Health & Wellbeing Series - Session 6: Financial Wellbeing

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e
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good morning everybody and uh welcome to the uh La latest installment in our
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Wednesday well-being webinar um the webinar today is as you can see on the
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screen it's going to be focused in on your financial well-being and we are going to hear from uh Mark
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Williamson who is our benefits manager here at nzdf what I'd like to stress to you is
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that we are using the question and answer function so please um post your
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questions in in that function we won't be using the chat function today that
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gives uh Wendy and I a chance to uh pose the questions um to Mark um as as they
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come in or at an appropriate time to to towards the end of the session uh I'd
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also like to take this opportunity now just to highlight that the Wednesday well-being series will continue into the
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new year uh it will perhaps take the form of either webinars seminars face
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TOA some face to-face seminars and workshops but we're still in the um phases of planning that so I would
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without sort of further Ado like to pass over to to Mark Williamson and uh he
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will take us through the um the out thanks very
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much uh thank you Frank and it's really good to have everyone online uh this
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this morning so just by way of introduction again I'm Mark I've been with the Defense Force now for um um
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almost 19 years um and I had with me um my my colleague who works with me Tim
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Canal he sends his apologies today because he's he's actually away on a course but you you would have hopefully
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seen te Tim as well Tim has been running a a very successful series of virtual
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presentations on the force Financial Hub over the last 12 months as well so what
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we what we here to talk about today is uh how the forest Financial Hub is able to contribute to financial well-being
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and we've got it up here on on Graphics um you can see there's a number of offerings we've actually had the force
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Financial Hub now in place for um some nine years our 10th birthday will be the
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first of October 20 25 and what we've done over the last
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10 years is we've built this offering to provide a whole range of services for members of defense and their families
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and a key point about the force Financial Hub as well is that when you leave defense at some stage of the future when you leave defense everything
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we offer through the force Financial Hub continues to apply and that's a really important part of our offering I make
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the joke at times that we're a bit like the mafia once we get a hold of you we hold on to you for life uh but um in you
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know we need to recognize that this is actually a very powerful benefit particularly for older um older
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members so just in off an opening up um
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hopefully none of you may have heard or read about Francis Cook she's a very good young Financial commentator who's
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located in the Y she used to be in Orland she's now in the Y she actually writes a column for the
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herald every week she also does a series of podcasts on a regular basis and in
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the last few years he's actually brought out two very good books really great reads all about the local Financial
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scene around Investments and things as well but I actually think this quote from her book is particularly apt
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because what she's talking about here is that at some stages in our lives we will all encounter financial difficulties
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there's nothing to be embarrassed about that it's it's a key thing it's what do we do when we do encounter those sort of
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problems and the quote from her book is that being financially insecure sucks out your brain power leading to poorer
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decisions in your day-to-day life figuring out ways to survive consumes your brain power leaving less available
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for making the Smart M decisions that could get you out of trouble so what she's saying there in general terms is
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that we there's the risk that when we're encountering financial problems we can get bogged down and it totally becomes
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it takes over our lives it takes over our relationships our work life our work
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relationships and everything else and so the key thing about this is that when we do encounter financial difficulties then
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we know who to go to and the force Financial Hub provides a range of services to help people when they are or
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may be facing Financial um uh challenges so a very good read uh you can get it
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from wh calls of the warehouse for $29 and it is well worth reading as I said she's she's very good um we're just
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having a little bit of difficulty getting the slides going so we'll just go to the next
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one um and incidentally I saw on stuff over the weekend that she and her husband are about to have their second
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child which is really nice for them as well so just in terms of the disclaimer today what we're doing is we're
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providing you with a range of uh things about information so in terms of my background I am actually a trained
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financial advisor I specialize in Investments kiwi saber and insurances uh and Tim my colleague is
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actually just completed the training for the investment side of things and next year he'll be doing some further uh
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training as well but we're not actually registered as financial advisors and that means we can't give you Financial
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advice but what we can do is give you information and of course one of the tools we have available through the
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force Financial Hub is actually a um become wealth our financial advice service and they're available to give
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members of defense and their families advice around issues that they may um you know come have come up so a really
