Avoid Retirement Pitfalls Retirement is something that most people look forward to but it is a major life change that needs to be planned if you want to get the most out of it. Stepping into retirement without having thought ahead means you run the risk of your retirement expectations not being met. The key to enjoying life at any stage is to have balance between all the things that are important to you. Eva Bennett, an A...

Speculator or Investor? It is very tempting when you have a small amount of money to invest to try and turn it into a much bigger amount by taking a chance on risky investments. With luck on your side, and careful research, it is possible to double your money, but only by accepting the possibility that an alternative outcome may be a significant loss. Seeking extraordinary returns on money invested through accepting high ...

Problem Gambling A gambling bill which will change how the proceeds of gambling are managed and distributed is in the process of being debated. The Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill will give councils the power to eliminate or reduce pokies at a venue if the public feels they are harmful, replace corporate societies that distribute proceeds with local committees and ensure that 80 per cent of gambling proc...

Good Habits for Kids Financial literacy for kids is something that Lucas Remmerswaal is very passionate about. A New Zealander, Lucas has written a series of books for children, based on the financial principles used by one of America’s most successful investors, Warren Buffett. In 2011, Buffett was ranked the third wealthiest person in the world with assets of around $47 billion and this year, Time magazine named him a...

A Solid Foundation Creating a significant amount of wealth during your lifetime cannot be done by saving alone and usually requires the use of other people’s money. Borrowing money from others to invest in businesses and property is referred to as a leveraged investment strategy. Leveraged investments are capable of producing significant wealth, providing the funds invested produce a return greater than the cost of borr...

Check Your Commission Financial advisers have traditionally received their income from upfront and ongoing trail commissions paid on insurance policies and investment products they have sold. These commissions, while paid by the product provider to the adviser, are funded from the profits made within the products. In effect, the owners of those products therefore pay, albeit indirectly. If you are not paying a fee for adv...

An Extraordinary Life People who consider themselves ordinary often wonder if it is possible to ever achieve the life of their dreams. Such people fail to understand two really important points. The first point, which almost goes without saying, is that ordinary people live ordinary lives, while extraordinary lives are lived by extraordinary people. The second point is that anybody, even ordinary people, can choose to be ...

Don't Outlive Your Money It is said the biggest financial risk anyone takes in their lifetime is the risk of running out of money before they run out of life. Everybody reaches the starting line for retirement in different financial shape. There are those with little in the way of savings because they decided to spend while they were still young enough to enjoy it, or because they were unable to earn enough to save. There...

Precious Investments The last ten years or so has without doubt been a difficult time for investors. We’ve seen the bursting of the ‘dotcom bubble’ in early 2000, the Japanese financial crisis, the effects of terrorism on market confidence, the Global Financial Crisis, the collapse of finance companies and the property market, and more recently the downfall of European economies. In the midst of this turmoil, invest...

How Good is your Credit? Credit scoring is a widely accepted means internationally of assessing a person’s credit worthiness. It is used by lenders not only to assess whether lending should be approved but also what limit should be put on the amount of credit. Depending on which country you live in, credit scoring can be done on either a negative reporting basis (reporting only negative events such as missed payments)...