Cooking the Books podcast: What you're ignoring in your KiwiSaver that could cost you thousands

The average person could boost their KiwiSaver by $135,000 by making a few changes. Photo / File

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's the KiwiSaver mistakes you can fix in minutes. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Audio from this video podcast is available on podcast apps, one week after its release on Herald Premium. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts app, iHeartRadio, or Spotify, to make sure you never miss an episode.

What you don't know can definitely hurt you. Particularly when it comes to your money.

Almost all of us have KiwiSaver, which could be the biggest nest egg for our future.

That's why it's such a problem that some of those KiwiSaver funds are hugely underperforming.

You could be stashing away the exact same money as your friend, and end up with far less when you retire.

When just a few tweaks to how you run your KiwiSaver could give the average person $135,000 more when they retire.

Part of the problem is fees, which if you're not careful can take huge bites out of your money.

But the other issue is simply understanding what on earth your KiwiSaver provider is up to, and whether you're okay with that.

Luckily there's something you can do that only takes 10 minutes, and is getting even easier to do from this year.

For the latest Cooking the Books podcast I talked to the FMA's Gillian Boyes.

We discussed how KiwiSaver statements are becoming more transparent, what you should be looking out for in your statement, and how to fix it.

For the interview, watch the podcast video here:

Or you can listen to just the audio here:

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.