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important point that we're here to provide you with information we're not here to provide you with advice but we can we can steer you in the right
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direction so what are we going to talk about today well we're covering a number of things the first thing is how can the
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force Financial Hub help you and your family um secondly the resources that are available for you both um when
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you're with with defense and and when you may lead defense in the future so what of you're able to ACC is when
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you're leaving the fence and then the last Point given that we're just now less than a month to to go before
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Christmas it's around how do we cope with the budgeting pressures that may come up at any time of the year but
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particularly this time of the year when we've got Christmas and then for those with young families You've Got U school
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terms starting and at the end of January beginning of February school uniforms and all those sort of things so how do
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we how do we cope with the budgeting pressures that come up uh during this time of the year in
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particular going back again to the fource financial Hub the goal we set for ourselves when we set all this up you
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know almost 10 years ago is very much long-term and aspirational the goal we've set for ourselves is that all
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defense members and their families are financially secure and in other words that means they're in a good position
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financially they're financially capable in other words they're financially literate and they own their own home or
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for those who who may not own their home but aspire to do so that they're on the track to achieving their own home as
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well why home ownership is very important is we recognize that both new Zealand within New Zealand and
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internationally that home ownership actually helps build long-term Financial Security and so that's why we put a lot
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of emphasis within the fourth Financial Hub to help our younger Personnel in particular get into the housing market
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increasingly there will be more people longer term who are either renting or store paying a mortgage as they get
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close to retirement and we have a number of tools to help people with that sort of scenario and things as well but our
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goal again as as I said it's very much long-term and aspirational but what we do each year is we have a number of
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performance indicators we look at to see how we're tracking and helping people achieve that Financial Security and and
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capability as well so just a reminder what is the force Financial H well the first thing
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is it's internet based and that's a really important Point um literally
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every day we will get people contacting us saying I've gone into the force Financial Hub I'm trying to get the link
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through to merer or to ion or to Tower and the Link's not working and that's because they're going via the Internet
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they're going via dixes rather than via the Internet so the force Financial Hub it's actually outward looking it's
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internet based and the reason why we've done that is so that you can look at it anytime you like you don't have to be at
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work to access it and just as importantly your family members are able to access the fource financial Hub as
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well as long as they have access to a smartphone or a desktop that has um you know internet coverage so that's the
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first thing the second thing is it's a One-Stop shop so it puts in place a whole range of
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benefits and tools again available to for ourselves and our families and you can access it at any time or place as
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long as you have access to the internet then it's there it's there for you with
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the force Financial Hub we're not actually trying to make decisions on behalf of people what we're doing is in
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general we providing a range of tools and benefits and services there to help us and our family and the things that
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are available include the investment webinars and other resources both things that we've done ourselves or where we
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rely on our partner organizations like Mercer the manager for our saving schemes or become wealth our financial
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advice service they've also provided a range of webinars and things which are on the resources page of the U fourth
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Financial Hub as well and again to recap a re a really key point about the force
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Financial Hub is that when you leave defense and at some St age in the future we will all leave defense when you leave
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defense everything that's provided through the force Financial Hub continues to apply to you and it
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continues to apply to your family members as well and we know that at the moment the organization's going through
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a number of change processes we've had I think there's 145 people will be leaving before Christmas through the voluntary
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resources page and so you will see that within the forest Financial Hub we've
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actually set up a voluntary resources page that's got a range of things there for people to look at as they're exiting
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the organization and when you leave the organization and get the final pay you
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will actually be sent be sent a resources sheet by the hrsc as well just as a prompt for you to be doing things
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about your savings schemes and about the insurance and those sort of things as as well I'm just going to pause at this
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stage and just see whether there's any questions that people want to have answered no everyone's having um I've
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got one question and I don't want to um upset the flow we but Mark but at one point there you mentioned that we all
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make Financial mistakes at times through our lives what would be the one
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Financial mistake you think people make most often I think the um I guess the
