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…
April 2018 saw a number of shocking revelations of the behaviour of the four main Australian Banks and AMP. All of these companies operate in New Zealand (ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASB), National Australia Bank (BNZ), Westpac and AMP). These have kept coming throughout May, with more information on various questionable practices from the…
The four main Australian banks and AMP are significant providers of financial services in New Zealand. They have the vertically integrated organisations that exist in Australia (selling their own products and clipping the ticket at each stage). They also have incentive programmes for employees to sell products and KPI’s for them to retain their jobs…
Background In 1997 when I set up Moneyworks, there were very few options to operate in an ‘independent’ manner. After a lot of research, I selected AXA (for insurance) and Armstrong Jones (for investment) as the two key providers for our clients. The respective decisions were made on their competitiveness for our target clients, and…
This article is from the Daily Mail in the UK via the NSZ Herald. A little bit of light relief. These are my favourites (Actually that was hard as there are some classics, but I managed to get ti down to three) 
Over the last ten years, the number of ‘index’ products has ballooned. An index, an artificially constructed conglomeration of shares that can be used as a benchmark for investing. ETF’s (Exchange Traded Fund) are a financial solution which invest peoples funds in a way that replicates indexes, there are currently 5,300 of these funds worldwide.…
When our clients discuss their travel plans, we are pretty heavy handed on insisting that they put in place travel insurance (and good quality insurance too). Your credit card insurance might be good quality – read the wording and policy document. It is vital that you know the rules of your travel insurance. In particular,…
Many of my parents friends are in their mid 80’s and only now starting to suffer from illnesses. These people were born in the late 1920’s and during the 1930’s, when life was different, getting chores done was far more physical than today and medical care was not as developed as now. Yet, they are…
When we are creating our Retirement Savings Analysis for our clients these days, we calculate how long your money is going to last based on the assumptions of saving and spending that you establish with us. As you are likely to live longer than you might think, we make sure that this information shows you…
Although part of a full financial planning process involves looking at the role of your insurances in achieving your goals this is NOT what I want to talk about today. I also don’t want to talk about how mis-managing your money can cause you stress and affect your health (When I googled health and financial…
Roger Federer and the Robot (and of course Jura coffee) This one is always a good one to make you laugh. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal cant stop laughing when they are trying to record a promotional vido. And Roger Federer again, this time with Nike Finally – if you are enjoying these –…
I can’t recall the rationale that we used, when we first went to the Australian Open Tennis in Melbourne in 2007, for choosing which days to attend, but it has worked well for us. After going to the tennis every year for five years, we took a long break, until deciding that 2018 was the…