When it comes to money advice, young people still prefer to get help from mum and dad.
The Westpac-Massey Fin-Ed Centre has released the latest findings from a 20-year longitudinal survey which tracks a number of New Zealanders through adulthood.
It was started back in 2012 when the group was aged between 18 and 22. Now, they range between 23 and 28-years-old.
The study helps to track attitudes and behaviours towards money as people get older.
About half of those surveyed said they got advice from their parents, but only 35 percent believed what their parents were telling them was best for their finances.
Heading into the future, the participants were still probably going to get advice from their parents, but the main source of wisdom would come from life experience.
Fin-Ed Centre Dr Pushpa Wood said avoiding formal financial education and relying on parents had risks “especially if parents are not financially knowledgeable, or if bad decisions lead to costly mistakes that are hard to reverse”.
She said parental advice was not always the best advice.
“We do not know the level of financial capability of the parents of this particular cohort, so it may be they weren’t as financially capable as their children would have liked them to be.”
Dr Wood said a pleasant surprise was that 89 percent were in a KiwiSaver scheme and thought it was important to save for the future.
She said that many were however weighed down by heavy debt, especially student loans, and that was a burden for them.
“Their debt burden is increased and so in other words their use of debt products – whether it’s a student loan or whether it is a personal loan, or a store card, credit card – that is increased.
She said a majority thought they would be better off than their parents when they hit retirement age.