Receipt of an inheritance represents a time of sadness which, depending on the closeness of the benefactor, can also be tinged with an element of joy. Hopefully the joy results not from the loss of the benefactor, but from the possibilities created by a sudden influx of cash. It is common for beneficiaries to be close to retirement when an inheritance is received. For those who have spent a...

Have Your Cake (and Eat it Too)When money is limited, we need to make choices. By spending money on something we want, we forego being able to spend the same money on something else. Wouldn’t it be great, though, to have your cake and eat it too! Believe it or not, there is a way.From an early age, we are taught to think of goals as being mutually exclusive. If you spend your pocket money on lollies and ice creams, you ...

Transferring Your Australian Superannuation While it is now possible to transfer funds from your Australian superannuation scheme to KiwiSaver, this is not something that should be done without consideration of a number of important factors. There are many good reasons to bring your superannuation home. Having investments in more than one country can make life more complicated than necessary, and if your Australian supera...

Investing in Your Home Let’s get it straight; your home is not an investment. While property appreciates in value over time, the best property to own from an investment point of view is a property that produces rental income as well as capital gain. Investment is something that should be done with objectivity and a focus purely on investment return and risk. Buying a home to live in is a process clouded with emotion and...

When to Start Investing Starting an investment portfolio is usually somewhere near the bottom of a priority list for young people entering paid employment, who at that stage of life just want to have a good time. Of course, many employees are now members of KiwiSaver, which makes them investors, at least to the extent of 3% of their pay. For those who want to enjoy an above average lifestyle during their working lives and...

Getting it Together One of the most important relationships you will have in your life is your relationship with money. Everybody’s relationship with money is different. It can be influenced by things you learned about money when you were a child, your family circumstances when you were growing up, good and bad experiences with money, your values, how conservative you are, and many other factors. Your relationship with ...