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Using KiwiSaver to buy your first home feels like a win, until the mortgage, rates, insurance, and day-to-day costs hit and you decide you can’t afford to keep contributing. That one decision can quietly cost you years of compounding growth and, just as importantly, the employer contributions you miss the moment you opt out. We unpack why KiwiSaver shouldn’t end at settlement, and how to think about rebuilding your retirement savings without ignoring the very real pressure of the cost of living in New Zealand.
We also get practical about what to do next. If you’ve withdrawn your balance for a deposit, it’s worth re-checking your KiwiSaver fund type because your goals and time horizon may have changed. We talk through why staying invested matters, why “free money” from employer contributions is hard to replace, and why self-employed people and sole traders can be especially vulnerable if they don’t create their own retirement plan early. Along the way we share a simple, friend-to-friend reminder: small, consistent contributions can matter more than big one-off efforts.
Then we shift to kids and money habits. Incentives have changed since KiwiSaver began, but the real advantage is time. We discuss ways to get children investing early, from putting birthday and Christmas money into KiwiSaver or a shares account, to setting simple rules that balance spending with investing. We also tackle the uncomfortable question many families avoid: what if the pension is reduced or means-tested by the time our kids retire, and what can we do now to build real financial independence.
If you want a clearer KiwiSaver strategy after buying your first home, plus realistic ideas for helping kids start investing, hit subscribe, share this with a mate, and leave a review so more Kiwis can find it.
If you're interested about Kiwi Savers, this is the episode for you. We're gonna dive into the whole Kiwi Saver, should you, should you not, why not, kits, Kiwi
Savers, and what happens after you buy your first home and you use your Kiwi Saver? Listen up. Hello, James. Aloha. Aloha. Kiwi Savers, that has been a hot topic for us. We deal with a lot of first-home buyers. They buy a house, they use up their KiwiSaver, and then they go, Oh, I'm not gonna contribute anymore. What's the point? Because I can't
use my Kiwi Saver again until I'm 65. What's the problem with that?
SPEAKER_00
Well, I don't know. I mean, I know that what the problem is, it's it's a real it's a real balanced argument because we I mean we see it. I mean I come almost from a financial markets perspective as opposed to a property perspective. So when I see people use up their hundred and hundred and fifty thousand dollars in their first home deposit, a part of me is like, you know, that's awesome, but now they've really got to start. They've really got to start getting their KiwiSaver going again. They need to have they need to have both things working
for them. They need to be paying off their property as as as fast as they can. This is just my opinion, obviously, paying off their house as fast as they can, and equally building their Kiwi Saver back up.
SPEAKER_01
But it's so hard. The cost of living is so high, and people are really struggling to be paying their mortgage, their rates, their insurances, and continuing to contribute to Kiwi Saver and paying more on their mortgage than they should to pay it off faster, right? So this is where the real deal is at the moment that people get into their first home and then they go, crap, I can't contribute anymore. But luckily, the Kiwi Saver rules are changing from 1st of April, it is increasing to, I think employer contributions are increasing to four and a half percent. And then over time it will continue to increase like it did in Australia.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
But the real issue is if you opt out from your Kiwi Saver, then the employees not contributing either. So you're missing out.
SPEAKER_00
You've got to like I know it's easy for us to say, but it's not. It's uh you've got to stay, you know, you've just got to find it. Like I find myself getting close to 50. I don't have KiwiSaver. I do have KiwiSaver, but because I've been sort of self-employed last 10 years, and this is what's happening to a lot of
sort of tradesmen people out there that have had their own business their whole lives as sole traders, they are now getting close to the retirement age or close to 60, they don't have a Kiwi Saver. And you know, a lot of those business owners don't actually own that when they sell their business, they are the business. So their business is not going to provide for their retirement. So we've got all these little nuances within the you know, every we've got to look at each person differently.
SPEAKER_01
But if you can This is not financial advice by the way.
SPEAKER_00
But it's good, it's it's reasonably as a friend.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, if we were your friend, we would say to you, hey, look into your Kiwi Saver, you know, start contributing something because what you're missing out on is your employer contributions of four and a half percent, but also the government contributions, even though the government contributions dropped again, yeah, at least it's something that will continue to accumulate interest over the years. Yeah. And then we slightly touched behind the scenes around the kids' kiwi savers, and you mentioned something.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, I can't remember what I mentioned, but I'm sure it was all important.
SPEAKER_01
Is it that the parents have stopped contributing to their Kiwi Savers or setting them up?
