http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/ The latest Blog feeds from www.moneyworks.co.nz en-us Sat, 20 Jun 2026 06:52:48 +1200 Rocketspark http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/166530/mindful-money-best-ethical-financial-adviser-2026/ Carey Church has won the Mindful Money Best Ethical Financial Adviser award for 2026, and we are proud of that. This is work we care about deeply, and recognition from Mindful Money, whose whole purpose is to hold the industry to account on this, means something real to us.Until last year, the award was given to a business rather than an individual. When it changed to an individual award, Rodger Spiller and Carey were named co-winners, which was significant. Rodger has been working in responsibl... Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:27:46 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post166530 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/160133/what-you-need-to-understand-about-retirement-villages-before-you-get-anywhere-near-one/ Retirement villages are often sold as a simple solution. Downsize the house, free up some capital, hand over the maintenance, and move into a community where people look out for each other. For a lot of families, it gets presented as the obvious next step.I want to push back on the word obvious.Retirement villages are one of the most complex financial and lifestyle decisions people make later in life. They sit at the intersection of housing, care, ageing, family dynamics, and money. And in my ex... Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post160133 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/162035/maybe-this-time-it-is-different-what-this-means-for-your-plan/ Last month we wrote about what came through at the Portfolio Construction Forum.Jonathan Pain’s argument that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change what human capability looks like. And Oliver Hartwich’s description of the slow unravelling of the institutional order that investors have relied on, often without realising it, for the past thirty years.It felt different to the usual ‘this time is different’ commentary. We stand by that.But we also said the right response is not ... Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post162035 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/162611/new-zealand-is-finally-getting-a-modern-slavery-bill-here-is-why-you-should-care/ Most people, when they hear the phrase modern slavery, picture something that happens somewhere else. In supply chains on the other side of the world. In countries with weak laws and weaker enforcement. Not here.That assumption is wrong.Modern slavery is not a historical term.It is a broad description for a range of practices where people are exploited, coerced, or controlled in ways that strip them of their freedom.Forced labour. Human trafficking. Debt bondage.Situations where someone is worki... Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post162611 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/162033/maybe-this-time-is-different--part-one/ Most years since 2009, we have attended the Portfolio Construction Forum, a conference based in Sydney that we follow each year.It is one of the better investment conferences on the calendar. The quality of the speakers is consistently high, and the format forces you to think rather than just absorb a presentation.Over the years we have heard some very good calls, and some that turned out to be wrong. We have also heard the phrase ‘this time is different’ regularly, at conferences and in the... Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post162033 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/159399/what-ethical-investing-can-and-cannot-do/ This is the final post in a three-part series on evolving ethical concern.It is important to be clear about limits. Ethical investing cannot fix global politics. It cannot force cooperation between nations. It cannot stop powerful people from behaving badly.What it can do is help you draw boundaries around what you are prepared to support with your money.That means deciding which kinds of behaviour you are willing to profit from, and which you are not. It means choosing not to fund the worst abu... Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post159399 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/160348/what-does-us-exposure-really-mean-in-your-portfolio/ Over the past year, more and more people have asked some version of the same question.“How exposed am I to the US?”It’s a fair question. The US dominates global sharemarkets, US politics fills the news, and many of the companies people recognise most are American. When markets feel uncertain, it’s natural to want to know whether too much of your money is tied to one country.But in practice, that question often mixes together two very different concerns. Untangling them makes the conversa... Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post160348 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/163585/when-the-rules-turn-out-not-to-mean-very-much/ Over the last couple of years, we have been having a particular kind of conversation more often.A client will ask whether they own Palantir. Or Tesla. Or how much of their portfolio is sitting in Amazon. Sometimes it is about a specific company that has been in the news. More often it is a quieter question about what their money is actually doing while they get on with their lives.These are good questions. They are also harder to answer than people expect.In mid April the High Court delivered a ... Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:29:10 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post163585 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/157652/kiwisaver-2040-where-the-system-could-be-heading--and-what-that-means-for-you/ Over the next 15 years, KiwiSaver is likely to become a far more significant pillar of New Zealand's retirement system. Several converging trends, demographic, political, economic and technological, will reshape how people contribute, invest and ultimately draw down their savings.The biggest change already signalled is the proposed gradual rise in default contribution rates, reaching 6% each for employees and employers by 2032. This shift could double the long-term balances of today's younger me... Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post157652 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/160130/spending-is-changing-what-does-that-mean-for-your-investments/ Recently, I signed up to a spending monitoring and budgeting app for $120 a year. I did it partly out of curiosity, and partly because I wanted to test it properly before ever considering whether it might be useful for clients. What I did not expect was how quickly it pushed me into thinking more broadly about consumption, not just at a household level, but at an economy-wide level.At the same time, I have been reading more research from fund managers about how people are spending their money no... Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post160130