You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talksbe.
And welcome back to the show. This is a Weekend collective on Tim Beverage and this is Smart Money. Now we have a new guest in the studio. It's always exciting to get a new guest. She's not necessarily a stranger to people from the media point of view, because she has been around and about in the media circles for a little while. But she is now a financial advisor and coach with Enable Me and her name is Nadine Higgins Nadine or Nadine Nadine. Sorry about that, No, that's okay.
Thanks for asking.
Well, as I said it, I thought how and I should have checked that before. How are you?
I'm very well, thank you? And what Yes, yeah, it is an internal heater going at the moment you do.
And luckily you are at that stage of a pregnancy where I feel reasonably relaxed at saying hey, congratulations.
Have you been eating all the pies? Or asking I mean, I'm also doing that.
How's it all going? All good?
Yeah, really good. It's a different pregnancy when you're also running around after a toddler. So our son is sixteen months old and he's full noise, and so there's less relaxing than go on.
Ah yeah, and actually, so have you got another what three or four months to go or something?
H three? Yeah, so there'll be about nineteen months apart.
Oh that was the same with ours. Twenty We are twenty months in between our two.
So well, it's incredible really four years trying to have our son, Frankie, and then we accidentally got pregnant with the second.
We are almost I mean, we didn't quite have the journey were I mean, I know we're talking about money here, but it's good to get to.
Know is relevant to money.
Yeah, well we went through a few a few well we had there were a few. My wife it's the Wii, but she went to go through the emotional, the physical term alliver miscarriages. But it's funny. The second time was completely what do you mean? I'm not sure how much to give away about that, but there was a day when we shifted Lily into her own room and then a few weeks later my wife was like, one, guess what, it's quite funny. Anyway, too much information. I think I just overshared there.
Anyway, I don't know that's okay. I'm not thinking the dots, and.
I'm not thinking of you. I'm thinking the fact that we're actually anyway. So you're with Enabled Me and your financial advisor. How have you been doing that gig for now?
I've been with Enable Me for uce six years, and the last three I think I have been as an advisor. And obviously my background was as a journalist, but I actually started out hosting the business show early in the morning when they had One and Zed, and before that was a financial journalist with rin Z and so it actually felt like the perfect fit. I'd been writing lots of financial content and doing their communications that Enabled Me,
and then they said would you present some webinars? And I thought, oh, well, I don't really want to do that unless I'm qualified. And then I thought, well, why don't I get qualified?
Actually this sounds like it. I specialized in what I think could be dumb questions, but there's simple questions. What got you interested in money? Because the obvious answer anyone listening boy, well we all love money. But what got you interested in that side of it and managing finances? I think and writing about it in the first place came back.
What prompted me to get into that as a journalist. Was I think I had a real desire to know myself. Yeah, you know, I came from a family. You know, my mum was a single mum for a lot of my childhood. We didn't have a lot of money. I was acutely aware of that, and despite her best efforts to give us everything that we needed. And I think I just really craved financial security. And so I think it started from a place of wanting to educate myself.
Was this at school? Were we talking school?
Not so much? Although I was good at economics, I really enjoyed economics.
Wow you Oh no, it's only just a running gag on that. I think I got a C minus at university or a C plus. I even talked about it with a good All yesterday from Corl Logy. He says, c's get degrees anyway, well done. When did you feel when did you feel you learned your first significant lesson in finances? Then that you sort of thought, oh, I think I get this now, you know what I mean.
I started as a financial reporter right at the beginning of the financial crisis, and so I watched the devastating impacts on so many people. You know, you were interviewing people who'd lost money in bridge Court or Hanover or you know, and these were people who'd put their life savings in to get a slightly better rate of return than they could get in the bank, and it had
changed the game for many of them are reparably. You know, they didn't have time to make that ground back up, and they'd thought they were doing the right thing, and you know, some of them didn't take advice. Some of them had been put crook potentially by advisors. And so
I suppose that's where my first lesson came from. And I still vividly remember saving my first ten thousand dollars at about the age of twenty one, and it was when the official cash rate was eight point two five percent, and I put it on a term deposit for eighteen months and it was like nine point seventy five or someone.
