When women pay the price for paying the bills, with Nadine Higgins

Rising costs are hitting every household in Aotearoa, but for many women there’s an added weight – the invisible job of managing the family’s money. In this episode of The Little Things, hosts Francesca Rudkin and Louise Ayrey admit they’ve ended up as the “household CFOs”, juggling bills and budgets by default.

They’re joined by financial advisor and Herald columnist Nadine Higgins, who shares why women are often better investors than they think, how to reframe a restrictive “budget” into a practical spending plan, and the surprising rule of thumb for building an emergency fund.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, I'm Franchesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Area. And this
is season five of our New Zealand Herald podcast The
Little Things. Good to have you with us, And.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
As podcast we talk to experts, we find out all
little things you need to know to improve all areas
of your life and cut through the confusion and overload
of information out there.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Now. I'm traditionally not great at talking about this topic.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Money.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, just wasn't in our family culture growing up, and
I suffer from that collective frustration as well of the
cost of everything. But you know that's moaning about it
is not all that helpful. I need to know where
to start to address what I can control. So today
we're discussing the challenges we face and hopefully get some
idea about where we might take a bit of the

(00:46):
power back when it comes to our financial well being.
As part of the mental load, many women are responsible
for the day to day finances in their home and
with the cost of living crisis and an unstable employment market,
this has sort of become a little bit more stress,
hasn't it for everybody across the board. So today we're
going to get an audit of sorts to find ways
to keep rising costs under control, especially as new data

(01:09):
reveals financial discomfort among women at an all time high.
So you're not on your own noise, No, I definitely
know I'm not alone, because if I go for a
walk with a friend of everything, it genuinely comes up.
And I think it's important to acknowledge here that you
and I are both very fortunate. We are not have
not we are doing okay, doing okay, and yet we

(01:33):
are very much struggling to keep on top of rising
costs when it comes to not just those day to
day costs at the supermarket, but if you've got insurance.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Or our rates bill.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I'm like, oh, my goodness, the difference in a couple
of years that's made. And you know, I'm quite good
at my budgets and things, and I'm really taken back,
and I can look back on one of my home
budgets and see the increase in just a couple of
years across the board with pretty much every utility and everything,
and I'm kind of a point on lie, oh my gosh.

(02:06):
If I'm struggling, I'm sure that there is a lot
of people out there who are worse off. Than me.
Who are you know, I really understand.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Oh, they having to make and they're having to make
some really significant choices about heating their home or you know,
having a meal. Right, So we're not we're not talking
about that today. We're talking more about that just general
of the cost of living for a lot of us.
And I agree with you about the rates and things
because I pay everything. I pay a lot of things fortnightly.

(02:33):
Then I get a message saying that we're in arrears.
I'm like, but I've been paying. I know what that
adds up to. And then I realize, oh, and of
course it's gone up. I have to put my full
nightly payment up and it's just and it is literally everything.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Do you mostly look after the finances in the household?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I do. I do. I have taken that additional mental
light FRIENDIESCA. I don't even know when they happened.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
I thought an episode you should listen to.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
I think it happened when there were a few bills
was missed. I think my husband probably did take the
line year of that long time ago. But with you know,
three kids, some you know, we're in private schools, but
we still had fees. All that sort of thing. I
just I just said, you know, I have some time
to take this. It probably was when the kids were
small and I wasn't at work full time and I
just kept it. And he keeps a spreadsheet admittedly, but

(03:21):
I don't. But yeah, I do take it. What about you?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I reckon if I got hurt by a bus tomorrow
and a month, my family would have no power, they'd
have no ant nee it. Water water would be okay
because there's only one provider in Orckland for water, so
they'd nowhere to go to try and find out what
our water is. But I kind of take care of
all that. And I think that's any insurance is like.

(03:45):
And I think they just thankfully I keep some quite
good records, but they would probably have no idea is
to who our providers even were.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Not that's exactly right. And I think because we're doing that,
and I don't know, i'd be curious to know. I
think that's pretty typical for women to be taking that
mental load. And maybe it was when they were on
maternity leave or whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
I find it quite stressful.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, it is, and increasingly so.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, And because it's there in front of you, you
you're sort of thinking about it a lot, and when
other things happen, you're thinking about it a lot. When
all those unexpected things happen that you you know, you
really weren't you were really hoping weren't going to happen,
like your cat doesn't get a warrant or something like that.
You know.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, I think, and then you start the juggle. What
can I put off next fortnite? What can I What
should I do now? I mean every everything, literally everything?

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Are you a good savor?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
If there's something it left at the end of the
fortnight to save, I definitely try and save it. I
have a number in my head because I work out everything,
you know, the fortnightly budget and then go there. That
means there will be X.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Do you have an emergency funder? X?

Speaker 1 (04:56):
It waks and wings?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
You know you like the way I'm throwing all the
Christmas You can see what you say before I have
to reveal what I do.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
I emergency fund not not nearly as much as we
should have. What about you?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Nah, it's gone. Yeah, emergency it's just been absorbed over
the last few years with various different things.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's the problem.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
You feel really good about yourself. You guys there, and
then it's kind of like, oh, that car's broken down.
Oh this has happened, We've got to fix this with
the house. Oh the kids need this, and it's kind
of it's just dwindled over a few years.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
And yeah, and I guess that's the thing, right, you
can budget for every single thing you think through the year,
even if you want to. There's lots of apps and spreadgets,
some things you can do, but you how much should
you have to bloody budget for an emergency? Every single
emergence we have emergency we have is seven hundred and
fifty dollars plus.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
And so people will probably know from what we've what
I've just said that when the next topic I know
that we're going to have to talk about comes up,
which is retirement, I'm also.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
That I'm just it's it's not going to be good.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
That part of the conversation is not gonna be good.
I'm I'm not prepared for retirement, which is.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
As well, lots of people aren't. That's why they're staying
in the workforce.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, okay, so really does feel like we're ready for
this conversation. So everyone's personal situation, it's going to be different.
We just hope to strike a balance with some practical
tips today and advice, because there are things that we
can't control, but we're going to try and make the
most of what we can.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
So I guess today is Nadine Higgins, financial advisor and
host of the personal finance podcast The Prosperity Project. Nadine
also writes a fortnightly finance column for The New Zealand Herald.
So Hi, Nadine, thanks for being here today. Let's start
with some generalizations. Do women back themselves enough with money?
I think a lot of women are good at managing
the money they do have, But are we good about

