By Amanda Morrall
1) A new kind of advisor
There are plenty of changes in store for the advisory sector these days. There are a lowering of expectations for long-term returns, a shift to fees from commissions and a move to a more holistic style of financial planning where dreams and goals are teased out as a matter of course and as a precursor to numbers.
U.K. financial planner Jeremy Deedes, quoted in this piece from the Telegraph, calls it the discovery of an individual's "secret sorrow, which is the thing they had always wanted to do but had never thought they could."
Deedes elaborates below.
While traditional financial advice starts from the premise of how to make you as much money and save you as much tax as possible, financial life planning has loftier ambitions – transforming your relationship with money in a way that will point you in the direction of the life you have always wanted, whether through a career change, reduced working, retraining or more time spent on hobbies or with family.
While traditional financial advisers focus on budgeting, tax, investment and insurance, a financial life planner will ask you more profound personal questions such as what you would do if you had more money, what would give your life a sense of accomplishment and meaning or what inspires you. Only once you have identified the end to which money can be the means, they argue, can a truly holistic financial plan be created.
2) The demise of savings
On a recent trip to NZ, my visiting mother gasped when she saw the term deposit rates. Coming from Canada, where the Bank of Canada rate has been languishing at 1% for some time, our term deposit rates seemed down right dizzying to her. Relativity is always good for perspective yet with interest rates widely expected to stay lower for longer investors on both side of the hemisphere are at their wits end.
Rob Carrick, of the Globe and Mail, explores one investor's conviction about the "sad end of saving and investing.''
3) Work productivity
Want to be more productive at work? How about walking away from it? Yes, forced breaks will boost your productivity by helping you to recharge your batteries, according to this item from Investopedia. Other ways to get motivation and more inspired at the workplace include exercise, writing a blog, learning to say no and having a workplace dog. Please Bernard can I bring my dog to work? I can train her to fetch chocolate. (Eds. Fine by me. But we'd need to train the dog not to eat the chocolate as it's poisonous for dogs...)
4) The full package
Packaged holidays make for easy(er) travel, however are they really as good a deal as they're marketed to be? This piece in stuff money unbundles the package deal and finds little value for money.
5) Moving to Bali
Here's a solution to retirement savings shortage. Move somewhere cheap(er). The Wall Street Journal reports on how one couple has managed to contain their costs by moving to Bali where they plan to stay.
To read other Take Fives by Amanda Morrall click here. You can also follow Amanda on Twitter@amandamorrall
7 Comments
Totally agree with number 2. I recently investigated a "package deal" to Rarotonga. It was about double the price of me sorting it out myself.
I discovered a few wonderful little charges that had been bundled into the "package" - i.e an $85 per person transfer fee from Rarotonga's airport to the hotel. That's a bit rich for a 10 minute ride in an old mini-bus around the single road on the island!
When I queried it, they just shrugged and said "that's what it is". So I booked myself into a luxury cottage on the island and they're picking me up for nothing. :)
Even the Air NZ flights were cheaper via the Air NZ website! Bizarre.
Yes avoid packages. Twice I've travelled around Europe, just bought a Eurail pass and off we went. Accommodation was never a problem and was always cheap - lots of competition. Bought food from supermarkets and outdoor markets and hardly went near a restaurant. Had a great time too!
..... be fair to them , the $ 4.50 you spend in NZ on one cafe latte is equal to the amount in their currency that they can earn in a 10 hour day ....
When you touch down in Bali , they see your pallid carcase tumbling off the 'plane , and they think .. .. " WHITE-GOLD ! " ....
.... who can blame them .......
friend has a retirement home in bali. built for peanuts, it is warm, no heating reqd,
sun, sea, sand, and relatively...so inexpensive.....and not......over rated.
it does help she has relatives there. that made it relatively simple, relatively safe and relatively cheap, relatively cost effective.....but then what isn't compared to the shaky isles.
bali is great, it used to be better, until it bombed.
put off my wife from ever visiting again, for one thing.
which is ridiculous. but it did put off a lot of people from visiting ever again.
if you travel lots, you know how to beat the systems and work with the locals.
stayed with the locals, not the riporf resorts, most people never left a luxury compound.
we do not know we are born, here in nz, but we do know when we are gouged and it ain't in bali, if ye know the ropes.
the poor gentle balinese just want a fair deal and tourists to come back.
it was the totally misguided religious fanatics that spoilt it for em.
seems a certain element here still trying to gouge the tourists. which is a bit rich comparatively.
maybe bali will be in its element again....and nz will bomb.
but you cannot tell with these fanatics, quantas and air no-zealand have a gouging policy too, as a friend found out recently when making an urgent funeral trip with the whole family and no time, nor availability to book in advance.
6 times the price of a normal ticket each and the plane was half empty and that was for just one way. A bit rich, considering he is a frequent flyer, but no more with dear old air no-zea-land.
I do not think they will be buying shares, nor travelling with em again..... at that rate.
loyal customers, deserve a better deal...
but some have to gouge..and try to mak a killing.
pity some do not know they are killing orf the fatted calf...in tourism.
bali & nz...simple thing is it is better to keep the customers you have, than drive em away to a competitor, cos most trvellers can vote with their feet.
and at the rate they put us orf.......i don't blame em.
"Christchurch East MP Lianne Dalziel has been appointed to a United Nations advisory group for disaster risk reduction................................"Lianne will be joining a dozen other MPs from around the world to discuss the challenges and opportunities in mainstreaming disaster risk reduction at every level of society," Shearer said. stuff.co
Clearly the UN is stuck in the 20th century...a fortune could be saved if the Disaster Dozen used the WEB to have their chitchat...but that would mean no junket for Lianne!
I hope she raises the serious risk to communities that head off down the socialist marxist pathway to greater ruin.....!
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.