Welcome to Passive Income NZ, my Journey to Financial Independence. Every month I share how I am tracking towards financial freedom by providing you with an update of where my portfolio is at and how far I am from financial freedom, and how my spending is tracking. My definition of financial freedom is not really the same as everyone definition. It’s not to just stop working, it is much more than that. It’s about living a more intentional life.
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Celebrating Post 101!
In February 2018, I launched my very first blog post into the world. Being new to blogging and to the personal finance community, I had no idea what to write about. I decided to write about what I’ve learnt about investing and personal finance. Now I’ve posted my 100th Post with my comparison of Juno, Simplicity, and Superlife.
Most Popular Posts to Date
Not all of you amazing people have been here since I started, so I thought I would share with you my most popular 10 posts to date.
- Does Investing Make You Anxious
- 9 Money Rules that Guarantee Success
- We Paid $52K in Debt Last Year
- How Sound is Your Financial Lifestyle?
- 4 Steps to Early Retirement Through Passive Income
- What Is Your Largest Everyday Expense?
- Minimising Your largest Expense- Food
- Saving Tips and Tricks
- Are my Food expenses Normal?
- The Power of Incrementalism
Which is your favourite?
I just want to say thank you to everyone who is supporting me and the blog in whatever way possible. I have grown as a person over the last year, thank you!! Thank you for reading my thoughts. Thank you for commenting – I really enjoy them and it makes my day when you leave a comment. Thank you for all your interesting viewpoints. Thank you for connecting with me on Twitter. Thank you all!
In July, I compared three of the Kiwisaver schemes that are often recommended by the financial independence community because they have low fees than the vast majority of KiwiSaver schemers. They are Simplicity, Superlife, and Juno. This was part of my research into which scheme I should change too. I’m currently in the ANZ growth scheme and need to make the move since the balance has been growing nicely from my contributions, employer contributions, and the government bonus. But ANZ charges too much. I’m still on the fence whether to join Simplicity or Superlife. Let me know in the comments which you think is better.
I also reflected on the value of education by looking at the net worth and income statistics. I wanted to see whether it was true if University students were holding more debt than other educated people. And it turns out that they do hold the most debt, but they also tend to have a higher net worth. Check the post out- I learnt how to script interactive graphs on that post. Probably not the best viewing experience on Mobile thought.
Another important topic for new investors is to know where your money is actually invested in. It’s easy just to join a platform such as InvestNow, but what are the funds like the NZX50, US500, or Vanguard funds actually invested in. Check out the post for a quick rundown of those three funds.
I’ve been noticing that my original post in 2018 about Peer to peer lending in NZ has been getting some decent traffic- so I thought I would do a quick update on that one. If you’re interested in Peer to peer lending, have a look. It’s a quick rundown on the peer to peer platforms offered in NZ.
Investment in July
Our savings rate for the month sat at 67% for July. That is the amount of money invested or principal paid on the mortgage as a percentage of income.
For the month of June, as a percentage of spending;
- Investment: 32% (-16%)
- Mortgage: 35% (+19%)
The levels have gone back to normal after last months bonus made it look like I was heavily investing. In reality, it’s normally about one-third, one-third, one-third in terms of spending, investing, and paying the mortgage
Portfolio July 2019
Asset allocation
The proportion of my portfolio invested in peer to peer is continuing to decreasing. There are just not enough loans to fund- so I’ve been withdrawing money to put into index funds instead. Peer to peer is currently sitting at 18%.
- Australasian Shares: 28% (+1%)
- International Shares: 27% (+1%)
- US shares: 4%
- Total Shares: 59% (+2%)
- Kiwisaver: 11% (+1%)
- Peer to Peer Lending: 18% (-1%)
- Listed Property: 11%
- Bonds: 0%
- Cash: 1% (-2%)
Performance
- InvestNow: 17.27%
- Genesis Energy: 34.90%
- Kiwisaver: 7.41%
- Lending Crowd: 11.64%
- Harmoney: 10.47%
InvestNow: Returns from assets I hold are after fees and before tax. Genesis Energy: Returns from capital gain and dividends in the last calendar year. Calculated using Sharesight. Kiwisaver: Performance for the last year after fees and before tax and membership fees. Lending Crowd: Net average return (NAR) is a calculated annualised return for your investment portfolio that’s calculated monthly on the 1st day of each month. Harmoney: Realised Annual Return (RAR) is a measure of the actual rate of return on funds invested in the Harmoney platform.
Goals
Total Portfolio >100K by December 2019
My goal of reaching $100k invested still stands. I’m now 85% of the way there. I now have only 4 months left to achieve my goal. That means I need to invest at least $3,750 per month. This amount keeps increasing as I’m not hitting it every month.
Switch Kiwisaver
Been procrastinating on this one!
Another goal I have is to transfer my Kiwisaver. I’ve now done some research and written a post about it. Still, haven’t decided which option to go with yet. Superlife- where I can choose my own investment mix- which would be more aggressive compared to Simplicity growth fund.
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What Investnow funds do you hold?
There’s a list in the post Why You Should Consider Re-balancing Your Investments, although it’s a bit out of date now. Mainly the Vanguard, NZX50, NZ mid-Cap, and Australian property. Do you invest with Investnow?