(06:41):
thinking about the future and making money and assets work
for ourselves.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
I think we undersell ourselves. I think we're really good
at worrying about the future, but sometimes we don't necessarily
give ourselves the credit we deserve that we can manage
it and we can grow it. I don't know whether
that's it starts at school or it is you know,
the messages that we're fed through the media that we're

(07:07):
good at budgeting and scrimping and stretching a dollar. But
actually the research shows that when women do invest, they
get better returns we are good investors. And look, this
is significant research over thousands of people done out of
the US. It was about zero point four percent better

(07:28):
on an annual basis, which doesn't sound like much, but
you compound that over time and it is significant. The
problem is if you never start, you never achieve those
better returns.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
So if you don't back yourself in the first instance,
you won't know.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, but sometimes confidence comes from doing, Whereas if we
spend all of our time thinking about the reasons that
we can't, we don't give ourselves a chance to build
the confidence that hey, look I did that thing and
actually it worked out, or I tried that thing it
didn't work out, so tries something else.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
I think we all know that there's a cost of
a crisis, and we're all struggling a little bit, and
we're all kind of aware that there's pressures coming on
and everything's just everything's rising. I think we're all really
aware of that, and I think we take steps to
try and minimalize that, or we kind of you know,
reduce costs here and cut a streaming service and try,

(08:18):
you know, and maybe go to and insurer and get
a better deal in things. But what we thought we
would do today with you, if that's okay, is kind
of do a little bit of an audit really on
our finances and talk about some of just sort of
the really good general tips that we can do to
try and get on top of our finances. And I
suppose the first thing you have to do if you

(08:38):
want to do this is you've got to know where
your money's been spent, right.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, And I think we often chafe against the idea
of having a budget. You know, budget feels restrictive and
like you don't want to be controlled. But I think
if you actually dive into it, a really good spending plan,
which is what I prefer to call it rather than
a budget.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Because of the okay we will refer to it from them,
is to.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Give each dollar a job and also just work out
where it's actually going versus where we think it's going.
Because often what I will do when I first see
a client is we'll make a spending plan and then
we'll send them away to test it, and they'll come
back and be like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize
I spent so much at the chemist. That's legitimately an

(09:24):
area where people constantly go over I think. You know,
you walk into the chemist warehouse and you spend one
hundred dollars somehow, and you know, oh gosh, when you
add up everything I spent on food and drink, everything
I put in my mouth over a week, it's actually
way more than I thought it was, because it's not
just the supermarket. It's stopping at the dairy. It's the
extra trip to get a couple of things, and then

(09:45):
all of a sudden, you spend one hundred dollars and
it's only one bag of items. And so it's about
working out where you want it to go and ensuring
that that's where it actually goes, because then we can
carve out some space for the things that really mean
something to us. Because if I put you on a
diet version of a spending plan, much like a diet,

(10:07):
eventually you fall off the wagon because there's nothing fun
in there, and you know you're working so hard you
feel like you get to enjoy your life as well,
and you should. So if you carve out everything that's fun,
that spending plan is not going to be sustainable.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
It's such a good way of looking at it. I mean,
I'm sure that's what we think we're doing. But like
you say, unless we're actually going away and auditing that
over a couple of pay periods or something, we really
don't know because I often think, oh, I in my head,
we've got X for the next fortnight, right, and I
know that our overall costs are why right? And then

(10:46):
I go, wait a minute, you should have been the
grand left you know, where's that? And then you go
through the mutea of your bank account go oh, yeah,
that's right.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, which is where I think. Look, we're all busy,
we're all stretched within ninch of our lives. There's not
a lot of time for the admin that comes with
sorting through your finances line by line, and so what
I like to do is let's just ring fence those
everyday costs into one account, top it up, say weekly
or fortnightly or whatever your pay period is. But the

(11:17):
point is when that bank account is empty, that's telling
us that we've spent everything we set aside for that period.
And so if you're then saying, oh, we'll just whack
that on the credit card, well then you're inflating that amount,
which is how that extra thousand dollars ends up disappearing
into the ether, whereas if your bank account is literally

(11:40):
telling you there's nothing left, then maybe we do have
to eat baked beans tonight rather than get uber eats.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
You know, that's really interesting. We've got it the wrong
way round our day to day account. All the money
goes in there, and then little bits go out into
other little accounts which we're saving for things or you know,
having to put you've got side for something.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
I've got loads.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Just cracks up at the amount of accounts I've gone.
I've got money going everywhere, so I've got a plan, right,
I know where I want this money to go. But
then we leave the majority of it in that day
to day account. Yes, when you're going, well, that's our
that's our backstop. We've got plenty there, that's it. But
you just keep swiping without thinking about it.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, because the consequence isn't there if you spend a
little bit more, because the car doesn't decline, right, And
as embarrassing as that is, it is a very firm
reminder that we've spent all we had intended to and
so we have to make some different decisions. That's where
your emergency fund is living. I'd move it, I don't want.
If poss access to the Emergency Fund, i'd label it

(12:42):
do not touch for emergencies only, like you want to
tap into all of the psychological reminders that helps support
us with where we want to go, rather than having
to rely on our willpower, because that's a muscle and
it gets exhausted and you'll get you at a low
ebb and be like, oh, by grant, we'll just because

(13:02):
there's no consequence to it. So you need the safety
barriers around you to help you support what it is
you're aiming for.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
We should talk about the Emergency Fund since you've brought
it out, But just really quickly it reminded me. I
knew people who used to say to themselves before they
purchased anything, do I really need this? And that Actually
I go, gosh, it's a tiring way to live life,
but it does work. A number of times I've put
that into play, I've gone, actually, no, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Just put that down?

