Finally, in early 2024, I’d had enough of my now-nowhere-near-good-enough accounting systems, so I switched to Hnry to run The Happy Saver accounts. To put it bluntly, I was gobsmacked at the ease of it all. I’m so pleased I’ve eliminated the complexity from my blog's ‘business’ side so I can get back to doing what I enjoy: helping people.
It’s standard for me to get at least one blunt email saying I’m wrong about a financial decision or purchase I’ve made on behalf of my whānau. Generally, the reasoning given will be based on one aspect, often a technical math issue, ignoring all the other points I mentioned. I used to panic that they might be right and that I might have this money stuff entirely and utterly wrong. But I no longer do. Instead, I take their comments with a grain of salt and consider that it’s probably them who are wrong. Although it takes time, often I’ll research their argument and find that they are.
The fact that I never manage to get to the bottom of my inbox because questions about money just keep rolling in tells me that there is a considerable need in Aotearoa for some decent independent financial education and advice. Financial literacy can only come from consistent education, willingness to learn, and taking action. But finding comprehensive information about money is difficult. If you want to understand the basics, get your head in the right space, and make lasting changes to your finances, I’ve got you covered today.
I want to explain why you will often hear me encouraging people to avoid taking out student loans or pay them off as fast as possible if they have them. My suggestion is more controversial than I realised, and I’m often taken to task for my view, particularly by more mathematically minded people. Over almost eight years of talking with people from all walks of life about money, I have found that student loans keep coming up in conversations with former students. The simple reason is that what is considered a relatively innocuous decision to take on interest-free student debt has far wider-ranging implications than those borrowers ever realised at the outset. I kōrero with many people, and the word that keeps coming up regarding student loans is simple: REGRET. The reason they now have regret is that the debt had impacts on their life that they never foresaw.
A year ago, I published a blog post titled “We Sold Some Investments: Putting our version of the 4% Rule to the test!” To cut to the chase, we’ve done it again. Having read about The 4% Rule for years and met many people who had retired early and were using it, back in 2023, we decided that we were not yet ready to retire, but pulling some income off our investments would improve our lives at that time. Finding more available cash without working more hours would allow us to do more of the things we wanted to do.
Congratulations, you have made it to the final blog post in this series of six: INVESTING. Investing can be incredibly complex, but I found a way to simplify it. I used to feel overwhelmed by the options available, but now I don't. I’m hoping to help you feel the same way. But still, this is one of the most challenging blog posts I have EVER written. Condensing “investing” into a single document is no easy feat. The Happy Saver was born out of my search for information about what I could invest our money in. It took me years to arrive at our current strategy, which combines KiwiSaver and ETF investments. Ultimately, I finally found THE perfect information, which I want to share today.
I think of debt as a phase of life I moved through. That period has passed, and I’ve moved on. Jonny and I have now been entirely debt-free since our early 30s, and I encourage you to head down the debt-free path as well. Debt has always had an ‘ick’ factor for me, a feeling I am grateful for. I like earning interest, but I hate paying it. Despite our bank trying to lure us back into debt to buy a rental property, there has never been a day that I/we regretted becoming permanently debt-free. We never have to seek the bank's opinion about our financial decisions again.
The fourth part of this six-part series is one of the easier topics to cover, KiwiSaver. Joining KiwiSaver is a no-brainer, and it still surprises me when I meet people who are not in it. I’m always looking ahead and doing my best to determine what I might need money for and how much I might need. I keep my ear to the ground about how affordable retirement is for New Zealanders. I talk to people over 65 and ask them what advice they would give me about financially preparing for retirement. Then I ask myself if, on my current trajectory, I’m heading in the right direction.
The best thing I ever did was set some cash into a bank account, which we could instantly access in a financial emergency. It is an amount of money set aside in a specific bank account to be used for bailing myself out if something happens that I didn’t otherwise plan for but I need money to pay for. It takes me less than one minute to log into my banking and move money from my emergency account to my spending account.
