Credit Simple NZ
Credit is great. It means you can buy what you want right now! But before you get too excited, too many Kiwis get themselves in the doo-doo with their credit. You don’t want to be one of them. Often it’s the people banks call ‘revolvers’ who get themselves into a complete debt disaster. These are the people who only make the minimum payment each month and see their debt spin out of control. Sure you can go bankrupt or use the…
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Because I’m both a procrastinator and a multitasker I recently found myself avoiding work by cleaning the pantry while listening to a recording of the Hobbit. Unfortunately, owing to my overactive imagination, as I cleaned and found packets of things I don’t remember purchasing, I could hear the small but persistent voice of Gollum quietly hissing: “What has it got in its cupboards, hmmm?” I don’t want to admit to Gollum that we have eight different kinds of flour. “Is…
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Here at Credit Simple HQ, we’re always talking to Kiwis from all over the country about their credit scores and their finances. So when we noticed a trend – that is, older Kiwis telling us they don’t feel sorted for retirement – we thought we’d dig into the data to see if the numbers would tell us a story. And that data shows that New Zealanders over 55 are buckling under debt pressure, with the age group making up an increasing…
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Your credit score matters when it comes to renting a home. Landlords can and do carry out credit checks on potential tenants (but remember, they have to get your permission first). If you’ve got a great big black mark on your credit history – or even a little black dot – you’ll probably kiss that rental goodbye. It sounds unfair and could leave you homeless. But landlords aren’t running a charity. A bad credit history rings alarm bells to landlords and…
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Two weeks ago the new finance minister Steven Joyce delivered his first budget, and the last that this National government gets to table before heading to the polls in September. While budget day doesn’t come with quite the drama or possibility of surprise that it did in, say, the 80s, it’s still a big deal. There’s a lot of detail, but essentially the government is announcing where it plans to get money from (taxes, borrowing, occasionally selling things) and how it…
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What’s in a name? When it comes to your credit score, it could be more than you think. Here at Credit Simple, we’ve got access to a wealth of data around credit information and demographics. So we thought we’d look into first names ranked by credit score. Names such as Beryl, Joan and Muriel might sound old-fashioned, but they’re winning in the health stakes when it comes to credit scores. Enid, Joan and Winifred take out the top three spots…
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We haven’t paid into the Cullen Fund for seven years Heard of the Cullen Fund? It’s named after Michael Cullen, who was Minister of Finance in 2001 when the fund was set up. It’s also called the NZ Super Fund, and it’s designed to partially fund our retirement pension. The fund is currently $33.1b. In July 2009 the National government stopped contributing to it, and if that hadn’t happened, it would have been $52.6b in January this year (according to…
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Have you got your free five hundy for the year yet? That’s $521 free money of yours sitting at the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) waiting for you to claim it. Here’s how to milk your KiwiSaver. The big five hundy What? Yes, every single person in the country aged over 18 can get $521 a year back from the government. But you’ll need to be in KiwiSaver to get this tax credit (read more on the IRD website). When you sign up and…
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Budgeting, planning and all the good credit habits in the world are no good if someone goes and nicks your hard-earned money. These days, though, the bad guys are unlikely to turn up with stockings over their heads and big sacks marked “swag”. Digital crime – money being stolen directly from your bank account – is on the up. There are two ways this can happen, and one is a lot more common than the other. “Hacking” is what most…
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Question time: do you flash, or do you stash, your cash? Or do you mix it up and go both ways? Although we’re trying to save, we realised recently the dollars aren’t mounting up like we’d like them to be. So, in what might appear to be a counterintuitive move, we decided to pay to get financially fit. Yes, that’s right. We got a financial personal trainer from enableMe. It’s just like the gym! But with less active wear. Show…
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