Written by R. A. Stewart
Mary Holm is a New Zealand financial adviser who has written books on the subject of a personal finance nature for years and her book “Rich Enough? Is certainly a very good book with lots of down to earth information written in simple easy to understand terms.
There are several important points which she highlights and the first one is the importance of starting early. In fact the earlier you start the more money you will accumulate in the long term.
Starting early develops good savings habits which will in turn serve you well during your lifetime.
The second point is to get rid of any debt you have as soon as possible and staying out of debt. If you are paying 10% interest on your debt then paying off that debt is just like being paid 10% interest on your money. It makes no sense to have money invested at 5% interest when you are paying 10% interest on your own debt. That money is better off in your pocket.
Falling into the Christmas trap can be costly as Mary points out. 15% of New Zealanders have more than 11 people on their Christmas shopping list to shop for and about 27% of them are women who plan to spend over $200 per person on presents. About 17% of people expect to spend over $1,000 on Christmas. Some suggestions on how to reduce your Christmas spending are given by Mary.
A section on New Zealand’s retirement scheme Kiwisaver tells of the excuses people provide for not joining and one of those excuses is “I have not got around to it.”
This is stupidity according to the author, Mary Holm.
Another reason given is, “My grandma lost it all during the Global Financial Crisis.”
As Mary points out, these finance companies which went under during the GFC lent money to people who the banks considered too risky to lend to so they borrowed off the finance companies and paid higher interest rates. As a result, investors who lent money to these companies received high interest rates.
As the saying goes, higher return often means higher risk.
The importance of diversification is discussed as are the value of different types of investments.
My rating: I rate this book a 10 out of 10 based on the fact that the information presented is applicable to everyone irrespective of their means.
To find a copy, go online. Trademe, Ebay, and Amazon may have a copy for sale.
www.robertastewart.com
