The Happy Saver Podcast - Personal Finance in New Zealand

For the last episode in this series, I have once again reconnected with a few people that I’ve interviewed before. I like to check in on people and get a feel for the progress and changes they have made and I know you do too. A lot of people ask me, ‘what happened to so and so’? So, I’ve got three revisits for you this time: There is Lucas who was feeling the burden of a $1,200,000 mortgage in Auc...

When Julian and Sophie met in 1999 they each had a car, a very small amount in savings and no debt. Just 21 ‘short’ years later they have an approximate net worth of $1,500,000. So, how did they do it? Their current wealth is the combination of good budgeting, steady investing into retirement accounts, timely house purchases and aggressive debt repayments meaning they are now in a position for Jul...

In today’s podcast, 26-year-old Bella shares the realities of student loan debt in New Zealand and how you can meander your way into debt, but it’s far harder to meander your way out again. She explains how the pressure of taking on student loans from the age of just 18 can quickly add up to $85,000 of student loan debt and how people are so wrong when they say that interest-free student loan debt...

Aria and her husband Dave didn’t grow up with much so once they got together they knew they didn’t want to live paycheque to paycheque like many of their friends and whanau. In their mid-forties they have now reached a point where they can work part-time and afford to be generous with both their time and their money to help out others, all the while taking care of their immediate family. When aske...

I first heard from Hamish when he sent me an email in late 2020 telling me that back in 2018, at the age of just 24 he had saved up and bought a $379,00 house in Palmerston North with a big deposit of $125,000. Apparently, that’s meant to be impossible in this day and age? Hence, no surprises I was pretty keen to hear more from Hamish about the how and the why of this. The short answer from him wa...

“Well this is awkward” I thought when some guy called Chris started secretly emailing me without his partner’s knowledge! Big long emails with tonnes of questions about personal finance, my favourite topic for sure! That is how I came to sit on the sidelines of the transformation of not just Chris but of his partner Rosemary’s (phew, he told her) financial life. It took a bit of work to get her on...

Jen freaked out at 49! She considered herself to be halfway through her life and had big concerns about what the other half might look like. She became heartily sick of working so hard. At the age of 16, she started full time work, at 20 she had bought her first house, then got married and slowly became mortgage free. But a divorce halved her net worth and becoming a single mother introduced a who...

So often people tell me that they ‘wish their parents had talked to them more about money’ when they were growing up. Well, in today’s podcast that’s exactly what happened. Nina was homeschooled and part of her education involved investing in the share market and preparing from the age of just 13 to cover the cost of her future university degree. Now in her late 20’s and living in the South Island...

Alana’s debt of choice was buying household items on Hire Purchase. Lots of them! But before long she had precommitted her income years into the future so she could service these debts. Yet that still didn’t stop her borrowing money for a vehicle and running up credit card debt. But finally she reached a pivotal point of being heartily sick of living pay cheque to pay cheque and a chance conversat...

This week, I’m heading South to one of New Zealand's more underrated cities, Invercargill, where I had a chat with Steve who described his financial story as “not so much an epic dig out of deep debt”, or a “becoming fabulously wealthy” kind of story. But, more of a “jigsaw puzzle piecing it all together over time” kind of story, which, he told me, is still very much ongoing. Aged 31, a part-time...

When a former multisport athlete turns the same motivation, hard work and attention to detail that they used for their sport to their personal finances, great things can happen. Chris and his wife Megan were tired of it taking so long to pay off their mortgage, so they focussed on the detail and developed a game plan that will see them own their own house on 31st December 2020. Plus, a key decisio...

There were many points during Ella’s 40 plus years that her gut instinct told her to make a few changes to the way her family handled money. Many of us can relate to this. 2020 has been a huge time of change with her reassessing her current financial situation and making some radical changes that will have a huge positive impact on the years ahead. These changes all stemmed from her wanting to be...

In this final podcast of this series, I’m doing a recap of two people that I’ve spoken with earlier. Firstly there was Bret from episode #20, a guy who had gone from being a super consumer to someone who is finally, much to the relief of his partner Shelley, in control of money. And secondly, I spoke with Lucas from episode #28 who last time we met was staring down the barrel of a $1.2 million dol...

This week I tell you all about Catherine and her husband Luke. Both of them had been enjoying successful careers and had been working to a financial plan that had them thinking years into the future. Life was sailing along pretty well, all things considered, until very recently when they hit a major roadblock, due to a job loss caused by COVID-19. Sometimes we think we are heading in one direction...

This week I’m going to share the story of Linda, a woman in her early 50’s who has had a huge shift in mindset over the last ten months. Linda’s journey with money had just been trundling along year in year out for, oh I don’t know, about 52 years! But in July 2019 there was to be a bit of a change in direction when she started to question the status quo and wondered if not paying her house off un...

Becky described herself as a spender at heart who has to constantly battle against the desire to just spend, spend, spend. The spiral began with interest free debt in her first year of university and continued on from there. Today she has decided to stop turning to debt to finance the things she and her family want, but it’s still a struggle and it still has the ability to occasionally trip her up...

Aaron and his wife Shannon have a young son, just six months old and it’s what they did in the lead up to his birth that got my attention. They decided to work like crazy people, as many hours as they possibly could, in order to knock down their mortgage and set a chunk of cash aside before the birth so that they could head into parenthood prepared. Learn how this truck driver and administrator we...

Often when I speak with people their one regret is that “they didn’t start saving and investing earlier”. Well today, you are going to hear about Nat and she DID manage to start investing early in life and the proof sure is in the pudding when at the age of just 36 she has an investment portfolio that she can be proud of.

When I think of Mandy, the word that keeps coming to my mind is ‘determined’. She was living the good life right up until she wasn’t. We pick up her story at the point of her divorce when she had two young children, a small divorce settlement, a limited income and a burning desire to turn things around for the better. But how could she find her feet again? With determination, that’s how.

Jo is a busy Mum of a two year old, they had just returned from an overseas trip and she is juggling parenting with a 30 hour work week, while her partner is working as well. We had a great chat where she told me how at a very young age she was encouraged into buying property and she discussed how that decision has impacted her life over the years and how she is now discovering new ways to invest...

I came upon Tracy via Instagram. She was on a debt repayment marathon, trying to pay down $94,278 of consumer debt and was estimating it would take her 33 months. It all started because she was on the brink of bankruptcy and the suggestion was made that she needed to sell everything, including her beloved dog! By August, when we spoke she was down to $10,471.11 of debt and the sprint to the finish...

What do you do when you become debt free for the very first time in your life? You email me to share your fabulous news of course! That is how I came to know Dale and Dean. They were ambling along just fine until Dean realised that soon he would be 50 and he became determined that he wanted to be debt free before his birthday. So, they got after it and in today’s podcast, I share how they did it.

In this week’s podcast I spoke with Farrel and Chihiro, a Christchurch couple in their early forties who are a great example of how to get two people with completely opposite money personalities on the same page. One was a spender and one was a saver and it would have remained that way unless an ultimatum was given: Either shape up or ship out!

I get a lump in my throat when I think about Tracey, her family and the journey they have been on together. Back in 1996, she had no money, she had less than no money actually, she was in debt. With a divorce, the recent loss of her father, a failed business and with two seriously ill children to care for she was at her lowest point. Today I tell the story of how she found her way back and how she...

Ryan is a 23 year old Australian who started trading penny stocks at 16, worked pretty much full time while he was at university and has now begun his professional career in finance. He invests in all sorts of things, just to see what happens and if he fails, he adds that experience to his learning and just keeps moving forward, undeterred and full of energy for the next phase.