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biggest mistake is trying to assume that the future will take care of of itself
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there's an old adage that the best time to start saving for your retirement is yesterday the second best time to start
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saving today and so it's never too late to start saving for your retirement but the best thing is the sooner you start
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the better and for young people in particular I think it's really important young our young soldiers sailers and Air
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Force are coming in fense now with a starting package of 68,000 they have a lot of disposable
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income and it's really important that people take that opportunity to invest and save particularly before life gets
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complex they get partners and start having kids really important to put your money away and then over a period of
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time compounding impacts on investments the money will actually accumulate and then you build yourself up a um
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retirement Nest EG but on the way you've also got that fund to help you get into the housing market as well yeah you
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raised a couple of good points there um what did Einstein call compounding interest The Eighth Wonder World yeah uh
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but could you talk a little bit more about how we can assist young people
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onto that property ladder yes so number things we do is we have um um buying
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your first home seminars we work with become wealth a financial advice service on a campaign called the get 100
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campaign that shows the young soldiers s Sailors Air Force and civilians how they
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can actually save a uh deposit a first time deposit of 100K within the first 5
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years of service hence the acronym get get 100 and we now also have since
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February of this year we've had a relationship with the police credit year unit now the police credit union for the
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last 50 years has been providing a range of financial services to police personnel and their families and now
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we've come on board and they've set up a separate branch of membership for defense personnel and you can one of the
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benefits you can access through that as a shared Equity Arrangement where the police credit union will advance part of
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a house deposit that someone needs to get into the um housing market so as the name suggest shared Equity they actually
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partly are on the house until you pay off that contribution to the deposit but
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it's a tangible way in which we can help people get into the housing uh Market we recognize in many locations now the
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median house price in New Zealand is about a million dollars the banks require a deposit of about 200,000
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that's a real struggle for people particularly when they've got families and they're paying rent and everything else so the arrangement we have with the
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PCU is that they will advance up to 100K of that deposit you don't pay interest
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on it um you have to pay it back within 10 years and during that time the PCU is
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a part own of your uh property um we've now got seven or eight people have actually um um uh onto the ladder
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already and in every month we're seeing more and more people using that as an example again to get into the housing
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into the housing market one of the things we do do Frank is we also use our savings schemes to help people with
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their first home deposit last month we had 21 people people take the money out of our savings schemes to get into the
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first house and that's really great and um in recent months the average has been between 18 to 20 per per month so a
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number of tangible ways in which we can help people with their first home deposit and again of course become
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wealth provide a very good uh free mortgage broker service where they'll reach out on behalf of the defense
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member and their families they'll go to the banks they'll do the hard work for you in terms of putting in the mortgage
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application and everything else and they will articulate on your behalf uh to get the best deal so again you're getting
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some really good Services provided free uh to help you get into the housing market as well certainly sounds like
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something that um people should be tapping into that level of support and service yeah very much so and it's
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interesting that one of the become wealth uh mortgage advis advisors a chat by name of Nick vosi um people many
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people may have come across uh Nick in in recent years he's been providing service now for near 10 years Nick has
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just been named uh one of the New Zealand's top 10 mortgage brokers for
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2024 excellent so really good expertise there available free marvelous Mark I'll
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let you get back into your presentation okay thanks Frank so let's have a quick
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run through around what is available through the force Financial Hub well the first thing is we have our savings schemes defense is still unique we're
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the only employer in the country to provide its own kiwi saver scheme we have the New Zealand defense Force kiwi saver scheme we have another scheme
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called flexi saver and then we also have the grandparent of Defense Force evaluation scheme that's the category a
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b and c they're all up and running they're all going on we're now up around the 740 million doll Mark in terms of
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Investments and we have around about 95,000 members in total so when we set
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all this up 10 years ago we set ourselves a goal of having a billion dollars by the end of 2526
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and 1.5 billion by uh 3031 and we're on track to achieve that we provide a range
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of benefits including additional payments to encourage people to join and stay contributing to the N kiwi sa
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scheme and the more money we have in our scheme the greater The Leverage it gives us to negotiate the fees and the
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Investments and things for the schemes there's actually 38 kiwi saver schemes in the marketplace we have no leverage
