13 Jul 2017

Money with Mary Holm: 10 years of KiwiSaver

From Afternoons, 2:18 pm on 13 July 2017
Mary Holm

Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly

It's the ten years since the KiwiSaver scheme was launched and Mary Holm has been looking what impact it's had on New Zealanders' nest eggs.

She carried out a survey asking readers of her New Zealand Herald column how they had fared since 1 July 2007. She got 300 responses.

She asked people how much money they had put into the scheme, not including government or employer contributions and then what their final balance was.

Nearly everybody's money had at least doubled, she says.

"When you looked at employees, the average was more than double, non-employees more like twice. The very best had almost quadrupled."

The annual returns were healthy too. The averages ranged from 12 percent to 18 percent for employees depending on the fund. Non-employees averaged 12 percent. The very top performer was 44 percent.

Mary, always an advocate for KiwiSaver, is convinced we should all be in the scheme.

"The basic argument as to why I say everyone should be in KiwiSaver, it's impossible to do as well at a similar risk level."

Mary is hosting a public seminar in Wellington, called Making the Most of Your Money on Tuesday 8 August, details on her website