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Look out?

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Well, another really good one, and I think this is
James Clear who's the US author of Atomic Habits. So
he's really big about how do you get a habit
to stick? Because we've all got great intentions, but what
do you actually do when the rubber hits the road.
One of his tips is to think like the identity
you want to embody. So, for example, if you're like,

(13:53):
I want to be fit, what would a fit person
do each day?

Speaker 2 (13:57):
You know?

Speaker 3 (13:58):
If I want to be wealthy, what would a wealthy person?
So I guess that's where the question comes in. Where
would a wealthy person buy this top? Just because it's
fifty percent of Am I spending money? Or am I
saving money? You know?

Speaker 2 (14:12):
And then you get to the point where you know
you say, I am not the kind of person that Yes, well,
I am the kind of person that does this, and
it sort of becomes.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Sort of a self fulfilling because that's not just a decision,
it's part of your identity.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
I could get there. I mean, I feel like I
And that's the thing though, I feel like I live
quite a quiet life. I'm not out spending a lot
of money going out for meals and things. So then
I do that game with myself. So if I buy
that bottle of wine on the way home, that's just
my trick for myself, you know what I mean? And
what the hell I'm Yes, I'm saving two hundred and

(14:48):
fifty dollars on not going out, but I'm still spending
twenty dollars that I didn't need to spend, which I.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Don't know if you have to look at every purchase
as do I need it? Because I do think that
there has to be room for things that bring you joy,
and so having that glass of wine is something that
brings you joy. And it's far cheaper having the twenty
dollars bottle of wine than the twenty five dollars glass of.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Saving Louise just saving money, I know, I know it
happens a few nights a week.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Your mom is it is within the realm of what
you intended to spend and what you can afford to spend,
and that we are prioritizing there being some money left over.
Then we put that on Louise's list of non negotiables.
You know, I've got to have a nice glass of
wine of an evening.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
My husband's gym membership, right, I don't. Yeah, I had
gym membership. I wasn't using it as much, so I
stopped it, went back to working out at home. But
he has this gym membership, which is what one hundred
and twenty bucks a month or something. So I'm sort
of like, yeah, everybody's got there not and he does
use it right, they've got no problems with that as
a non negotiable. But I think too, even before you
start this, do your clients they fearful of what they're

(16:01):
going to find when they look.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, it depends on the person. Some are probably defiant,
and because they're the hostage that's been brought in by
the other spouse that you know, one spouse is worried
and they think we need help, and the other one's
been dragged their you know, under threat of who knows what,
And they might be like, we're doing fine and I
don't need any help, and the other one is like, yes,

(16:24):
we do, please help us. And often they will be
the ones who don't want to be told what to do.
And so I always think when you're looking at couples,
especially when they've got different money, personalities, tendencies, which is
really common, is flip it on its head. It's not
about don't start with it, you always or you never

(16:45):
start with it. What is it we want to achieve?
Because once you've figured out the what, you can then
go back to figure out the how, and once you
both buy into that dream of yes, this is what
we want. Well, then maybe you're a little bit more
willing to negotiate a little bit more willing to look
harder at what you are doing, because what you are
doing is not going to achieve the what you want,

(17:07):
so let's work out what will.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
But yeah, that's such good advice. Gosh, and I don't
even think my husband I have very different attitudes towards money.
But again, the time, poor thing makes you not stop
and have these really important conversations.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, and often it's not necessarily that you have entirely
different money personalities. But it might be that one person goes,
I deal with all the finances they don't need to know.
They don't need to know, And I disagree. I think
this is a team sport. You know, if you're both
owners of the assets and the children, you know you
both need to be buying into the same destination that

(17:44):
you're heading. I just don't think there's any excuse to
not be at least aware of what you owe, what
you own, what you spend, because otherwise your behaviors are
never going to align with what you can afford to do,
because you don't know what you can afford to do.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
No, I mean to be fair, even though I was
saying at the beginning of the podcast, you know, I
kind of take care of all the finances in our house,
and if anything happened to.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Me, probably let me sitting there in the dark, in
the dark.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
But yet my partner and I we both have the
same overall goal. We both know where we're at, we
both know where we'd kind of like to be. You know,
he's just sort of the big pictures there.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
It's just no worries if one person is dealing with
the malucia. But as you said, you've got to at
least be on.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
The same page when it comes to the big picture
and spin there.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
And I do agree, it's no issue if someone's dealing
with innuitia as long as they're comfortable that because you know,
evidence is showing that women are feeling more stressed, and
a lot of women are the people in their family
who are taking care of those of those bells and things,
and that mental load is just going.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
To say, that mental load, and that's very real, which
is another reason why your spouse needs to be on board,
because otherwise you are going to blow your top at
them if they go and spend money on things that
weren't in the plan and that you know full well
that you're going to have to find from somewhere else.
But if they are aware of the situation that you're in,

(19:13):
then perhaps they will think twice about sabotaging what you're
trying to achieve.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
If if someone's listening, kind of going, actually, we're just
kind of getting by. We kind of know what we
need to pay for in the next year or term.
We're paying off a mortgage, and we've got we're raising
you got the kids and all these kind of things.
What kind of questions should a couple be asking to
think about where they want their money to go and
what they want to be saving for, And what sort
of conversations should you have? What questions should you ask

(19:39):
yourself to create that big picture.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
I think it starts with actually talking about the dream.
You know, we can often get stuck and bogged down
in the you know, we're going to pay for this
tomorrow and that next week, and those bills, and then
the kids are going on and camp and all of
those things, and obviously we have to plan for those,
But what if we look a little further beyond that

