Money Talks: How did Mary Holm get so smart about money?

Financial advice guru Mary Holm. Photo / Babiche Martens

"People get too scared to spend money," says Mary Holm, whose financial advice these days is often about remembering to enjoy life - especially in your later years.

"I'm not passionate about money," says Holm, talking on the Money Talks podcast.

"Money's absolutely not the be-all and end-all. I don't spend my leisure time reading books about money, I read novels," she says.

"Obviously having your money working well for you means you can relax and get on with the other more important things in life."

It might seem an unusual stance for such a high-profile financial expert.

But Holm does want people to know she is not a financial adviser, she's never claimed to be.

"I'm a journo," she says reflecting on a diverse career that has been anchored in the media and newspapers.

Although, as it turns out, she has some solid economic credentials having an MBA in finance from Chicago University, where neo-liberal economics had its birth.

After getting a start in journalism she followed her husband to the US and found her Visa meant she couldn't work as a journalist.

Holm tells Money Talks about how her time studying economics in the engine room of the market revolution affected her outlook on life.

"I think I got brainwashed over there into thinking the market solved all problems," she jokes. "Since then I've come a long way from that."

But it was an interesting and vibrant place to be in the late 1970s, she says.

She returned to New Zealand in the 1980s and was a business journalist through the boom and bust years, including the sharemarket crash of 1987.

She talks about the damage that 1987 did to the investment psyche of Kiwis.

"I've never seen anything like the number of New Zealanders in share clubs and the like, before the crash," she says.

"People were borrowing to invest and they were investing in companies that were borrowing to invest. That's why things were so terrible in New Zealand. It was ghastly.

"That is still echoing, with people of my generation staying out of shares."

On the podcast Holm also recalls her childhood experiences with money and talks about some of the big economic changes she believes could help address poverty and inequality in New Zealand.

• Money Talks is a podcast run by the NZ Herald. It isn't about personal finance and isn't about economics - it's just well-known New Zealanders talking about money and sharing some stories about the impact it's had on their lives and how it has shaped them.

• Money Talks is available on IHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.