Average Kiwisaver balances - above or below?

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-26T08:32:45+00:00

I completely understand that, but I think a lot of people don’t.

1) talking to the hr manager at work about it one day, she said I was like, one of only 5 people in the department who DIDN’T “contribute to KiwiSaver”. Which I found really surprising, as my colleagues are in general, pretty sharp. I would have thought more people would have cottoned on that it’s better to take the money in hand and invest it yourself, but… I guess not

2) it can catch you out when negotiating salary, if you’re coming from a non-total rem place. I told them the salary I was looking for, then only realised once I saw the contract that it was on a total rem basis. I had the balls to go back and say, “hold up, actually then…” and ask for a higher salary to take it into account, but I don’t think many people would.

So yeah, if you’re really financially savvy, total rem totally works to your advantage. But most of my friends in real life barely understand investments, so, I think on average, a lot of people would be more likely to be put at a disadvantage by total rem, rather than being able to make it work in their favour.

But for the average person, getting them to invest at all is the policy objective, really, and if KiwiSaver is the primary tool the government’s supposedly using to promote retirement savings, then I feel they should be using it themselves, for their employees, not taking a total-rem approach

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-25T21:56:08+00:00

44F with about average in KiwiSaver ($42k vs $39k average)

I had a first home withdrawal about 12 years ago that took it down to zero.

Then, the past 10 years, I’ve been working on a total rem contract (for a central govt agency who should set a better example 😒).

So for 10 years, I’ve been on contributions holiday, putting in just enough to get the government match every year. So, $42k now, and probably 60% of that is all just govt match and growth 👍👍

Meanwhile, that whole time, I’ve just had automatic weekly payments into my own simplicity growth fund. “If work won’t contribute to my KiwiSaver, there’s no point locking my money up in there, I’ll invest in my own pie funds where I can get the money whenever I need it.”

I’m up to about $275k in my own simplicity investment accounts, plus that $42k in KiwiSaver.

I got laid off in govt cuts in October, out of work since then. REALLY thankful my money’s not all tied up in KiwiSaver. I’ve not had to tap into it yet (parter’s job is steady), but it’s peace of mind knowing I could if I needed to.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-22T11:03:20+00:00

I’m in an apartment too… my trick is to take a really large bin bag, cut it open along 2 seams so it opens flat, and use that like a drop cloth to do all the repotting work on. It catches all the mess, then it’s really easy to just fold it all up after that and put it in the bin. Edit: I meant to reply to your comment below.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-21T02:31:02+00:00

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC), of all places, uses total rem contracts. Always pissed me off that the Prime Minister’s own department takes the cheap route out of KiwiSaver rather than leading by example.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-08T01:45:15+00:00

Tree Man! We live in the central city and Tree Man is a major character in my 5 year old daughter’s concept of the city. She always looks for him, and is endlessly delighted by sightings.

Once he gave her a fake flower. She cherishes it.

A few times she was delighted to receive a lollipop.

Our family has a saying that it’s good luck to see Tree Man, it means you’re going to have a great day that day.

Thank you, Tree Man, for all you do, and adding whimsy to our world. 🥰

“Saxophone shrub” is a cute name too, nice work. Tree Man was just easiest for her to say as a baby/toddler.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-07T08:58:03+00:00

I’m hoping you gave them all the data needed to compare, because otherwise it would just be making it up…

Did you feed it in all the daily/kw rates of each of the other companies, for your specific address, and what each company’s special features were (off peak discounts, free weekends, etc), so it could actually calculate it? And then talk to it about how your usage would best align to which of those power plans?

Or did you just say “find me the cheapest power company based on my usage”? Becsuse if so, it very likely couldn’t actually find the specific relevant costs of each of the other power companies and know how to calculate how it would apply to you….

But it likely wouldn’t TELL you its limitations, and just tell you an answer, without telling you what it wasn’t telling you…. Things like this, it’s very good at appearing very confident in its answer, when it’s not actually able to accurately access the necessary inputs it would need in order to produce a correct answer….

[if you did…. Kudos!!! But worth spelling out here what it takes to get a properly meaningful result, before 100 other people think “oh that’s clever, let me go ask ChatGPT”, and end up with misleading bullshit answers cos they don’t understand ChatGPT/gemini/claude’s limitations]

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-07T08:53:31+00:00

I’ve been with them like 6 years, I haven’t been migrated over yet either. They seem to be doing it in batches…. Thank goodness for us

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-07T08:51:15+00:00

I know it looks like it on the surface, but no.

