Making Cents
The podcast for people who want financial freedom, without giving up their coffee. That means it's time to make the money world make cents. Join Frances Cook, best-selling author and award-winning journalist, to talk about the proven ways to invest your way to financial independence, buy your first home, or just get your spending under control. Every Monday we have the week's feature interview, with someone who's done something interesting with their money. From paying off a mountain of debt, or investing for financial independence, or starting a new business, these are the ordinary people making the extraordinary possible. On Thursday we have Ask the Experts, where industry insiders answer your questions on the money world. From earning more in your career, to investing, or sticking to a budget, they'll help make money simple. Every now and then you'll get a bonus episode too, but the fun of those is that you never know when they're coming!
Episodes
There’s nothing quite like starting young. But most of us don’t build a business before we can vote. Never mind several of them.
Hamish Sutherland is 17 and already on his fourth business.
He felt the spark to get ahead early on but turns out it’s hard to get a job when you’re eight. Rather than let a tricky thing like employment law hold him back, he just started his own business instead.
By 13, that was a law...
With the OCR on the rise and inflation heading up again, Frances Cook joins the TVNZ Breakfast team to explain why the safest place for your money depends entirely on when you need it and why bank accounts are not always the answer.
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Free Power Forever? The Real Cost, Payback Time, and Battery Truth on Solar in NZ
18 months ago, I spent $89,000 on home solar and an electric car. I told you about it, and was flooded with questions on how this could work for other people.
(You can listen to the previous episode from 1 April, titled "I Spent $89,000 on Solar And Electric Car In NZ… Was It Worth It?")
This episode is the follow-up, answering every question from...
Why do so many high performers end up exhausted and burned out?
Mindset coach Sarah Robb has spent years working in this area, and says that unfortunately, many of us burn ourselves out, usually trying to prove we're good enough.
At 26, Sarah had lost both her parents, in difficult circumstances.
What she built afterwards became the foundation for how she now coaches high achievers, business owners, and ambitious women through burnout...
Frances Cook joins the TVNZ Breakfast team to talk through one of her favourite money hacks, using the second hand market to both clear out the clutter at home and score serious bargains on everything from furniture to kids clothes.
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Are there still good property deals in New Zealand right now? Here's where to actually look.
A listener wrote in with the question everyone's asking: prices are technically down, but they still feel expensive. Interest rates aren't friendly. Rents don't cover the mortgage.
So is property investment still worth it, or has the window already closed?
On this episode of Ask the Experts, Katie Wesney from EnableMe is ready to talk about wh...
There's actual behavioural science behind why we freeze up around money, and it's the same science that Mark White-Robinson has built a business around solving.
Mark is the co-founder of Feijoa, an app that rounds up your everyday purchases and tips that spare change straight into your KiwiSaver.
Seven months in, his users are on track to build millions in retirement savings.
The trick to money is usually small habits, over a long tim...
Frances Cook joins Jim Mora on RNZ Sunday Morning to cover the latest in money news, from why the job market feels so tough right now and where the work actually is, to the AI investment boom, social media spending traps and whether nicking the hotel soap counts as a financial strategy.
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Your side hustle is making real money. Now what?
Because when the income is real, things are growing, you can suddenly realise the whole operation is held together with sticky tape and good intentions.
Income from a job, income from side work, all of it landing in the same personal account with no clear picture of what's coming in, what's going out, or what any of it means for tax time.
This week on Ask the Experts, James Gibson, head...
There’s a wealth transfer ready to happen right now, but only if you know where to look for it.
A generation of baby boomers built their businesses over decades. Now they're ready to retire. But they can't find buyers.
Which means there are businesses out there right now, with existing customers, existing income, existing systems, waiting for the right person to take them over.
Jeremy Pak has a ringside seat to all of it. He's a...
Financial freedom sounds great in theory, but what does it actually take to get there as a normal person?
In this webinar, Frances Cook is joined by Sheppard & Ormsby chartered accountant Bronwyn Candish and EnableMe national coaching lead Katie Wesney to break down what financial freedom really means, how to find the money to invest, the biggest mistakes people make along the way, and one thing you can do this week to get start...
Being weird with money is the smartest thing you can do, to get financial freedom.
Most of us are following the same money playbook, and it’s not working.
Around 30% of New Zealanders don't have $1,000 in savings, and over 60% couldn't cover a real emergency.
Frances Cook, financial journalist and host of Making Cents, shares exactly how embracing "weird" money habits helped her build financial freedom, and how you can do the sa...
Many New Zealanders are overpaying tax, missing refunds they're entitled to, and leaving money on the table, simply because the system is confusing and nobody explained the rules.
In this episode of Making Cents, chartered certified accountant Baqir Hussain, founder Finex Accounting, breaks down exactly how to stop losing money to the tax system and start making it work in your favour.
We talk:
- The single biggest mistake Kiwis mak...
Frances Cook joins the TVNZ Breakfast team to explain the loyalty tax costing New Zealanders hundreds of dollars a year on power, insurance and banking, and the simple habit that can win it back without even switching providers.
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You're about to spend thousands getting your house ready to sell. Professional staging. A photographer. Maybe a lick of paint on the fence.
But in a buyer's market with interest rates climbing, how do you know what actually moves the needle for getting the house sold?
Vanessa Williams from http://realestate.co.nz is back in the hot seat with the actual data on what's working right now.
Something’s off, and that something is the economy.
The latest drop of economic forecasting shows exactly what’s happening with the cost of living, your job, and your mortgage. It’s not looking great. But if we know what's coming, we can actually plan for it.
To help us make sense of it all, Massey University’s Christoph Schumacher is in the hot seat. He’s Professor of Innovation and Economics, Director ...
As SpaceX hits the share market in one of the biggest IPOs ever, Frances Cook breaks down how IPOs actually work, why retail investors are getting an unusually large slice this time and whether that is as generous as it sounds.
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Retirement planning is stressful enough without governments constantly threatening to move the goalposts.
Means testing, wealth taxes, a rising retirement age; how much of it is real, and how much can you actually count on NZ Super?
Katie Wesney, National Coaching Lead at EnableMe, joins us in the hot seat to cut through the noise.
We get into whether the pension is a plan or just a foundation, what the actual numbers look like week t...
Most investing mistakes don't look like mistakes when you're making them.
Chris Walsh from MoneyHub joins us to break down the most common investing traps New Zealanders fall into, and the simple strategies that actually work long term.
We get into why dollar cost averaging beats trying to time the market, what "invest in what you know" actually means (and how it gets misused), why borrowing to invest is riskier than most people real...
Best Business Podcast - NZ Radio & Podcast Awards 2026
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