Life is More than Money One of the best things about being on holiday is being able to take a few quiet moments to reflect on life and to appreciate being able to do things that bring pleasure rather than selling your time and skills for money. Where you spend your holiday and who you spend it with will give you some good clues about what is important to you in life. What is your ideal holiday? Do you enjoy spending tim...

Christmas Leftovers Christmas is the time of good cheer but when the guests have all gone and the wrapping paper and dishes have been cleared away, there are the leftovers to contend with. Unfortunately, for many families, the most problematic leftovers are debts. Just like turkey and trifle, left over debt needs to be packaged up, cooled off and dealt with as soon as possible. Start with a quick assessment of your financ...

The Bond Maturity Crunch In the months prior to the Global Financial Crisis fixed interest investors reveled in high interest rates offered by bank deposits, bonds and finance company debentures. Volatile equity markets were unattractive by comparison and money flowed out of managed funds and shares into what was perceived to be a safe, high yielding haven. Of course, the delight with finance company debentures soon turne...

How Retailers Get You to Spend Going shopping over the holiday period can be a bit like going into battle with retailers who use every sneaky scheme they can think of to get you to buy their goods. It is getting more difficult to win, because marketers are increasingly using neuroscience to trick your brain into parting with your money. It helps to know some of the tricks neuromarketers use so you don’t fall prey to the...

Talking About Money Good communication is important in any relationship and one of the most vital subjects to discuss is money. It is surprising how many couples get together without having a frank and open discussion on how money will be managed in the relationship, only to find that fundamental differences in this area become a significant cause of friction. It is not uncommon for different attitudes towards money to le...

Four Best Money Tips for Christmas Every Christmas it’s the same story for many families; not enough money to go around, overspending and an aftermath of too much debt, stress and depression. It is ironic that the season of good cheer should leave such disastrous effects in its wake. Here are the four best tips for surviving Christmas with your money intact. Get more cash. Sell your surplus stuff online, have a garage...

Wriggle Room One of the traps of borrowing money in a low interest rate environment is not leaving enough spare money, or ‘wriggle room’ in your budget to cope with an increase in interest rates. This is particularly important to consider when you are buying your first home, upgrading to a more expensive home, or increasing your mortgage to pay for a new car or overseas holiday. There are several ways you can protect ...

Checklist for Retirement One of the strange things about life is that the older you get, the faster the years seem to go by. It pays to get your affairs in order at retirement so the rest of your life will be free of problems, especially if the effects of ageing come faster than you expect. Here is a checklist of some of the things you should attend to at retirement: Is your Will up to date?  This is especially importa...

Explaining Investor Behaviour The recent receivership of Ross Asset Management has been yet another lesson in investment behaviour. Only further investigation will determine whether anything untoward has occurred, however whatever the outcome of that investigation, investors in the fund will now be nervously waiting and considering the wisdom of their decisions. One of the principal drivers of investor behaviour is the ...

Dealing with Life's Changes Every so often, we may experience a sudden change in our life, either planned or unplanned. Eva Bennett has just published a handy guide, written very clearly and succinctly, to help you deal with the three biggest changes: relationships, redundancy and retirement (As Time Goes By; Dealing with Life’s Changes, available from her website (click here). We only have one life, and to make the mo...