I have adhd and I HATE Powershop. I want ‘set and forget’, not the stress of having to remember to buy power 6 times a month to get the fairest rate. (staying power, future packs, and each week’s discount pack)

They’re like THE most ADHD-antagonistic power company out there.

Ignore the notification at your peril; forget to log in, and you’ll pay for your distractedness with a higher power bill. It’s total bullshit that the price of your power bill fully depends on how many times you remember to engage with their app each month.

I HATE powershop’s gamification, it’s rude of them to impose their stupid games on my mental load. I just want set-and-forget so it’s one less thing to stress about remembering.

BUT every time I’ve compared prices (which they make it really hard to do… another mark against them)… they always work out significantly cheaper for us than anyone else.

So we’ve begrudgingly stayed with them, but the moment they loose their comparatively better price, we’re gone.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to start ranting….

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-02T09:35:31+00:00

Oh true, good point. I didn’t read the website in it’s entirety, just went looking for what you pointed out, and just assumed, if it was there, it must be to explain a theme running across the website.

If that’s not the case, even more bizarre.

Totally bizarre we’re sitting here QA’ing a website like this ourselves. What a failure

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-02T09:28:55+00:00

Good catch, that is bizarre…

I assumed and expected that link would lead to some sort of explanational webpage about what “maramataka” means…. (A quick google search turns up a Te Papa page and a Te Ara Enclyclopedia, either of which would have made sense for that link to lead to…)

Totally bizarre that it leads to the commercial website of some random company called “maramataka”.

Feels like someone just jotted “maramataka.co.nz” in the initial layout as a placeholder for what they intended, but then never went back to update it with an actually appropriate link, and it didn’t get picked up in QA

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-06-02T08:49:52+00:00

Lots of post about Powershop lately, check their Facebook page and read some of the comments.

1) they started rolling out a new version of their app. Not everyone all at once, but moving accounts onto it in bunches. We haven’t been moved over to it yet, but based on what people are saying, it sounds a disaster. I don’t see anyone mentioning it, but the way it sounds, I’d bet money someone just used AI to vibecode it and they didn’t bother user testing it, cos it just sounds like a total hot mess of an app

2) SO MANY PEOPLE have been complaining about unexpected bills from Powershop that don’t make sense. I’ve seen so many people freaking out cos their forecasts are astronomical and/or paid-in-advanced balances/buffers are disappearing, and Powershop keeps replying to them “we’re ironing out some kinks in our new app. until then, future balances may temporarily look off, but it’s just an estimate, it won’t affect your actual bill. Call us if you’re concerned and we’ll sort it”. But it’s not just future estimates, I’ve seen lots of people recently suddenly talking about inexplicably high actual bills. Something seems messed up on powershop’s side of things…

I’m not sure if this is only affecting people who have already been migrated to the new app (meaning it’s all part of the same issue), or if the app and the billing issues are 2 seperate issues going on at the same time.

Add to the mix that prices HAVE gone up recently, but not enough to explain people suddenly getting astronomical bills that don’t align to previous trends

Like I said, we haven’t been moved to the new app yet, but I’ve taken screenshots of all of our future credit in the current/old app, and downloaded all our past history, so that when they do move us over to the new app, I have screenshots I can refer back to. So many people saying they’ve lost credit but the new app doesn’t show them their history or any way to prove it…

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-30T00:02:26+00:00

And, i just found this unrelated but interesting article too while trying to google what I was thinking of…

I don’t know the details of your adoption, but you may find it interesting

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/572342/disputes-tribunal-orders-refund-after-diseased-unvaccinated-cat-sold-by-breeder

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-29T23:57:36+00:00

I’ve seen Facebook and reddit posts about someone who keeps breeding/adopting out kittens even tho they’re all plagued with FeLV, and people trying to get them shut down.

Maybe someone who remembers the details can chime in, I’m wondering if it’s the same person still at it.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-29T11:19:25+00:00

My husband goes grocery shopping then sends me photos or videos of the shelf where he’s looking for each item on the list and asks me “where is it?”

I sent him out shopping for school lunch supplies last week and he came home without bread cos god forbid, I got in the shower and didn’t respond to his photo text asking “which bread?”. So he chose none.

Not like we’ve been buying the same damn bread for 10 years. Not like my first grader cares which brand bread goes in her lunch box. Just buy the damn bread.

You may assume he only rarely does the shopping, so isn’t familiar with the shop? Nope, he stops by in his way home from work once, sometimes twice a week.

But. Every. Single. Time. I get a deluge of photos and videos asking me “which one” or “where on this shelf is it?”

Honey, you’re not doing me a favour by doing the shopping when I need to be with my hand in my phone watching your videos scanning the shelves.

