Watched KiwiSaver funds boils too much. The internet can be a curse when it comes to long-term investments such as KiwiSaver. With many providers, you can log in and check your account balance daily. But while a watched pot might never boil, a watched KiwiSaver account can boil too much — especially at times like these.
Adviser’s enthusiasm for KiwiSaver is way over the top. KiwiSaver is a good deal. But I was astonished by the claims made for the scheme by an experienced financial adviser in a recent industry magazine — and by his lack of clear thinking.
Cries of indignation, shock and fear from Credit Card Land. Three readers coming from three quite different perspectives responded to my last column about repaying credit card debt. One slightly indignant reader always pays his credit card bills in full, another was shocked at what happened when he didn’t one month, and the third has run up a $7000 credit card debt.
Have I got a deal for you? Pssst, want a fantastic deal? I may be able to get you into an investment with returns of just under 20 per cent a year, every year, after fees and tax. And it’s risk-free…
Students fail at stock picking, but learn the important lesson. The students in a university financial literacy course that I teach are lousy at picking stocks. But that doesn’t matter. Hopefully in the course of the “Stock Picking Game” they learn plenty.
Winning the KiwiSaver game under the new rules. As the dust settles on the government’s Budget announcements about KiwiSaver, how should the changes affect the way you play the KiwiSaver game?
Getting back in balance. Investment markets have been particularly turbulent in recent years. Chances are, therefore, that your spread of investments — over property, shares, bonds, term deposits and so on — has changed without your intending that to happen.
Think before switching your whole mortgage to a floating rate. In a dramatic change over the last couple of years, everyone’s moving to floating-rate mortgages. Is this a good idea?
Savings growth is far from over at 65. I’m a bit hesitant to pass on this information, for fear that some readers might get the wrong message. But here goes. Just promise me you’ll read past the first half dozen paragraphs, okay?
How not to be ripped off. There’s no denying that some fraudsters are clever. Bernie Madoff — the American now serving 150 years in prison for probably the biggest rip-off of all time — didn’t promise investors 20 or 30 per cent returns, which would have looked highly suspicious. Instead, it was a steady return of around 10.5 per cent a year. While you can’t get returns that high on a steady basis, it obviously sounded possible to thousands of Americans.