You may have noticed a drop in your KiwiSaver balance recently and been wondering what to do about it.

Buying your first home can be daunting, there is a lot of jargon and everyone is trying to get their cut.

Preparing for what you are doing will make the process a lot easier for you.

We all know that cards have interest rates and its not difficult to work out the interest cost per month. If you have a $10,000 balance owing, on a 20% card, the interest cost will be $166 a month.

There is an article on the Herald about a new Breast cancer drug that is getting good results, but is $5000 a month for the pills.

So naturally people would like this to be covered by Pharmac so it can be done for free. This is not that easy, as Pharmac has a specific budget and every issue out there has new drugs people would love to be funded.

 A recent article in Stuff suggested that half of Kiwis surveyed had no idea what the Member Tax credits are.

This is pretty horrifying considering its been 10 years since KiwiSaver came in and it's all over the internet.

Christmas day is 16 weeks from Monday (the 4th of September).

Now that this has horrified you, you should be wondering about what you are going to do for Christmas and the spending for it.

A lot of people are surprised and a bit shocked after last the US election results and while I won’t be discussing the actual results of the election and the fall out (plenty of the media, who were wrong about the election will spend time telling you what will happen), it’s important to know about the market impact.

Money Mind-set is the concept of having the right thoughts about money and setting your mind set accordingly.  It’s about focusing to spending only money you have, not racking up debt, and saving as much as you can for your goals.  A good money mind-set will help you grow wealth better over the years, and remove all the money stress most people have.

Today is the 6th birthday of DUX Financial.  It’s crazy to think it’s been 6 years, but it means I have now been at DUX longer than any other financial company.

Leaving aside the overblown hyperbole of the journalists in this article (I don’t think any company advertises itself as a cluster bomb company, but whatever), it’s important to know where you are investing and if you have preferences to not invest in certain areas, to see what you can do about it.

Building a home is an exciting, and often fraught experience, and it’s hard to get concrete knowledge on what to do.  Often the builders hold onto information and make it difficult for you to know what your options are.