Goodness, it would have been like, wow, this is good. I'm not even working on getting another almost a thousand and bucks in the first year of investment.
And so coming to high interest rates the second time round, not having the savings and having the mortgage was a totally different experience.
Actually, that you would have seen a lot of change then because back in the old Hanover days that in fact, that company name was almost a trigger for remembering that there was a sort of maybe a lack of regulation. Because things have changed a lot now when it comes to advertising, hey earned ten percent, eleven percent, me one's going, oh bingo, I stent the money in there without really realizing how safe it was or wasn't.
Yeah.
I think disclosure regulations have changed, certainly, the regulations around how advisors need to be qualified, what they need to tell their clients, everything that they need to disclose has changed, always more room for improvement. And I also think one of the burgest things that's changed throughout my career is
that people didn't care about the stock market. I used to go on the television every morning talking about how you know, the Nxaics top fifty did this and the foot seat did that, and people were like, oh, yawn, when's this lady going to finish? But people care now because there is a whole generation of people who do not remember nineteen eighty seven, and they're also worried that they're not going to get onto the property market. So
how do you make your money grow? And yeah, there's actually a really exciting cohort coming through who care and are interested in upskilling. And you know, maybe if television was in a different place right now, there would be a brilliant business show.
Yeah, it's interesting. I do remember the crash because I had as a kid, had some shares which had been I've had a few hundred bucks given to me, and I had Briley shares and I just kept on taking up every cash offer as a teenager, and I actually had quite a whack in Briley's. And I thought, and I remember saying to my mum, what I should I think I should sell these. They've gone up quite a lot. He says, no, they'd be right. That didn't play out too well.
But probably my other big lesson and money was in the early days of zero, I with my flatmate at the time, bought shares. I think we brought about ten thousand dollars worth the shares to get at two dollars fifty.
As a flat mate. That's a that's a very nerdy financial as a flat isn't it.
He was a real, he's a real He's still a very good friend of mine, and he's a roll. The dice gambler kind of guy, and so he was like, let's get in, let's get in, and I was like, oh, I'm definitely a lot more risk averse. So we put our money in, and we doubled our money, and we sold them at five dollars and wow. I later worked out what we would have ended up with if we'd held on for the ride on the insid X, and I was like, wow, my mortgage would have been a
lot smaller. But we took another bite at the cherry some years later and we bought beck In before they delisted from the insid X because we thought they'd got stock zero O zero was like once in a generation kind of trajectory. It listed at a dollar. I think it might have delisted on the New Zealand Stock Exchange somewhere in the forties, and then in Australia it went to one hundred or something.
So yeah, I think it's always easy to look at those journeys though, because people would look at and in fact, I've talked about this when until the Deep Sect thing popped out about the n video price and everyone imagines, so imagine if you'd bought in video when they were just a couple of bucks a share, but how many people would have necessarily held them and held them and held them until the very peak. But nobody does that. What people do, I guess funds do.
Really lots of people who believe in bitcoin have held on through some tough times, and you know they've ridden a real roller coaster. But I think too many of us focus on trying to a pick the market and be not necessarily focused on what your situation can handle in terms of the tolerance of it. I heard of somebody the other day trying to sell a tiree of seventeen seventy and seventy five into bitcoin, and I thought, please don't listen to that person.
Yeah, and I just like to think I bought bitcoin and stuck a hundred bucks of bitcoin and when they are about ten cents, But of course nobody does that. Well, somebody has, and somebody's very happy, but it's a bit lottery sort of.
Well, and then you could be like the guy who lost his access code and he would literally be I think a billionaire, if not many hundreds of millions, and it's gone to the tip and he's tried to go to the council to say let's, you know, excavate this and try and find, you know, my millions of dollars. I'll pay for it. I'll pay for it. But unfortunately, I think that will be the regret of his life.
