How can you know what you don’t know?
There’s an old saying that an assumption is a gateway to a mistake. And thinking that your already know all the rules is a proposition that is worth challenging. There is a reason that the financial planning industry exists and that qualifications for planners are becoming ever more stringent. The sheer mountain of detail involved in successful financial planning – investments, taxation, superannuation accumulation and decumulation, government entitlements – all needs to be understood and complied with. This breadth of detail involves many different specialisations. So whilst most of us try to keep up to speed by reading general media or accessing information from super funds, this coverage does not cover every instance and interpretation of retirement income rules at work today.
In short, it’s highly likely that you haven’t got it covered. And that you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s the feedback we’ve had from our financial advisers who are working at the coalface with retirees and their money concerns on a daily basis.
If you have a burning question, it may be time to share your needs with one of our team.
Your advice is as always very pertinent. My kids have over the years continually said I should seek financial advice. I had a very bad experience during the late 1980s caused by bad financial advice, and literally lost $100,000s, which has left me distrustful in today’s market. Also, due to my below self-retiree status, I won’t pay what today’s fin. advisers charge, and in hindsight, their advice was not helpful, only supporting what I already gleaned in my first appointment with them. Other financial advisers won’t even return a call during this pandemic. However I think I have done the best I could do in my circumstances, so I’m not badly off, just need the aged pension.