3 Simple Steps To Sort Your KiwiSaver

Hey team,

Have I told you the story about how 15 minutes made me $220,000?

Seriously. Wish I was joking. Because until that 15 minutes, I’d been putting it off for about three years.

It was my KiwiSaver, and it was when I was a baby journalist, just starting out covering personal finance.

The default at the time was to chuck you into a conservative fund, but from then, you were meant to make a decision, and do something with your KiwiSaver.

I didn’t know that. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

Then I heard that you were supposed to do something different with your KiwiSaver, but it sounded hard, so I just… put it off.

For three years.

And it could have cost me $220,000.

The fix was so simple, and you actually have even easier, better options now, if you want to give your KiwiSaver a check-up.

I have three quick checks that sort it out for you.

When I finally decided to just google it, and see if someone had an easy answer for what you were meant to do with your KiwiSaver, I didn’t have high hopes.

But then I stumbled across the Sorted Fund Finder, and I’ve been recommending it every chance I get since.

You can find it right here.

It has a quiz to find out what stage of life you’re in, narrow down what option is likely best for you, and then lets you rank different providers.

It’s free, it’s independent, it’s not trying to sell you anything, and it takes honestly minutes.

It’s the simplest check-up I can recommend you, because I know we all have busy lives, and we need the simple thing that works.

When I ran my own numbers through it, just changing from conservative to growth, no extra money from me, got me an extra $220,000 by retirement.

Which seems a pretty good reward for just changing a setting!

If you’ve been around a bit longer, you can go deeper, with the Sorted Smart Investor, which digs deeper into the layers of different KiwiSavers and managed funds

You need to know a bit more about what you’re looking for, but it gives you far more info to weigh up, if that’s what you’re into.

Again, free, independent, great stuff.

You can find it right here.

Then if ethical investing is a worry to you, the Mindful Money website makes it very easy.

They not only let you check out whether a fund is ACTUALLY ethical, but they let you rank your own ethical concerns.

You can find it right here.

Between the three of them you can do some quick checks to make sure your KiwiSaver is doing everything you want them to do.

It’s done in minutes, so you can get back to your life.

And if you want to level up your KiwiSaver even more you seriously can’t miss the new episode of Making Cents, with the wonderful Susan Edmunds.

To celebrate her new book, Your KiwiSaver Questions, Answered, we’re doing exactly that!

We took all of your questions that you submitted through my Instagram and Facebook, and we ripped through them, for a huge KiwiSaver mythbusting session.

And of course, I couldn’t miss the chance to ask her whether she thinks more political changes are coming to KiwiSaver… it’s almost certainly going to become compulsory, according to Susan.

Check it out in all the usual podcast places including YouTube , or Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Meanwhile, I’ve been taking a deep dive into the cost of living.

Yes, there are some good reasons why SOME things are becoming more expensive.

But THIS much more expensive? And in some categories… it’s hard to see the justification for it.

Well, you might have heard of something called “excuseflation”.

Basically, once inflation starts running wild, some businesses see that they’ve got the perfect cover to jack up their prices… whether or not they need to.

They have the excuse of inflation everywhere else, and they use it.

I don’t want this to turn into a conspiracy, I want it to be full facts, and I also want us to be able to DO something about it.

So I’ve gone deep into the stats, and then how we fight back.

It’s out on Thursday, so make sure you’re subscribed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Until next time.

- Frances

P.S. I’m a financial journalist of over 10 years, and qualified as a financial advisor, specialising in investments.

However, please remember that this newsletter is general educational information, and not individualised financial advice. If you’d like to talk to a financial advisor, I have a podcast on how to find a good one.