Because one of the things we want to talk about today is the reason I was asking about you earlier questions, is that there are some easy ways where you can improve your finances without actually having to be a financial whiz. Have you are? There are there some easy ways where people can I'm not sure is it avoiding waste? What are some of the simpler lessons where people can improve there out look on?
I think approach that so many people take to finances is they're like, what's the big thing I should invest in? And sometimes the thing you should invest in is actually a little bit more awareness, some better systems and yourself.
What's in't it? Is this something that you've learned personally or from observation?
Both?
Yeah?
Both. I've had clients that you know, don't think they spend very much, and sometimes they'll actually tell you that they're very frugal compared to their friends, and when you look into the nitty gritty, oh, you know that they're not frugal. But it's not because their profligate spenders. It's that there's just a lack of awareness about what is actually going out the door and what it's going on.
Is that often when people have they they probably have a frugal attitude to certain aspects of their spending. So they think, look, I've had a look at the mortgage, and then we're going to do this, and we're going to and when it comes to our shopping, our weekly shop, let's try and stick to this budget. And then in the next breath they're paying for I don't know, a session at the local sort of spa where it's three hundred dollars for a couple of hours I don't know, sort of stuff.
That's about prioritizing the things that actually make you happy, Like I'm all for the going down to the spa and spatial if you have provision for it and then you can enjoy it without guilt. And that's where I think people confuse a budget being about restriction, when it is actually about freedom knowing you can do something and that you will still achieve your goals, rather than being like, oh, it shouldn't have done that. It's going to thwart my
financial progress. But do you know what, the shopping one is huge. So many people are eating and drinking their surplus.
That actually doesn't surprise any That shouldn't surprise anyone really, because we love our cafes and we do love our lattess what we're talking about us.
I think that it's that because it's just little and often and so you well, what's five bucks here or actually probably a late costs you more than that, now seven bucks here. But at the same time, I think we are also buying things, putting them in our fridge and then throwing them out a week later. Yeah, there's a lot that is spent on literal waste and could be avoided, which would be to the benefit of everybody.
Really, what are some what are the some of the examples that you've seen yourself. If somebody was to talk about how do I want to improve misspending and my savings and things, would there be a particular part of their life that you would go, well, okay, I think we're going to mind this part of your life first, and you know you're going to come up with some gold.
The food and drink would be top of the list. And I know it sounds really simple, but I just see it day and day out. I think the worst I've seen is maybe about forty thousand more than that they intended to spend on eating and drinking and going out. So that's not the budget, that's the excess a year. In a year, Yeah, that sounds.
Like you'd have to really try to spend that a couple of nice bottles of wine.
You're there, Well, I guess if you love socializing and you live in an area where there are lots of opportunities to go out and have a really nice meal and drink some really nice wine, it very quickly adds up. But there are plenty of other areas what we spend
on interest. Sometimes that's people who have savings in the bank and a mortgage or savings and short term debt, and it's almost like they are lending the bank their money on one hand and borrowing it back from them at a higher rate on the other, which makes zero sense. And that's a structural thing that doesn't actually make you feel any happier. But they just need to feel safe in putting that money against the debt or putting that
money against the mortgage insurance. Because we don't like reviewing it because it's complicated and it's a bit boring. And so you know, I've seen people, in fact, one guy who had I think he had two life insurance policies and he had no debt and no dependence, and I was like, what, why are we spending this money? Who's getting this money if you die? Because it's certainly not you.
And so it's not that insurance isn't important. It absolutely is, But it's about having the right level of cover for the right price, for the right length of time.
So you've got a piece in the hairld. You've written one of your columns, you've written Mastering Money, Habits, financial progress. The lazy way, Okay, what are the What are the lazy ways that you can make progress?
