Keep The Change

The other day I posted a photo online. It was just a payment terminal with a small sign: “CREDIT/PAYWAVE 1.5% surcharge”. It blew up. HUNDREDS of thousands of people saw it. Hundreds of comments. Over one thousand people voted in a poll asking if they do the same. In the comments, people were debating, agreeing, asking questions. All over one simple statement: “I still insert debit card to avoid 1.5% surcharge.”Hey thanks for listening! Please take some form of action from this content, don’t just be a consumer, become a producer! Make sure you’re subscribed to Money Mail via Keepthechange.co.nz to receive our weekly lesson on money and financial literacy. Stay close to us on social media and share this with someone that you think this content will help. Together we can collectively improve the financial literacy of New Zealand - let’s get on with it. Find us here:@keepthechange_nzhttps://www.keepthechange.co.nz/

Renata built Roam with Kids from zero to 4,000 paying subscribers while raising three kids. Her secret? Posting every single day for two and a half years, even when no one was watching.Renata breaks down the reality of building a startup in New Zealand, whilst juggling work & kids. We cover the loneliness of building something while everyone else has normal jobs, and how consistency beats perfection every time.We cover the pivot from travel vlogger dreams to local business reality, why she charges less than half a cup of coffee per month, and how she's building something that actually helps families while creating wealth. Plus the harsh truth: if you want to build something meaningful, you have to be willing to do boring work consistently when no one's watching.Speed creates momentum. Consistency creates success.Find Roam With Kids:https://www.instagram.com/roamwithkids/Find Renata:https://www.instagram.com/renataroaming/Amy from http://Levridge.co.nz has come on as a sponsor of Keep The Change to help people with their financial planning. Stuck? Find Amy : amy@levridge.co.nz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amy.levridgeWebsite: https://www.levridge.co.nzGenerate are supporting my vision to improve the financial literacy of 100,000 kiwis by sponsoring Keep The Change. Cheers Generate. Head to https://www.generatewealth.co.nz/change/ to find out more.

Immigrants often arrive with nothing to fall back on so “safe” feels different.Why are so many newcomers in NZ are willing to start businesses, take bigger risks, and end up hiring Kiwis? While locals often see business as too risky.

This time of the year can be where the new year's energy has died down, and we waver from goals, or we realise we didn’t do what we said we were going to and now there is no point. For some inspo, I asked some KTC listeners what it was like to ‘think they can’t’ but ‘do it anyway’ and what they noticed. Perhaps NOW is the time. What do you need to start doing?Hey thanks for listening! Please take some form of action from this content, don’t just be a consumer, become a producer! Make sure you’re subscribed to Money Mail via Keepthechange.co.nz to receive our weekly lesson on money and financial literacy. Stay close to us on social media and share this with someone that you think this content will help. Together we can collectively improve the financial literacy of New Zealand - let’s get on with it. Find us here:@keepthechange_nzhttps://www.keepthechange.co.nz/

Most Kiwis are overthinking wealth building. They're waiting for the perfect election result, the right market timing, or the ideal economic conditions. Meanwhile, they're missing the simple fundamentals that actually work.James Blair from Lighthouse Financial breaks down why money is actually straightforward: earn as much as you can, don't spend it all, pay down debt, buy shares, buy property. That's it. We cover why waiting for political changes is pointless, why timing the market fails, and why victim mindset keeps people poor.Stop waiting for perfect conditions. Start taking imperfect action. The fundamentals work if you work them.Find James:https://www.instagram.com/lighthousefinancialnz/Amy from http://Levridge.co.nz has come on as a sponsor of Keep The Change to help people with their financial planning. Stuck? Find Amy : amy@levridge.co.nz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amy.levridgeWebsite: https://www.levridge.co.nzGenerate are supporting my vision to improve the financial literacy of 100,000 kiwis by sponsoring Keep The Change. Cheers Generate. Head to https://www.generatewealth.co.nz/change/ to find out more.

