by James Coyle | Apr 14, 2023 | Centrelink Age Pension
Should your home… …be exempt from the assets test? It’s no surprise that just over three-quarters of retirees own their own homes; traditionally Australians have had a love affair with home ownership. What is surprising is that the value of the home in retirement is...
by James Coyle | Apr 5, 2023 | Centrelink Age Pension
A recent popular article on the way asset test changes mean more older Australians are now eligible for the Age Pension provoked a lot of interest. Today we look at the other side of the equation – the March 20 changes to the incomes test thresholds. When people reach...
by James Coyle | Apr 5, 2023 | Centrelink Age Pension
Single versus couple pension payments: Are they fair? When there is a widely experienced cost of living crisis, it’s only natural to have concerns about whether your income is keeping up with the increases. It’s also fair to ask, as a single or couple recipient of an...
by James Coyle | Apr 5, 2023 | Planning for Retirement, Retirement Income
Rating your financial performance: But the game’s far from over The March Retirement Essentials Retirement Pulse has once again provided us with many useful insights into your thoughts on maximising retirement income. One question in particular: If there was one thing...
by James Coyle | Mar 30, 2023 | Commonwealth Seniors Health Card
Easy extra money: Are you still missing out? James ran a ‘back of the envelope’ exercise the other day and surprised most members of our team with his conclusion that nearly 800,000 self-funded retirees are going without. This also left us wondering why are so many...
by James Coyle | Mar 30, 2023 | Retirement Spending
Pacing yourself across the years Last week we helped you to gain as accurate a forecast as possible of your likely life span. This may seem morbid, but it’s actually the best starting point for planning and managing retirement income. But working out how long your...
by James Coyle | Mar 30, 2023 | Planning for Retirement, Retirement Income
How safe are your savings? Time to review your investment mix? The saying goes that something is ‘as safe as a Swiss Bank’ But the recent forced bailout of Credit Suisse suggests this is a fallacy. Coming hard on the heels of three other major US bank failures, it’s...
by James Coyle | Mar 22, 2023 | Planning for Retirement, Retirement Income
How long will you live… … knowing is the best guide to your retirement spending The one piece of advice missing from your birth certificate is the expiry date. Yet this would be the single most helpful number for all retirees. If only we knew this date, we’d be able...
by James Coyle | Mar 22, 2023 | Retirement Spending
There’s a lot of discussion about interest rates – both here and overseas – at the moment. For some retirees higher rates are good news, while for others they can be extremely stressful. The key question is not what is happening in the short term, but how your...
by James Coyle | Mar 22, 2023 | Centrelink Age Pension
Asset test changes: How do they benefit you? There’s nothing hard and fast in the world of retirement income. Particularly when it comes to the Age Pension. As you are no doubt aware, last week saw indexed increases to the base rate of the Age Pension. Hidden in...
