Thoughts on money, from a Financial Planner in Perth
In my role as a financial planner i am often asked questions about the retiring age in Australia. There is no simple answer – the age differs according to where your focus is – superannuation, tax or government age pension income support. Here’s a quick look at different versions of the retiring age in Australia.
Let’s consider just how many ways super and pension accounts are misrepresented or misunderstood.
D-Day for pensioners is approaching With important new deeming rules coming into effect on 1 January 2015, now is the time to review your superannuation and pension arrangements to ensure you don’t miss out on valuable Social Security entitlements. Pension deeming after 1 January 2015 will change Account based pensions have generally been given favourable … Read more
“Darling, it’s time we talked about money…” In my financial planning experiences, talking about money early in a relationship is incredibly important. Even more important is making sure you talk about money honestly and openly. When a couple start working on a budget, one of the last areas usually tackled is their differing attitudes to … Read more
How much do you think the property you live in is worth? How about the suburb or area in which you live – what do you think would be the combined value of all those properties? Ever wondered what all the property on earth is worth? Global Property Value As usual in an information filled world, … Read more
“Scam” is an evoactive word. It conjures up images of this or that injustice, criminal or immoral act. Looking at scams can help us clarify the ethics of what is right and what is wrong, especially when we are talking about money. So here’s a look at a video that i was sent recently, in which the … Read more
Risk and Return are two aspects of investment that are most often discussed separately, as if it were possible to have one without the other. This is especially true in the post-Global Financial Crisis (“GFC”) world, where the range of potential outcomes can be quite large. The GFC and its aftermath have created big huge … Read more
Australia’s cash interest rates are currently at record low levels. If your cash account earns that interest rate of 2.5% then you are probably just keeping ahead of official inflation rates – currently noted as 2.4%. If you are paying tax then that means your purchasing power is slowly being eroded. In other words, the … Read more
Many super funds have had a reasonably good year these last 12 months. This will likely trigger a barrage of adverts and promotions that boast of this or that return beating this or that benchmark. Higher Super Fund Returns The point of this post though, is to look at super fund returns from a different … Read more
Welcome to 2013, the year of the snake! Already a few weeks old, 2013 has all the makings of a very good year. For a start, the political systems of the three major economic global power blocs (Europe, USA and China) have managed to wriggle their way through some fairly tricky turf and start the … Read more