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over the other 37 QB saver schemes the ones scheme we can influence is our scheme and the more money we have the
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greater The Leverage again to negotiate a reduction of fees into influence Investments and things like that so a
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really good news story the member insurance benefits program again this is the most comprehensive staff insurance
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program in the country um Regular Force civilians and um and uh provide with
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300K life insurance income protection pable at the rate of 75% of salary for
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um up to 2 years and there's another policy called physical loss and the key thing about all of this is again um you
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can buy more insurance cover for yourself under tier two and you can buy cover for your partner spouse under tier
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three so really powerful benefit available for us all as members of the Defense Force as well third thing is the
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Southern Cross medical insurance program I think we all know that the public health system is struggling it's getting
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harder and harder to get cover particularly for elective things like knes and surgeries and things like that
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so we have an arrangement with Southern Cross where they will provide a range of packages for defense Personnel including
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their families and you get a uh discount provided on the premiums you pay for that and again that continues when
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you've left defense as well key thing about medical insurance because you do actually have to go through a medical
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questionnaire process it's really worthwhile the younger you can actually join the the better because as you get
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older and I know from personal experiences a 6 5 year olds as it get you get older you start developing all
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sorts of health problems that you never dream you were going to have when you're a lot younger and so having that medical
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insurance cover just gives you some extra security um as you're going through life and ditto for your families
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as well um we have an arrangement with Tower where they provide domestic insurance for us so that's your house
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your vehicle your contact if you're living in Barracks or in ships um and so
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you get a discount of 10% on the premium you pay and again they provide a really good service uh as an example during the
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oran floods February last year within 24 hours we had a package that we'd agreed
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with to that we were able to send to all the people impacted by that event in Oakland so that's an example again where
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you know we have a very responsive service that helps address our needs and things as well um we have a really Financial
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advisory comprehensive advisory service and retirement planning service provided by become wealth it's headed up by uh an
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ex Army Major by the name of Joseph Derby and Joseph and his team have a a a
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team of people very good uh services and things around the country it was interesting we actually had our board
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meeting last Friday and Brigadier Matt Weston had just gone through the process
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of uh getting a retirement plan through one of the advisors from become wealth and he was very complimentary of the
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service that was provided and felt it was really good your value for money so something to have a look at again from
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from that side of things as well and become wealth also provide a mortgage broker Service as well um for us as
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members of defense and again that's provided for you free so really comprehensive service we have a free
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will service that's funded for us by Aon the mibp broker and that's actually provided by Perpetual Guardian one of
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the largest trustee companies in the country um some s stats in the last 12 months we've actually had 19 deaths
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including the very sad um um loss of our young soldier in Linton last week when
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he dived into the river to retrieve his dog um and so none of us knows what Fate
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has in store for us and sadly every year we have a number of deaths and invariably the first question that's
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asked is there a will or no will probably around about half our deaths now there's an up toate will but the
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other half is not and that presents additional challenges for families and things um when they're going through uh
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the grieving process and everything else when they find literally that money is frozen so again a really powerful uh
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benefit provider for us all as members of defense and also available for our partners as well the Free Will
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service Perpetual Guardian also provide a discount of power of atton service um
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two types of power of atton one for for money and one for health and you're able to buy that um at um at discount we have
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a number of tools as I Meed earlier through the resources page and that includes a range of webinars and guides
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and things that are all on the resources Pages uh that you can look at as well at any time you like Tim provides a range
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of financial capability programs both here in defense house and around the country in the different camps and bases
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we've actually been running some in Linton this month uh the two-day get your money fighting fit and so that's
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part of our investment in people's developments funded by the chief of Defense Force and and we provide these
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programs in work times um and included in that is the women's program that we're running at the moment in
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conjunction with the um diversity and inclusion team and with Mera and we're
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getting a really good take up rate for that as well and so I do encourage you know more people to take up those things
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because they're the feedback we're getting when people provide undertake the programs is really powerful the
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challenges were all time for and so it's making sure that we're able to free out time to invest and ourselves because
