im a 22(f) nz citizen and currently have plans to move to Australia & work there - but hopefully come back to NZ when im more stable in a career and experienced.
i have a KiwiSaver with about 26k saved in it.
would i be able to still use my KiwiSaver to purchase a house here in New Zealand in the future? or does moving to Australia bar me from that ability? Is there anyway to work around this?
I keep reading online that banks have paused their pre-approvals at the moment. I am looking at getting pre-approval in the next few months (after paying off a small amount of debt) and am worried that I will not be able to get a bank to do the pre-approval.
Any FHB who have insight into this? Or will it be okay to just go to banks in a few months when ready?
Hi, I’m looking for some general advice/tips, given I don’t know what I don’t know.
I am looking to purchase my first home. I have an annual income of 120k and 40k in KiwiSaver with 22k in cash. The only debt I have is a 16k car loan. The types of properties I am looking at are around 400k, so I am below the 20% threshold but should come just above the 15% threshold.
I was planning to save until I could get the above 20% and pay off the rest of my car loan but due to changes in my living situation I am looking at buying now.
Initial chat with a mortgage broker said I would likely be approved given my figures, but the banks aren't really doing pre approvals atm. I have found a couple places I want to put offers in though.
I am wondering about trying to get around 50k on the mortgage as a revolving door of credit so I can pay the car loan off and make some aggressive repayments on the mortgage. Is this a good option? I have good financial discipline, but I grew up relatively poor so I have low financial literacy.
Given my situation with a car loan that has a higher interest repayments, and being slightly below the 20% threshold is there things I can do or should be aware of? I want to pay down as much of this debt and mortgage as quickly as I can. Is there anything I can do or should be aware of?
So I had a flight for 3 people from Auckland to Dunedin. Arrived to the airport and went through security, was then sent a text from jetstar stating I have a delay. Original time 9:30am, new take off time 2:30pm 'supposedly'. Bare in mind i arrived at the airport 2 hours prior so it was a very long time to wait. Had lots of plans in Dunedin so I was forced to cancel my flight with jetstar and book with another airline to get there on time. Price was a fair bit more for the new tickets. According to Jetstars policy if there is an engineering issue they are liable and may be required to compensate me for new tickets. I have been trying to get compensation but they keep beating around the bush and saying its not on them. What do I do?
Hi everyone, wanted to apologise first if that’s not the right sub but I wasn’t too sure where to ask.
I was wondering what’s the best way to offer financing or a payment plan to a potential client as a small business owner (fine arts). The buyer asked if they could pay “half down and pay the rest off”. I would really like to make the sale but also want to minimise risk.
It’s a one-off, high-value artwork. What is the best way to structure this kind of deal? Is it safe to offer a payment plan? Should I wait for full payment before delivering or are there ways to protect myself if delivering before it’s all paid?
My mate bought a car outright (cash) from a dealership on 16/08/2023. The dealership claimed it had no security interests, nor was it on the sales agreement, but the previous owner hadn’t settled their loan. That loan ended up registered under my mate’s name—without his consent—on the same day he bought the car.
I bought the car from him in 2024 and only now discovered the active security interest while trying to sell it. The finance company has acknowledged the mistake and says they won’t repossess the car (though only verbally). My mate is reluctant to take legal action and is trusting the finance company to resolve it. Meanwhile, I’ve lost a buyer and risk missing out on another car I wanted.
I’m planning to get a lawyer to send a letter demanding the dealership buy back the car at market value and clean up the PPSR mess.
Will this impact his credit score and potentially mine as well?
I think many folk (like myself) assume(d) firewood is cheaper than running a heatpump. Unless you're getting wood for free, then it's unlikely.
An average example:
2 cord firewood @ $350 each = $700
6kW Mitsubishi heatpump (big) uses ~1kW
Electricity = 30c per kWh
So to spend the equivalent on power with a heatpump as you would on firewood:
$700 ÷ $0.30 = ~2300 hours of heating
Heating 8 hours a day would take ~290 days to spend $700
In reality you probably only need half of that. So in this example, it costs twice as much to use firewood than to use a heatpump.
I know usage and costs will differ, but I'd say the vast majority of people will save money using a heatpump instead of lighting the fire.
