One of the most valuable exercises I run through with clients is “flawcasting” their financial future. It’s one thing to create a personal balance sheet setting out your existing assets and liabilities, and getting an...
Most online retirement calculators are overly simplistic. They can be a great starting point. Sorted.org.nz’s Retirement planner, for instance, is a terrific resource. (And better than calculators from many financial institutions *cough which can have...
The most important thing to get right when investing in financial assets is asset allocation.”Asset allocation” refers to how your funds are invested across different classes of financial assets, such as shares and bonds....
I’ll start this article with a prediction. At some point in the future, the sharemarket will go down. It might go down in a big way. Phew! I said it. What exactly did I...
People sometimes tell me that they don’t want to take any risks with their investments. I have to tell them that all investments have risks. Even those supposedly “safe” investments like putting money into...
An amazing story about George Clooney: Rande Gerber (one of Clooney’s good friends) recently told a story about Clooney inviting 14 of his closest friends to his house on 27 September 2013. Clooney said...
For most things in life, the best things go to those who hustle. Activity and hard work is rewarded. Luck can help, but pluck is the name of the game. For most services, the...
For most people, I advocate investing in low-cost “passive” investments. I’m not alone. Warren Buffett is probably a bigger advocate than me. In Berkshire Hathaway’s 2016 annual report, Buffett talks about index-based funds in...
I often say that this blog is about wealth, defined broadly. What do I mean? I mean that wealth isn’t just about money. It’s possible to be a billionaire but to be impoverished and...
Managing risk is about managing uncertainty, and its effect on the things that are important to us. Most commonly, we think about managing risk in terms of stopping bad things from happening, or at...