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this is what we're doing when we're doing one of these programs we're actually investing in our own well-being and our own our own development and so I
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do encourage people to have a look Tim's busy working away now on the program for
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2025 so please keep a lookout in your location because we will be running more
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in a variety of locations um next year we have access to a range of uh
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free budgeting and money mentoring Services we have money which is the government funded agency
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that operates here out of Wellington and that's Nationwide but we also have in each the camps and bases a relationship
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with a local uh budgeting and money mentoring Service as well that's available for us to tap into and again
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that provides a really powerful tool for us to assist you know when we're going when we're facing Financial challenges
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it's at some stag as we as we're going through our life we also have a preferential banking arrangement with
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the A&Z Bank where they provide uh discounted um services to members of
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Defense so that includes on mortgages and things like that as well so again well worth having a look at the reality
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being is that the banking industry is a very competitive one they want our business so don't be shy when you're out
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talking to your bank about your mortgage or your your personal loan or whatever else don't be shy about mentioning your
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defense because they do the banks will want to hold on to your business and so if you if you're not with the a said
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then you may find that your bank's willing to make you a deal because they want to hold on to you as a client and
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then also as a me we have a range of services through the pimp Police Credit Union as well and uh again uh We've now
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got about30 members of Defense who have joined the PCU we've got about
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$445,000 that's now being invested in various PCU um uh accounts and we actually have
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about $7 million now in um um mortgages and things have gone out of the PCU as
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well to help the shared
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Equity um any questions Wendy no okay so for people who are exiting
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the defense either through the voluntary redundancy program or through other things what what's what are the key
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things for them to look at well the first thing is with the kywi saer scheme when you belong to the the ncdf Kiwi
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saer scheme if you go to work for another employer or you become self-employed or you retire you can stay
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contributing to that scheme as long as you like you don't cease contributing just because you've ceased contributing
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to defense so that's a really important thing to be bear in mind that when you leave defense you continue with the Ki
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saer scheme and we encourage people to um do so we have a number of people who
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belong to the dfss that's the old Defense Force superan scheme three categories category a b or c and there's
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different rules applying to each category but the key thing being again when you leave defense you have a number
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of choices you can leave your money in the scheme you don't have to do anything about it you just allow it to continue earning you can transfer your money to
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Kiwi saer or in C circumstances you may be able to access the funds as well the
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key thing being is you're not sure what's available to you either contact us through the benefit site and I'll
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give you our email address shortly or secondly you contact merca the fund manager and they will be able to help
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you with what's the best option available uh you know for you if you belong to another kiwi saer scheme then
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the same thing applies if you go to work for someone else or you go to be self-employed or you retire or whatever
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else then you continue to access kiwi saer there's no change to your Arrangements you don't have to do
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anything it just continues automatically into your into your new employment some
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of you may be even thinking about a move across to Australia well what happens in that situation is we actually have full
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portability now so we have an arrangement with the with the Australian government where someone moving to
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Australia they pick up their retirement savings and transfer them across and the
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same New Zealand rules continue to apply when you're living in Australia and around access and everything else and
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similarly if you're an living in Australia and you come to New Zealand then you actually get your funds
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transferred across here and the Australian rules apply to those funds as
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well um so that's a key point to to look out for we have the SSRS we still got
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about 300 people within defense who belong to that and there are rules that
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apply to when you can actually access your fund and uh depending on what what
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employer if you're going to work for someone else there'll be some employers who may decide to allow you to continue
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contributing to the srss there'll be some who may say no we don't do that so
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the key thing is to check with your new employer around what their rules are and then the secondly is to go to the SS SS
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RSS handbook you just do a Google Search and that actually sets out all the options available to you around the use
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of those funds and that is particularly important for people over the age of 50 or over the age of 65 so again really
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important to have a look at those rules because there will be a range of individual circum ances that um the
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rules actually take uh do take care of we actually have a small number of people still belong to the GSF both the
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military scheme and the civilian scheme now just to recap that closed off in 1992 so we are talking very much about
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um longer serving people who may be GSF members key thing is again um have a