Automate? Just automate, that's one of them, because it doesn't rely on you remembering to do it. It doesn't rely on you bothering to do it. And those are two of the things that get in the way.
Right.
We're busy, we you know, there's kids, there's washing to do, there's shopping to do. So if you can automate what goes into your savings, or you can automate that all the bills get paid on time because you know exactly what they add up to, and there's a you know, a ring fence around that, so there's always enough that
those bills get paid. One of the other one that other ones that a lot of people don't know is that some bills, if you pay them annually instead of choosing to pay them monthly or quarterly, they'll actually cost you less. So, for example, some insurances, you might get a five percent discount if you pay it there might even be more than that instead of paying it monthly. Obviously you have to have the money.
All that. I thank you. In fact, I think I know through my I'm sure. I'm pretty sure at one stage when things were tight, we went to a monthly thing because I just didn't like the idea of forking out at all in one.
Shebang, which I completely understand. But I'm willing to do it if there's the right incentive to do it.
Yeah, we'd like for your calls on this actually to share your experiences. What are the easy ways that you have also saved money as well. We're going to dig into this more with Nadine. By the way, our guest, if you have just joined us. Her voice may sound familiar. Is Nadine HEATONI, oh gosh, sorry, it's not Nat It's Nadine Higgins from enable Me. We love your cause. What are the easy ways that you have actually I don't want to use where's like transformed your finances? Corset sounds
a bit high for lutin and life changing? But what are the small things that you've done easily which have made a difference. But if you'd like to pick Nadine's brains on this stuff as well. She is a financial advisor and coach from enable me and she's with us now. You can give us a call. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty text nine two nine two. You can email, but that's not the quickest way. Jump on the blower. We'll be back in just a moment. It's twenty four past five Newstalks.
He'd body and Jesus so long and be right to feel long and be with you Instead, there's something.
And so Welcome back to the Weekend Collective. This is a smart money. We have a new guest on the show, Nadine Higgins from enable Me. She as a financial advisor and coach. We're talking about what are the easiest ways to just make a difference to your financial what what to just your money to the money that's coming in,
you're saving your financial prospects trajectory. There we go. That's that's that sounds like a high flutin I mean, what are the simple What are the simple things that if people are listening now and they're thinking, oh, you know, I'm always putting this in the back burner, and okay,
I've heard about the insurance. What are a couple of things that you would say for someone who's listening just to have a look at that might make an instant difference just to their financial well being, simply by a few simple decisions.
Have one account that you spend everything you eat and drink out of and and only top it up once a week once it's gone. You eating what's in the pantry all which you know sometimes might be a weird meal, But honestly, that means that it alerts you when you're about to overspend, and it makes it more difficult to overspend.
And I think that's one of the hacks, is that if we're trying to change our behaviors, because our behaviors become our habits, which actually become what we're on track to achieve long term, the things we do day to day, week to week, months to month. Then I think that I completely lost my train of thought. That can I blame the.
Baby, Absolutely can blame what? No, No, the simple things that we can do to change our financial prospects and trajectory, that's your word.
Yeah, it's probably too high fluting the direction we're heading an URI on track to achieve our goals or not. So if you want to make something happen, make it easy, make it something that you can see. And if you want to stop doing something, I guess the inverse would apply, right, make it hard and you take it out of your eyesight. So one option is you what I would never save
my credit card into an internet browser. Makes it way too easy to head to the checkout when you've been served up some ad on social media and you're like, oh, excellent, add to cart and we're off and it's being delivered in two days time, So if you instead have to get up and go to the other room, or one suggestion one of my colleagues made was that we put the credit card in the freezer, so you're literally putting
your spending on ice Ah. Then sometimes that is just enough friction that it stops you and gives you pause. And similarly, if you're at in the shops, we've all got credit cards, and many people are very reluctant to stop using their credit card. But if you just don't have it in your wallet, well then you have to assess, we'll do I have the cash to pay for this, and if you do, well, chances are you might be able to afford it. But if you got your credit
card there, then you're ticking it up. It's disconnecting you from the pain of the purchase. Future. You has to think about the cost of that, and what the research tells us is we will actually be willing to spend more when we're paying by a method like a credit card.
