Hey, team, it's Frances.

If you've been barely resisting a doom scroll, well, you're far from alone.

Same here.

The news has been terrible lately and it's also been impacting our financial lives.

So what can we do when it feels like the world is on fire in order to protect ourselves somewhat?

That's exactly what the lovely TVNZ breakfast team asked me to come on to talk about earlier this week.

And they were also kind enough to say I could repost that conversation here yet.

So let's talk about it and get some calm back into our money lives.

Enjoy.

It can be really tempting in tough times to panic and hastily pull your money out of Kiwisaver or other investments.

With ongoing conflicts overseas and the rising cost of living here at home, it can be hard to know what the right move is.

For more on how to manage your finances during global uncertainty, we're joined by independent financial journalist Francis Cook.

Good morning.

This happens all the time, right, with Kiwisaver.

And we think, oh, should we stick?

Should we turn?

Exactly.

And I feel like we've gone through a few crises now in the last few years.

We are getting a little weathered on this, but it's still every time something new hits it is that tendency for your brain to go, ah, but this time is different.

Ah, but this time it's actually ready in time to panic.

And I think when we see all of these truly awful things happening around the world, we look to control what we can.

And so something like switching your kiwisaver feels like you're doing something and doing something good, but it's often actually the very worst thing you can do.

What are some of the things that people can do to ease their concerns around these things?

I mean, as someone who keeps myself up to date, I am someone who is very carefully choosing my strategy on staying up to date at the moment.

I stay up to date in the mornings and the evenings and then I do not doom scroll through the rest of the day.

So I must say, don't doom scroll for starters, but also, you know, take the moment to realize, you know, why we get money back from Kiwisaver.

Kiwisaver.

If you've got your money in something that is balanced or growth, almost certainly a good amount of it is in the share market.

The share market is a bunch of businesses and it gives you far more money long term.

But what they're paying you is an anxiety premium.

I was going to ask you about this.

What is the anxiety premium?

The anxiety premium is the ability to make money from sitting on your hands and not giving into your anxiety.

And it's harder than it sounds.

It feels like you should do something.

It feels like it's lazy to not do something.

It feels like you should get more for doing more.

But what you're actually paid for is the ability sit there, go, this isn't fun and turn and look at something else and just let it ride.

Feels like this happens often when we go through these crises.

And the advice is sort of just don't look at your kiwi.

Save a balance.

Don't look at what's going on there.

What is it that actually drives people to think, I could get a better deal elsewhere if I could just do something here?

Well, we're so used to every other part of our lives.

If you do more, you get more and that's great.

With your money, it's the exact opposite.

You know, playing dead is the best choice usually.

And so if you are able to acknowledge that actually doing nothing is sometimes the best discipline and that's really good.

It's doing the regular discipline.

Often it's putting a little bit of money in, leaving it alone, going on from there.

And Kiwisaver is designed for this.

They use a fund system.

They've got hundreds of different companies spread all over the world.

It is already built for shocks like this.

So it was already built to take this into account.

It looks like your money has gone down.

It hasn't.

What are some of the long term damage that people can do if they do act a bit recklessly and they do decide to pull money out of their Kiwisaver?

And we saw this a little bit with COVID right?

We had that huge horrible drop and then it bounced back within literally days.

So if you said, oh, I'm going to pull my money out until it's ready and back then you would have pulled out your money, right?

As everything wasn't worth very much and you would have missed the bounce back in price.

So that's when you've lost a bunch of money.

Now, there are times when you can change your Kiwisaver, but it's based on your life, not the headlines.

So if you're thinking you might be buying a house soon or retiring soon or you've just had a baby or you think your fund provider isn't doing the best job, maybe they're charging quite high fees.

Those are all great reasons to think about changing, but it's based on your life, not headlines.

What about if life event intersects with global crisis and you think, actually I need that money now, but it's not looking good right now in KiwiSaver.

That's a really tricky one.

So if you're thinking, you know, I might want to buy a house in a year or two and it's already dipped down a bit, probably the damage is done, then it's a point of looking at, well, what is my real timeline?

So if you're thinking, you know, I want to buy a house in a year or two, then okay, you might wait and think buying a house is still optional.

I'm going to see if I can ride it out through this.

If everything recovers.

Sometimes it's a really fast recovery, so give yourself that time.

If you really need it right now, get in touch with your KiwiSaver provider.

You literally pay them fees for this.

It's not even just that, you know, you've got this person on board, you have prepaid for this, so make use, get in touch, email, call them and say, what can I do?

And they should be able to give you some.

A bit of a steer.

Francis Cook, independent financial journalist.

Thank you so much as always.

We didn't even get time to talk about the skincare metaphor, but you can read all about it on Frances financial advice.

Just head to OneNews, Co NZ or the OneNews app.

Search for her name in the tab bar where you can find the latest from Frances Cook.

This podcast can only give you general information about how things work.

In most situations.

It's not individual financial advice.

If you're after that, a financial advisor is always the best bet.