Money Magazine

Most people resign themselves to the fact that “mortgage boots” are part of life. It is an assumed financial pain stretched over 30 years or more in exchange for long-term gain, an asset that will help support your lifestyle on your retirement. Not s

More than 400,000 Aussies placed their first trade in the last two months, according to Investment Trends. “Young Australians are increasingly embracing investing, with one in six first-time investors under the age of 25,” says Irene Guiamatsia, from

Global equities look to enjoy strong growth as and if the pandemic recedes, but this may be derailed if inflation picks up, according to American Century senior investment director Chris Chen. “Notwithstanding any hiccups on the vaccine front, early

A bolt of inspiration hit Eric Peck while serving as a RAAF Hercules pilot eight years ago in Afghanistan. “I saw how drones were being used to track soldiers on the battlefield,” he recalls. “It piqued my interest, because my parents had just moved

1. Stay and dine: Treat yourself to a luxury weekend stay at the beautifully restored Victorian The Argyle Inn, Taralga, just 45km from Goulburn. The pub has eight comfortable guest rooms with en suites. Head downstairs to the marble-topped bar or ou

Australians spend an average 20 million hours a week hunting for bargains, with the average person devoting 63 minutes a week to the pursuit. Parents spend 77 minutes a week hunting for deals while people aged 35-49 do it 30% more than the average. A

Instead of paying a financial planner to help you work out how much you need in retirement, FIREs have what the blogger Peter Adeney calls a “shockingly simple” formula: take your annual expenditure and multiply it by 25. “This will keep you going fo

NAME: Jason*, 48 AIM: Retire in 15 months INCOME NEEDED: $90,500 INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Vanguard diversified funds and ETFs, 50% weighted to Australian shares and dividends. Also some direct shares and alternative assets such as gold, Bitcoin, peer-

NAME: Leo, Alisha, Dom, 4, and baby Ellie* AIM: Retire this year INCOME NEEDED: $90,000 a year INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Vanguard index funds, shares, managed funds that align with their principles, maximum contributions to superannuation. IN 2018, LEO

NAME: Joanna Jones*, 63 RETIRED: At 51 INCOME: $18,000 per year INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Switching from direct shares to diversified index funds, increasingly in different parts of the world. JOANNA HAS BEEN RETIRED for 12 years and, remarkably, she s

NAME: Dave RETIRED: At 28 INCOME NEEDED: $45,000 a year for Dave and his partner, Alison, and dog, Boss INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Selling down investment properties and buying more index funds. Currently buying real estate investment trusts. Owns some

NAME: Kate Campbell, 22 AIM: Retire at 40 INCOME NEEDED: Expects this to change as she nears her retirement, depending on circumstances, but around $40,000 a year INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Automatic deduction into a savings account and then dollar cost

Mr Money Mustache, Peter Adeney, says the best way to cut your spending and save is to get rid of your credit card, live close to work, don’t borrow money for cars, particularly pricey ones. He recommends cancelling your TV services and stop wasting

The financial world is becoming more complex to handle on your own, so building a team of experts can help you break free from money worries and get ahead financially. The catch is that most – though not all – finance professionals expect to be paid.

Right now, the baby boomer effect is likely to push up property prices, keeping the market buoyant. Baby boomers – 76 million of them were born around the world between 1946 and 1964 in the population boom after World War II – are commonly regarded a

Listed investment trusts (LITs) are gaining traction among investors, accounting for 20% of the $52.8 billion LIC/LIT sector at the end of December 2020. LITs are closed-ended, meaning that there are a limited number of shares and thus the capital re

The investment world is full of concepts and jargon. Defensive, growth, correlation, risk, yield … the list goes on. What’s less frequently talked about is how these concepts fit together to form possibly the most important concept of them all – port

Australians are on track to lose more than $200 million to scammers this year. According to Scamwatch, in 2020 they parted with $176 million, with 216,000 cases reported to authorities (10.6% involved financial loss). Already 2021 is looking worse. T

A small amount of general price increases (or inflation) is important as it incentivises businesses to sell more, employ more people, seek higher profit and drive overall economic growth. However, if the rise in prices gets away at such a pace that i

Navigating the super-in-retirement landscape alone is virtually impossible given its complexity and the financial perils of getting it wrong. While access to affordable advice is the obvious answer, that’s easier said than done. Most Australians mudd

NAME: Serina Bird, 48 RETIRED: At 46 INCOME NEEDED: $60,000 to $70,000 a year for a family of four INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Four investment properties, shares and aggressively paying down the mortgage. Selling one property and increasing her investmen

Finding companies that represent the best in their industry can be a challenge. Clues can often be found from revenue growth. Or the increase in profits. Some hints can come from ratios like return on equity or invested capital. You might look for a

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It’s hard to escape trade-offs in the world of investment finance. If you want growth, you invest in equities but cop high volatility. If you want defensive assets you can invest in bonds that pay rock-bottom yields. But what if you were told that th

There are a lot of things in the sharemarket that say one thing but mean another. Like these, for instance: Hi, we haven’t spoken in ages – Damn, I hit an old speed dial number. I’ll call you – Don’t call me. I’ll call you – This is possibly the l

Transitioning to renewable energy will be key to economic growth in the coming years, according to AXA Investment Managers. Chief investment officer Chris Iggo says that the shift towards renewable energy has to be swift. “If you are a carbon emitter

February 22, 2021 will go down in Australian history as VAC (Vaccine Against Covid-19) Day (although the prime minister, Scott Morrison, the chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, and 84-year-old aged-care resident Jane Malysiak received their gift of th

When my 25-year-old daughter fainted at work, her colleagues called an ambulance and the paramedics took her to hospital. She was checked out thoroughly, sent home to rest and returned to work a few days later. A month later she received a bill for $

Usually when people reach retirement age they find they are financially comfortable – and that’s a great thing. It means you’ve worked hard all your life and you’ve put away sufficient funds to provide for yourself. Retirement should be a time to rel

Online shopping platforms have been big beneficiaries of the pandemic. People selling online made an average income of $4292, in the past 12 months, while almost a third made an extra $1000 or more through pre-owned items. Ebay data shows an extra mi

NAME: Pat Seyrak, 32 AIM: Retire at 35 INCOME NEEDED: $40,000 a year INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Sold out of four Australian listed investment companies, without triggering a capital gain, and put the money into international ETFs: Vanguard MSCI Index In

I first met Hamish Douglass in the early 2000s at an annual meeting of Cabcharge (now A2B). We ended up sitting next to each other in the front row and introducing ourselves. At the time he was a big shot at Deutsche Bank, but his passion for investi

Almost a third of mortgages are in arrears, according to research by the comparison site Finder, which surveyed 446 home loan customers. If this is representative of all mortgagees, that’s equivalent to 899,000 home loans that are behind on repayment

I am almost at retirement age. According to Centrelink, there’s one year to go, although I don’t expect to be entitled to any benefits. I don’t mind continuing work but would like to perhaps cut back a little, say to four days a week. I own my home i

After the party, the hangover. But it was Woolies, rather than Coles, that remembered to drink a glass of water before bedtime. While the recent interim results showed that like-for-like sales growth remains elevated, for Woolworths it slowed from 11

Q What do you do if your builder goes broke? This is such an awful thing to happen when you’re in the middle of what is often a once-in-a-lifetime project. If your builder is placed into liquidation, you should make contact with the liquidator as so

Small business is big business, accounting for nearly 98% of all the nation’s commercial enterprises. Among them, sole traders have the strength of numbers, comprising a whopping 62% of small businesses. That’s close to 800,000 businesses owned and o