Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's whether you should stop your KiwiSaver contributions while the market is taking a dive. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Fight, flight, or freeze – when things go wrong, those are our instincts. And so, with KiwiSaver balances taking a dive around the country, many people are wondering if they should keep putting money in or wait until this settles down.

While this is an understandable question, if you can afford to keep paying your other bills right now it’s actually the perfect time to be putting money into KiwiSaver.

If you have lost your job, or are worried that you’re unstable and need every dollar you can get, then of course make sure you’re able to look after yourself now before you look after your future self.

But if that’s taken care of, the way that KiwiSaver is set up means now is the time you can put money in and reap big rewards in the future.

In fact, if you pause your contributions I’d go as far as saying you’re missing out.

For the latest Cooking the Books I talked to Martin Hawes, chair of the Sumner KiwiSaver Investment Committee.

We discussed whether you should keep putting money into KiwiSaver, whether it's possible for your balance to fall to zero, and whether KiwiSaver providers should have done more to prepare people for a time like this.

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 https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/ Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.