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look at the GSF handbook or phone Datacom and again their numbers are available just through Google search
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because of is really important with your GSF funds and the way the GS is GSF is
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structured it is really important that you make the right decision and respect to what you do with your funds so that's
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why you make contact with Datacom who are the fund manager for the GSF and they will be a to help you with your
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decision around that and then we've got the become
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wealth Financial advice service so really important you you get a free 30 minute warrant of fitness with the
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become well and that's well worth doing and then if you decide to proceed with a financial plan then it's substantially
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discounted it's around about $1,000 as opposed to the $1800 PL plus that you
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would be paying if you got that through the general Marketplace and what they're also able to help older members with in
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particular is a retirement plan and and that's a really important thing as well for us as we get closer to that magic
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retirement date then it is really important to have a plan in place and become wealth is able to help you with
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that as well and then as I mentioned earlier they also provide a very good free uh mortgage broker Service as
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well then we have the insurances so for older members in particular a really
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powerful benefit is the ability to be able to continue with your insurance cover as long as you do something within
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60 days of leaving defense you contact ion who the Brokers for the mibp they will give you a quote you start paying
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but you get a substantial discount on what you're paying for the premium and the second really important point is
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there's no requirement for you to go through a medical questionnaire and that's a really powerful benefit you know particularly for people you again
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getting on in years if you as a 60y old if you were applying for for insurance
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you would have to fill out a very lengthy questionnaire and they would pick and choose which bits of your body
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they wanted to um wanted to cover you don't have to go through that with with
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the mibp you just have automatic cover as long as you do something within 60 days of leaving defense and we've
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negotiated with the with the providers where they will provide people with fre three months life cover as you're
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transitioning through life leaving defense moving from one organization to another while you're waiting to get
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another job you will get three months life cover provider for free um under the mibp so a really powerful benefit
31:21
really powerful offering for people you you need to make sure you do something about it Southern Cross slightly
31:27
different rules apply you are able to continue with Southern Cross or join Southern Cross but you do
31:34
you are required to go through a medical questionnaire for that the reason for that being is Southern Cross is actually
31:39
not a profit making um U firm or scheme what they need to do is make sure they
31:45
have enough income coming in every year to cover their costs and so that's why you are required to go through a medical
31:51
questionnaire uh process and uh they will select which bits of your body they'll provide cover for and they may
31:58
actually load into the premiums or high thing where you consider to be more of a risk as I mentioned we had the deal with
32:05
Tower house contents vehicle Barracks insurance and we've negotiated with Tower where they will provide on an
32:13
ongoing basis the discount of 10% for defense members who exit the organization as long as you do something
32:20
about it then you you continue to get the discount and again that's a really important benefit for people as well and
32:26
then of course on top of that there's the Free Will and discount of power service that continues to apply uh for
32:32
people leaving defense as well and then we have the police credit
32:37
union as I mentioned earlier we have some really good Services now provided by the PCU we have fixed term
32:43
investments savings accounts personal loans Christmas loans Christmas accounts
32:48
they have a range of different mortgages and they're also able to provide assistance with house purchases through
32:54
the shared Equity facility and now they also have an arrange with reverse mortgages where that's available to
33:01
defense community members um age 70 and above and what it does in in effect the
33:07
reverse mortgages where you can borrow money against your house to enjoy life
33:12
what it means is that when you pass away or sell your house to move into a retirement village or whatever you're
33:17
doing you have to you actually have to pay that amount back to the PCU a key
33:23
thing about reverse mortgages it's really important that you get legal advice so you fully understand the legal
33:28
implications and secondly you get financial advice because you need to really understand the impact that that's
33:34
going to have either on your um estate when you pass away or alternatively on
33:40
your property when you're selling to downsize or movement to a retirement village or whatever else so whether you
33:47
reverse mortgage it is really important to get advice so um I'm just going to pause and
33:55
ask Wendy we got any questions not stage more of a couple of more of a statement
34:01
um but we'll we'll BL to answer that privately okay um well you'll look to answer that privately the only thing
34:07
that we do have is for anyone that's having difficulty posting the q&as because some of them may be having a
34:14
little bit of issue I've just got a message for someone that's saying that they having an issue posting a question
34:19
right so it's more about where can they look to ask this question um via a
34:26
message to have it answer direct and that that's a really good question Wendy so we have a generic uh email inbox
34:33
benefits at nzdf mill. NZ that's benefits ncdf do. NZ you send an email
34:41
to that and you will get a reply within 24 hours so we're happy to take questions about anything and if we're
34:47
not sure of the answer ourselves then we'll send you a holding email while we go investigate and come back you but you
34:53
will get a response thank you Mark okay so what what else is available through
34:58
the force Financial Hub well again as we discussed earlier we have a resources pager that's available that's got a
35:04
whole range of things there for people to access we have the free budgeting Services through Money Talks or the
35:11
local arrangement for the camps and bases a really powerful tool that's available to all of us is the sorted
35:16
site now that's provided by the government funded retirement commission it's entirely independent that doesn't
35:23
promote any particular product or anything and what they do is they provide a range of really good tools to
35:29
us as as as members of society and what you can do is you can actually go into the sorted site you can download it you
35:36
set yourself up as a client it's all free you set yourself up as a client and then you there's they've got a range of
