Can gifting affect your entitlements?

Can gifting affect your entitlements?

Simple sums that share the rules The Retirement Essentials advice team is currently handling a lot of questions about Age Pension eligibility and the gifting of money or possessions to family members. At one level, the rules are fairly straightforward. But it is the...
Cash as a retirement investment

Cash as a retirement investment

The problems with cash: Are you missing out? One of the biggest mistakes in retirement income is to think that you don’t have enough to ‘worry about’. So you do nothing. It’s ironic, as those who say this are also likely to report that running out of money is their...
The Day the Pay stopped

The Day the Pay stopped

We all get to the point when our wages  stop as our years of working come to an end.  Maybe it’s ahead of you; maybe you’ve already gone through it.  It’s got to be one of the most significant and emotional moments that come with retirement. For years,...
September 2024 Age Pension Increases

September 2024 Age Pension Increases

Here’s what you’ll get The twice-yearly Age Pension indexation is due to increase 20 September. This Age Pension increase is much higher than the one that was awarded in March this year ($19.60 for singles and $29.40 for couples). We reported on 8 August our...
What is a retirement bonus?

What is a retirement bonus?

What is a retirement bonus? How can you qualify? The topic of retirement ‘bonuses’ comes up a lot. It’s one that can also cause a great deal of confusion, which probably comes back to the use of the term ‘bonus’. Receiving a bonus at work usually means you’ve done...
Travelling Australia and Centrelink

Travelling Australia and Centrelink

How non-millionaires .. Can enjoy the road trip of a lifetime I was listening to the radio the other day and a woman phoned the ‘Australia all over’ program to speak with Macca. She told host, Ian McNamara, how she and her husband were on a boat, moored off the coast...
What Centrelink can and cannot do

What Centrelink can and cannot do

What Centrelink can do And what it can’t Robodebt, or to give it its full name, The Income Compliance Program, ended nearly 5 years ago in November 2019. The scheme was designed to recover money owed to Centrelink by people who had received more in payments than they...