(20:04):
maybe we've got a twenty five year mortgage. Do we
really want to spend twenty five years paying it off?
Do we want to take the kids to Disneyland in
five years time? Are we on track for our retirement?
And I think people often don't want to think about
that because it's too many summers away until it isn't.
And you see, you often see sort of. I definitely

(20:27):
had clients that I've been trying to coach along the
way and then they hit a particular juncture, maybe around
fifty or fifty five, and they go, okay, right time
to get serious. And obviously the further you kick that
came down the road, the more serious you have to get,
because you've got a smaller number of pay packets, a
smaller number of years to achieve the same result. And look,

(20:52):
it's a lot if you're raising children, you're paying a mortgage,
you're thinking about retirement, which I guess and I would
say that because I'm a financial advisor, but that's often
where it pays to get a little bit of help.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Oh no, I totally agree, And I was just thinking.
The first thing that comes to mind with that is
if you have and I think that's probably why you're
in front of us today, because we are between that
fifteen fifty five year age group and times are more
difficult than they were. Is it too late to build?
I mean, is we'll get to this, But you know,

(21:23):
it's more like I'm going, oh shit, have we left
it too late for an investment portfolio other than our
Kiwi Saver and any other You know, We've got an
investment in the company my husband weeks in.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
But or is the key we Saver good enough if
you're putting them enough money in?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Typically? And look, this might be different for those who've
started their Kiwi Saver at eighteen, but typically Kiwi Saver isn't.
I don't think going to cover the lifestyle to which
you are accustomed because we're only putting in the three
plus three eventually to be four plus four. And so

(21:57):
I'm an advocate of having eggs and more baskets. So
that might be the business that you have shares in.
It might be managed funds, which I know Kiwi Saver is,
but those ki Saver funds are very much ring fenced
until sixty five and there's very few circumstances in which
you can withdraw them, whereas if you had your money

(22:17):
in a like Kiwi Saver fund, it's a bit more liquid.
It might be investment property. And look, I say that
at risk of being shot done in flames because I
know how many people in the country view investment property.
But that could be one of the avenues that you
look at and look on the Prosperity Project. Recently we
had a university professor talking about collectibles as a way

(22:40):
to invest. And so there's many ways to look at
building what you have, but I guess it starts with
having enough leftover to actually invest and having a plan
to ensure that that happens exactly.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
That brings us back to that.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Let's come back to some sort of some basic ideas
of what things that we can do.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
If we're looking.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
At our utilities, which I mean I seem to get
a letter from someone every week, whether it's my internet
provider or my electricity or my gas provider or something.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Everything is going up.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
So how can we try and you know, make some
gains when it comes to things like utilities.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah, and I guess that's where this audit idea that
this podcast is looking at this week is such a
good one, because you don't want to be doing it
all the time. But they do call it. They call
it lazy tax if you could get something cheaper if
you're shopped around, but you don't. And look, that sounds
a little bit judgy, doesn't it lazy tax? But it's
effectively the cost of not shopping around. And so, yes,

(23:39):
swapping providers can often be a really good thing with utilities.
You know, if you go to the powerswitch dot org
website that allows you to actually put in who you're
worth and what you're paying and gives you a pretty
good idea about whether you could save some money by switching.
There's another one I think called limp where you can
look at, say your broadband providers. Often you can save

(24:00):
money when you bundle them into one. You know, it
might be your mobile phone, your broadband and your power,
or your power and your gas or whatever. And because
it's one of those things that if we're with a
different provider and paying less, it's actually it's not going
to affect your happiness. You don't care who gets your
money as long as the lights stay on right And look,

(24:20):
some of them offer like an hour of free power
or free power after midnight or whatever, and so It
kind of depends on how you operate your household as
to which one might save you more money.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
I've done a bit of that pass which looking at
it and I just don't ever seem to It doesn't
even seem to make the game that I think it's
going to make, so I don't do it. So I
feel like I although I would say I am paying
the lazy tags to a large degree, particularly with my
mobile phone and the added thing of each single child.

(24:52):
I know they're not using the data that they don't
need that forty dollars one, but oh my god, the
thought of them going, oh, I haven't topped up or
you know what what means. It's kind of the stupid
trade off that you do with yourself of I'll keep
paying more to avoid any more mental load.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Well, look, yes, I guess there's this trade off between
time and money. Often, right, the busier you are and
the more of your time you're using to earn money,
the less of it. You kind of have to find
ways to be more efficient with your money. And we'll
often pay a cost, a convenience cost because we just

(25:29):
don't have the time. Some of those maybe money incredibly
well spent. You know, maybe someone to clean your house
means that you get to actually spend some time with
your children rather than scrubbing toilets at the weekend, and
so that might be a perfectly legitimate expense for your happiness.
Or you might be the type of person who cleans
before the cleaner comes and then picks holes in what

(25:50):
they've done and which case was it money well spent?

Speaker 2 (25:55):
I do think there. I don't think it hurts to
call I don't think it hurts to call a few
people and say what would you charge me, and then
you call your provider. I've often found that if they
can see that I've done a bit of homework and
I'm looking to make a move, suddenly they can give
me a deal on this, or they can give me
a deal on that, or I get sent to free
modem to make the Wi Fi work better and things.
So they do try to make it as easy as

(26:16):
possible for you to change. So they say we'll take
care of it, but there are going to be phone
calls and it is time consuming. But sometimes I just
and I did this. I've been doing this since the
beginning of this year. Remember I said, yeah, I was
going to go through everything, and I'm still doing it.
That's how time consuming it was. But I made a
real inroads with insurances which were just getting out of control,
and been able to talk to people and go, how

(26:37):
can you make this cheaper for me? And sometimes the
things they were pulling off, I was like, why have
I been paying for that up till now or actually
making a change or putting a small a large excess
on here, or do there are a lot of things
actually could do? And I've ended up saving a large
amount of money this year.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Yeah, and all power to you. I think a little
bit of effort goes a long way, but obviously you
need a bit of Bandwith eight months, I'm taking.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
A lot of effort.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, But I think the reality is with most providers
is that they will incentivize a new customer more than
they will incentivize your loyalty, And so there's no need
to be loyal to any of them if you're going
to get a better deal going somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Because I think insurance is someplace that we if you
ask someone to tell you that minute details of the
insurance policies.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
They couldn't, can't, no, And insurance is one of those
things that feels like a chore, and we probably don't
get them out and review them as often as we should.
You know, you should probably be looking at them when
your policy rolls over. And one of my bug bears
with insurance policies, it'll say this is your new premium,
and I'll be like, oh, what was my old premium?

