All in Investment
Now, we Kiwi’s don’t like to self congratulate, it’s frowned upon. But stuff it, I’m going to… This week marks one year since I started this blog! Cripes, I can’t believe it has gone by so quick AND that I have managed to dream up something to discuss each week.
All your working life you are trying to increase your net worth so that when you finally stop working you start to slowly spend it to live on. If upon retirement each year you take 4% out of your pot of savings it will take about 30 years to boil the pot dry. So what can you live on a year? Do you need to invest $100K, $200 or $500K?
Is it just me or are people confusing saving for a house with saving for retirement? I keep hearing about first home buyers all the time and how difficult it is to get into the market. But the question I keep asking myself is “why do people use their KiwiSaver as their primary mode of saving for a deposit?”
Investing is like shopping for toothpaste. There is a range of companies offering a very similar product. There are differences, most of which are minor and you just have to cut through all the jargon and choose an option. If you get too bogged down in the detail it just all becomes too difficult and you will end up doing nothing.
Over the years I have heard about forestry as an investment. I even toyed with the idea of our own Christmas Tree Farm as a side hustle. It is a REALLY long term investment as you wait for the trees to grow… But grow they will which then begs the question of whether it is worth the initial investment and the really really long wait.
Back in July 2016 I helped Mr Happy Saver hook up with some SmartShares. He only bought a very small amount because it was always my intention to use it as an experiment to blog about. Today is sale day!
Significant moments help to shape the people we are today and that got me wondering why I’m a saver and not a spender. This is one of my significant money memories that influenced me for ever after and hopefully helps me to do things right, more than I do things wrong.
It is important to track your net worth. How else can you know where you are financially so that you can plan for the future? The most important thing is to understand your financial position today so you can be moving in the right direction.
I have been hearing a lot for a long while about the fees that we pay to our KiwiSaver providers and that over the lifetime of the fund we are paying well above the odds for the service we get. Apparently we should be outraged. I have finally removed my head from the sand and took a closer look this week.
