For more than a while now, the thought of getting into investing has played on my mind. What held me back was me coming up with excuses with the main ones being, ‘it is hard to get into it’, and, ‘I don’t have enough money to get started’.
Last year, I started coming across more and more articles about investing mostly on personal finance and FIRE blogs. The more I read, the more the thoughts turned into something that I needed to act on.
I already save a small percentage of my salary with that going directly into a bank separate from the one we use for everyday banking. I have it set up where every time I get paid, my employer transfers a fixed amount into the savings account. It’s an automatic set and forget setup. We pretty much forget that we have that account and leave the money in there to do its thing.
The 2% interest that some of it was earning wasn’t the best in the world but it was better than nothing. I say some as some of that money was periodically shifted into a term deposit with an interest rate of what was 2.8%.
I say ‘was’ above because in Q4 last year we got an email from or savings bank that they would be reducing their Premium Saver interest rate from 2% p.a. to 1.75% p.a.. The drop in the Official Cash Rate in August 2019 from 1.50 to 1.00 may have had a part to play in many banks reducing interest rates on savings account and term deposits.
All of this got me thinking even more about finding a way of making some of our money work a little harder for itself and earn decent returns. Que investing!
Investing in New Zealand
Reading through some content reminded me of the fact that I’m already an investor. I contribute towards Kiwisaver (and someone else does the work of investing that money) and I’m also part of an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP). This is also set and forgot hence it not registering as investing. I am also lucky enough to be work for an employer that offers employees that chance to sign up to The New Zealand Retirement Trust (NZRT). NZRT is something I will expand on at a later date.
With my mind just about 100% settled that I was going to divert some money into investing, came the hunt for information on how to go about it in New Zealand.
I came across a post by Kelvin (Money King NZ) on 9 ways to invest in New Zealand. It outlined various ways in which people can invest and included bank deposits, shares, funds and property just to name a few. Each investment type comes with varying degrees of difficulty and potential risks and return.
There is a need to educate yourself and have a strategy in place that best suits your circumstances. For my current circumstances, shares and funds is it.
Investing through Sharesies
There a handful of platforms and fund managers out there that make investing easier for ‘everyday people’ so to speak. They include Sharesies, Hatch and Kernel, just to name a few.
There are various schools of thought on what the best one is and some of the people who have reviewed them put forward good arguments for what they feel is the best platform. For example, Nick from Your Money Blueprint, whose opinion I value, is of the mind that Sharesies is no good for beginners.
But, after taking in all the information on the platforms that I could find and after taking a look at what they had to offer and most of all my CURRENT circumstances, I settled on Sharesies. The word ‘current’ is in caps because later on down the line, circumstances will change and at this point, another platform may be more suited to my needs. When that time comes, I will make necessary adjustments then.
But, for now, it is Sharesies, (heavy on index funds) where I’m auto investing a small amount on a weekly basis.
Invest in NZ, US and Aus companies and funds through Sharesies.
Sign up today and get $5 to get you started.
The amount that we currently save per week is staying as is. The money that is being put towards investing is what is left over after all the needs and wants are met. Despite their comparably low returns, savings are safer compared to the share market. Markets can be up by a lot one year and down by a lot the next.
Start investing today!
Yes, I may have started a little later in the game (I’m almost 40!) but better late than never. If you are thinking about getting into investing, there is no time better than the present to take the plunge. The earlier that you jump in, the more time there will be for the investment(s) to grow.
I have a lot of learning to do but that is something that I will do along the way. I will do a little write up in six months time on how things are going.
Invest in NZ, US and Aus companies and funds through Sharesies.
Sign up today and get $5 to get you started.
Update: here is a review of how things have gone after one year; One year investing with Sharesies – a quick review
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