(27:46):
And I'll go and look it up and I'm like, whoa,
it's up seventeen percent. And that might be the trigger
that makes you want to go and find a better deal.
Whereas if they don't call that out.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
And I'm telling you there's an over fifty tags when
it comes to stuff like that, like the exponential amount
that gets added to your income protection insurance and life
insurance and health insurance after a certain age, it really,
you know, you go far out. What can we do without?
I mean I personally, you know, I've had health insurance
my whole life. There'll be no reason for us to
get rid of our health insurance now. And like you say,

(28:18):
you can do clever things like exists on surgeries and
things like that to bring your premium down. But I
can see a time where we really have to wonder
whether it.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Becomes designed I think probably when you need it the most,
you know, not by accident.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
And then there's you need that's when you need to
thirty five thousand dollars for a knee.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
What I would say though, is if you do have
income protection, you need to talk to your broker about
whether it is. And I don't know whether you're PAYE
or a contractor, but what most people who are PAYE
employees don't realize is that income protection insurance is a
tax deductible expense. And so when you're an employee, very

(28:57):
few things a tax deductible.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Right.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
If you're in business, different story, but you know there
is a few nuances between how the payout is taxed
or not taxt. But talk to your broker because you
could go back several tax years and claim your tax
deduction on your income.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Text as a pay Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yes, that's the one thing. My partner. That's why I
always get the tax returned done through my accountant because
that's the one main thing that he can claim.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
And considerable school donations. We feel like donations, but they
are and so therefore they are texting and then.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Get from the school saying do you think you'd like
to just put your rebate back into the school. I'll
do that, right, We never do that, We use it
for the next term.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
So insurances check them once a yeah, just just just
and for any other big life events, you know, you
move house, you have a child, you split up, anything
that major that happens, you need to be checking who's
the beneficiary, what's the excess?

Speaker 1 (29:54):
What is the.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Standdown period of my income protection? Or is my mortgage
insurance still commensurate with how large my mortgage is? All
of those things? Do I still need life insurance? Do
I still have dependence? There's lots to consider, and a
broker is usually if when they're worth the assault, and
they're a good one, I'm really good at helping you
work through that and challenge them. If they cannot answer

(30:17):
your questions as to what you've got and why, go
find a new one.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
And actually you make a really good point. If you
can alleviate some debt, like your mortgage, for example, your
need for that insurance suddenly goes way down.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Well exactly, And it all depends that who are we
ensuring and why are we ensuring them? And usually it's
so that the surviving spouse and the children can continue
to exist. In the absence of that income earner, and
so as your debtload changes, then maybe your need for
it reduces. But it kind of it is very dependent
on individual circumstances.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
We're kind of trained to think we need it. Like
I get really nervous when my insurance broker talks about
reducing things. I get really nervous because I'm like, but
what if?

Speaker 1 (31:01):
What if?

Speaker 2 (31:02):
But is that enough? You know, and it's not a
lottery when it passes away a couple of million times.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
My father did.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
He said when when the when the insurance broke and said, well,
what do you need? He says, Wow, you know, Francisca
passed away. I need a year off work, and I'd
probably need to travel the world, and I'd probably need
to do this and this and this and just looking no,
just to live. You know, your year of grief, your
a year of grief.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
I was thinking, please miss you.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Though currently require quite a lot of recovery. Look, before
we go to the break really quickly paying bills, do
you recommend that we should actually have an account where
we or that we should be especially if we look
at something like our electricity tends to go up in winter,
should we be paying a set amounts throughout the year

(31:53):
so that we don't have to suddenly try and find
a whole lot of money in winter. You know, should
you be assessing how much you annually and sort of
paying a certain amount to to your provider fortnightly? Should
you just actually deal with that bill by bill.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
I don't like getting in credit with the provider. I
would rather that you set up a separate account where
all your direct debits come out of, and we average
it out over the course of the year so that
there's a bit of a surplus in that account. We
know that your bills will always be covered and always
be covered on time, because there's costs, you know, if

(32:29):
the account goes into arrears. There's costs if the direct
debit fails. So we want to make our account structure
as efficient as possible, and so I tend to just
contribute a set amount every month to that account, and
that account handles all the regular things, the broadband, the
power of the gas, the daycare, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yeah, I got six hundred dollars into credit with my
power provide at one point, and I was like, wait
a minute, that would be better off.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
In your account. Look there's there's a start on an
emergency buffer, right.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Especially if you're offsetting, you know, if you've got a
mortgage at you're offsetting and things as well. No, I
do that, and that's how I know how much everything
has increased yet a year, because all of a sudden,
I've got people ringing me, going, oh, your direct debit
wasn't we couldn't take the money, Like what do you
mean You couldn't take the money?

