I have learnt not to trust Financial Advisors. They tend to tell you what you want to hear. I often ask them several questions that I know the answer to. First three advisors failed my test. One failed on several fronts including what Income Protection Insurance was, the next one didn't know what SATO or LITO was (Tax return items), and the third one had three buttons undone on his shirt showing a hairy chest and a gold chain and lost interest when he found out that I didn't have enough money for his comission to be worth his effort. Never bothered with a fourth. Cashed in my super and now handle it all outside super now I'm over 60.

We've got two Financial Advisers, us! Wouldn't touch ém with a 10ft pole. If you do your homework & keep abreast of developments, who needs ém anyway? Just someone else taking THEIR share of YOUR money.

You can't wait till the day come to retire and make a discision on where to invest you must do your home work well before , I am with Shardforth very happy

Wizardofoz wrote:

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I had just over a million dollars in term deposits with the bank and when it dropped below 3% (now 2%) I switched to managed bank funds with a broker and now receive a fully franked dividend of 4.8%, which I am happy with as my initial investment is guaranteed, no matter what happens to the market.

I still think Real Estate is the better investment and so I have retained my property as well.

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real estate is a sound LONG TERM investment costs money to get into, costs money to maintain, costs money to get out of most of us don't have that much time left unless we plan to leave it to someone so they can enjoy the fruits of our labours

^^ same here ^^ over two Mill in portfolio in assets .. They said I was crazy back in 1985 ..
$62.000 for investment property was crazy.. I don't have to tell you how much real estate has increased in Sudney since then..
I have helped my children big time getting there first home too.. All through working and managing money..
Yet at school I was hopeless at maths .. Still doesn't mean you can't be good at handling financial portfolio..
My adviser in myself and my accountant ... I can ring him any time, once a year we do our tax .. For $180 a year it's way better than any financial adviser ..

aussietraveller wrote:

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I was one of those conservative people who thought if I invested my super through the biggest bank I would be looked after and my money would be safe, surprise surprise I now believe that I was conned by the bank officer who was masquerading as a financial advisor and told me he didn't get commissions so he would be looking after my interests as his first priority.

Now some of you might think I was pretty dumb to believe him I know i now do but he was extremely convincing and gave a very good logical reason why I should invest my pension with the banks super fund term deposit because of the massive turmoil in the shares sector I now have the problem that the return on my money is not is not even keeping up with the current inflation rate.

The bank offered a review for anyone who thought that the advice they received from the bank employed financial advisor was inadequate, Golden opportunity i thought but i have now discovered that it was all a ruse and designed to keep the accc off their back and to minimise damage in the media.

I hear you ask which bank well i don't want to create a problem for the forum by naming them, I just wonder how many other Grey Nomads have been ripped off by this bank. 

 

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 I would take this bit of rough education as a challenge, you have a problem so how do you fix it or at least get a better outcome. Can you;

a.  Find a new bank product,

b.  Find a new Bank/Credit Union etc, or

c.  Can you reinvest with a Super Company.

I'm guessing if you change there may be a period of no income until the new setup takes effect!

I think with the knowledge on this forum some one may be able to steer you in a better direction. I have approx 6yrs to retirement and I have a lot of interest in this subject.

 

I would like to hear if you better your situation and how you did it but regardless....best of luck with the outcome.

 

Peter

brickies wrote:

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Wizardofoz / Aus- Kiwi, Good to hear good out comes

-- Edited by brickies on Saturday 7th of November 2015 01:58:46 PM

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 Thank you Brickies, as has been said, planning and setting up for eventual retirement when a battler is no piece of cake, it takes hard work, dedication and a positive attitude.

Like many others, my wife and I were struggling when we met in our mid thirties and it took thirty odd more years to fulfil our goal, but fulfill it we did, the only downside is we have limited time left to enjoy the fruits of our labour. However, it must be said that we enjoyed our work as well and that's a very important (I would say essential) ingredient to long term success.

-- Edited by Wizardofoz on Sunday 8th of November 2015 08:19:00 AM

Our parents used a bank financial adviser to invest their money. After they passed away we were the executors of their will. It turns out that their money was invested in NSW. We live in Victoria. Trying to get it back to Victoria was like trying to retrieve it from a foreign country like Cuba. We had to place a notice in all of the Sydney newspapers just in case there was a claimant in NSW. It took ages to resolve.

