Cooking the Books podcast: The KiwiSaver mistake younger people are making that hurts first-home buying

A few changes to KiwiSaver could see hopeful first home buyers doing better. Photo / file

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Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's the mistake being made with KiwiSavers, and how to fix it. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Listen to the Cooking the Books podcast here or watch the interview above.

KiwiSaver is important, not only for our long-term futures in retirement, but also our short-term futures of buying first homes.

Figures from the IRD show this year, in July alone, $125 million was pulled out of KiwiSavers for first homes.

In fact, research from Canstar shows about half of 18- to 29-year-olds are putting money into KiwiSaver purely to get that first home.

So that's a pretty major factor.

However, that same research also showed something a little worrying.

Those same 18- to 29-year-olds are confused by the different fund types, and how to use them.

That's crucial, because the fund you use could mean you put in the exact same money, but get something totally different at the end.

For the latest Cooking the Books I talked to Jose George from Canstar.

We discussed what the Canstar research shows, and how to understand your KiwiSaver so that it works better for you.

For the interview, watch the video above, or listen to the podcast.

• Find all of episodes of Cooking the Books here or check out our playlist on Youtube.

• Listen to the full interview on the Cooking the Books podcast. You can find new episodes in the Herald, or subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple podcasts app, or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 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.