Your Local Optimum Wealth Fanatic

Hi, I’m Q — known around here as the Optimum Wealth Fanatic. I’m a New Zealand-based business operator, digital strategist, and former registered financial adviser who has spent the better part of two decades sitting at the intersection of business systems, digital infrastructure, and personal finance.

I graduated from Massey University with a business degree and went straight into the deep end: building and running companies, consulting for others, and spending 13 years as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of Westforce Credit Union — a role that gave me a front-row seat to how financial institutions actually work from the inside. Not the marketing version. The real version.

What I’ve Actually Done

I’ve been Managing Director of two businesses simultaneously for over a decade. One is a real estate website operation I’ve run out of Auckland since 2011. The other is a digital marketing infrastructure consultancy I’ve operated since 2019, working with businesses to build the systems that sit behind sustainable online revenue.

Before that: Digital Marketing Consultant at Fit Futures Academy for nearly five years. Graphic design and social media strategy at a New Zealand retail disruptor. A stint as a digital producer building iOS apps as an independent contractor. And critically — six months working as a Registered Financial Adviser specialising in KiwiSaver, which required me to understand not just how financial products are structured but how they’re sold, and where the gaps between those two things create risk for everyday investors.

The Westforce Credit Union board role ran alongside all of this from 2010 to 2023 — thirteen years as Treasurer, responsible for financial oversight of a member-owned financial institution. I’ve read more balance sheets, stress-tested more lending models, and sat through more regulatory compliance discussions than most people who call themselves financial commentators. That experience doesn’t make me a bank. It makes me someone who knows how to read what a bank doesn’t want you to read.

Why I Started ReviewYourWealth

The financial review landscape in New Zealand — and globally — has a structural problem. Most review sites are built backwards: find the products with the best affiliate commissions, then write content that supports recommending them. The research follows the money, not the other way around.

That’s not how I operate. I started ReviewYourWealth because after years of managing business finances, sitting on a credit union board, and advising clients on KiwiSaver, I was frustrated by how difficult it was to find reviews that answered the only question that actually matters: will this product help me protect or grow my wealth — specifically, measurably, and honestly?

Every review on this site starts with the product, not the commission. I research each one independently — typically 20 or more hours per product — before any recommendation is made. The affiliate relationship is disclosed clearly on every page. If a product doesn’t pass the “would I trust this with my own money” test, it doesn’t get recommended. Full stop.

My Approach to Reviewing Financial Products

Every product on this site gets evaluated through two lenses:

Wealth Maintenance: How well does it protect what you’ve already built? This includes fee structures, regulatory oversight, counterparty risk, and the things that erode wealth quietly — hidden FX markups, platform insolvency risk, opaque pricing.

Wealth Growth: How effectively does it increase your net worth over time? Not in theory. In practice, for the kind of person who actually uses it — accounting for realistic usage patterns, fees under real conditions, and the opportunity cost of choosing this product over alternatives.

I cross-reference regulatory filings, compare fee calculators, read the PDS documents that most people skip, and where possible I look at how these products behave under stress — what happened to their customers during the 2022 crypto collapse, the 2020 market crash, or the inflation spike that followed.

My background in digital systems also means I evaluate the infrastructure behind each product — not just the marketing layer. A fintech that looks good in a comparison table but runs on fragile technology or has poor regulatory capitalisation is a risk I’ll name directly.

What I Cover and Why

ReviewYourWealth focuses on the financial products that have the most direct impact on wealth outcomes for people managing their own money: international money transfer and multi-currency accounts, investment platforms and stock research tools, precious metals and alternative assets, credit monitoring and debt management, and lending and mortgage comparison platforms.

These aren’t random categories. They map to the decisions that move the needle most — the hidden FX fees quietly taxing every international transfer, the stock timing tools that separate systematic investors from emotional ones, the credit monitoring that catches identity fraud before it costs you thousands. The products in each category are ones I’ve researched in depth, not ones selected because of commission rates.

A Note on Affiliate Links

Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. If you click through and sign up or purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. This is how independent research sites like this one stay funded.

I’m transparent about this because the alternative — pretending the links are neutral while quietly being paid — is exactly the problem with most financial review content online. Every affiliate relationship on this site is disclosed on the relevant review page. The commission structure never determines which products get reviewed or recommended. My 13 years on a credit union board taught me that financial trust, once broken, doesn’t come back. I’m not interested in breaking it.

Who This Site Is For

ReviewYourWealth is for people who take their financial position seriously. Not people looking for get-rich-quick plays or viral investment tips. People who want to understand what a product actually does before they hand it their money, their data, or their time.

These reviews are for you if you:

• Refuse to settle for “good enough” with your money
• Want research that goes beyond the product’s own marketing claims
• Appreciate full transparency about how this site operates and earns
• Are tired of financial content that talks around the hard questions instead of answering them
• Want tools that have been evaluated by someone who has sat on both sides of the financial services table

Every percentage point matters. Every fee compounds. Every product decision you make with your money either moves you toward financial independence or quietly away from it. My job is to give you the research that makes those decisions easier — and better.

Based in New Zealand. Independent by design. Obsessed with getting it right.