A friend of ours (lets call him Joshua) unwittingly got caught up in a fraudulent ‘prize winning’ scheme recently and lost $7,000. He gave the scammers his passport details and bank account details, and they started to harrass him by phone for more money and got angry when they asked for a receipt for the…
I have mentioned ‘The Sketch Guy’, Carl Richards before, he does a column in The New York Times and has some great ideas for us to share with you. This is the latest idea and it resonated with me. As Carl says: Here’s a super loaded question: Is it worth it? We ask this question a…
There are many things that can have an impact on the value of a share investment – from the industry outlook, the local and global environment, to a consideration of who the Directors and Executive Management of the business are and what their business track records are. As well as the obvious issues, there are…
This is a TED talk that struck a chord with me. It is a British Economist talking about whether everything needs to keep growing forever – and pointing out that in nature things have a limit to their growth – then they explode or die. She has developed her ‘doughnut’ theory, which makes a lot…
To get your money working for you (instead of you continuing to work until you die to have enough money to live off), a portion of your investment portfolio needs to be invested in shares (or equities). Owing shares of a company means that you are an owner. You participate in the success of the…
My morning newsletter from The Economist is a valuable part of my day – even when I am too busy to read all the other newsletters, I save the Economist newsletters to check when I have time. The newsletter has between 3 and 5 summaries of articles, and you can get a limited free subscription. …
Warren Buffet is pretty much the most successful investor ever, he is a legend and 42,000 people went to the AGM of his company (that he owns with Charlie Munger, they are both in their late 80’s now) this year. This is an excellent video to give you a feel for the long term impact…
Every now and then I come across an article that is so important, that I just have to share it with you. Susan Edmunds wrote this article in Stuff – and I thought it the nail on the head. So this blog post is really just sharing it with you! Here’s why you shouldn’t put…
Over the years, we have set up quite a lot of diversified investment accounts for our clients for their children and grandchildren. Time is a powerful ally of the investor – with us seeing more and more Grandparents keen to invest on behalf of their Grandchildren. As we know investing money for a child’s future…
Taxation The taxation environment for residential property in New Zealand has changed quite a bit in the last five years and is likely to continue to change. MANAGING A RENTAL PROPERTY Paying tax on income received If you are renting out a rental property, you will have to pay tax on the income that you…
While it may seem easy to ‘buy a property’ and watch it go up in value, as you have your own home and know how that works, and at some time you have probably rented a property, it isn’t always plain sailing. Not all tenants are ‘dream tenants’ and there are a lot of potential…
Over the last few months we have had far more than usual queries from our clients about whether they should invest in residential rental property. This has come about as people see prices of properties soaring throughout the country, and as people own their own home, the thinking is ‘it can’t be that hard, you…