Recent ASIC research shows that only one quarter of Australians have received financial advice in the past, but 41% intend to seek it in the future. One factor was cost, with 35% believing such advice was too expensive, whilst another impediment was a lack...

How long will the family home remain exempt? It’s hard to avoid the extensive media coverage of property price increases. There’s a reason for this and that’s because the 6.7% increase in the June quarter this year was the largest since the Australian Bureau...

Age care, to paraphrase a quote, sounds like another country. Most of us try hard not to think about it - let alone consider whether we will be able to afford it. But the need to know how aged care works and what is available is very real. And this was...

Philippa asked us an interesting question last week. She’s divorced, aged 67, and in July this year she stepped back from full-time work to help with her grandchildren and volunteer. She receives a part Age Pension ($18,000 per annum) and is topping this up...

Are you a shareholder? If so, you’re part of a growing club according to key findings from the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). In 1986 just 9% of Australians owned shares. Now it’s 35%, with a median portfolio size of $130,000. And these statistics refer to...

Recently we surveyed some of our readers to better understand the reasons why people retire. Many reasons were expected such as when they could afford to retire, health concerns,or job loss.  What we didn’t expect was the number of people that mentioned...

There are about 3.9m retirees in Australia today so it’s not surprising that their reasons for retiring are many and varied.  Some retire through choice and others find they have retirement forced upon them. We hear lots of reasons when we are helping our...

We recently asked you to tell us more about the sort of help and advice you would like to receive.  Well this is what you told us. How much will I need? Nearly 39% of people ranked “How much will I need” highest among the financial issues on their mind....

Improving your income in retirement is a bit like renovating a home.  You may have  a home already but it's not everything you want it to be.  So you start work to build something better.  Just like with a renovation there will be a number of steps to go...