July 1. It's one of my favourite times of year. We have passed the winter solstice and the days, albeit still dark and cold (at least down south), are slowly getting longer. And for the financial nerd part of me it is also the start of a new financial...
Anh and Kim had a dilemma. They consider themselves lucky as they have worked and saved hard to now have more than $1 million in assets and they own their home. They are both over 67 so can qualify for the Age Pension – except they don’t! Their...
The biggest win for retirees in this year’s Federal Budget was the decision to freeze deeming rates until 30 June 2025. We reported on this in our Budget 2024-25 wrap, but wanted to take time to further explain this for those who are not quite sure how...
Regular scheduled changes to the Age Pension will occur on 1 July. There are other changes as well which will have an impact on retirees and their income over the next 12 months. Here’s our end of financial year checklist to help you plan ahead. Spoiler...
Recent Treasury information revealed that 84% of retirement savings is held in Account-Based (or allocated) pensions. Yet responses to a survey conducted by AMP suggested that 70% of over 50-year-olds do not understand what an Account-Based Pension (ABP) is....
Last week we revealed a little known fact about the Age Pension – and that is, how very unfair the asset test rules are for renters and single renters in particular. We had a lot of media attention following the publication of this Age Pension anomaly. Our...
There are many ways of saving for your retirement. You can pay off your home, put money into super, an investment property or managed funds. Perhaps invest in art, cars or fine wine. I’m not a big fan of those last three, unless you have real...
Federal Budgets can seem a long way removed from our day-to-day lives. Telephone book number expenditure is often quoted on some very abstract projects (infrastructure? cyber safety? border security?) which are hard to relate to. But the money that is...
Do you, too, find the Work Bonus credit as clear as mud? We suspect this may be the case because of the volume of questions we receive on this topic. It seems that many Retirement Essentials’ members are simply bamboozled by what should be a straightforward...