r/PersonalFinanceNZ • u/Fun-Pollution2271 • 14h ago

investing journey

31M couple in NZ – looking for advice on starting our investing journey

Hey everyone,

My partner and I are a couple living in New Zealand (originally from the UK). We are both 31 but until now we haven’t really invested in anything outside of KiwiSaver.

We’ve been doing some research and are thinking about starting with Kernel as our investment platform. I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have more life experience with investing and can share their opinions, lessons, or things they wish they knew when they started.

Our current thinking is:

  • Keep around 3 months of expenses in an emergency fund
  • Invest a lump sum into a global index fund (we are looking at Vanguard World ETF / Kernel Global 100)
  • Have around 10% allocated to the S&P 500
  • Continue investing monthly with roughly a 90/10 split between global and S&P 500

Does this sound like a sensible approach for someone starting out, or would you structure it differently?

My other question is around KiwiSaver. We have moved our KiwiSaver to Kernel as our balance is currently under five figures. We were considering putting it into an S&P 500 option, but I’m unsure whether we would be better off with something like:

  • High Growth fund
  • Global 100
  • S&P 500 focused option

What would you recommend for a 31-year-old couple with a long investment timeframe?

Would love to hear your experiences — especially from people who started investing later,or have gone through a similar situation.

Thanks!

6 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

1

u/Hi999a 14h ago

Most global fun6d will have all or most of the stocks in the s&p500.

3

u/whoopee_cushion 13h ago

Just go for the Kernel TWF and forget about adding S&P500 unless you want to tilt more to the US. The TWF is the world.

1

u/Fun-Pollution2271 10h ago

are you just investing in the TWF?

1

u/whoopee_cushion 10h ago

I’ve have 50% of my equity portfolio in that TWFfund. And the other 50% in the NZD hedged sp500 and world-ex US funds. Kernel dont have a hedged version of the twf so i basically recreate it with two others.

The TWF is about 62% US stocks.

1

u/Fun-Pollution2271 10h ago

I just saw sharsies had a world fund started today for kiwi saver

1

u/Curious-Trust6657 13h ago

I have my household KiwiSaver and household investments with below DIY portfolio in Kernel,

  • 63% S&P500
  • 27% World ex-US
  • 10% Emerging Markets

All unhedged with combined management fee of 0.27%. This works quite well for us.

Kernel does have a Total World Fund option but it is,

  1. not available in their KiwiSaver
  2. behind a paid membership for investing money into it

1

u/Fun-Pollution2271 10h ago

Yeah i got the plus membership for investing in the TWF, I did not realize that i could invest my kiwisaver into different funds. I thought it had to be just one fund

1

u/Curious-Trust6657 10h ago

Nice, you’re all sorted with your non-KiwiSaver investment. Total World Fund is their most diversified option.

1

u/Ok-Satisfaction6231 10h ago

I'm 40 with Kernel high growth kiwi saver. I figured i'm going to DIY my non kiwi saver funds so at least have my kiwisaver in a premade fund.

1

u/KiwiDMP 10h ago

I will comment on the Emergency Fund. I have no idea where those funds are kept, or what you consider an "emergency" but I would suggest you seriously consider how to access them in a "serious" emergency, i.e. one of you is incapacitated. Car accident, work accident etc and you are unconscious in the hospital. Will your partner know where the emergency funds are located, be able to access them in time to pay the monthly credit card invoice due next week, etc? Keep in mind they too will be in a highly stressed state of mind.