Leading questions: Ari Sargent

Ari Sargent is CEO of Powershop. Photo / Supplied

Are you generally frugal with your own spending or do you consider yourself a big spender?

I'm pretty frugal myself but I've got three kids and between them and the rest of the family money tends to vanish fairly quickly.

Do you like shopping? If so what do you like to spend your money on? If not what do you dislike about it?

The self-confessed geek (who cut his teeth as programming assembler for the 6502 processor on an Apple II computer) says tech gadgets are his weak point.

"The last big purchase was an android phone [before they were released here]. I like shopping online, especially gadgets. I don't mind shopping in stores but I hate Christmas shopping when there's a million people in there and you don't know what you're there to buy."

Can you recall an experience (good or bad) from your youth that taught you something important about the value of money?

The 42-year-old grew up in suburban Christchurch with two working parents and recalls there wasn't a lot of money around. He qualified for an Electricity Department bursary which helped while studying electrical engineering at Canterbury University.

"It was probably only a few bucks a year but it seemed like a lot at the time."

Do you have a piece of advice or a favourite quote about money for those just starting out.

"Buy second-hand. Something that wasn't around in my day is Trade Me and sites like that. We buy a lot of stuff, we buy better quality for half the price. It's great for hocking off stuff. If I had my time again I probably wouldn't buy cheap stuff - it invariably breaks and you end up buying the good version anyway."