Speaker 3 (33:17):
You know, And that's.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Because everybody just put up their prices and I didn't
keep up. You're listening to the little things, and I
guess on the podcast today as host of The Prosperity Project,
Nadine Higgins with tips on improving our financial wellbeing. We'll
be back shortly after this break.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Welcome back. Let's talk retirement.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, we try not to aid.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, because yeah, I'm a freelancer in the media. Unscrewed.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
No, let's not get defeated. And you're an employee, freelancer
in the media, and that's a lot better than me.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
I'm very, very grateful to be employed. But I think
the reason why I don't like talking about it is
because I know what I should be doing and I
know what I should have been doing for a long time,
but I haven't because there's always just been something else. Yep.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
And that's a common story. And most of the time,
you know, people will give us that old idiom of
you know, the best time to plant a tree was
twenty years ago, but the second best time is now.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
And I made that decision to work part time to
be a full time mum. So you know, I kind
of put myself in this situation.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
But I feel quite I find that quite uplifting. I'm
gonna plant my tree today.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
Yeah, I still got help. I hope that you know
you've you don't regret because you've got some great time
with your children, and look, that is invaluable. I'm in
that second position right now, figuring out what work looks
like when you want to spend time with your children,
because you don't get that back. You can't buy it
back with your nest egg.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
You know, wouldn't have it any other way.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
You just have to start where you're at and look,
hopefully you've raised some excellent humans. I know I've said
this to my mother in law many times. I think
she's raised an excellent human and I'm lucky enough to
be married to him, and she is now living in
her retirement in a house in my backyard. And so
I'm not saying your children should be your retirement strategy,

(35:29):
but I do think that there is a lot of
room for intergenerational living in the future, and I am
happy to be testament to the fact that it can work.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
I think there's I think there's a lot in that.
I actually think even siblings. You know, I could not
live with all my siblings, love you all, but you
know there's one who she is single, and I'm always
going could you live with us if we lived here,
you know, like you know, you can have your wing there,
you know, not a big wing. Or she's like, just
buy a house with the poorhouse. I live in the poorhouse.

(36:02):
Like you know, there are ways of doing it that
it would work for everybody. And I because our kids
are going to leave, they're not going to.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Well here's the are they Here's the interesting thing. So
I'm the reason you know that I think that I
probably haven't. Yeah, I've worked part time, raised the kids,
and we always said to our children, We're going to
give you every opportunity under the sun.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
You take them all.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
But really when you're hit eighteen, you're then kind of
going to stand on your own two feet. That's not reality,
you know. And to go to university, to go into
tertiory study in various different places and things, it's hugely expensive.
And now all I'm doing is instead of going right,
now's the time for me and my partner will be
thinking about ourselves and getting ourselves planting that frickin' tree.

(36:47):
Actually I'm not. I'm thinking still about planting their tree,
and I don't know when. And I've got a daughter
who is an incredible young woman and terribly bright, but
I don't know. She may require she may be a
little bit more depended on us for longer. And so
once again there's costs there, and this is kind of
where the money is going. It's not going into making

(37:08):
sure I'm going to be okay. So I am going
to be hoping that one of these kids does well
and I can be in.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
There as well.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
But you know what I mean, Like it's not quite
as I think.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
And there's always nuances to everyone's situation, but I think
the general rule is, once you have got your kids
to maturity, you have to put your own oxygen mask
on first, because there are no guarantees that the kids
are going to look after you, and you don't You
probably don't want to be a burden to anyone who

(37:38):
doesn't want to, you know, have you not that you're
a burden, but you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (37:44):
And so.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
There are exceptions, and you know, you've got a child
with a disability or special needs or you know, all
of those things. But ultimately you'll focus once your kids
are adults, is to make sure you're going to be okay.
And of course we want to help them, but ideally
we do both rather than prioritize the fact they'll be

(38:09):
okay at the expense of you being.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Over And that is where I think a lot of
us I'm speaking from my own experience, I guess, is that
that's where we're at. Like do we keep throwing because
university is expensive and people say, oh, the going away
for university is such an incredible experience. It is, well
it's pretty rocky actually, but it is neat, But how
it's expensive. So you know, I don't want to scare

(38:33):
anybody with younger children out there, but the late teenage
years have taken me a little bit by surprise. And
also my own inability to go to say no, what's
wrong with me?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
No, Look, I'm in no position to be dispensing parental advice.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
We're still feel fa we're still working.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
We're still working on sleeping and not throwing food.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
And you can give us financial advice, but.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Ultimately, I think at some point a lesson it has
to be there about the trade offs. Like we live
in a city in Auckland where there is a university.
If you want to go away to university, then maybe
you're gonna have to have a student loan because mom
and dad could help you with living costs, but they
can't cover you know, your university fees as well, or

(39:20):
you know, whatever that mix is, because going away to
university is expensive. But equally, when I went away to university,
I lived in a town where there was no university,
and so I had to go away and I had
to get a student loan, and I had to get
a job, and I had to, I guess, learn those
lessons to stand on my own two feet. And I

(39:41):
can only imagine from the perspective of having very young
children that it's really hard to do. And so I
don't have any pills of wisdom other than I think
if your kids have a job and they're still living
at home, they need to be paying board because you
have to teach them that there is such a thing
as living costs.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Oh, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Yeah, Nadine, we could trap you in here forever and
keep talking about all sorts of things. There's a couple
of things really quickly I want to cover off before
we finish, and that is the first thing is if
you're a single woman, you know, and I know that
you have done a whole episode on the cost of divorce,
which I recommend anyone you know, if that's where you
may find yourself go and have a listen to that episode.

(40:23):
But if you are a single woman and you're heading
towards retirement, it's so much tougher, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
Well, it is because you face so many of the
same overheads as a couple. Might you still need a
place to live? You know, a head of broccoli doesn't
cost any less just because it's feeding one person and
not two. You know, all of those things, insurance and rates,
and I guess if you were to look at some

(40:50):
of the advantages that you have, it would be that
you're not negotiating with anybody else's to what their priorities are.
You're calling the shots and you're in the drivers seat,
and that can be empowering. It can also be scary.
So I think having someone a sounding board, whether that's
a trusted friend or relative or a professional, so you

(41:10):
don't feel like you're making all of those decisions without
being able to discuss it with somebody in sense check
it with someone. Just be careful about who you sense
check it with, because sometimes you know, the uncle turning
the sausages at the barbie is going to wax lyrical
about this or that or the other thing and you
should be in bitcoin or whatever. But yes, it can
be scary, and I think that just means you have

(41:32):
to be you have to double down on taking the reins.
There's no room for coasting because there's there isn't someone
else who's going to carry you. It's all on you, which,
as I say, it can be scary, but it can
also be empowering the.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Other thing I just wanted to touch on really quickly
as well. We've mentioned numerous times the emergency fund. Do
we all need an emergency fund? And how much do
we need?

