All tagged SuperLife
This blog post took ages to research but should make your decision around choosing a KiwiSaver fund easier. Hopefully. This blog post title is a bold claim because the KiwiSaver market is fecking confusing. Still, I felt this was a blog that I had to write because frequently, I respond to emails or have conversations where people ask me point-blank what KiwiSaver fund should they use.
I originally wrote this blog post back in December 2018 and I’ve decided it was time to make a few updates to it so that all those people reading the book for the first time and those who are following along with the Barefoot Investor principles have a good New Zealand resource to come to. If you have read my original post, while it’s still relevant, this one is quite different because it takes into account different providers of services, so I encourage you to read this one too!
Each week I get a lot of emails and it takes up a lot of time, but it’s an honour to answer each of them. People just want someone to ask a money question to but in their day to day lives it’s a complete lottery as to whether they can find the right person in their friend group to talk to, so they write to me instead. So, I just wanted to share with you an edited version of an email exchange I’ve been having with someone over the last few months which will give you an insight into what kind of stuff comes up when I chat to people.
This week I received an email from someone who has stumbled upon the big wide world of investing and at the age of 40 has suddenly had their mind blown with the possibilities. He specifically asked about index funds and I also knew I had met a kindred spirit when he said: “compound interest is a new favourite term”.
Since January 2016 I’ve been drip feeding money into the SmartShares NZ Top 50 fund (FNZ) on a monthly basis. I thought it might be interesting for you to actually see what someone else’s ACTUAL investment looks like because chances are that no one else is going to show you their account balance ;-)
Lynn has been thinking many years ahead to her retirement and was wanting to know how to start to sell down her SuperLife funds. It’s a good question to ask because there is always a lot of content on a website about how and what to purchase, but finding how to divest yourself of your funds over time is a little harder to come by.
A while back I asked you to send me in any questions that you are looking for an answer to and I received well over 100 responses. So, I’ve hand-picked just four to answer today and I'll come back to the others in the future. On with the questions!
I interviewed a bloke for an upcoming episode of my podcast and he had a lot to say about investing in individual shares and why he used to buy them, but now no longer does. He took the advice of a good friend when she told him, back in the 1980s, just buy into today’s equivalent of an index fund and let time in the market be your money’s best friend. Low and behold, she was correct.
When I realised that in order to become an investor I didn’t have to learn how to pick stocks it was like the clouds had parted and the sun had finally come out. And I have American John C. Bogle to thank for that. Last week he passed away at the age of 89 but he leaves a huge legacy behind and I know that in years to come many will still be learning from him, just like I did.
