Cooking the Books podcast: How to make sense of your KiwiSaver statement

KiwiSaver changes make it easier than ever to manage yours properly. Photo / File

Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's what your KiwiSaver is trying to tell you, and how to use it. Hosted by Frances Cook.

It's been a trial by fire lately, as the market nosedived, giving many KiwiSavers or young investors their first taste of what a market downturn can look like.

So you might expect these less experienced investors are quaking in their boots.

Happily, for the most part, no.

Listen to the podcast episode here

Research from the Financial Markets Authority shows 71 per cent of New Zealanders are optimistic the pandemic will pass, and markets recover.

In fact, 23 per cent are even planning to increase their investments in the next year.

This comes as at a time when changes to your KiwiSaver are taking place, in the hopes of making it make more sense.

These changes include a new way to predict how much you'll have by the time you hit 65 and can cash out.

Sure, some providers have had that prediction before, but now everyone is singing from the same song sheet, being asked to use the same rules to calculate it, so you can actually compare apples with apples across different providers.

Which is good, because the current upheaval has also made New Zealanders more interested in their money than ever.

The FMA's research also found more people are keeping an eye on their KiwiSaver, and many are checking their balance more often.

So okay, now you have all of this information at your fingertips. How do you make sense of it, and then what should you do with it?

For the latest Cooking the Books podcast I talked to Gillian Boyes from the Financial Markets Authority.

We discussed what changes are in your KiwiSaver statement, how New Zealanders are feeling about KiwiSaver in general, and what to do with all the new information at your fingertips.

For the interview, listen on the podcast player above.

If you have a question you'd like answered in a future podcast, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on iHeartRadio, Apple podcasts app, or Spotify, to make sure you never miss an episode.