The Financial Planning Series - 2026
Financial planning is not just about the number you retire with. It is about the decisions that number needs to support: when you can stop working, what a property is actually costing you, how prepared you are for risks that do not show up in a portfolio, and what you are actually working toward.
This series looks at the parts of financial planning that deserve more than a quick answer, drawing on real client situations and the research behind them.
Each paper is free to read and download — no sign-up required.
White Paper #1 — You Can't Eat Bricks
Investment properties, baches, and the costs that reshape a retirement.
Rates, insurance, and maintenance on a second property have all been rising faster than everyday costs, and few retirement plans account for what that adds up to over fifteen or twenty years. This paper looks at what property actually costs to hold, what it needs to earn to justify a place in a retirement plan, and the growing risk of a property becoming difficult or impossible to insure.
An asset can be real, solid, and still not pay its way.
White Paper #2 — Seventy Is the New Fifty
What longer lives mean for financial planning, and why most planning frameworks have not caught up yet.
A seventy-year-old today has the cognitive ability of a fifty-three-year-old in 2000, and a retirement lasting twenty-five to thirty years is no longer unusual. Most financial plans were not built for that. This paper looks at what longer, less predictable retirements mean for the decisions people make, from how spending actually unfolds to why 'doing nothing' is sometimes the soundest strategy available.
Seventy is the new fifty, but only if the plan behind it has caught up too.
White Paper #3 — What Do You Actually Want?
How financial clarity changes what people feel free to do, now and in future.
Most financial plans start with a number: a retirement age, a target balance, an income. This paper starts one step earlier, with whether a person is free to live the life they want. It looks at three forms of unease that recur when people see their numbers for the first time: reluctance to stop working, reluctance to reduce insurance cover once the modelling shows it is no longer needed, and difficulty starting to spend money that has been carefully saved.
Anonymised examples show what changes once the position is clear, including a plan that showed more time was needed, and the paper looks at what clarity is worth at 35, 45 and 55.
The aim is a plan that gives people the clarity to decide for themselves and the confidence to act on what they decide.
Moneyworks NZ Ltd
P: 0800 225 621
E: contact@moneyworks.co.nz
7c Hall Street, Cambridge 3434
Licensed Financial Advice Provider - FSP 15281
Regulatory Information: Moneyworks is a Licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP15281), and AML Reporting Entity and is supervised by the Financial Markets Authority.