SPEAKER_00
Something to do with the contribution at the fr the contributions that kids get from the government when that when they first set them up. There used to be all these incentives when when when KiwiSaver first started to get KiwiSaver into get kids into KiwiSaver. Now a lot of those incentives are not as strong as what they used to be. So you've got a whole lot of New Zealand children who are now disconnecting with their Kiwi Saver, which is the worst possible, you know, it's the worst possible result. We want those young people to get the saving, to get
into the savings thing as early as possible, because that's how it really works, right? Compound compound investing over 50 years. You know, my kids are 15, 15 and 14, sorry, 17 and 15. My daughter is absolutely we've we've with what we've done with her with KiwiSaver, she is is so much front of mind that every time she makes money, she puts it all into a KiwiSaver, and and then she comes to us and goes, Oh, I want to go out. I can't I don't have any money because I've put it all in my KiwiSaver. And because this is what we've we've taught her to put, but she's gone way too far. I said, uh, don't come and ask me for money, go and ask somebody else for money. I love her, you know.
SPEAKER_01
But but this is great, and you know, you just reminded me, my 10-year-old, the second second son of mine, he came to me the other day and goes, Mom, can you open me shares this account? Because he gets pocket money from his little instructing job at Taekwondo that he does. So he gets you know $10, $20 a week. Depends how many hours how many hours a week he works, and he gets his pocket money, he comes to me, he goes, Can you can you open shares his account for kids? And I was like, Oh well, you already have one with dad. And he goes, Yeah, I have one at dad's. So the week when I'm with dad and I get paid money there, I'll give it to dad to put it in, because that's what he's been doing. And now when he's with me, instead of wasting his money on Lollies, he realized he could be putting into shares his account with me. So I opened him a Kitts Shares' account that he cannot touch until he's 18 or 20 or something like that. And he can be in control which shares he buys. Yep. So he gives me cash, I put the money in there, and and it's an exercise for him where he can't draw it back out of it. So very, very similar concept, but he will have two shares' accounts by the time he's 18 and a KiwiSaver.
SPEAKER_00
Excellent. So this is what we sort of want is a combination of both of those two things. We want our kids to be putting money into KiwiSaver, but we also want them to be doing what you're doing, and that's learning about investing from a young age and learning how it's quite volatile. Because as we spoke to an investment uh person yesterday, we can see that if you invest money in the markets over the long term, it's a phenomenal, you get a phenomenal return. So yeah, I would really that's what I'm trying to get my kids to do as well. So they've got KiwiSaver, they're actually building up their own money outside of KiwiSaver. So, and I was actually thinking on the way in here and in the car, what if people are so organized if they start so young that they're into KiwiSaver and they're saving their own money that they don't have to use KiwiSaver to buy a house? To buy a house. They can use their own their own. I know that's sort of pie in the sky type stuff, but it would be a huge advan it would be quite a big advantage.
SPEAKER_01
Because to be honest, I truly believe that by the time our kids retire, the pension will be gone. The government will run out of money in one way or the other, or
they will just decide that hey, we shouldn't be paying pension to people that have Kiwi Savour. Kiwi savers or you know, something might be means tested. It might be means tested, like in Australia, I think it's means tested. So you've got to have your own back. Yeah, you know, and that's what I always believed in that you can't rely on the government, you can't rely on things. The only person you can rely on is you.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
And what can you do to change your life for the better?
SPEAKER_00
And I I think that's a really important point. Like, why don't don't stop can contributing to Kiwi Saver because the government take away the incentives. Do you know what I mean? For your kids. That this you know what I mean? Just don't rely on the government.
SPEAKER_01
Whatever the government does shouldn't be really directing your so the other tip and trick I usually say to people that say to me, Oh, but I don't have any spare money to put into the kids' account, say, well, make it birthday money, make it Christmas money. Kids don't need more crap in a house. Yeah. Honestly. You don't need to buy them more flash toys, more cars, Lego sets that you're gonna step on. You know, buy them less stuff, but put money into the investments. Even $20, even $50, that makes a huge difference. You know, if the grandparents want to give you a present to for your kids, tell them, hey, look, how about you put that into the Kiwi Saver? That will have a return of tenfold over time.
SPEAKER_00
And you could do a like percentage of every every every lot of money that you get, either from working or as a gift, depends on the kid. But you know, 50% could be for yourself, 50% could be for investing. I think in my family, I think my daughter's doing 30% into Kiwi Saver, 30% into Jersey's, and then 10% spending. Because you know, they don't have a lot of costs. Now's the time to do it when you've when you're living in somebody else's house, living in their eating all their food.
SPEAKER_01
Five dollars a week. Five dollars a week. That's all you've got to put sometimes. You know, you don't have to put much.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it's just the habit, it's just starting the habit of we're putting money aside for that.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely awesome, James. Thank you so much for that. So, just a quick recap, quick message for those out there. If you've bought a house and you stopped contributing to KiwiSaver, please don't. If there is any way for you to
get back on the train, do, but do re-evaluate what fund you in, because the fund you were in before you bought a house is not probably the fund you want to be in for the long term. Again, speak to a specialist and we can push you up to the specialist if you need to. And then for those that have children, you know, start them young, start investing now. And for those that are nearing retirement, do review your Kiwi Saber funds as well because you don't want to get caught out by losing out on your money unnecessarily. So here we go. Thank you so much for listening in. See you next time.
