Many of us procrastinate when confronted with difficult tasks. At Retirement Essentials we see it often with people delaying applying for the Age Pension as they can’t face dealing with Centrelink. Another common area of procrastination is...
Retirement Advice Articles
Resourcing your retirement
Keeping Retirement Simple - Part 1 I was looking into getting solar for the house to save on electricity bills and reduce our carbon footprint. I found it was pretty complicated, a lot to consider. Won’t someone make it simple for me? That made me think:...
Smart ways to handle an inheritance without losing benefits
Jenny and Daniel contacted us with a dilemma recently. They had received a windfall gain due to an unexpected inheritance. Often inheriting money also means a time of great sadness, but in this case they did not actually know the great uncle who had...
The five pillars of retirement: Making sure your money lasts
The most outstanding feature of Australia’s retirement income system has to be its complexity. During their working lives most people have managed just one source of income – their salary. If they have investments, this money typically adds to savings. But...
Paying down debt: Solving this classic dilemma
Currently about 76% of Australian retirees own their own homes. About 13% of these retirees still have a mortgage. These ratios are set to change dramatically over the next 10-15 years, with more than 50% of those currently aged 55-60 carrying mortgages,...
How happy are you?
A couple of weeks ago I came across a Retirement Happiness Index. This index, launched by Challenger on 4 April 2024 makes for interesting reading. It indicates Australian retirees have plenty to keep us busy and engaged, we feel mentally healthy, but we...
We’re not trained for retirement
With the footy season underway, I thought I’d share a favorite story: I was lucky to spend a few moments alone with Geelong Captain Joel Selwood, at a 2013 Grand Final Day event. He was pretty subdued as Geelong had missed the big game due to a...
Most grandparents help financially: Here are seven things they need to know
The American Association of Retired Persons – or AARP as it is now called – has been around since 1958 and has 38 million members. Late last year they asked their membership about being a grandparent and how this affects their own finances. The results were...
Boy, did we get some advice… from you!
We asked and you responded… You may recall that we asked you to answer a short 5-minute Retirement Pulse survey a couple of weeks ago. Well you did. And to say that your answers delighted us is an understatement. Here’s why. They shared a lot of common sense...