That is interesting about the keeping it logged in your browser, because as soon as you use a credit card, Google says, would you like us to save this for next time? And of course I say yes because it makes it. You might be about and we're going to take a call in a moment, John, just stand by, but we I might be out about to get told off because we do what a lot of people do, is we pay off our credit We do everything on the credit card and pay it all off each month.
I've been an entire column about why that can be problematic, and we can talk through some of the reasons later if you like, because I'm sure that John is waiting. But a lot of people think that that is a way to hack their finances. And in theory, if we're talking about interest rates and mortgages, it works. What I see in practice is it doesn't.
Is that because people miss the payment or they just tend.
To those track of how much they've actually spent, and so at the end of the month they're like, oh gosh, the credit card balance. Is that if you're managing your expenses to with an inch of their life, then sure it can work, but that generally not how it works from a psychological perspective.
Yes, I might. We'll have a chat about that offair that much. Let's take some calls John.
Hello, Hi, I heard they've been mentioned the crypto and I think that's great, although that's not what I thind about. I think it's great. I think you have a lot of fun because you get wild changes. You know, it goes up, goes down, and it never seems to go down. For too long and any play. That's not what I found out about when you retire. When people retire, it's a matter of knowing how much money they can take out of their nest EG each year. And I did read a couple of weeks ago. I think about a
four or a six percent rule. Will you take either four percent or six percent of your nest EG out to a year and that should last give it twenty five years, you invest it in the meantime, then you take it four or six percent a year. What does Madine think about that?
Cure? To John, I take your point first. On the bitcoin front, it can be fun as long as it's not a bet that you can't afford to lose. Right It's not fun if you're watching it go down, but you really need it right now. And so if you're doing it and just riding the waves, then absolutely fill your boots, have a great time along the way. Whereas if you know you're going to need it next year or next month to pay the rates, then that's that's scary. And I know a lot of people make taking those
risks without necessarily thinking through that aspect of it. What you're referring to is a deccumulation strategy, which is just a fancy way of saying, how are we going to make sure that your funds last the distance? And there are a number of different theories as to how you can do it, and I guess whether it's going to work for you or not, is, well, what is four percent of your nest egg and is that going to
be enough to get by on? Because the New Zealand Actuaries, which is just like some number crunches basically that looks at probabilities, have suggested that if you do use this four percent rule, then the likelihood is you are going to have enough for say a twenty five year retirement, and then depending on how your funds are invested, there's also a small chance that it might last longer than that.
Some of them are adjusted for inflation, so if you only take out a fixed amount per year, then obviously the purchasing power of that money declines, So say the four thousand we take out this year is going to go a lot further than the four thousand we take out in ten years time when you hit sixty five. And so there are actually some good options that you can look through online where you can.
Kind of put in.
The amount that you've got and it'll give you an idea of how much you might be able to take out per year and how that changes if you go, well, let's account for inflation.
How are you managing at the moment, John, I'm not bad.
I'm seventy seven, so I haven't got as far to go. It's a lot.
But while you don't know, you might live to ripe old age of one hundred, there might still be the better part of twenty five years to go on the streets.
Where you you put the sums on, it comes out with the answer.
What do you know?
What website?
That is?
Off the top of my head? I can't, I'm sorry, but a good place to start might be heading to the sorted website. I can't remember whether they do have it. They do do that, but there are a lot of tools on there, so that would be probably your first port of call.
Yeah, if you just go I put something in lump, some actuarial literally, you'll get a bunch of things there. But if you that then also put en z you might get some New Zealand websites and if it says sorted, then probably there'll be linked there and.
I am actually working on writing a guide at the moment, a masterclass on retirement, which will include a chapter on accumulation. So if you don't have any luck, come back to me.
