Sometimes retirement thrust is upon clients and other times it is planned. Regardless of your situation, we can help.

Like everything we do, this discussion starts with you and the life you want to live. We want to help you paint a detailed picture of your life both before and after retirement. From this starting point, we’ll look at a range of strategies to ensure you get the most out of the system as you move forward.

If you are still a few years out from retirement we will:

• Assess your required cost of living now and when you retire. If you are like most people and you don’t know your cost of living, we’ll show you how to work out your numbers without having to do a mind numbing, detailed budget;
• Using our custom tools build a detailed financial model with you to help identify:
• when you can afford to retire;
• what income and lifestyle you can expect in retirement;
• how long your money will last;
• what holidays, new cars, renovations and other lump sums you can afford.
• Review your super, the fees, investment risk and performance;
• Look to maximise your super contributions, using tools like pre and post-tax contributions and Transition To Retirement pensions. Despite recent tightening of the rules around super there are still fantastic tax concessions available;
• Review all of you investments including cash, shares and property. Should you sell them? Should you wait? What are the tax consequences?

If you’re close to retirement and deciding when to finish up, we will:

• Review your leave entitlements. Do you finish and have this paid to you as a lump sum or do you “work it out”? This has implications for further leave you may accrue, super contributions and possibly your entitlement to Centrelink benefits;
• Examine your debts. While most want to be debt free in retirement (we support this view) sometimes it may be wise to retain loans for the flexibility they provide;
• Identify if you can use the new financial year to your advantage by minimising tax on any leave payments you receive or perhaps making a tax deductible super contribution after you finish work.

Retirement Advice Specialists

We’ve been doing this for a while and have picked up a few tips and tricks along the way. Contact us for an eBook on “How to Retire Successfully”.