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
Frances Cook joins the Seven Sharp team to unpack a coin flip experiment that reveals how Kiwis think about risk and money, and why we will happily put it all on red but get nervous about the kinds of risk that actually build wealth.
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Renovating to add value is the dream, but overcapitalising is the nightmare that can turn your dream reno into a costly mistake. So how do you tell the difference before you've spent a single dollar?
This week's Ask the Experts letter comes from a homeowner who badly needs more space and is weighing up an extension to their house.
Vanessa Williams from realestate.co.nz joins Frances to pull back the curtain on what actually pays off ...
Time to fact-check the mortgage advice taking over social media, and see what actually holds up.
Mortgage adviser Aaron Cattell (aka The Mortgage Man) is ready to go myth-by-myth through the mortgage advice doing the rounds online, and find out what actually survives contact with someone who does this for a living.
We cover:
- The "pay a dollar a day" trick, the viral claim that resets your mortgage interest.
- Weekly vs fortnightly vs...
Frances Cook joins the TVNZ Breakfast team to share her favourite apps and websites for cutting power bills, saving on groceries, eating out for less and upskilling for free, all with as little effort as possible.
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"Excuseflation" is the secret reason your groceries, petrol and power keep going up.
Why did butter come down a third in global price... and only drop two cents on the shelf? Why does petrol rocket up in a day but crawl back down for months? There's a name for this: excuseflation, when real inflation gives businesses cover to hike prices for no real reason at all.
In this episode, financial journalist Frances Cook breaks down:
- The...
You sent in your KiwiSaver questions, time for us to answer them.
KiwiSaver is one of the biggest financial tools most New Zealanders have, but just a few changes can mean tens of thousands of dollars more for you.
Personal finance journalist Susan Edmunds, author of the new book Your KiwiSaver Questions, Answered, is on the Making Cents podcast and ready to sort it out.
In this episode:
- The most common KiwiSaver mistakes people ma...
Frances Cook joins Jim Mora on RNZ Sunday Mornings to talk through whether financial independence is actually achievable for ordinary people and how to make it work on your own terms, followed by a run through the latest money news including the AI bubble, rising rates and what is happening in the housing market.
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Most parents want to give their kids a softer landing than they had.
But what if the soft landing is the problem?
This week's letter writer has done everything right, on paper. Bills covered. Kids never stressed about money. An investment account quietly building in the background, for a nice surprise one day.
But with the kids about to fly the nest, they're rethinking whether thiswas the right tactic. Because maybe protecting them fr...
It’s time for the ultimate budget hacks to save money on food, petrol, and life.
Because a good budget should help you keep your cash for the fun stuff.
Today we’re pulling together the best tips and tricks from past Making Cents guests, so you get just their best moment on how to save money, from groceries, to apps, subscriptions, banking, food costs.
Chris Schulz breaks down the money-saving apps and budgeting apps that ...
Frances Cook breaks down why the most popular index fund strategy in the world may not be spreading your risk the way you think, what history tells us about industries that have dominated the market before and what to do if the current AI concentration concerns you.
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The difference between long-term travel being the best decision you ever make and a very expensive mistake usually comes down to one thing: whether you had a plan.
This week on Ask the Experts, Frances Cook and Georgia Grange, head of Revolut NZ, answer a letter from a twenty-something who wants to take a couple of years to travel properly, but without going into debt or derailing their finances.
This episode covers:
- How much mone...
There's a belief that's almost a religion to some people: buy a home, hold onto it, pay off the mortgage, and you're financially sorted.
More often than not, it's not true. And if you let that belief guide you, you could miss real opportunities for building wealth, because you feel like you're ahead when you're actually not.
Janika ter Ellen knows this better than most. She's a property reporter for Stuff, covering these issues every...
If it feels like getting a pay rise is harder than ever, you're not imagining it.
But even in a tough market, there are strategies that work, and people using them to get ahead.
Frances Cook is joined by University of Auckland senior lecturer Dr Kenny Ching, MyCareerBrand career coach Kaela Hindle, and Side Hustles NZ founder Rachel Mills to break down how to actually earn more in this environment.
We're covering:
– Which skills ...
The highest number of June listings just hit the NZ property market, since 2020.
But the impact isn’t what you would think.
Despite the flood of listings, prices haven't moved.
Nationally, prices have barely moved in three and a half years, even as listings pile up. The picture also varies sharply depending on where in New Zealand you're looking, with wide swings across regions, within that national average.
Vanessa Williams from...
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...
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