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Absolutely, we need an emergency fund. And I'm huge on
this because I had an unexpected I was going to
say an unexpected baby. He wasn't an unexpected baby. He
was an unexpected pregnancy. So hard on the heels of
a longed full baby that would spend years, you know,
trying to create. I suddenly found myself pregnant, you know,
within a year of my son's birth. And that's when

(42:18):
your emergency fund gets tested. Because I was off on
maternity leave within six months of going back to work.
So the question of how much does it need to be,
it's less about a dollar value that applies to everyone
and more about one that applies to you. The rule
of thumb is three to six months of living expenses.
That sounds like heaps, but I'm not talking about enjoying

(42:43):
your you know, glasses of wine and coffees out and
meals out in holidays. I'm meaning a bare bones existence.
That'll be the joyless succes storm. That is the joyless existence,
because that is our emergency status. Right, We're just in
vival mode versus continuing on as if everything was normal.

(43:05):
But that said, it doesn't have to be putting huge
amounts of money aside we can start small, because anything
is better than nothing. You should also try to clear
short term debt, the high interest debt, because they can
provide the ultimate backstop, but they can't if you've already
maxed out the credit card. Yeah right, we don't want

(43:26):
to rely on debt when it comes to an emergency,
but we have no option to use it if we've
already maxed it out, you know, buying this, that and
the other thing. And also if we're not spending money
on interest, we should have some spare money going around
to start putting into an emergency fund. We can look
at ways to actually put that emergency fund to work,

(43:46):
for example, against the mortgage via an offset or evolving credit.
But we do want to make sure that it is
there for emergency, so it's not for a holiday. You know,
it's not for botox.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I can't have an emergency holiday, an emergency lovell weekend.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
We have a separate budget.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Well that's the point though, that's about what, as you say,
making the time to budget for everything else. So the savings,
the savings for holiday are not your emergency funds.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Differently, no, and also make sure you try to prepay
that holiday rather than just whack it on the credit
card and come back and deal with it, because odds
are you'll come back and then you'll need a root canal,
which is something I'm looking at at the moment.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Oh god, don't even start on dental stuff.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yeah, you know, when you've still got a credit card
to pay off. And that's the danger of running at
debt and paying for things after the fact, is that
you don't know what's around the corner. The car breaks down,
the root canal, whatever.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Dog breaks is acl Yes, it was actually thousand dollars
or something insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, brilliant. Stay off
the credit.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Look. People chafe against the advice not to rely on
their credit card for everyday expenses, but I stand by
it because all of the research shows that even if
you are one of those angels that pays your credit
card off in full every month before the due date,
never incurs a cent of interest. The psychology of credit

(45:15):
cards is that they are designed to encourage us to spend.
We're willing to tip more, we will spend more readily
when our credit card is prepopulated in the online shopping
order and we lose track of how much we've spent
and then it comes to the end of the month,
and sure, you might have enough floating around in your

(45:37):
financial ecosystem that you can pay it off, but it's
more than you were intending to incur because we're removed
from the pain of parting with that money until our
fifty five days or whatever it is interest free period
is up. And almost without exception, the clients I've worked
with that have stopped relying on the credit card will

(45:59):
find them more money left over at the end of
the month.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Okay, I'm going to I'm going to. I've been told
I'm going to.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
We've got quite a man.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
I'm going to keep I'm going to keep it. But
it's going to be an emergency, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
I don't think there's anything wrong with having a credit card.
I have a credit card. Be aware of what the
annual fees are on it. Don't get too enticed by
the air points or whatever.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
We can never ever.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Do tap and go if it's going to charge you
the surcharge. I know that's going to be phased out,
but it hasn't yet. So why pay an extra two
point five percent for a purchase when you could just
insert your card, you know, and take two seconds to
put your pin in. That's not at time saving. If
it you know that that's worth it in terms of
what it costs.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
You, okay, really quickly. So we're sort of heading into
the end of twenty twenty five. If people, you know,
and it's been such a rollercoaster for a couple of years,
what would your advice be to people if they're looking
at their mortgage now maybe it's maybe they're being fit
and it's coming off. If a fixed term is coming
to an end, what should people be thinking about doing

(47:07):
heading into the end of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
One of the number one things I'm asked is should
I keep paying the fixed amount I was paying before
when interest rates were higher now that they're lower. And
there's the different strokes for different folks, but in general
I would say no, unless you are someone who has

(47:32):
extremely reliable income, already has an emergency savings fund, and
you're very confident that you can continue to meet those requirements,
Because I would rather where you can call the shots
on access to those funds rather than giving it to

(47:54):
the bank, because yes, it will help you pay off
the debt faster, but there are other ways to do
that that are more flexible, for example, through an offset
or through a revolving credit, but those do require some discipline.
So if we don't have the discipline in place, maybe
those structures are not for you, and you might be
better off paying higher fixed repayments. But when you need

(48:16):
the money is usually and you have to go to
the bank to ask for it, is usually when they
will say no, you know, because you're in dire straits
and therefore you're not a good bet to lend the money.
Whereas if you have ready access to it, we can
use it to pay down debt, but we can also
use it as a safety net. So that's just something
to think about without going, oh, yes, that's completely nonsensical

(48:39):
not to keep paying at this higher rate. There's just
a few other things to think about. And look, I
think people get really caught up in what the interest
rate is, and sure shop round for a better deal.
If you've got all of your mortgages coming off at once,
consider whether swapping to another bank and getting a cash
back is worth it. Yes, there's a lot of life
admin and paper work, but if you were to work

(49:01):
it out on an hourly rate, it is a pretty
good return for your energy. Switching to another bank, and
they definitely don't reward loyalty, they only reward new customers.
And if you switch to another bank, get a few
thousand dollars. Maybe that's a kickstarter for our emergency fund.
So just a few things to think about. It's not
a case of the exact same advice works for everyone.

