Retirement planning

What is Retirement Planning?

Retirement planning typically involves answering the following questions:

  • How much can I spend in retirement based on my savings?

  • How much money do I have to save to achieve the desired level of retirement income?

But most importantly, how do I optimise the above to improve my retirement wealth?

There are numerous ways we help people improve the quality of their retirement, including:

  1. Superannuation strategies to reduce tax, manage cash flow and access to superannuation - navigating the frequently changing superannuation rules

  2. Investment portfolio management to make sure you are investing in line your retirement objectives, risk profile, and creating appropriate expectations around the trajectory of your capital

  3. Centrelink and Age Pension which can be factored in to your retirement plan and may influence your investment strategy, including the consideration of products that may increase your Age Pension

  4. Estate Planning to align your testamentary wishes to your superannuation and investment strategy. Your goal may be to spend as much in retirement as possible, or you may have a certain amount you would like to leave to your beneficiaries. In any case, these wishes need to be considered in your retirement plan. We may also recommend different structures based on the circumstances of your beneficiaries, so that their inheritance is received in a tax efficient manner. 

In addition to the above, we stay in touch regularly to monitor your progress and amend your strategy based on changes to your situation, objectives, changing legislation, or simply to give you peace of mind that you remain on track to meet your goals.

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FAQs

  • Retirement planning can ensure that you are on track to achieve your desired level of retirement income. It is better to find out sooner rather than later if you are not on track to meet your retirement goals, so that you can amend your strategy, which may include either taking on additional risk to achieve higher returns, reducing your spending (and increasing your saving), or reducing your retirement income expectations.

    There are a lot of “use it or lose it” superannuation caps and concessions. Starting early will allow you to maximise how much money you are contributing to superannuation, which is a concessionally taxed environment for your money to accumulate.

  • Planning for retirement includes identifying your retirement objectives, such as cost of living, an inheritance required, future living goals such as Aged Care or retirement villages, and/or downsizing. Once these goals have been identified, retirement planning involves selecting investments and products that are appropriate to meet your goals and your risk appetite. It also involves planning on how much needs to be contributed into Super, and in which method, which generally involves navigating superannuation rules and available concessions to optimise the efficiency of your superannuation strategy.

  • There isn’t a single amount of money that a person needs for retirement. Every individual has their own needs and expenses to consider when saving up for retirement. A modest lifestyle requires $28,000 per year for a single person and $41,000 per year for a couple. A comfortable lifestyle requires around $44,000 for a single person and $62,000 for a couple. The amount required to retire depends on whether you would like to leave a certain amount for an inheritance or would like to gradually erode your capital up until your life expectancy.

Retirement Planning: How to Make the Most of Your Retirement

You’ve worked hard and built a great life for yourself and your loved ones. But as you approach retirement age, you’re probably starting to consider new dreams and goals.

Perhaps you’d like to travel the world, start a new hobby, spend more quality time with your family, or help financially with education or wedding costs for your children or grandchildren.

With a little preparation, and help from a professional retirement planner, you can achieve your goals without sacrificing your financial independence.

What is Retirement Planning?

Retirement planning simply means preparing today for your future life, to ensure you can achieve your hopes and dreams while maintaining your lifestyle and financial security. This preparation involves establishing your retirement objectives, estimating the amount of money you’ll need, and investing carefully to build your retirement wealth.

Every retirement is different. You may have unique ideas about how you want to spend your time. That’s why it’s essential to have a plan tailored to your specific needs. Today, your expenses are probably covered by your regular monthly income. But after retirement, you’ll need new income streams to cover your daily expenses. And since the average life expectancy is rising, you may need to plan for an even longer post-retirement phase.

Enhance the Quality of Your Retirement

It’s important to consider how much you want to be able to spend in retirement, and therefore how much wealth you require to meet that desired spending level. You should also think about inflation and the rising cost of living, any inheritance you’d like to leave behind, and any potential future downsizing, transition to a retirement village, or aged care expenses.

An experienced retirement planner can help you leverage powerful strategies to optimise your retirement wealth. We recommend several proven techniques for boosting the quality of your retirement lifestyle. These techniques include:

Superannuation Strategies to reduce tax and optimise super cash flow, while taking advantage of constantly changing super rules.

Investment Portfolio Management to ensure your investments are properly aligned with your risk profile and retirement objectives.

Estate Planning to align your super and investment strategy with your testamentary wishes (i.e. spending as much as possible versus leaving an inheritance).

Regular Monitoring of your progress to ensure you remain on track, and amending your strategies based on changes to your circumstances, objectives, and new legislation.

Centrelink and Age Pension options, which may also influence your investment strategy.

Next Steps

Everyone has their own individual needs and expenses to consider when planning for retirement. Recent data suggests a modest retirement lifestyle requires an annual income of $41,000 for a couple or $28,000 for a single person. A comfortable lifestyle requires $62,000 for a couple or $44,000 for a single person.

It’s better to discover early that you’re not on track to achieve your retirement goals, so you can amend your strategy if necessary. This might involve reducing your spending, adjusting your expectations, or taking on additional risk to boost your returns.

Planning early will help you maximise your super contributions and allow your wealth to accumulate faster in a concessionally taxed environment.

To find out more about your options and to help you achieve your retirement goals, it’s a good idea to reach out to an experienced retirement planner.

At Omura, we offer expert retirement planning services in Sydney and throughout Australia.

Call us today on 0433 960 702 or email terry@omura.com.au for a free, zero-obligation consultation.

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