35:43
different um um um tools that you're able to use like a retirement uh indicator there's a Deb uh tool there's
35:50
a kywi saer tool there's a whole raft of them available free for me as a 65y old
35:56
I've downloaded their retirement calculator and I've actually projected my age out for to 100 so I've made the
36:02
optimistic assumption that I'm going to live for 35 years and I've done my retirement calculations out for out to
36:09
100 using the retirement calculator um if you see me busting down on lampon key around about age 89 to 90 you'll know
36:16
that's because the money's run out at that stage but again you know all joking aside a really important a really
36:23
powerful tool to help with our planning it's all available free and and a really good combination of both uh spreadsheet
36:31
type things but for those of you who don't like that there's some you know really good graphic tools that you're able to use as well so have a look at
36:38
something like that as well for those of you who belong to the savings schemes our savings schemes we have a good a
36:43
really good web page that's provided by Mera they're the fund manager for our scheme and they provide a really good
36:49
series of tools um I noticed last night I went online to have a look again theyve just put a new webinar 7 Minute
36:56
webinar up there on what's actually happening in the investment markets at the moment that's a really important
37:01
thing we know that Donald Trump has been reelected as president of the United States there's sign significant
37:08
implications for the investment markets and so uh merer has put up a webinar
37:13
around some of the things that are impacting uh both now and they've also got their crystal ball out to talk about
37:19
what the future may be looking like as well so have a look at that and if you belong to other kywi saer schemes like
37:25
thez or the ASB or the westpack or one of those other schemes and variably you'll find that they all have sort of
37:32
information of web pages and things as well that gives you a ra of information and I know it's all we're all time poor
37:39
um you know there's mer of Demands on our time but well worth it sitting down
37:44
uh and spending just a little bit of time looking at these resources because again you're getting some really powerful information for free you know
37:51
to help with your planning um there's a whole raft of money management sites about them for free as well one called
37:58
muddy Hub which is a local one there's the Morning Star site which is actually an international site but they have a
38:03
New Zealand page and so again there's some really good you know things available there well worth having a look
38:09
at of you got time to tap into it and then we have podcast provided by people like Francis cck Mary Holm who does a
38:17
whole range of podcasts every second week um she also appears on the JC Mulligan program every second Thursday
38:23
and they repeat that at night so again a really good uh us and she she talks a
38:29
lot about the issues that are facing older kiwis in particular so there's some really good stuff there you know to
38:34
help us with our planning as well and then we have the benefit sell resources page as well that's got a raft of things
38:41
and we update that on an ongoing basis as well um this is the time of the year
38:49
when the households start facing budget pressures ironically Christmas you know should be one of the happiest times of
38:55
the year particularly with those with young fam but we also know that often it's a very challenging time financially Wise Kids
39:02
have all sorts of expectations about what Santa is going to bring and often that puts you really stretches the
39:08
household budgets and things so again there's a number of tools to help with people who may be facing budgetary
39:14
pressures at this time we have the sorted site and again there's a really good budget template that's available
39:20
within within that we also have a budget template on the fourth Financial Hub that you're able to use as well it's
39:26
very forward it just encourages you to sit down and put down what's your in
39:32
income going to be coming in over the next you know three to four months and what are your outgoes going to be and
39:38
how do you actually budget accordingly to make sure all the key bills are a able to be paid we have the money TS
39:45
again the money TS budget and money mentoring service we have the local budgeting Services linked to the camps
39:51
and bases things like the Financial Freedom trust the manua 2 which provides a really good service and I've sat in in
39:58
a number of briefings that they they do for staff and some really great resources all of you know provide for
40:05
free we have the become well Financial advice service we have our financial capability programs as I mentioned
40:10
earlier Tim's working on the program now for the timeline for next year the PCU
40:16
actually has a thing called Christmas account and when I think back to many years ago when I was growing up I do
40:22
recall that my mother had a Christmas account that she paid money into each month and and then December she'll be
40:28
able to take the money out to help with the expenses that arose over Christmas and the holiday period and the PCU
40:35
actually provides one of those services so again something a bit oldfashioned but a really powerful tool for us to to
40:42
have a look at we have the flexi saver scheme as well that you're able to put your money in you can take your money
40:48
out when you like no no questions asked but that's a really good way of helping you actually um to save for the future
40:55
to save for your goals and things as well and for those of you who may actually have real financial hardship real
41:02
stresses there is actually a vehicle called the financial hardship provision that you're able to apply for your kiwi
41:08
saver scheme whether it's the New Zealand Defense Force kiwi saver scheme or your own kiwi saver scheme you're
41:14
able to apply for a financial hardship withdrawal there's an industry standard so they will limit the amount that's
41:20
able to withdrawn up to 13 weeks of living expenses it's a very intrusive process so you're required provide all
41:27
the information to enable them to make a decision and they may say well if you
41:33
want to have this thing you then you have to drive you have to drop sky as an example or Netflix or some of those
41:39
other nice to haves so it is quite a stringent process and the reason for that being is that if you're actually
41:46
taking out a financial hardship withdrawal against your Ki sa scheme what you're actually doing is you're eating into the funds that are going to
41:52
be available for you in later years either to help you get into the house that you want to do or secularly to save
41:59
your retirement so that's why they do actually have a a stringent industry standard directed by the government
42:05
around how much money someone may take out but at the same time it's recognized that there will be times when people are
42:11
facing real pressures and so that's why that there is that vehicle there to enable people to apply to withdraw some
42:18
funds as well just to uh again to recap this is
42:24
what the sorted site looks like it's very straight forward very simple there's lots of snazzy graphics and
42:30
things for people who like those sort of things but again uh again it's a very powerful tool and I do encourage
42:36
everyone to look at it you may have some spare time over the holiday period very simple to navigate yourself around and
42:43
as I said some really powerful tools to help with your planning so that's that's basically me
42:51
so just in terms of a Roundup as I mentioned earlier again we
42:56
we we welcome queries to the benefits uh inbox benefits nf. mill. NZ um please do
43:04
take some time to check the force Financial Hub have a look at the benefit providers there's a range of benefit
43:10
providers there with all the contact details both phone numbers and um um internet so have a look at you know give
43:17
them a call or whatever depending on what your your particular benefit issue may be um have a look at the sorted site
43:24
