Kiwisaver - Are You Joining?

[EVLGTZ]

I would recommend it to anyone who is not capable of saving on their own.

If you are pretty good at managing your own money tho there are plenty of better ways to set your self up for retirement.

[Si]

Ill join, just as soon as I can find some trust worthy info about how it all works.

The other thing that is totaly rediculous, is that if you put 8% in you dont get any more tax rebates or government contributions than 4%.

Wow. a government that wants us to save, and wants to slow the economy down, yet they are not pushing for people to save the higher amount.

I wouldnt put it past the government to ramp up the contributions rather than cut tax. The economy sure as hell cant cope with it.





Im going for it mainly for the extra dosh the government will throw in to buy a house.

[no_8wire]

But even then, you can only take 1/2 to buy your first house...


I dont trust it personally...not unless it is changed in the future to be guaranteed by the gov...

I will keep my money thank you very much.

[Voyeur]

I have just found what i wanted, in the kiwi saver handbook, page 23 under the heading "getting financial advice", I quote "KiwiSaver is not guaranteed by the government and this means that you invest in a KiwiSaver scheme at your own risk"
As i said before this is not for me, but it may be right for plenty of other people. Just make sure you are fully informed and look into the company you choose to invest in.
P.S i wouldn't recommend BRIDGECORP

[Mr Revhead]

ok, sorry they may have said its secured in some other way....
i shall view my booklet....

[Voyeur]

They are right in a way. There are 6 nominated companies. (the government is telling you who may look after your money) They are all a+ rated companies. ie There is only a 5 percent chance that money invested will not be returned. Personally i would rank them as ING, AXA, TOWER, AMP, MERCER, ASB.
ING being my favorite because it has 400 billon US dollars in swiss bank accounts as well as being the 7th largest company in the world.

[Carpet Burn]

bonus bonds for me thanks i suck large hairy balls at saving

[tsoob]

just so im clear who said retirement was ever a matter of age? retirement is a financial psoition, you would have a much better chance of having the lifestyle that you dream of by owning your own business and using your cashflow for investments than you will ever have while working for someone else and "saving" , kiwi saver is just another labour government bandaid, which is not smart financial advice for what is an already over financed population, inflation is faster than your 4% savings, please think carefully on this one.

[Carpet Burn]

If i didnt have my student loan payments till im 49 maybe id be able to do more of a savings plan

[Alex B]

Student loan repayments are SFA, mine is like $12.50 a week?? Possibly that depends on what you earn.

[EVLGTZ]

just so im clear who said retirement was ever a matter of age? retirement is a financial psoition, you would have a much better chance of having the lifestyle that you dream of by owning your own business and using your cashflow for investments than you will ever have while working for someone else and "saving" , kiwi saver is just another labour government bandaid, which is not smart financial advice for what is an already over financed population, inflation is faster than your 4% savings, please think carefully on this one.

who told you that? Inflation is not that high - YTD is running about 2.5%...

[tsoob]

yes ytd you are correct but historically, remembering that we are talking long term here, 4% will not be enough money to live on as inflation sits an an average of 4% check out www.stats.govt.nz they will have some good info for you there.

[EVLGTZ]

yes ytd you are correct but historically, remembering that we are talking long term here, 4% will not be enough money to live on as inflation sits an an average of 4% check out www.stats.govt.nz they will have some good info for you there.

historically at 4%??? If you go back to say 1920 then yes its something like 4.5% but history is not that good an indication of the future.....

If you really want to look at history then you should probably just focus on more recent times. The economy can be controlled and manipulated a lot easier nowadays than back then, but then again with the way the NZ Govt and Reserve Bank are doing things at the moment you could believe otherwise

Average for the past 5 years is 2.6%
10 years 2.1%
20 years 3.4% but then we are starting to include that exciting period of the mid 1980s.

And the thing to note is that the 4% you are talking about is just your own contributions...4% of salary. Remember the government will eventually match this (so thats 8% of salary per year) and on top of this you need to factor in the investment earnings that these funds should yield if managed properly.

I would hate to see people going with fund managers offering non-diversified funds. Sure some good returns can be made but too much risk for the average New Zealander who is not use to holding these type of investments and who cannot save on their own accord. A well managed balanced fund would be the way to go and with the tax exemption on capital gains on NZ and most Au equities people should be able to see some decent growth in their funds.

I get what you are saying in that there are much better ways to set yourself up for retirement but the thing is, the average and more-so the below average kiwi may not be able to do that and thats why the Govt have this product aimed at them.


After all that am I going to join up? Nope, well not right now anyway....

Btw thanks for the 'stats' link but i use to have to deal with these figures every day

[Carpet Burn]

Student loan repayments are SFA, mine is like $12.50 a week?? Possibly that depends on what you earn.

Yeah mine is over $40 a week

[tsoob]

yes we both are looking at it from the same angle then, history does repeat itself, and those times of the 80's will reappear in the future also my intent is not to be an average or even worse below than average kiwi, my intent is to hopfully encourage others to be better than average!!