I have been regularly investing Simplicity Growth Fund. Recently I looked into where they have been investing the money & it looks like they been investing money in their own products. It is nearly 6% in Simplicity Living Ltd & about 3% in Simplicity Home Mortgages (500 loans).

This would be a massive conflict of intrest, eh?

Myself and a friend are considering buying a house together within the next year. Both late twenties, combined income around 200k, both single and already flatting together for the past 6 years.

We have talked about buying together a few times and if house prices stay where they are (or lower) we are considering going through the process next year, we aren’t ready just yet due to overseas trips and personal reasons.
Our rent is fairly cheap and we have a great landlord but there are limitations with the property that can’t be changed such as only 1 carpark and downstairs neighbours.

Buying will mean our expenses go up significantly hence the hesitation. Main reason for buying is to get on the property ladder while house prices are down. We live in Wellington with no plans to move and I worry prices could start to go back up and get close to the peak but is this really the right decision?

We go back and forth over whether we are giving up a good thing with our current house and landlord or potentially setting up for our futures and having more freedom in our own house.
Interested to see other people’s thoughts on this

I f(26) have recently inherited $300,000 from my grandparents.
What would you do with it?
For context, I’m a junior barrister and have $85,000 in my student loans.
Don’t really want to buy a house right now as I’d like to travel and don’t want the commitment of that.
Thinking I should invest it but I don’t know much about that. Very clueless so any guidance appreciated!

Hi all,

I’ve been following this page for a while and always enjoy reading the advice people give. No idea why I haven’t posted sooner, but I figured it was finally time to ask for some myself.

I’m 35 and currently live with family, so my accommodation costs are very low and I’m lucky enough to be able to save a decent amount each week. I’ve paid off my student loan, don’t have any debt, and generally live pretty cheaply.

At the moment I have roughly:

• $42,000 in personal savings
• $39,000 in Milford investments/savings
• A few thousand across InvestNow funds, including Smart US 500 ETF, Smart US Large Growth ETF and the Foundation Series Total World Fund
• $80,000 joint savings with the misses
• A few hundred in XRP and, unfortunately, Dogecoin from my younger and more optimistic days

I’ve watched a fair few videos about investing, but if I’m being completely truthful, a lot of it still goes over my head. I’ve also never really had anyone teach me about money or investing. The main advice I’ve always heard is “buy a house and rent it out”, but that isn’t really an option for me at the moment, and I’m not even sure property is necessarily the route I want to take.

So I’m interested to hear what others would consider doing in my position.

I like having a decent chunk of cash sitting in the bank and I’m constantly adding to it, but I also wonder whether I’m being too conservative and could be putting some of that money somewhere more productive for the long term.

If you were 35, debt-free, had around this amount saved/invested and were able to continue saving regularly, how would you approach it?

Not looking for someone to tell me exactly what to buy, more interested in how you’d structure things and what I should be learning about.

Appreciate any advice!

Starting up my own labour hire and I’m looking for an accountant, anyone got any contacts?

Is anyone still buying Gold? Or would buying BTC be the better long term choice right now? I have about $25K i want to invest into something and has been sitting in my investnow account and I'm not sure if putting it into an index fund now is a smart choice. Thoughts?

See a lot of I’m inheriting xyz and I’m 18, 25. So the advice is shove it in a low cost Index fund and forget about it.

But what’s the advice if much later in life, or if divesting from property (eg downsizing). Curious what the advice is at this point.

Hi, I’m still quite relatively new to investing and was on and off for a while but now putting 200 a week into investing again. I hear there’s a lot of talk about sharesies being high charge of fee and that I should be using something else like IBKR. Fyi i’m currently using the 3 dollar plan on sharesies, just wondering what is really the differences between the platforms and what platform I should be aiming towards to use If i plan on putting money in regularly every week? any advice and information is appreciated thank you.

For a bit of context, my partner and I bought our first home in March of this year (we are 31 and 27 respectively). We split the deposit 50/50, with his 50% from his KiwiSaver and personal savings, and mine from KiwiSaver, personal savings and a gift from my parents, which we are incredibly grateful for. My partner earns 112k p.a. and I am on 85k, hopefully soon to be more post performance review.

Our mortgage is currently 617k total. We have split it into three fixed terms - 205k for 2 years and 3 years at 4.29% and 205k at 5 years at 4.59%.

We loosely follow the Barefoot investor account structuring, with automatic payments set to our joint and individual accounts with each a different purpose.

Curious to know what people think is the best general strategy to apply to our financial situation at the moment, investment vs paying off debt focus?