All right, Thanks, thanks a lot.
Good on you, John, good on you. Hey. Thanks. Hey. Also you're doing so what is the You obviously writing for the New Zealand. Hell, but you also you've got a podcast going as well, haven't you. Yeah.
This is super exciting because it sort of feels like they're bringing together of my old life as a journalist and a broadcaster and my current one as a financial advisor. We've launched a podcast called The Prosperity Project and we're only about three weeks in, but it's awesome. I'm loving it.
And it's just designed to be accessible information on a wide variety of financial topics so that anyone you know who has an interest or a need can find something that's relevant to them and hopefully take it away and make their life small prosperous.
There is there was something actually in your article that you've got in the Herald. Now just look if you google Nadine Higgins's Mastering Money Habits. That's a piece that was written just a few days ago. It's interesting that it dovetails into the previous hour when we were chatting with Kent John's because Kent quoted James Clear's book Atomic Habits.
I love James Clare and I.
See it here. But it is a theme that would carry on at this part of the year because people are you know, you've had Christmas and you've had the holiday, and you've spent a bit of money and you're maybe getting back to work. I mean, there's still a lot of uncertainty out there, but it is the time to think about those simple things you can change, isn't it.
Yeah.
And I think we often only think about making changes when it's drastic, and that's like New Year, New Me, which usually wears off by about now, if not sooner, or when we all get a bit of a fright because you know, I hate mentioning the seaword, but during COVID, we all found out what we were willing to go
without if we really needed to. And I certainly don't advocate for living that kind of lifestyle in perpetuity because it's not sustainable, but I do think it's worth putting a little bit of thought into the things that actually make you happy, because you'd be surprised the sacrifices people are willing to make on other things if they get the things that really bring spin their wheels.
I wonder how often there is with people's finances that they think I'm saving money here and I'm saving money there, and there's an elephant in the room where they just don't see it and there's a really obvious way. It's like, hey, you can fiddle around with whether you have one or two lates a week or something, but here's this really
obvious thing that you're missing. How often is there an elephant in the room in terms of the obvious thing people miss all the time when they think they're being smart, they think they're being frugal.
I think most of the time people think they're being really smart when they are trying to be you know, play the banks off each other for the best interest rate on their mortgage and they might get sort of twenty five basis points or quarter of CIA here there,
and look, that's great. If anything we can do to pay the bank less is fantastic, But they're ignoring how minute that is compared to having the right structure and actually having a plan to get rid of it faster, because the one thing that's going to maximize how much you pay to the bank is having it for thirty years.
Yeah, are we going to dig into that a bit more actually, because well, because we're going to be back into a moment, So twenty one minutes to two six. If you've got any questions though with Nadina Higgins, she's a new guest on our show, and we want to hear from you. What are the simple and the theme is generally the simple changes that you can or have or could make which would actually make quite a difference to your financial outlook, your trajectory, whatever words you want
to use. And is there something that you have done. Maybe it's been brought on by a financial shock or some bad news, or maybe it's just been brought up around by the new year and you've gone, actually I did this for instance. Actually I'm thinking back to the previous hour that gym membership that you've used four times in the last ten years. Anyway, we'll come back in just a moment, but give us a call. Eight it's twenty to six News Talks. He'd be welcome back to
the Weekend Collective. My guest is Nadine Higgins from enable Me. Let's take some calls on on money. Peter, Hello, goody, how are you good? Peter?
Hi, how are you?
I'm well?
Thank you very quick question and I quite very your opinion on that bitcoin too. You've got to afford to be able to lose it.
I agree with you.
Yeah, the question I've got for you earlier on in my days. I'm seventy odd. Now, I took that gamble when it was versually a dollar or something like that, but I was involved in a Ponsi skin but I still have the bitcoin key. Can you still claim on that?
So?
Sorry?
Was your bitcoin through a Ponzi scheme?
