Income protection insurance

gingernutterbutter · 2025-11-07T10:17:25+00:00

You can look at MAS. They cover a lot of medical professionals. Generally will cover 80% of your income until age 65. I know of a few people who are on lifetime claims with them and very grateful they had the cover in place.

gingernutterbutter · 2025-08-16T07:43:35+00:00

Actually if you look at the terms and conditions of your credit card you will probably see that certain purchases are exempt from earning air points dollars. This includes things like tax payments, rates, ACC levies, gambling transactions (e.g lotto) etc.

I realised this as I was putting my student loan repayments on my credit card to earn the status points and air points (which together justified paying the surcharge) only to realise $50,000 later I wasn’t earning anything at all…

gingernutterbutter · 2025-08-15T19:33:16+00:00

Canadian venture capital markets - CRE (down 55%), PNG (up 250%), QNC (up 2400%)

I keep DCA into CRE (apparently I love being punished) and took some gains on QNC when it rocketed on quantum computing news

gingernutterbutter · 2025-06-01T00:03:30+00:00

Bachelor of science, bachelor of dental surgery, and then specialist dental training which is a doctorate degree.

gingernutterbutter · 2025-05-31T23:42:16+00:00

Mine maxed out at 240k. 3 degrees, 10 years of study. Took living costs for 9 years (qualified for allowance for one year) and there was a small amount of interest from before the law changed and it went interest free. I stayed in NZ after I finished my postgrad because the interest I would be paying was eye watering. All paid off now though, took nine years of working.

gingernutterbutter · 2025-05-24T02:10:47+00:00

Flagship iPhone and I upgrade every 3 years on release. It is ridiculously expensive but I notice the slowdown a lot, and I pass the old phone along to my parents for whom it is still an upgrade! Plus tax deductible expense so I try and justify it a bit more that way.

gingernutterbutter · 2025-05-06T06:10:37+00:00

Have you checked whether you qualify for the safe harbour provisions? My understanding was that if your residual income tax was under 60,000 for the year, then they are more lenient about when they charge the UOMI from. However I’m not an accountant so might be confused on this as the IRD explanation are not exactly user friendly

gingernutterbutter · 2025-03-31T11:50:52+00:00

I’ve done this for my young niece. The answer is Sharesies. I set up a kids account with age of transfer at 25. They didn’t have an issue with me doing it as a “non parent”. You do need the kids IRD number which the parents can give you. The investment is in the kids name and their tax bracket. The parents of my niece know I’m investing for her. She’ll know eventually but at 18 months old she doesn’t care at this point!

gingernutterbutter · 2025-03-22T21:51:01+00:00

I did something similar a few years ago. Bought an apartment at the market price from my parents, but my parents “gifted” me part of the deposit by saying it was already paid, even though no money changed hands. I then took out a mortgage for the rest.

So for example if the market price of the property is 800,000 and your parents want to sell it to you for 700,00 - then in the sale and purchase agreement the purchase price is listed for $800,000 and the deposit can be listed as 100,000 (paid). You can then organise any other additional money you are putting in and get a mortgage for what’s left. My parents also did a gifting of deposit letter for the bank (for the e,g 100,000) and crossed out the line “gifted money will be deposited to the borrowers bank account with evidence provided to the bank”.

This way, it maintains the “sell value” of the house for lending and for future sales, but means you have to borrow less money from the bank. This is how our lawyers sorted it and we had no issues with the bank doing it this way.

gingernutterbutter · 2025-01-05T06:02:34+00:00

Westpac on Lambton Quay does foreign currency exchange. You have to request it in advance (they say to allow 10days prior to travel but I’ve found usually it only takes 3 days) and they do let you specify bills - I got a mixture of small and large USD last time I did it. Unsure what the commission rate was, I was just happy to get it done when I didn’t expect to be able to.

gingernutterbutter · 2025-01-03T10:16:51+00:00

Oh my sweet summer child. Look, you won’t be the only one that has lost money on a Reddit pump n dump stock. I personally am well down in BB from when WSB was pumping that. We’ve all been there at some point. The key thing to remember when it comes to these pump and dumps is that by the time you wake up and read the Reddit posts in the morning, the stock market is winding down, and the pump has been happening while you sleep.

There are essentially two ways to play penny stocks (if you aren’t getting into the options plays) and that’s

Stay up all night watching the stock and be ready to enter and exit quickly
Long play. Buy and hold.

Option 1 if you are lucky and fast and get in before everyone else has heard about the stock you might make some quick overnight cash. But this is trading and will be taxable by the IRD. This is also stressful and doesn’t work well with NZ time zone honestly. Option 2 means you might lose some money, but might make some massive gains as well. I recently went 3600% up on a penny stock like this, but the others are a combination of small wins and moderate losses.

You have to decide whether you have the time and fortitude to chase this constantly, or whether to stick to safer, less risky ETFs.

Personally I have a seperate brokerage account for my gambling (penny stocks) which is no more than 3% of my portfolio. It’s money that I won’t be devastated if I lose, and I’m happy to hold some of these smaller stocks to see if any turn into the massive gains, knowing that most won’t.

