I'm in my early 40's; I'm putting extra money (beyond kiwisaver) into stocks/bonds. It is quite interesting and I get to choose the level of risk I'm comfortable with. My partner and I were discussing what we are going to do once the mortgage is paid off; my view is to stay away from property investment / air bnb, this is not due to the moral issues around housing as an investment, it is purely about trading our time for money.
I'm in my late 30s - I'm putting 8% into Kiwisaver (I know traditional advice is to not do extra here, but I like that it comes out of my pay before I even see it), and putting money into Investnow funds (mix of ETFs, some managed funds, and some term deposits) - though that has slowed down a bit while we concentrate on putting the usual savings money into overdue house maintenance.
I have a small amount of personal money in Sharesies, but I treat that more like gambling (luckily, cos it's way down at the moment). I wouldn't put any serious investing there.
Ha, sorry about that - I meant more that I don't know enough to pick individual shares well, so I just chuck some play money in there from time to time, and if I lose it then it's no biggie. For proper investing, for me ETFs are safer because of the spread, and I don't need to go deep diving into the financials and risk of individual companies.
I have super in three different countries from 20 years of living abroad, so working on consolidating that. Beyond that, putting in some extra to KiwiSaver here and simultaneously working to build a self sufficient lifestyle to keep costs down - and us fit with any kind of luck! Very aware that that only works so long as we're fit and well, so much of what we're putting is designed to be as hands off as possible.
So, plan A is working and living off our land as long as we're able, plan B is then hitting the Super, with Plan C being selling the land and downsizing.
My retirement plan would just get me referrals to Lifeline tbh.
But back when I was healthy I was quite interested in financial planning and asset allocation and all that, and I have a small kiwisaver. My philosophy was that boring one involving passive index funds, real estate trusts etc.
But I also used to own legal minimum holdings of one or two shares for fun, just so I could know how it all worked and analyse financial statements and stuff.
Ooh, this is a good question. Keen to see other replies.
For me at this stage, it's just Kiwisaver and my savings account. I'm thinking of buying some shares as well, but not too sure I want to bank on it as a source of retirement funds. In saying that, I've been looking at Sharesies and it's easy enough to chuck some spare cash at it that I don't care too much about. Like, I've been having thoughts such as "instead of caving in and buying this pizza, I could buy some shares instead". Just a bit concerned that if I start doing that, I might turn it into a habit. Maybe I need some proper financial advice on how much money I should set apart from my income for this, and draw a firm line somewhere.
I use sharesies, after other platforms in the past. It is great, super easy and gives access in a very simple way to Australia and US markets. You start with a strategy, but if you change investment strategy the barrier to change is low.
Be prepared to watch the markets go up and down; because they do...a lot...think in terms of years not days/weeks and generally things work well.
Even putting pizza money a week into saving/investments adds up.
I have a plan but timeframes and priorities have changed over the years. For quite a while we have been squirreling away into managed funds and built up quite a bit (for us, which is very relative), the idea being to use the 4% rule to decide when to retire.
We are likely to move into a bigger place in the near future because of a family shakeup, and we are going to have to dig into retirement savings to do it. However, I think paying off the mortgage will happen within 5-10 years depending on what interest rates do from here. At current levels I think it's a priority over almost anything else.
My plan is basically still to use the 4% rule to determine when we retire. But mortgage first, so that's going to be further away than I had hoped.