Yes?
I sound.
I would suggest, well, I mean you could give it a go, but I would presume that for them to have made money out of being the intermediary, that that probably doesn't exist anymore.
You're probably right there to who would you contact with regards to finding out about that?
Well, if you've still got the key, I would google the instructions of how do you access your bitcoin and try in putting those details and look, it could be your lucky day if you managed to get in. But I think if it's been through some shady characters, then I would be skeptical.
Do you know who you bought it from or was it something through the net?
No, I know how I bought it from, but they were involved in a fairly big Ponzi broad or scheme.
What I think you really need to just get in touch with someone from the mafia and get to put some heat on them. In the heavy.
Weren't quite the Mapia. But even so your program has been very enlightening, especially for retirees. It's quite interesting, good stuff.
Thank you for your call, Thanks Peter, and we're just getting to know each other. It'll just get better and better now. Actually, something we were talking about in the break. We've done this a little bit, but you say, when it comes to food, we were talking about saving money, Nadine, you do your own takeaways, fake aways?
Yeah, we do fake aways, which I don't know if that makes me sound like a tight word, but we love good food and we were just so often underwhelmed by what turned up at the front door, you know, on Uber Eats or whatever app you're using to order things, and the price of it was I'm watering, and so we you know, you obviously get to the end of the week you are tired, you cannot be bothered. And so we started doing fake aways on a Friday, and we do Zinger burgers. So it's a KFC burger with
a spicy paddy. Otherwise a very simple burger.
Hang on, have you got the eleven secret herbs and spice?
I don't have the eleven secret herbs and spices, but look it's close enough. You get like a bag of Teagle frozen paddies, just keep them in the freezer. Get some buns and lettuce, you know, mayonnaise, whatever we've got. You can do the mashed potato from the freezer and it comes out beautifully. Do some instant gravy. You've got your potato and gravy. Check some chips in the oven, and you know, pass your uncle.
Actually, I'm I'm quite a fan of that idea. We've recently we do burgers the chips. I mean, to be honest, I'm probably just going to get a scuba chips because it's five bucks. But burgers. It's really easy to do because literally, what are you doing. You've got a fry pan, you get a burger patty and buy those at the supermarket. Tomato, lettuce, cheese, tomato, saucematoes.
Done exactly, very little clean up, which is what we all need on a Friday night. Fills the gap happy days.
Is the food, the big thing you would say to most people that have a look at your food habits, because that's probably the first place you're going to say.
That, the most regular thing, because it's something we do day and day out. And I had a colleague who had had some previous business consulting career where he'd done something with the supermarkets, and he talked about how they work to the or do you say the Tricep test.
So you go into the supermarket and you put the basket over your arm and you will fill it until your arm can't hold it anymore, and then you head to the checkout and then they're like, on, that's eighty dollars and you're like, what I came in for milk and bread? And so the more often you go to
the supermarket, the more often that bill blows out. Because you might well do your weekly shop and think great, that was in budget, but then there's all the things that you just pop in to get that one thing, but it's never just one thing.
Well, I was almost wondering at one stage, because you can end up having that weekly shop blowout to quite a lot. When I work out per cook for the cost of each meal, is it almost cheaper to get the takeaways?
And if that absolutely not?
And if the answer is yes, not with.
Some meal planning, no exactly. And so we have a deep freeze, and you know, like ones every six weeks, we're ones every two months. We'll do a big cook up, big prepare of foods. So that being tired, because let's be honest, we've got a small child and another on the way, and we're both working, we're often tired, but we still want to eat good food, and so just a little bit of preparation allows us to be lazy later without it costing heaps.
I've got a few texts here. One says I'm by myself. I eat out every day. I probably spend ten thousand dollars more a year on food because I don't make it myself. I would say that would be oh, that's probably a reasonables next I was going to say it's conservative, but two hundred bucks a week.