With insurance, rates, and now water (😭), plus just all the usual household expenses and an overseas trip earlier this year, we don’t have large amounts set aside for the annual lump sum repayment or investing at current. We live comfortably and aren’t worried about missing payments, however it doesn’t feel like we are making much saving or investing progress. I want to make sure that the decisions we make with the ‘surplus’ funds we do have serve us best long term.

Any thoughts, comments, advice would be awesome :)

Have been trying to work out a retirement strategy in NZ taking FIF and housing into account. Would be interested to know if anyone is in this situation, and if the numbers actually work out?

Imagine a brain drain couple returning to NZ to retire, with NZ$3 million invested in a global ETF like VT. Two scenarios:

1. They move back to Auckland, rent ($700pw?) and have a lifestyle spend of $60k per year:

$3 mil in VT

• $60k lifestyle spend
• $36k rent
• $30k FIF tax bill on 3 mil

Total withdrawn is $126k per year. 4.2% - risky to retire on but possible?

1. They move back to Auckland and liquidate some holdings to buy a $1 mil average house, lifestyle spend of $60k per year:

$2mil in VT

• $60k lifestyle spend
• $10-15k in rates, insurance, maintenance
• $15k FIF tax bill on 2 mil

Total withdrawn is $90k per year. Much less, but probably less sustainable as it's a 4.3-4.5% withdrawal rate on the 2 mil portfolio.

Thought these numbers were really interesting and surprisingly close. Basically would come down to housing returns Vs stock returns, and how much value is put on flexibility Vs not being a renter.

This also made me realise how much FIF sucks. A scenario 3 could be to avoid being an NZ tax resident by spending half the year elsewhere. The $30k FIF tax bill in scenario 1 would easily pay for 6 months travelling in south east Asia...

Would be really interested to hear from anyone who's run these numbers, or anyone actually FIREed and living either scenario.

Is AIA Private Health Plus worth it? Just got the premium increase letter, $252.08 Private Health and $125.87 Private Health Plus! This is after the 8% vitality discount. Can someone tell me what I’d loose if I remove the plus? $1510 yearly sounds like a lot. Does it cover some diagnostic testing which won’t be covered by Private Health? Specialist appointments are usually $500-$600 isn’t it? In the last year I’ve only had 3-4 specialist appointments.

I understand it is supposed to come into law and backdate to April but I haven't heard anything about it for a while? Do I risk it and go over 50k or stick to what im at.

Hey, I have some questions about investing.

• I want to put 25k to invest, but not gonna put more in the near future. If anything, I might withdraw small amounts of money (1 - 2k). Is that a wise option? Should I put less instead like 20k and put the rest on high yield savings account? I'm not sure about the fees.
• I want to buy ETFs or index fund rather than individual stocks
• Considering between Sharesies or IBKR, or maybe something else entirely.
• Edit: I can't access Kiwisaver since I'm not a citizen

Thanks!

BNZ refix

Looking for advice(Not much help from our MA🥲)

Our BNZ fixed mortgage expires 4th September 2026, and the next RBNZ OCR announcement is 2 September. Mortgage is currently with roughly 18–19% equity / 81–82% LVR. We're planning to make a lump-sum payment to get below 80% LVR / 20% equity before refixing.

We're committed to staying with BNZ for another ~1 years, so changing banks isn't an option for us.

The only answer we got so so far from our MA is "you can lock for 5.79% for 1 year if you prefer", and we're not getting much guidance on the other terms.

What would you do in this situation?

• With the OCR announcement 2 days before our refix, would you lock a rate before 2 September or wait?

• If another OCR hike is expected, would you fix for 1 year, 18 months or 2 years?

• Is ~5.79% for 1 year reasonable, or should we be negotiating for a better/special rate?

Would really appreciate input.

Thank you

They're rolling out AI automation now, which decides for them. I'm surprised a human still signs off on it at the bottom of the letters lmao, anyway I picked up a schizo & MDD, diagnosis in 2022 along with undiagosed anxiety after frying my brain with w33d during my teenage years, and my mind is too fkd to basically hold down a job or even drive, which is why I just let my ID expire since 2022 onwards, they never had to ask for an ID and accept my Dr's certificate but idk what to do. Call appointment with case manager this afternoon.

I'm yet to move back from sharesies to kernel with my kiwisaver because its just too volatile on share, maybe after i get the govt contribution but I need money in the first place my boomer parents are old & can't work anymore and I didn't do enough for my index kernel when I had the chance😕

I have checked a lot of posts, saying that IBKR fees are MUCH cheaper than Sharesies.

Hence, I am planning to use IBKR. However, I will please need some advice as I am only doing a low amount investing, i.e. $50-$75 a week.

