Q&As: Why it takes both partners working to afford a house these days; Buying a house with a co-owner might prove tricky; Did I muddle pounds and dollars?; Big lottery winner would have some negotiating power with a bank — but only so much; Difficulties of borrowing to invest in shares; Winners of seminar tickets.
Turning interest into your friend. New Zealanders are, apparently, a fairly satisfied bunch — except when it comes to our financial situation. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
It pays to know how numbers grow. The recent fuss over food price rises shows how little feel many New Zealanders have for the power of compounding numbers. And that lack of knowledge could harm them when borrowing and investing.
Recession could be a blessing for most. The response to a question in a recent survey bothered me a little. Asked what they would do with a $10,000 cash windfall, 54.3 per cent of the respondents said they would pay off debt or save the money — down from 58.3 per cent three months earlier. It’s not exactly a huge drop. But I was hoping for a substantial increase.
You can indeed go wrong with bricks and mortar. I first heard people saying, “You can’t go wrong with bricks and mortar” years ago, when I lived in the US. I bet the saying isn’t quite as common there these days, now that millions of people have, indeed, lost huge amounts because of property. Yet we still hear that untrue “truism” in New Zealand. And in the last few weeks, as some people are trying to convince us that the house price slump is over, it keeps popping up.
Q&As: Don’t try to time markets. Stick with your regular retirement savings, although you may want to modify where you save; Teen’s worries are unfounded about how Dad’s income would affect KiwiSaver first home subsidy — but other subsidy issues still undecided; Tax-wise, it’s better to borrow for taxable activities than to buy a family home. Plus: Clarification on the taxation of interest on loans between family members.
Q&As: Terminally ill reader should get his money out of KiwiSaver and eat, drink and be merry; Reader on invalids benefit can benefit from joining KiwiSaver — and an obliging friend could make it work better for both of them; Many employee KiwiSavers will be better off reducing their contributions to 2 per cent after April 1 — but not all; Lending within the family can get complicated when it comes to withholding tax on interest.
Q&As: The possible perils of parents lending a mortgage to adult children; Tips on mortgage reduction from a mortgage broker; How mortgage borrowers could unite to force interest rates down; 2 Q&As on what happens to KiwiSaver money in retirement.
Q&As: Repaying a mortgage — on a home or rental property — almost always better than saving with term deposits; KiwiSaver works well for children; 3 Q&As on charitable Christmas giving.
Q&As: A poem from the past shows how our attitudes to debt have changed. Will they change back again?; Reader wonders how long she has to wait for the government to change the law about employer KiwiSaver contributions.