(49:22):
That's not how personal finance works. But in general, look
look into at least those two things if you are
in the position where you've got fixed rates coming.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Up on Nadine, Thank you so much. If you want
to hear more from Nadine you can. You can check
out her personal finance podcast, The Prosperity Project, and her
fortnightly finance column for the New Zealand Herald. Thank you
so much.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Well, I feel like I've been well and truly told
about the credit card. It's not good with the advantages,
I thought, even though I thought I'd nailed the bloody
fifty five days. Now I just have to not use
it at all.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Well, the thing is that so much we do is online,
Like if you organize the registration for your car and
things like that, but you get the dibit card so
that the money has to be in the account before
you use it, so you're.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Changing all of those. It's just painful as well.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Well it's just one card. You go to the bank
and go, can you get me a card? And they
send it to you.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Oh, no, I've got a dipit card.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
I don't have a dibit card. Oh I'm useless.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
No.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
I have one credit card, and I reduce the every year.
It's like, I reduce how much I can have. It's
literally there for an emergency, just a company. But I
still use it all the time because just what Nadine
was saying, you think, oh, yep, cool, I'll just order
that or I'll book that, and I do everything online
and I don't think about it, and yeah, so no,
you gotta get rid of that. Do you know what

(50:47):
I really notice? I do feel like I think Nadine
kind of summed up how I'm feeling, which has just
been stack trying to cover off all these costs which
are kind of the now in the near future, and
I'm not we're not kind of thinking about getting excited
about bigger plans and ambitions and things a forward.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
That this could be a little bit of a time
and place because I think I think a lot of
us are in that stuck place, and I think we
are feeling you know, there was the whole survive to
twenty five or survived then it was survived through twenty five.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Thrive. When are we going to thrive?

Speaker 1 (51:29):
You know, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Yeah, we're not something that we're going to thrive in
twenty five, but we're not. We're still surviving.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Wait, though nothing really what rhymes with twenty six be
in the mixing twenty six. I don't know if you
were planty tree in twenty six planty.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Tree, yeah, I think it's yeah. I mean, obviously I
haven't completely ignored retirement. We have done a little bit
of work towards it, but it isn't It isn't first
and foremost in my mind. I think from my partner's
a little bit more switched on and in that respect,
but I do need to think about maybe just another basket,
put some me egs in and look.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
I think the thing is, it's not that we haven't
thought about retirement. We may well have thought about retirement,
but then there are other there are a lot of
other competing things, and that seems heightened at the moment
and also some of the things that we thought might
have been good for retirement, certain investments and things maybe
aren't thriving at the moment either. So let's just assume

(52:21):
things are going to get a little bit easier and
a little bit better, and in the meantime, take some
of the tips that we've learned today and reduced those
every day costs if you possibly can.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
I felt I did feel good about one thing. I
do have a bill's account, so I have calculated what
everything should theoretically cost annually, and I do put that
money into an account and those direct debits come out,
and that is how I've kind of, as I mentioned,
been able to sort of work out how much more
everything is costing. So I felt good that I'm at
least doing that right. Sorry, but I have not finished

(52:55):
in my year of reducing. I'm going to get back
on my get pick up that book again and work
and start tackling through all those lists of the list
of people that I was going to contact.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
See if I'm sorry to my family, but we're going
to reduce our streaming services. We tell at a time
say that, how often I say that we get around
to it. I think I'm actually going to do it. Oh,
that'll be an end of the year thing.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
How you do something bring your joy this week?

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yes, I have started my little morning yoga routine again.
Now I did the season years ago and I've just
used the same old one. Her name is Brett Larkin.
Morning yoga sequence for beginners. Fifteen minutes, not every single morning.
It feels gives me the exact same feeling as a
really good cup of coffee. I can't recommend it enough.

(53:44):
So fifteen minutes. She's cute, she's sweet, she's got a lovely,
lovely voice, and she kind of talks to you. Why
A you're doing it? I am always going to be
a beginnering yoga person. That's just where I'm at. What
about you?

Speaker 2 (53:57):
I went and gave plasma nice and this gave me
joy because I've never been thanked for something as much
in my life as I was for doing this. They
are hugely desperate for blood and plasma. If you have
a moment in time, if you've got a moment, please
just got a in zedblood dot co dot in z

(54:18):
have a read about what it takes to give blood
and to give plasma. They are absolutely desperate, you know,
hopefully none of us or our family or our friends
need blood or plasma or anything, but you never know
when anything's going to happen, and they are very very
low in their stocks. As I said that, they were
so incredibly grateful that I had gotten to do this

(54:38):
that I was getting embarrassed. I was like, please stop,
this is getting embarrassing. But they look after you very
very well. So go give some blood, give some plasma,
enjoy the cup of tea in the bickies and being
pampered for a moment and certificate after a few Oh no,
I've all comes from on the app, which is great.
But I felt really good that I finally got around
to doing that, and I'm going to keep doing that

(55:00):
once a month, so brilliant if you get a chance
to do that. Thanks for joining us on our New
Zealand hel podcast series Little Things. We hope you share
this podcast with the women in your life, so I
don't know. We can for that extra wine, just occasionally,
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Of a treat or a pair of shoes. You can
follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
and for more episodes from us on other topics, head
to inzied Herald dot co dot z and

Speaker 2 (55:23):
We'll catch you next time on the Little Things