again I really encourage everyone to look at that at some stage some really powerful stuff available to help with us
43:30
planning um we are going to be doing some further work we're working with Frank and Wendy around some further
43:35
programs that we want to run in 2025 particularly around retirement preparedness within defense we actually
43:42
have 2 and a half thousand people over the age of 50 and that's really important because age 50 is the age at
43:48
which we really all need to start thinking seriously about what our retirement is going to look like as I
43:54
mentioned earli it's never too late to start saving for your retirement but the earlier you're able to start the better and so that's why we use age 50
44:01
as a bit of a benchmark and so what we're going to be doing is running some further uh sessions next year
44:08
specifically going to a bit more detail about the sort of things that people need to be thinking about and the run up
44:13
to their retirement it's not just about money it's about things like your mental well-being your physical well-being
44:20
things like where do you live what's my retirement going to look like how am I going to keep the brain active what how
44:26
what my social interactions going to be all those sort of things and so um
44:32
that's why we're really keen on running some more of those um those sessions we we run four and Tren them about two
44:38
months ago very well received and that's why we're keen on you know running some more and we'll be doing some of those
44:44
virtually as well to reach out to the broader um audience and I think the key thing being again just to reiterate it
44:52
at some stage all of us will need help at one stage or another never feel embarrassed never feel you know this is
44:58
something I need to keep to myself um reach out if you need help because that's really important and you may be
45:05
assured that everything that you may take say to us or to one of our the financial advisors is always treated
45:12
with the utmost discretion it's never shared with other people so you may be sure that you actually have full
45:18
confidentiality um and so please you know do reach out if you need assistance
45:23
with with anything so that's a wrap up for me uh Frank and Wendy anything
45:28
further you want to raise Mark I I have a question I would uh like to pose you
45:34
as someone who as you've acknowledged you're 65 uh you have the benefit of uh
45:41
your experience and your length of tenure and your knowledge in this
45:46
field if you were starting tomorrow at nzdf or you were 25y old out there in
45:52
the in the in the wider world what would be two or three things that you would have Lish financially right up front uh
45:59
really good question Frank so I think again uh first thing would be to be more aware of of money
46:06
issues um like anyone I was young once believe it or not um really had a great
46:11
time enjoying life traveled and did all those sort of things which is really great went to the pub on a Friday night
46:17
and a Saturday night and all that sort of thing um and so um what I would do I
46:23
guess differently would be to be more aware of money issues to budget more carefully budgeting yeah um and um have
46:32
a bit of a think about what are the needs and what are the wants um I'm someone who likes clothes and so of my
46:38
earlier days I finished University came down to Wellington started flatting had a great time flatting bought a lot of
46:45
clothes and at the end of the day there's only so much stuff you can wear and so when you think back now when you're taking boxes of stuff to the
46:52
Salvation Army or the Red Cross or whatever else you think okay did I really get that much money out of that
46:57
so those are sort of things I think that as you go through life I I if I could
47:02
revisit life it would be be a little bit more aware of the needs versus the wants
47:07
in other words the the essentials that you have to have versus the things that are nice to have and to cut down on the
47:13
nice to have stuff in particular and to put more money into the savings and Investments but having said that you can
47:20
never do anything about the past all you can do is look to the Future uh and I've had a great life and so you know I have
47:26
no regrets about what I've done it's just with hindsight you look back and think oh you know I see my young
47:32
colleague Tim who's you know really fine brain very careful with money and
47:37
everything else I think okay well perhaps I should have been a bit more like him when I was his age yeah fair
47:42
enough um one one last thing um there are discounts that we received too as
47:48
members of nzdf um without going into too much detail how do people learn
47:54
about those discounts you know the availability of those discounts um I'll
48:00
throw an easy one out might ATT 10 yeah so very good point Frank so the discount PES page is actually run by the force
48:07
for families um uh people um there's a again a very helpful chat by name of
48:12
Richard HZ who actually runs the discount page and so you all you do is just do a Google search for that and
48:19
you'll see all the discounts there um as I mentioned earlier don't be afraid to mention your defense so I go into
48:26
different shop and we tell people I'm defense and just be cheeky and ask what sort of discount they're going to provide um and and so and sometimes you
48:33
find you with places like M 10 and buning as an example often they have junior staff on the counters and so
48:41
they'll say oh no we don't know anything about a defense discount just dig your toes in and say well there is actually
48:46
one and I want to speak to the manager um and so those are the sort of things um I find you know without promoting
48:52
particular products uh my electronic stuff I tend to buy from n lemings because I find they they provide us a
48:58
really good discount the discount will vary from product to product but I buy all my electronics my TV Fred all that
49:05
sort of stuff I always get there because I find I get a better discount through them uh than other
49:10
places great have a question you did say there was there is an Excel budget
49:16
templates available for us where were these um so there's a couple of things
49:21
one's on the resources page of the force Financial Hub otherwise we can set something up and send it to the person
49:27
well if you actually go into the Microsoft Suite um you'll find there's a
49:32
uh you go into Excel and you'll find there's a series of excel templates and there's one of them is a budgeting thing
49:38
so for people to have access to Microsoft there's actually a whole range of um uh programs available just through
49:45
that as long as you have the Microsoft license which is what I've done at home
49:51
yeah but if they require any help they can just reach out to you yes just send
49:56
an email to yeah thank you thank you very much Mark I'll um I'll just stop the um
50:05
presentation we'll try to uh do yeah there we go um thank you
50:13
very much Mark very informative uh I think we are very well served here at nzdf when it comes to uh assistance
50:21
around saving schemes insurances medical insurance you name it we seem to have
50:26
good coverage like everything that we've tried to promote through the um through these well-being series of webinars is
50:35
access these uh resources sooner rather than later um get an understanding of
50:41
what is um available to you I'd also like um for people if they have some
50:47
ideas around some of the content or information that they would like shared
50:52
in 2025 uh not just from Mark and from the benit benefits team but in in a wider
50:58
sense through these webinars please drop me an email at OD nzdf mill. NZ with
51:06
some suggestions that will help to um build out our program of support in
51:13
2025 otherwise I'd like to really thank everybody for taking time out of their busy day to join us for this webinar and
51:22
um look forward to seeing you uh again next week when uh an Stone will will uh
51:28
present again to us around um managing ourselves I think in the workplace so
51:34
that should be uh a really good webinar to be part of so thank you all very much again and have a really good lunch break
51:41
and a good afternoon thanks very much bye-bye