Recent Blog Posts

Putting it Together: Step 8 of 8 to Financial Security
Reading Time: 5 minutes You can follow the steps here for financial security. But you are a human and you live beyond rules and a spreadsheet. Here are the steps again. Following are philosophies about personal finances. Steps to Financial Security Step #1: The Budget Step #2: The System Step #3: The Emergency Fund

Navigate Insurance: Step 7 of 8 to Financial Security
Reading Time: 5 minutes Insurance takes unfortunate situations in our life and makes it affordable. You’ve been busy building up your financial security: the budget working system, topped-up emergency fund, dropped debt. And you’ve also looked into: KiwiSaver, and investing. The next step is insurance, cementing your financial security. We will cover why insurance

Simple Investing: Step 6 of 8 to Financial Security
Reading Time: 8 minutes Investing is using money to make more money. Money made or return can further your financial security. After you have dealt with: Budget System Emergency Fund Debt KiwiSaver Let’s look into the option of investing. After reading this, you will see the reasons you should consider investing. We will also

Kiwisaver King: Step 5 of 8 to Financial Security
Reading Time: 8 minutes Setting up your KiwiSaver is the easiest way to improve your financial security. If you have been following the series so far, you would have: an organised budget a secure system an excellent emergency fund, and demolished debts Time now to become a KiwiSaver king. By the end of this

Dealing Debt: Step 4 of 8 to Financial Security
Reading Time: 6 minutes Dealing with debt is an important for financial security. By now: Your budget is set up Your system is running Your emergency fund is stocked up Now, we turn our attention to debt. If you have no debts, good on you! Please continue to read on because there where the

The Emergency Fund: Step 3 of 8 to Financial Security
Reading Time: 4 minutes The emergency fund is the foundation of your financial security. Before we continue, make sure you have read my previous posts on: Creating a budget: the first step Setting up a system This post will look into the emergency fund. Financial security requires an emergency fund. Without it, your finances

The System: Step 2 of 8 to Financial Security
Reading Time: 4 minutes Creating a system that is automated is the next step to freeing up you finances. In my last post, we looked into creating a budget and why this is an important first step. We also went through an example budget walkthrough. After finding out what is leftover after paying all

The Budget: First Step to Financial Security
Reading Time: 5 minutes Budgeting is a way to consciously know where your money is going. It is your first crucial step to gaining financial security. I want to congratulate you for even clicking onto this post. Bravo! We will cover the importance of budgeting. We will also run through a step-by-step example that

Attempting the Car-free/Car-lite life
Reading Time: 7 minutes Since moving into the central city of Christchurch and having no dedicated park for a vehicle, I have made a conscious effort to reduce my car usage and adopting a near car-free (car-lite) lifestyle. This has involved walking, riding my bike or taking public transport to work. A car may

One Easy Alternative to Investment Property
Reading Time: 9 minutes There is a type of investment that allows you to sit back and relax without having to worry about the hot water cylinder breaking or chasing late rental payments. But isn’t the investment property the best form of passive income? You probably think it is. A lot of people probably