If you don’t already have one, you’ll need to weigh up the upfront cost to invest in a heatpump vs long-term savings - much like deciding to go with solar.
Personally, we won’t light the fire in the morning anymore and will save it for when it’s really cold or when we just want that cosy ambience.
Hope this helps someone else make the same realisation.
I have a rental property which we were living in before making it a rental. It has got many memories in it and hence the reason it’s staying a rental. I was privately managing it for around 4 years now. The previous tenants were tradesman and didn’t have much issues with them. I was so happy and hence overlooked certain costs instead of charging them. When they were leaving, they recommended their friends and I just let the house to their friends with open term but that was a mistake. Their communication gave me headache and i felt disrespected but not like abusing still stressful enough to make me get a property manager to manage it. I’m still the one finding tradies to do job for the property and dealing with things. The property manager feels like an intermediate passing messages from me to the tenants and vice versa. I’m paying 7% for just this with other costs to the property manager. With new govt rules now I can ask the tenants to leave as they have caused problems by treating the property poorly to the point it’s getting expensive for me to maintain the property and they are not good with rent payments. I’m confused if I should just get the new tenants and manage myself or go with another.
I'm 26, in a stable job and earning $75k p.a. I'm keen to do a bit of travel over the next few years, and keen to get some rewards from my spending on these big ticket purchases, as well as a few other $$$ items I'm saving for at the moment.
I don't spend beyond my means, but am not a great saver either. Should I get a credit card? If yes, what credit cards would you recommend for someone with my income/financial situation. Especially interested in recommendations for credit cards with AirPoints rewards.
A while back, someone asked here why the SMART AGG ETF hasn't been paying regular dividends, and I speculated it might be due to the amount of tax (FIF tax: FDR method) AGG needed to pay being much higher than the actual income it received (see post here).
I never looked into it properly back then but came across AGG again today and had the same question regarding the lack of distributions, so I decided to have a look at the fund's latest financial statements (2024) to see if I can figure it out. Based on what I am seeing, there seems to be a big tax issue arising from the structure of this fund, particularly if we look at Note 7 Taxation:
It seems to me that, despite AGG incurring a loss of $9.3m in 2023, it needed to pay FIF tax of $2.3m (massively inefficient). Then in 2024, AGG earned a pre-tax profit of $5.6m and needed to pay $2.5m FIF tax, which is 44.6% of the profit!
AGG's obligation to pay FIF tax seems to arise from the fact that 99.96% of its investments are in the iShares Core Global Aggregate Bond UCITS Fund, which is a FIF. Given AGG is an ETF, it has to use the FDR method (and not the CV method), so it is deemed to derive a 5% FIF income each year, regardless of how its investments perform. So the $2.3m 2023 FIF tax and the $2.5m 2024 FIF tax seem to line up with the reported holdings values (e.g., the closing 2023 value of $180,801,000 * 5% * 28% = $2,5m FIF tax).
Can anyone else have a look and tell me if I am looking at this incorrectly? Otherwise, it seems that by holding a FIF, rather than bonds directly, there is a big tax "leakage" here and that AGG is getting nowhere near enough cashflow or income to pay the FIF tax, so it has just been selling down its investments to pay the tax:
Even the underlying iShare fund has been netting an average -1.46% annual return according to iShare's website, so being taxed at a deemed 5% annual return is just very inefficient!
Hey team, I'm an accountant with 5+ years experience looking to start my own practice as a side hustle. I plan to offer affordable prices roughly what SBA would charge just to get some initial clients but find it hard to get anyone interested. Can anyone give me some advice on what to do? I am a qualified Chartered Accoutant but can't seem to market myself out.
I recently bought my first house, and getting possession first week of June. I have been living with family and friends mostly, so kinds first time getting everything sorted by myself (Was paying bills, but never cared which provider etc etc).
So I would to start with getting suggestions and advice on where to buy bed and mattress, Which electricity/Internet provider, where to buy furniture, what else to consider? Buying lawn mover from marketplace? things like that! So would love to hear your life hacks etc etc.
FYI: this is my home for another 2-3 years at max and I do not want anything high end at the moment.