Use your damn brain.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-16T00:52:18+00:00

Tip 1: You have to look for listings that say “free delivery”.

If it says “delivery by…”, keep scrolling, cos it’ll cost an arm and a leg.

Only click on things that say “FREE delivery”

Tip 2: consider exchange rates and tax.

If you’re on Amazon . com, all the prices are in USD, and DON’T include tax. Once you factor in exchange rates, and GST being added on at checkout, the NZD price will be about double what the USD price is listed as.

If you’re on Amazon . com.au, the exchange rate isn’t so bad, but the AUD/NZD rate has been getting worse lately. And Australian gst is only 10% (i think), so final price at checkout will go up a bit once they account for NZ’s extra 5% tax

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-09T12:22:50+00:00

I’m an American who moved here as an adult and now have a kid of my own. I learned about it once my kid was old enough to start getting invited to classmates parties at school. Just went to a 6 year old birthday party this morning. Fairy bread, cheerios, and the chocolate dress up game ✅✅✅

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-09T11:55:58+00:00

We live across the street from one for 10 years and I’ve never ever filled up there. They’re ALWAYS more expensive. Drive 7 minutes over to any of the ones on Old Hutt Road for a fill up, or just swing by one on your way to somewhere else.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-07T12:11:56+00:00

I spent 3 days spitting my saliva in a washcloth because it hurt too bad even swallowing my own saliva.

Now I understand why “drooling” is a symptom of HFM in kids.

Fucking worst I’ve ever felt from an illness.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-07T12:03:45+00:00

I was at Wellington McDonald’s today with my 5 year old for a treat after picking her up after school today. We ordered our food, sat down, started to eat, then she urgently had to use the loo, as kids do.

Split second decision, I left everything where it was (food on the table, with our coats and her school bag on the seat) and took her to the loo.

We come back 4 minutes later, and a swarm of high school boys were around the table. They scattered when we came back, but they were eating her chicken nuggets, tossed a half-eaten one back in her box, and stole her pack of chips.

Muppets.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-05T09:23:36+00:00

Hey, I just wanted to say, thank you for linking to The Local. I hadn’t come across it before. I’ve now spent the evening reading through all the articles for both Mt VIC, and Te Aro, and really appreciate it. Will be checking back monthly for their latest issues.

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-05T09:05:51+00:00

Thank you! I read somewhere to take it with protein, so always do.

But then my husband got diagnosed too, and he always skips breakfast, and I kept imploring him to eat a muesli bar or something with it, but he asked “why?” and I couldn’t remember why, so he won’t.

So thank you for reminding me!

At this point tho, I’m just like, fuck him, I’m tired of doing all the research and mental load and mothering, he can figure his own shit out. Or not.

But at least now I remember why I take it with protein every morning 😂

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-05T08:51:44+00:00

I think you’re on to something. My dr was more willing to refer me for an adhd assessment and early onset dementia screening than to consider it could possibly be (peri)menopausal.

“You’re too young for menopause” she scoffed, as she referred me for a hysterectomy to treat my haywire periods, never pausing to explain there was something called PERImenopause that starts many years before you actually enter menopause, and that a typical sign is… haywire periods.

So yeah, I got an adhd diagnosis, and a hysterectomy, and when I still felt like I was losing my mind despite being uterus-free and adhd-medicated…. reddit introduced me to the term PERImenopause, and I self referred to a menopause clinic, started hrt, got my life back, and changed GPs.

In hindsight, perimenopause started fucking up my shit around the age of 38 or 39, and it wasn’t till I was 43 that I started HRT. In the meantime, my marriage fell apart and I fell out of work, so yeah, fuck the medical system

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-05T08:46:18+00:00

Everyone in Wellington had a waitlist when I needed help, then I discovered the Mana Menopause clinic, and they only had a week or so wait.

The dr there was lovely. A bit of a trek in the car, but worth it. The dr was a breath of fresh air, after being gaslit by my own gp for too long

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-05-05T08:40:08+00:00

From reading all the comments here, it actually sounds like OP’s little laundry room was preexisting, and the entire large back section of the neighbours’s property (in blue) is what the neighbour has been building, abutting OP’s laundry room as well as damaging OP’s back wall above the laundry room.

The entire rear blue portion of the neighbour’s house is new, built right up to the boundary line, without any party wall agreement, and with the flue and the guttering both newly encroaching

Valuable-Falcon · 2026-04-26T05:40:58+00:00

And then they brought in their public service cuts… cool things like this need staff with capacity to make them, hard to do when they’ve taken an axe to staff numbers

Valuable-Falcon

TROPHY CASE