At Super-Advice we are about all things financial, but more importantly, helping people understand so they can get ahead financially.
The Importance of Professional Investment Advice
The reason you would want advice or someone in your corner who has a professional understanding of how it works is so that you don’t make the common mistakes that a lot of startup investors tend to make.
For example, you may want to invest in something new and exciting because lots of people are doing it—an example could be cryptocurrency. But if you don’t understand it, you might be putting your money in at the wrong time and be a casualty of bad timing, losing it all. You may not realise tax implications, the best options for a beginner, or what to look for. Should you invest in a group of companies or in one company? There’s a big difference in risk between these things.
So really, I think it’s worthwhile paying for some quality advice, like with us, to ensure that you are set up on the path correctly and that you don’t fall into the potholes that many new investors do.
Laying the Foundations for Smart Investing
The way that we work is we set an individual up first by getting the fundamental practices in place to create a surplus to invest. We won’t sit down with someone and say, “Hey, you should invest your money here.” What we want to do is lift the bonnet and have a look at how they operate.
We want to ensure they’ve got the fundamentals right—that they’re not spending more than they earn, that they aren’t using consumer debt to buy lounge suites and vehicles they can’t afford. We want to make sure they’ve got an emergency fund to survive any financial catastrophes that might come their way.
Once we’ve got that right and the machine is working in such a way that it’s kicking out a surplus every single pay cycle—more money, more money left over—until we’ve got something to invest, only at that point will we start having conversations about how to invest.
We can start with KiwiSaver—how it works—and then we can begin building investments outside of KiwiSaver and growing their wealth.
The Power of Education in Investing
It’s education, education, education. It’s about showing someone why something is done a certain way. If we just say, “Buy that, buy that, buy that,” that’s fine. But if we say, “This is something you should consider, and this is why—this is the economic climate, these are the conditions where this company is operating, and that’s why we think it’s going to be a success,” then they gain real understanding.
One thing that has always been taught to me is: don’t invest your money in something you don’t understand. Don’t invest your money in something because you overheard someone on the bus saying, “Oh, this is a real winner.” Don’t invest your money because your broke uncle said, “That’s where you should invest your money, mate.” That’s not a good thing.
What you should be investing in is something you understand—something that doesn’t have the feeling of a get-rich-quick scheme. Long-term investing is something that people also need to understand because there is really no get-rich-quick. Investing takes a long-term mindset.
If I look at some of the richest investors in the world, like Warren Buffett and the recently passed Charlie Munger, the reason they’ve got billions and billions of dollars is, yes, because they’re good at what they do and have taken the education to understand how to do it, but also because they’ve done it for the long haul. Charlie died at 99 last year, and Warren’s still going—I think he’s 95. Long-term.
Understanding Investment Risk
The New Zealand government has an organization called the Financial Markets Authority, and anyone who is licensed to give investment advice has a certification with them to be able to do it.
What they ask us to do is, for every person we have a chat with, we take them through an investment risk questionnaire. This tells us how you feel inside about making an investment. If you are terrified of losing your money, we know that, first, we have to give you quite a bit of education. Second, we will invest your money conservatively so that you can sleep at night.
If the investment risk questionnaire shows us that you are reasonably loose—you aren’t concerned at all about your money—it allows us to gauge that you probably know a little more. That’s why you’re not so concerned. It also allows us to put your money in more aggressive investments, which, over the long term, will net you greater returns. But it also tells us that, based on the way you answered, you won’t be stressed when the market goes up and down.
We take you through a process to find out how you feel about investing. This helps us understand how to educate you, get you to a level where you can invest confidently, and, most importantly, ensure you can sleep at night.
Getting Started with Investing
Well, if you want to start investing, you’ve got to start. If you need to start, you’ve just got to jump in. What we do with a lot of people is go through those processes: let’s find out what you think about investing, how scary it is for you, and where we need to place you on the educational cycle. Then, let’s start.
You could start with us for as little as $10 a week, even $5 a week. What we do is set up an investment fund for you, place that investment at a level you’re comfortable with, and make sure you’re learning and understanding as you go. Then we set up the automatic payment, and away you go.
As an example, years ago, I used to play Lotto. Around 2020, I decided to stop and instead took the $24 a week I was spending on Lotto and started investing in Sharesies. I did that for about 12 months. I put on my educational hat, wanted to understand more and more in detail about how everything worked, and I realized I was onto a good thing. I started increasing the amount I was investing in Sharesies.
That was five years ago. Today, I’m just under $72,000.
So just start.
That’s a wrap
If you need any financial help or advice please get in touch with us at Super-Advice.