I think as well. Cooking for one is is hard because you do benefit from economies of scale, because you know, if you buy a head of broccoli, you probably have to eat it three nights that week to use it all up. Otherwise it goes to waste and you still spend it. So I totally get that cooking for one is hard. The only thing I could suggest is you cook it and freeze the other half, and then future you will thank you because there's something ready to go when you can't be bothered.
Yeah right, well we didn't take a break. It's eleven minutes to six news talk said by let's welcome back to the weekend collective. This is smart Money with a new guest is Nadine Higgins from Enable Me, and she's also the host of the Prosperity Project podcast, which you can check out. I think you just go to iHeartRadio, don't you, Nadine, Yeah.
Wherever you get your podcast, but obviously iHeartRadio is a good one.
Always a good starting point. Now we got we're a ton to squeeze in. One more call tersca Hello.
Hello, Hello. I just wanted to share a couple of tips that we do so. Even before we were mortgage free, Harvey and I used to every fortnight pay our Meridian energy bill. So Meridian was on a level pay, so we paid like one hundred dollars a fortnight into that, and then when our electricity bill came, we were often in credit, especially over the summer, and so that credit would carry us into the winter when we were spending more on electricity. So we sometimes have three or four
hundred dollars in credit. In January, we'd either take a couple of hundred out and buy a firewood, and then the other two hundred would just sit in that account. And then because that pricity bills were more expensive in the winter, that would just chew away at that credit. And we often found that we were just doing that yeah, constantly, and that worked really well. The other thing is that we we're now mortgage free. We're not sixty five yet,
so we're in that fortunate position. But we have many accounts and so every fortnight, every week, one of us gets paid, and every week we have automatic payments going out of that account into other accounts. So one will be for annual bills. So we'll look at all of our annual bills and we'll add that all up and then we divide that by twenty six and then we put that amount of money every fortnight away into an
annual bal account. So when we get a bill for for example, the car insurance, that money is already sitting.
There's a really great strategy finding that.
Really yeah, and we do it. We do it with a contingency. We put a little bit away every fortnight into a contingency fund. We put a little way a bit away into a fund and trip, we put a bit of way into a house account when we want to go out and buy plants at mighty ten or something like that. You know, so there's always that little bit of money is going every fortnight, and because it's only a little bit, you don't notice it so much. And we have a decent amount going across to a food account.
So and it is that is a good way, in particular if you don't have a mortgage, because there's nowhere else that that money needs to be to be offsetting debt, and it's going to be there when.
You need it.
Because we so often get surprised by big bills, like you know, car repairs, when it is likely there will be somewhere in tear there's something we're going to have to spend in an annual period. So let's plan for it.
Yeah, good stuff. Thanks for you for your court to risker. Actually, it's just that question that we might have to dig into it next time you're hear. But the question about whether you're better to stick money into your retirement or money into paying off that mortgage and then cain the retirement fund.
That a bit of both. You can do both at the same time, and because you benefit from time when it comes to investment returns, you don't want to be waiting until you're sixty or whatever age you are when the mortgage is gone and then going, oh my goodness, what are we going to do. We've got five summers before we're not going to be earning any money. So great to have a mortgage free home. But you'll want to run those two strategies and tandem if we can.
All right, we're going to have lots to dig into next time, I think because the phones are lighting up, but unfortunately, guess what, people is it's time to wrap it up. At four minutes to six, Nadine, thanks so much for coming into the studio and fun. Yeah, it's been a blast. We'll look forward to next time very much so. And you can check Nadine's articles on the New Zealand Herald and of course she is the host of the Prosperity Project. Hey, thanks to my producers two
of them today, Tyler, Tyra and Mary. And we'll look forward to joining you again same time next week, three o'clock on Saturday for the panel and then it all rolls on from there for the weekend and we'll look forward to your company again. Then Sunday six is next. Have a great evening, catch you soon.
Let them music plays Held End.
For more from the Weekend Collective. Listen live to news Talks it be weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio