http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/ The latest Blog feeds from www.moneyworks.co.nz en-us Wed, 04 Nov 2026 00:17:17 +1300 Rocketspark http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/167636/protecting-what-you-have-built/ Protecting What You Have BuiltA client of ours invested over $100,000 with a company calling itself FX Revenues. She had chosen not to discuss it with us beforehand, acknowledging later that she had expected we would say no. The investment portal showed consistent growth. When she asked to withdraw, FX Revenues cited contract terms requiring a minimum number of trades, then demanded additional funds to release the original investment. When her bank confirmed it was a scam, FX Revenues stopped re... Thu, 05 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post167636 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/160479/what-insurance-retreat-means-for-your-retirement-plan/ Peter and I are both children of civil engineers. That shapes you more than you realise at the time. From a young age we were told, very plainly, don’t build too close to water. Rivers flood. The sea does what it wants. And be very careful about houses on slopes because gravity always wins in the end.It wasn’t dramatic or ideological. It was practical. It was about understanding risk and respecting it.Those conversations have influenced the way we have looked at property over the years. We h... Thu, 05 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post160479 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/170989/the-sessions-advisers-actually-needed/ The RIAA conference, run by the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia, is the one event that brings together almost everyone working in responsible and ethical investing in New Zealand.I have presented most years, sometimes twice in a year. Paul has done it once too.What the conference has not done well, for a long time, is the sessions built specifically for financial advisers. The RIAA board is made up of people who are not advisers, and the adviser sessions had become something of... Mon, 02 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post170989 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/169771/the-solar-farm-inside-your-kiwisaver/ Most people who ask me what their KiwiSaver fund actually owns are picturing shares and bonds. Companies they could look up on the stock exchange this afternoon and see a price for.A small number of KiwiSaver funds also hold something else. A stake in a company with no listed share price at all, because it has never been listed anywhere.What a private asset actually isThese are called private assets. In plain terms, a company that is not traded on a public exchange, and whose shares cannot be bo... Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post169771 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/166454/the-other-way-to-give/ By 9.45 on a U3A Cambridge morning, the doors have been open for fifteen minutes and the room is already more than half full. Not people sitting waiting for something to start, but people talking, laughing, catching up over coffee. The lecture does not begin until 10.30. They are there because they want to be, and they are happy about it. When the speaker finishes, they do not leave. They stay to talk to each other and to the person at the front, sometimes for a long time. We get thank you email... Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post166454 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/170990/deciding-what-we-can-live-with/ I was at an RIAA conference session on geopolitics and sovereign risk, listening to two fund managers explain how they navigate ethical investing when the world gets complicated. One story from that session is worth telling in full.John Berry runs Pathfinder, an ethical fund manager most New Zealand advisers know well. He told the room about the moment weapons exclusions in ethical investing stopped being straightforward.Excluding weapons manufacturers used to be simple. You could point to a com... Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post170990 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/167614/what-do-you-actually-want/ Most people start a financial planning conversation with a number in mind. A retirement age. A target balance. An income they think they will need. These starting points are useful, but they are rarely the whole story.What you are usually working out, beneath the number, is whether you are free to live the life you want. Can you leave work you no longer enjoy? Can you stop when you choose to, rather than when you finally have no option? Can you spend on things that matter without a background se... Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post167614 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/170987/mining-is-needed-but-it-makes-a-mess/ Mining is needed, but it makes a messI moderated a panel at the RIAA conference In Septemberå called "Can Mining Be A Responsible Investment?", and my co-panellist was Jessica Cairns from Alphinity Investment Management. We’ve worked with Alphinity for more than 5 years, so I already knew how carefully they think about this, but I still find mining one of the harder calls we make for clients.Someone on Alphinity’s sustainability committee has a line Jessica quoted on stage, and I haven’t ... Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:02:22 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post170987 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/167588/seventy-is-the-new-fifty/ The clients we have worked with for twenty-five years or more are sometimes the most instructive. Many of them do not feel much different from when we first met them. They have left full-time work, but they have not left the picture. A number are consulting two or three days a week. Some moved into governance roles after finishing their main careers and have stayed there for a decade or more. We have clients in their seventies who have ridden the Tour Aotearoa more than once.This is not anecdote... Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post167588 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/166450/why-we-give-the-way-we-give/ There was a story in the Cambridge News earlier this year about a local man with significant physical disabilities who gets around on a mobility scooter. His scooter has been breaking down. People in his community noticed, and someone started a fundraiser to get him a new one. That story stuck with us, not because it is unusual, but because it captures something that feels increasingly rare in the way we think about giving: someone saw a specific need, told the story honestly, and asked for help... Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post166450