The more I blog and the more emails I receive from people, the more I realise that people just want to know pretty much exactly what OTHER people are doing with their money. I’ve had a number of questions about how I structure our bank accounts. Like exactly how. I figure that as long as I don’t tell you my login details, then what’s the harm huh?
I’ve waited a long time to fill out my own Net Worth Millionaire Questionnaire! YES, our net worth has finally ticked over from 6 numbers to 7 and it’s fair to say I’m delighted. But what is the purpose of me and other people sharing this information? It’s so that you can apply it to your own situation and see the variety of ways that other Kiwi’s have created wealth for themselves and know that it is possible for you as well.
From time to time I take an hour to google personal finance-related media that is close to home here in New Zealand. It’s not exactly plentiful and it all too often revolves around my least favourite topic of housing or the proliferation of easy credit and how as a country we think it’s a good idea to educate our children about money, but then fail to do so. On this last topic, I’m all for educating our kids, but when I read on, we always seem to focus on the “why we should” yet lack the “how we should”. It always leaves me wondering about the financial education of my own child.
I’ve been getting a few emails and comments along the lines of “can you please consider a post about your overall investment portfolio.” My investing strategy is pretty simple and straightforward and I can't help but think that those who work day in day out in the finance space will scoff and laugh at my lack of analysis and strategy. But don’t scoff too hard, because it appears to be working just fine, thank you. Here is how I allocate the money that comes into my life.
As 2019 drew to a close one of the things I was looking forward to was the fact I get to start a whole new BUDGET for 2020! I’m telling you this in my first blog post of the decade because I’m convinced that tracking income and expenses are a major reason why and how people take control of their money.
Christmas at my house when I was growing up was always a busy, crowded and fun time. We used to receive heaps of Christmas cards and the most exciting ones were the cards that contained the “annual Christmas letter” from the sender. So, I thought I would write you a Christmas Newsletter from my whanau, with a personal finance twist of course…
Each week I get a lot of emails and it takes up a lot of time, but it’s an honour to answer each of them. People just want someone to ask a money question to but in their day to day lives it’s a complete lottery as to whether they can find the right person in their friend group to talk to, so they write to me instead. So, I just wanted to share with you an edited version of an email exchange I’ve been having with someone over the last few months which will give you an insight into what kind of stuff comes up when I chat to people.
A few weekends ago a young guy was scanning my groceries and he was chatting away about his final exam and his finish date. When I asked him what he had planned for the summer, he said he will be working for about 35 hours a week. Although I was desperate to ask him the finer details of his financial life, I didn’t want to freak this young guy out so I kept my questions to myself. But my absolute main one was “what is a 16-year-old proposing to do with all the money they will make this summer?
Way back in February 2019 I created an account with Hatch, they were a very new startup at that time and many people had sent me emails asking me to look into them. They have created a simple and intuitive platform that has cut out a lot of the jargon and brokerage fees and made it pretty straight forward for you and I to invest in the biggest companies in the world.
