Kaye Fallick

Kaye is a retirement commentator and coach, with 25 years’ experience writing about retirement income. She has authored two books on life stage changes – Get a New Life and What Next? – and enjoys regular radio and podcast appearances. Her favourite mission is to offer plain English explanations of complex rules so that all retirees can benefit. She is based in Melbourne but enjoys escaping to Italy whenever possible.
Should the family home be included in the assets test?

Should the family home be included in the assets test?

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A bold initiative from the Actuaries Institute proposes that the family home should now be included in the assets test. It’s far from the first time this policy has been suggested – and it probably won’t be the last. But is it an idea worth considering? A detailed discussion paper on this topic was released by the Actuaries Institute last week. Authored by Andrew Boal, partner at Deloittes, the ‘dialogue’ paper outlines the primary role the house can and will play in most peoples’ retirements.

The importance of the home and potential use of equity in the home to boost retirement income is something Retirement Essentials has reported on for some time now. The home is  one of the five main pillars of retirement funding, alongside the Age Pension, Superannuation, work income and private savings. Using home equity as a source of funding has been increasingly supported by government policy, through legislation including more widely available downsizer contributions and the government’s own Household Equity Access Scheme (HEAS) which has been expanded in recent budgets.

How to achieve financial wellbeing

How to achieve financial wellbeing

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Being wealthy is very much in the eye of the beholder.

While one person’s sense of wealth might come from their health, another’s could rest upon the strength of their relationships. Yet someone else might measure their wealth by the size of their super, particularly if they believe that this guarantees them choice and independence in later life.

Of course no one point of view is right or wrong. Such judgements are entirely personal and may change over time.

But financial wellbeing is something that can be defined in a way that enables us to measure whether we are likely to meet our needs and reach our goals.

Checking whether you are on track as you head into retirement is a critical point of intervention. This then sets you up to actively manage your money across the 25 or 30-year journey, which is the best way to maintain your sense of financial control and wellbeing. Here are the top five parts of the puzzle that you will encounter as you approach and enter retirement – and ways to respond to ensure you remain on top of your game at all times.

Five biggest Age Pension mistakes and how to avoid them

Five biggest Age Pension mistakes and how to avoid them

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When an entitlement such as the Age Pension has been in place for more than a century, it’s tempting to assume that the rules are well-known and easy to follow. Not so, unfortunately. Every day the Retirement Essentials Customer Services Team hears from retirees who either didn’t know about rules or didn’t thoroughly understand them, much to their financial detriment.

As you know the team at Retirement Essentials is dedicated to helping to make things as easy as possible for those who are planning for or living in retirement. Today we share a summary of five aspects of Age Pension eligibility that continue to confound applicants and result in lower fortnightly payments. These mistakes run the gamut from timing, reporting, complexity of the means test and partner rules to how to value your assets.