Smart Money
Looking to make sense of your dollars? Newstalk ZB’s Smart Money delves into the deep, dark recesses of unwanted debt, traverses the highs and lows of investments and helps to ensure you money works for you. Our industry experts give us their top tips on a wide selection of topics including mortgage rates, stock, savings, goal-setting and retirement.
Episodes
We often think of trusts as a way to protect your assets, especially if you work in certain fields - but a surprising number of regular families use them for a range of reasons.
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The hot topic on everyone's minds right now is the price of petrol and diesel.
It seems to be impacting the price of just about everything else, and we're staring down the barrel of a major risk of high inflation.
The OCR remains steady for now, but it's only a matter of time before interest rates are on the up once again.
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Prices are going up.
Food prices are up, and will keep going up alongside fuel. Practically any goods that travel by land air or ocean to get to you will become increasingly unaffordable for the foreseeable future.
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Tensions are high for everyone right now, and I know most people will either be nervously checking their KiwiSaver balance on the daily, or completely ignoring it until things calm down a bit.
The most repeated advice advisors will be giving right now is to simply ignore your balance for the time being - that by the time the first bomb dropped, it was too late to change anything. But is that really true?
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From April 1st, the KiwiSaver minimum default contribution rate will move up to 3.5%.
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We've all found ourselves day dreaming about where we'd spend a big Lotto win at one point or another.
Realistically, many of us will come into a major windfall - but it's likely to come in the form of a bonus at work, or an inheritance.
Is it okay to buy a new car and go on holiday? Or should we invest it all?
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Ethical investing seems to be a hot topic when it comes to choosing an investment fund or KiwiSaver provider.
I've often heard providers boast that their fund is ethical - they avoid weapons manufacturers, focus on renewable and sustainable energy - you won't feel a possible sense of guilt around where your money is going.
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We've started to see spots of what looks to be recovery in our economy over recent months.
It's not consistent, but it's frequent enough to give us some hope for the year to come.
Westpac is picking a whole lot of OCR hikes from the end of this year, and other forecasts seem to set a similar scene - a better economy is coming, and rates will have to reflect that when the time comes.
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Growing older is expensive - much more expensive than most people realise.
When you or a loved one either decides to move into aged care or is forced to do so, the Ministry of Social Development will quickly swoop in to flip through all their finances.
Any assets, gifted funds, trusts, even living rent free - it's all looked at and impacts their chances of government-subsidised care.
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Relationships cost money.
It's not just about date nights at expensive restaurants, fancy shoes, or a new watch for Valentine's Day.
It's moving in together, splitting the power bill, signing on to the rent. At what point in the relationship should you join your finances, and how should you go about it?
Then there's the other side of the relationship - the part no one tends to plan for. The end of it.
Are pr...
As you get older, your health becomes more and more of a worry, so life insurance seems like a no-brainer. But is it? Do you really need it after the mortgage is paid and the kids are on their own?
And what policies are must-haves, against ones that are just nice to have?
Financial Author Martin Hawes joins Tim Beveridge to give his insurance advice and explain the pros and cons of different policies.
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Confidence in New Zealand's rural sector has really started recovering over the past year or so.
Stabilising interest rates, great dairy results, and promising meat exports have formed a foundation for what will hopefully be a successful 2026.
Confidence dropped slightly in the last quarter of last year, but it's still much higher than it has been over previous years.
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Often trust have been seen to be province of the uber wealthy. But are they? And often people don't think about this issue until it is too late
So when should we think about these issues - our family. inheritances and what's gonna happen to our money when we aren't around to look after it?
Managing Director for New Zealand Family Trust Services Limited Janet Xuccoa joins Tim Beveridge to give her advice on trust accounts, and how t...
Last week the Reserve Bank dropped the OCR 25 basis points to 2.25%, but their tone was a bit more hawkish than usual.
Some analysts are thinking it's a signal that rates have gone as low as the RBNZ is willing to drop them - and the new Governor may be wanting to turn a new leaf in 2026.
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We got another OCR cut this week - now down to 2.25% - the lowest it's been since June of 2022.
That was the last one for the year, so a lot of us mortgage holders are trying to figure out whether things are slowing down, and if it's time to fix for a longer term this time around.
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Queues at budgeting services are getting longer, and financial advisors are finding households with increasing incomes are seeking help.
Kiwis with a household income of over $200,000 a year and likely with a mortgage are struggling to make ends meet.
It feels like it was only a few years ago that being on a six figure salary meant you were fairly well off, but it seems it's barely enough to get out of living paycheck t...
Most of us have spent the past few days daydreaming about what we would spend $55 million on.
Pay off the mortgage, book a holiday, send some off to charity, throw the rest in a term deposit.
Three lucky punters each one a share of the jackpot last night - $18.3 million each.
Not many of us will have the chance to come across tens of millions in our lives, but most of us will at some point get a large some from inherita...
The Reserve Bank shocked a lot of us last month when it cut the OCR by 50 basis points down to 2.5%.
Analysts have said that the RBNZ was reading the room and giving kiwis a much needed breather after years of high rates.
Early signs are showing it's starting to have an effect - with the GDP estimate for the September quarter pointing to 0.6% growth and many banks forecasting an optimistic remainder of the year.
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Dame Noeline Taurua was stood down as the coach of the Silver Ferns in September due to 'significant issues' in the team. After many public statements and interviews, she was reinstated at the end of last month.
Netball NZ, her employer, remained just vague enough that the public could allow their imaginations to run wild about what had happened.
Andrew Bayly, MP for Port Waikato, resigned as a Minister after an 'animat...
Trusts are hardly mentioned outside of when wealth tax is in the news, or when someone mentions their accountant told them to get one.
One side of the political aisle seems to have a good list of reasons as to why someone would need a trust, while the other side seems to be convinced that essentially the only reason anyone would have one would be to hide assets.
So what is the real purpose of a trust?
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