by James Coyle | Apr 19, 2023 | Centrelink Age Pension
What Centrelink can do And what it can’t Recent reports on Centrelink surveillance of clients have rung alarm bells. It’s easy, as a recipient of government benefits, to feel powerless in the face of a large bureaucracy. You are not powerless. In fact, as the recent...
by James Coyle | Apr 14, 2023 | Centrelink Age Pension
What you don’t know … … might be hurting your finances We’re always seeking insights into ways to help our members maximise their retirement savings and income. But what you don’t know might be hurting your finances. What often comes up in advice appointments is...
by James Coyle | Apr 14, 2023 | Centrelink Age Pension
Means testing just got simpler: Here’s how it works The application of the Age Pension means test to your income or assets means the difference between a higher or lower pension payment – or whether you receive one at all. We know the very term ‘taper rates’ is...
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...
