Q&As: Banks give teenagers credit too easily; Credit union offers lower-interest deal to credit card borrowers; Retiree “invests in people”; 55-year-old spending while she’s able; Financial adviser struggles with how others do it.
Q&As: 70-year-olds should skip buying unit and spend their savings; How to set up a regular income from bank term deposits; One reader applauds my being tough on those with big credit card debt…; …While another is incensed by it.
Q&As: Banks shouldn’t favour new customers, but reader shouldn’t have big credit card debt; Gold doing OK in NZ dollars, but that’s not the point; Why advisers tend to favour low-risk investments and why they shouldn’t; Banks have a wide range of financial advisers.
Q&As: Priorities for a family making a KiwiSaver financial hardship withdrawal; Use savings to pay off mortgage; Is KiwiSaver really tax-exempt?; How to calculate KiwiSaver tax credit for the year in which you turn 65; Older KiwiSaver goes for riskier funds; Is there age discrimination in KiwiSaver?
Q&As: Is there life after bankruptcy?; Tax on KiwiSaver not as bad as portrayed; Pay highest interest mortgages and other loans first; One reader dislikes my comment on grammar, but three support it.
Financial misbehaviour disappointing. Ironically, a survey on New Zealanders’ financial behaviour was released just days before Christmas — a time of much financial misbehaviour, when everyone’s saying, “I don’t care what it costs, I’ve just got to buy something for Uncle Fred.”
Q&As: Make credit card repayment your top priority; Why KiwiSaver tax credit is not as good as some people think; Revolving credit mortgage could help some unhappy ANZ customers; Reader bombs out on gold, silver, dollar forecasts.
Q&As: Use accessible KiwiSaver money to repay credit card debt, and probably mortgage too; What exactly does growth in GDP mean?; 3 readers are unhappy with charities asking for more…; And a fourth points out how complicated it can get; An error last week about donations to St Johns?; Reader happy with his healthcare insurance.
Let’s educate our way out of 500%+ loans. When I first saw “Annual interest rate 547.50%” on a New Zealand website offering loans, I thought there’d been a mistake. But no. That’s the rate for a small, short-term cash loan from www.savemybacon.co.nz.
How to join the new debt cutting trend. We’re all living through three “great transitions”, said the keynote speaker at a recent conference. One transition is from West to East — with the growing emphasis on China and India, another is from analog to digital, and the third is from debt to saving. Let’s look more at that third transition.