For the first time this year, your KiwiSaver statement will let you know how much money you can expect to have in retirement. Gillian Boyes from the FMA gives a glimpse into what that might look like, and how contributing just a few per cent more from your salary each week can make all the … Read more
The debate around the affordability and value of NZ Super has flared up once again and many economists have given their two cents on the issue. But with so many variables and unknowns, it’s impossible to give a definitive answer, argues Jenesa Jeram. Figures have recently been released showing that more than 30,000 people are … Read more
Not paying NZ Super out to those on incomes of $100,000 or more would save taxpayers around $608 million. Is it time we shake up who gets paid and what? RNZ‘s Nita Blake-Persen reports. The number of New Zealand retirees getting their superannuation while earning more than $100,000 has topped 30,000, costing taxpayers more than … Read more
How to stop procrastinating and actually (finally) get on top of KiwiSaver. Because there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you don’t know a single thing about it. Read the full series here. In a lot of ways, KiwiSaver is a bit of a misnomer. Sure you’re saving for your future retirement, but … Read more
Life expectancy is increasing all the time, and now actuaries and retirement experts say young people need far more information on what they’ll need to do with their money if they live to 100. Don’t worry, we’re here to help. The message from the Retirement Income Interest Group of the New Zealand Society of Actuaries … Read more
How to stop procrastinating and actually (finally) get on top of KiwiSaver. Because there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you don’t know a single thing about it. Read the full series here. I don’t actually remember ever starting a KiwiSaver, and that’s because I didn’t – my parents started one for me. … Read more
If we want to retain the universality of the benefit for an ageing population, one suggested solution is a new tax, writes interim retirement commissioner Peter Cordtz Who gets what, and who pays? That’s one of the key questions we’re asking as part of this year’s Review of Retirement Income Policies. As the interim retirement … Read more
The FMA’s annual sense check of KiwiSaver shows New Zealanders continue to embrace the scheme but the fees they’re being charged may not be doing them any favours. Who is the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and what’s this report? The FMA is the government gatekeeper for our financial markets, and it is one of several … Read more
Toby Morris looks into the history of inequality in New Zealand – and how a charity is asking our most fortunate generation to help. This content was created in paid partnership with Spend My Super. Learn more about our partnerships here.
When is being unemployed not unemployed? A true measure would show more teens are without jobs than people who have supposedly ‘retired’, writes former Treasury senior staffer Tony Burton. Many New Zealanders feel government is not meeting the needs of the long-term unemployed. Who counts as unemployed remains an issue: A third of your taxes … Read more
The NBR’s Rich List is always a big day for New Zealand’s wealthy elite. So who’s on it, who’s up, who’s down, and how did they get there? Here are 10 things we learned. Technology still isn’t a golden ticket. Among the top 50 entries, there are a grand total of four tech entries. And of … Read more
Long-serving Newstalk ZB Drive host Larry Williams has hung up the headphones at Newstalk ZB, where has been at since the Palaeolithic era. Alex Braae tunes in for the farewell broadcasts. Jack Tame and David Farrar were on The Huddle with Larry Williams for the last time on Wednesday. They’d been a relatively regular pairing, … Read more
In the fifth instalment of our Money Talks series, freelancers Tess Nichol and Alice Webb-Liddall talk about retirement, and having enough money squirrelled away to enjoy it comfortably. For two young writers only a few years into their careers, the thought of being on the other end of their working life seems almost unimaginably far … Read more
The pension probably will still be around when today’s youth retire, but refusing to change the system at all will mean a tougher working life, writes Jenesa Jeram. It’s hard to make young people care about New Zealand Superannuation. I should know. Even when confronted with David Seymour’s warning that “NZ baby boomers are building … Read more
Opposition to a new online homecare service could be a sign of things to come, as the ageing population pits workers’ employment rights against the right of older people to choose who cares for them. Wellington homecare worker Jane* once had an elderly man yell at her and order her to leave the house. Another … Read more
In the first instalment in the Money Talks series, Alice Webb-Liddall and Henry Oliver face up to their finances. As a culture, we’re not very good at talking about money. Financial literacy is hard enough as it is and it’s only made harder by our silence around money issues. We are afraid of discussing our … Read more
Last year Kiwis paid about $340 million in KiwiSaver fees, but who knows if it was a good deal? David Boyle from The Commission For Financial Capability says changes to our annual statements should make it easier to understand what we are paying for. When your KiwiSaver annual statement lands in your letterbox, or inbox, … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Reports detail terrible conditions in rest homes, lawyers called in over Plunket money, and Dunedin students are burning fewer couches. Rest home patients are suffering from bad care and understaffing. The NZ Herald reports in some instances residents are being strapped to chairs all day, and not moved at … Read more
The effects of the gender pay gap don’t only last throughout a woman’s working life – they carry on into her retirement. But there are ways to soften the blow to your KiwiSaver, writes Merewyn Groom. If my recent article Super screwed: How the pay gap wrecks women’s retirements was all a bit depressing, for … Read more
The causes of the gender pay gap can be subtle, but their effects can be dramatic and long-lasting – to retirement and beyond. The gender pay gap in New Zealand is often discussed in terms of hourly wages or represented by the idea that women effectively work for free from 14 November until the New … Read more
The Financial Markets Authority has launched an interactive tool that let’s you access, and compare, basic fund information. Rebecca Stevenson extracts herself from KiwiSaver ennui to take a look at the numbers. I have a confession. I have a KiwiSaver, and yet for the first two years or so I didn’t realise I had it. … Read more
New Zealand’s Super Fund is one of the best performing sovereign wealth funds in the world – and yet isn’t quite what it could have been. Rebecca Stevenson explains what it is and why it matters. An investment vehicle to pay for our future pension payments has something to do with the All Blacks? Well, … Read more
Do the Devonport nimbys have a point? Is it good enough to settle for developments that are merely ‘good enough’? Simon Wilson reports on the retirement village project that has big implications for the whole city. My parents spent their last years at a Ryman Healthcare facility, so I know a little about that company’s … Read more
Gone By Lunchtime meets The Breakfast Club as leading NZ politics podcasters Annabelle Lee, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire splinter desperately into millennial solidarity. In the historic first ever Spinoff Gone By Lunchtime podcast since the arrival of LifeDirect as sponsor of the politics section, we discuss a range of important topical issues, before eventually … Read more
Pushing the retirement age to 67 by 2040 reshapes the debate in election year. The boomers will be happy, but what about the rest of us? Ben Thomas writes It didn’t seem likely during the prime minister’s Monday morning interview circuit, after two studio interviews ended in mocking laughter from media hosts, but Bill English … Read more
In the fifth instalment of our Money Talks series, freelancers Tess Nichol and Alice Webb-Liddall talk about retirement, and having enough money squirrelled away to enjoy it comfortably. For two young writers only a few years into their careers, the thought of being on the other end of their working life seems almost unimaginably far … Read more
Falling interest rates are great news for homeowners – but pocketing your mortgage savings could be the worst financial decision you make, says the Commission for Financial Capability’s David Boyle. A couple of things happened in 1988 that stick in my mind: I got my hands on The Pogues’ album If I Should Fall From … Read more
The Treasury has made it clear that current superannuation policies will turn our country into a debt-ridden basket case, and yet media remain largely silent and politicians in denial. Young people need to get voting in a hurry, writes David Seymour. Back when Prime Minister Rob “leave the country no worse than I found it” … Read more