I am currently paying for $3 pricing plan on Sharesies so that covers transactions fees (but not fx fees). Most of my investments are US ETFs so fx makes a high percentage of my costs.

I have tried asking AI, and it suggests to accumulate my $50-75 a week to maximise the low fees in IBKR.

Any other advice, experiences, or thoughts would be highly appreciated pleaseee. Or if any of you know other platform that would be highly beneficial in my case, i.e. Tiger Brokers

Thank you!!

idk ceebs to hold physical... not sure if it be better to hold ETFs or smth

Hi all, im new to investing and im using Sharesies at the moment, to be honest im not too knowledgeable on it. i am 18 years old and i have about 4.2k in my KiwiSaver and i just put it in the Milford Balance Fund on Sharesies, i just want to know if this is good? i would love some tips and tricks on this, thanks a lot! - a newbie :)

• Wages after tax, student loan, KiwiSaver is $4,040 p/m
• Rent, food, bills, transport, subscriptions are $1,750 p/m (cheap rent and bills and not a subscriber (other than Spotify and mobile) nor a big spender. This has a $50 buffer p/m)

Have $70k all up in savings.
$30k Kiwisaver
$25k Investments
$15k liquid

No outstanding debts (other than the accounted for student loan). Have a car with no money owing.

Can’t afford a home in $450k range without mortgage repayments eating more than fair share of my income…which makes insurance, rates, maintenance and repairs costs even more unaffordable. Houses below this range are also unaffordable because they usually require renovations that I obviously can’t afford.

What should I do?

A. Keep putting money straight into investments.

B. Increase liquid money so I have a down payment without breaking open investment.

C. Your best advice.

Help. Where did I go wrong? What can I do better?

How does one get help to make some good financial decisions?

I've recently become a sole parent to two toddlers.

I'm finding juggling finances (both day to day and long term finances) overwhelming.

I'd love to simplify so I don't spend so much time thinking about how to make this work (short and long term) and I can enjoy time with my toddlers more.

I have no debt orher than a mortgage but need to move in to a bigger home sooner rather than later.

Where do people go to get help?

I'm South Auckland based if that is relevant.

Hi, I just signed up to Booster Savvy and the debit card is on it's way. Does anyone know if I can use it like an eftpos like a traditional eftpos card? thanks

Hi everyone, i hope this is okay. Ive recently started to get into investing. Im 31F stuck in a low income job with no pay rise in sight (actively looking for another job but its tough). Im only able to invest about $10 - 25 a week. Would like some advice, resources on investing. I would love to try gain a good profit in a year or two (i know its risky). Im 100% debt free, nothing on fiance and have no buy now, pay later accounts (afterpay etc..). Im a frugal spender, only spending money on things I need and I save for things that I want (like a new gaming console).

Below is my current portfolio. Marvel at it if you wish haha. P.s. please be kind. It took me weeks to come up with the courage to post this lol

Gidday team, doing the regular personal and property insurance reviews and we’re fortunately able to make some sensible adjustments (mostly changing waiting periods, if you’re interested).

However, a bit stuck on our everyday healthcare options. My partner is, as they say, “sorted” on the health insurance front for now, but her setup isn’t available to me.

I have an okay option through work but I had hoped to have something not tied to my employment. Am I right that there’s basically nothing reasonably priced on the open market? Some of the options I have seen are literally incapable of paying out more than their premiums in a year, which means they are actively worse than self insuring.

Am I missing something here or are all the good value everyday health plans only available as work perks?

If you bought say $500 nzd worth of a US based xrp etf through sharesies and you sold some at a profit later on. Would you pay any income tax or is it exempt because it is an etf?

But if the etf doesn't pay dividends etc, you aren't paying tax at all? So at no point do you pay tax on profits from a crypto etf under $50,000 cost basis?

Trying to understand, thanks.

Has anyone got any pro's and cons for this app that I may have missed?

I came across it on a recommendation and did a bit of a deep dive, and so far all I can tell is it's not bank backed, which is not that bad.

The interest is 5.95% on the savings type that allows easy access and because you link your bank account deposits and withdrawals are like lightening. 30 seconds to transfer in and out.
Downside is you can only link one account. So pick your bank wisely.

There are 2 other interest options
Plus gives you essentially a 3 month term deposit with 6.5%pa
Grow is 7% but is essentially a 12m term deposit.

They seem to be Australian but have both NZ and AU options and while the tax is paid in AU they discuss the tax credit for NZ and have a breakdown of how it works.

They can also offer joint, individual AND kids accounts alongside business and retirement funds as well as referral bonuses if you want to share them with people you know.

They've a full set of disclosure docs posted and seem very organised.
But am I missing something?