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Well here we are again. More volatility + vulnerability and a sense of not knowing how long this could go on. I am not going to explore that too deeply, but I do want you to reflect on 2025. Because if you want to invest, you have to accept risk and therefore understand that risk is not a bug in investing, it’s part of the process. Markets are constantly reacting to something.Hey thanks for listening! Please take some form of action from this content, don’t just be a consumer, become a producer! Make sure you’re subscribed to Money Mail via Keepthechange.co.nz to receive our weekly lesson on money and financial literacy. Stay close to us on social media and share this with someone that you think this content will help. Together we can collectively improve the financial literacy of New Zealand - let’s get on with it. Find us here:@keepthechange_nzhttps://www.keepthechange.co.nz/

Most people misallocate their time worrying about share platform fees when they should be asking their boss for a raise. They're trying to optimise $3 in fees instead of increasing their income by $10,000.Luke and Mikey break down the hierarchy: time allocation first, income allocation second, capital allocation third. We cover why when you're young, time is your capital, and when you're older, capital buys your time back. You can get more money, but you can't get more time. Yet most people waste hours researching investments instead of spending that hour asking for a pay rise.We cover why misallocating time is worse than misallocating money, the needle-moving activities that actually matter, and why successful people do boring things consistently. Stop looking for magic solutions in chapter 8 when you haven't finished chapter 1.Time is your most valuable asset. Are you treating it that way?Find Mikey:https://guardiansmith.co.nz/https://instagram.com/officialmikeysmithAmy from http://Levridge.co.nz has come on as a sponsor of Keep The Change to help people with their financial planning. Stuck? Find Amy : amy@levridge.co.nz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amy.levridgeWebsite: https://www.levridge.co.nzGenerate are supporting my vision to improve the financial literacy of 100,000 kiwis by sponsoring Keep The Change. Cheers Generate. Head to https://www.generatewealth.co.nz/change/ to find out more.

Let’s run the numbers on someone earning $35 an hour trying to “get ahead” in NZ.Full-time is roughly $72,800. After tax, ACC, KiwiSaver (3%), you’re left with roughly $55k take-home.Here are the real costs one person shared (good starting point: 29, single, no kids, flatting):Rent: $350/weekFood: $150/weekFuel: $45/weekInsurance (car, contents, health): $60/weekGym (CrossFit): $50/weekPower: $60/weekThat totals about $715/week, or $37,200/year.So on paper: Take-home: $55,000Core living costs: -$37,200Leftover: $17,800/yearThat suggests they could be lucky to save around $15k per year. I think there are some missing costs from this budget:Dentist / medical. Car repairs + servicing + tyres. Registration + WOF. Clothing, gifts, travel, weddings. Subscriptions, eating out, entertainment.That $17.8k surplus becomes something like: $12k–$15k per year saved.That’s still solid! BUT let’s be honest about NZ.ISSUE 1: You can’t afford emergencies… and you really can’t afford house prices running away If you’re saving $12k–$15k a year,A major car problem can wipe out a big chunk of your progress or a job interruption hurts. AND you definitely don’t want house prices rising quickly while you’re trying to stack a deposit.If a $600,000 house increases by 5%, that’s $30,000 of price movement in a year. (You will get blasted by multiple media articles monthly about how possible this is and how predicted it is).So while someone is proudly saving $15k, the goalposts could move by $30k.With the cost of living increasing and tax rates not being indexed to inflation, keeping your saving rate in line with house increases becomes very hard. Fortunately house prices have been flat in SOME regions.ISSUE 2: People WITH $$$$ are experiencing the oppositeThe sharemarket returned a solid 15% in 2025 for many S&P500 investors. $100k invested and you have $115k at the end of the year (loose math). You didn’t have to work a year to gain $15k. You had to risk $100k.(The market doesn’t always act like this but it did in 2025, and in 2024 and in 2023).Even “Risk-averse Randy” with $400,000 in a term deposit at 6% received roughly $16,080 after tax in interest for risking his $400k.So of course younger people (or anyone without capital) get frustrated watching others make money “easily” like this, while they grind for the same result.When the math looks like this, it’s not hard to see why so many are choosing to try their luck somewhere else.We all know deep down that our income earning ability is our single biggest asset.If you were 25–30 right now, what would you do?SOLUTIONS??Bluntly, people in this position face a choice:- Earn more (overtime, upskilling, better industry, commission-based roles, side income)- Change housing structure (flatting vs living alone)- Stay home with parents (if it’s viable)- Reduce big recurring costs (or just do less for a season)- Invest in assets where possible (even small, consistent amounts)- Speculate (high risk, usually punished)- Move to Australia (which has been very popular)The importance of KiwiSaver to get the employer match. When saving for the first home not many financial advisors would suggest exposing the deposit to too much risk so some may not have seen the gains of those investing for different purposes (more long term).