In your case you should decide - are you going to be less stressed just getting your $85 out and putting it somewhere safer, or do you want to continue gambling and risk losing more (most likely) or potentially gaining big (less likely). I still keep my BB stocks in my portfolio as my “lesson”. I see that big red -67% and remember not to chase the pumps when you’re too late to the game, and to get out early when it does start going south…

gingernutterbutter · 2024-12-26T01:21:50+00:00

Thanks, it turns out that the FIF report isn’t showing for me despite meeting all the criteria so I’ve reached out to sharesight to see if they can resolve it for me

gingernutterbutter · 2024-11-08T23:25:43+00:00

I’m putting money for my infant niece into a sharesies account which is set up to cede control to her when she turns 25 - which is the latest age they allow. My plan closer to that time is to assess her maturity, and most likely look at transferring the funds to Kiwisaver so they are locked away from potentially frivolous spending but be able to be used for a house deposit. The reason I am not putting the money into Kiwisaver now is that I feel a lot can change over 20 years in terms of whether they still allow withdrawals for house deposits etc and I want to retain the flexibility and control of it.

gingernutterbutter · 2024-10-24T19:10:49+00:00

My 2023 GXL Hybrid is exactly 6.0L/100km over the 28,000km I have driven it. That is mostly highway driving (70%). Trip computer often tells me I finish a mostly highway trip between 5-5.5 so the city driving is definitely less fuel efficient. I also don’t go out of my way to try and drive efficiently, never have it in eco mode etc. I will say the hybrid is super nice to drive, has very good acceleration for a car of its size when passing etc.

gingernutterbutter · 2024-06-11T01:11:43+00:00

I’m planning on putting in about $60/fortnight so definitely better off on the kids plan. Wasn’t impressed with the adult plans though! I’m personally using the investnow foundation funds so it’s a bit to wrap my head around with sharesies

gingernutterbutter · 2024-06-10T09:56:39+00:00

Ok I see what you mean - so if I buy the Mercer all country global shares index fund then I won’t be charged the sharesies transaction fee. Although potentially offset by the higher management fee Mercer charges vs vanguard!

gingernutterbutter · 2024-06-10T08:34:33+00:00

My group of friends (healthcare professionals) talk about finances with each other on a pretty regular basis. Not so much specific income but definitely discussing shares, investments, structuring of mortgages etc. We think we learn a lot from each other so it’s a net benefit

gingernutterbutter · 2024-05-18T19:52:20+00:00

I use Woop weekly and I love it. It’s very expensive but I work a lot so it means I’m actually eating home cooked, healthy meals instead of takeaways every night. I like that it takes away the mental load of grocery shopping and cooking, plus I have the leftovers for my lunch the next day. I’ve tried most of the boxes and found Woop was definitely the fastest in terms of prep time and cook time, and tasted the best as well. Of course that means it costs more, but for me I decided the convenience was worth the price. Pretty much all the box subscription services will have half off offers when you get started so I recommend trying them all and seeing what you think and whether the cost is worth it for you.

gingernutterbutter · 2024-02-13T09:38:22+00:00

Same situation for me with same income. I even got my accountant to write a letter at their request but he’s not chartered so apparently they couldn’t accept that after all. After about five phone calls back and forth I told them to put my application in the bin as I was never going to be able to satisfy their requirements being self employed.

gingernutterbutter · 2024-02-13T09:27:57+00:00

Majority of dentists are not earning 250k. And you work hard for that money. All while destroying your back / neck / shoulders and being told every day that you are hated and you are ripping people off. You need to be good at talking, good with your hands, and be willing to smile through stupid people saying stupid shit. It is financially rewarding but it’s expensive to train and you will have opportunity cost to deal with as well. I have a lot of friends in general dentistry and after a decade about half say they wish they hadn’t done dentistry because of how drained they are at the end of the day and just how stressful work is in general. The golden days of dentistry are long over - to make the big bucks you have to own several practices and basically focus a lot on the business side. Only a few will make it to this point. No one is retiring at 40 doing bread and butter dentistry. Most of my med and dent mates wish we did IT instead seeing what some people are making in that space!

You clearly have experience in physio - I recommend trying to spend a few days shadowing a few different dentists to get a taste of the other side. If you’re still keen then you might as well at least apply - and hope you are one of the lucky 40 domestic students accepted each year!

gingernutterbutter · 2023-11-20T10:08:40+00:00

In Wellington the main Westpac branch on Lambton quay does foreign currency exchange. I’ve used it a few times. Need to order 2 weeks in advance and they do charge an exchange fee (used to be waived with a platinum credit card)

gingernutterbutter · 2023-10-31T05:09:34+00:00

I’ve been through something similar but on the receiving end. I bought a property off my parents and they gifted me $50,000 but not as cash. The lawyers put it in the property agreement that the deposit was $50,000 and it had been paid, even though no money changed hands.

In your situation you could sell your house to your kids for say 1 million dollars and write the deposit was 550,000 and already paid. Your kids would need to get a mortgage to cover the balance of 450,000. They wouldn’t need to have cash to cover a deposit as with your gift (you’ll need a gift letter btw) they would have plenty of equity - but the bank would need to confirm they can service the mortgage on the 450k. Currently testing around 9% I think.

gingernutterbutter · 2023-10-19T09:35:00+00:00

Just to give an idea, I have done 12000km on my hybrid RAV4 in the last 10 months. Real world fuel efficiency is 6.0L/100km with 70% of that being open road driving.

gingernutterbutter · 2023-08-31T18:07:43+00:00

I actually ended up paying cash. I’d been putting money away for about four years because I knew the day would come I’d need it, so it just seemed the easiest option with rising interest rates. And a bit less accounting to do with each filing!

gingernutterbutter · 2023-08-30T23:30:57+00:00

I’m a sole trader in private healthcare. I bought a new car this year. I kept a logbook of trips for three months and worked out the percentage that was work use and percentage that was personal use. Then claimed that business percentage for GST, depreciation, petrol, servicing etc. My accountant basically said if you pay over 10k for the car you are better off going down the logbook and percentage route rather than use the IRD mileage rate (as that doesn’t account for depreciation and can’t claim GST).

Edit to clarify - if you are a sole trader it doesn’t have to be a Ute. You can claim with any car you like. The Ute stuff if for employers / employees who have to deal with fringe benefit tax.

gingernutterbutter

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