Wizardofoz wrote:

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dogbox wrote:

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in the end it boils down to spending less than you earn an then making your savings earn 
a lot of people spend more than they earn then spend a life time catching up by the time they catch up they don't know how to enjoy what they got

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As a rule of thumb, generally true Dogbox. However, to really achieve the necessary retirement benefits you have to take some calculated risks And go beyond the scope of salary and savings. In our case, we spent every dollar that we earned and lived quite frugally, our retirement plan was to own several properties and to that extent, we lived on borrowings and debt, at one stage we had a mortgage debt exceeding $1.25 million dollars, that debt however was partly funded by the tenants and the balance was funded by us after careful budgeting and planning.

It is a very fine line between cautious and careful speculation and overstepping the mark with devil may care borrowings. The difference is living within ones means with careful budgeting or - going over the top into financial collapse or bankruptcy.

At the end of the day, I believe that it is nigh on impossible in this day and age with the tax system as it is, to generate enough savings on income alone to successfully accrue sufficient superannuation to equal your final annual pay packet, therefore an investment and debt plan has to be instigated to achieve the end result. The real lynch pin is, being able to fully fund the debt and be able to tailor your lifestyle accordingly.

-- Edited by Wizardofoz on Sunday 8th of November 2015 10:39:41 AM

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that is were you make the savings work for you by earning something from it! but it takes a long time an most people don't even think about retirement till later in life young people with a lifetime of super will probably have no access to the aged pension
the government would love to access our super(ato) an it may happen in the future
nothing wrong with debt as long as it is self funding(rent/dividends ect)

Rely on Centrelink and the government...yeah right, that's the best joke so far this year!

Trouble is, the Centrelink dependants are already above overload, only a fool would believe that the gravy train will never end...turn the radio and TV on or read the newspapers. The government of both persuasions are continually trumpeting that this Centrelink abuse must be stopped and are at odds to find ways to eliminate the claim rates, currently there is over 800,000 people just in the area of disability pension recipients in Australia, does anyone honestly believe that there are this many Australians with work restricting disabilities??

Make no mistake, you are living in a fools paradise of you believe that Centrelink payments including pensions are NOT under the microscope, no government nor the taxpayers can afford to keep supporting this over inflated balloon for much longer without taking some drastic action...reducing age pensions are the very reason why Paul Keating introduced compulsory superannuation in the first place.

-- Edited by Wizardofoz on Sunday 8th of November 2015 03:51:27 PM

I have been watching the comments which offer some good advice, I had considerable benefit whilst I was working and had my super invested in super at the higher risk end of the spectrum and also purchased an investment property using a well known real estate agent to manage my rental property I had known this agent personally for over 10 years and on top of this I committed to salary sacrifice to grow my super contribution for the last 15 years of my work life thankfully.

What happened with the investment property was that for the first 12 months everything went well we spent around $6000 preparing the property for rental believing that a quality property would attract quality tenants and this worked well and the agent was good, then our excellent tenant moved on and the agent found new tenants for us we later discovered he didn't even check their references long story short by the time I managed to evict them they were 6 months behind in rent and had done over $3500 we did the repairs and sold the property at a net loss.

I think roving Dutchie is right you don't need millions to live comfortably we now both recieve the aged pension plus a monthly drawdown on our super so we are living comfortably and have learnt some valuable lessons along the way, we will be taking the balance of our funds away from that bank when current term finishes and we certainly will not be consulting a financial advisor.

We also found the consultant at Centrelink very very good.

That's fine but remember the Centrelink adviser is just another employee and has a specific job to do, which in the end is just that...

Here's a little story of my own about Centrelink - a few years ago when I was still in business, I received a call from my local Centrelink office begging me to take on a trainee that I only had to pay 20% of the salary and Centrelink would cover the rest, "I said that's good but I really don't need another employee and have no place for them anyway", the girl from Centrelink kept pleading but to no avail. Two days later the same girl with a support member came to my office and convinced me to take this qualified person with 'outstanding' credentials for a receptionist, the Cetrelink 'coup de gras' was that The term was for only 3 months, then if the employee was unsuitable I could let them go no penalty. The next statement was the one that floored me and is the reason that I have no faith in what Centrelink or the government says on any given day, the girl from  'CL' thanked me and said "we have still got $600,000 of the governments monthly allocation left and only 3 days to use it or hand it back"?!

To cut a long story short, the employee turned up with orange and purple hair, a ring in her nose and tardy dress., she  Did,n't show up for day 2 or 3 and arrived on day 4 telling me that was sick and was pregnant and needed more time off, needless to say I terminated her. When I phoned the girl from Centrelink to inform her, she went right off at 'ME' because her funding would now have to be returned and her allocation would now be reviewed!!!!

That is a true to life experience with Centrelink and all I can say is, if that is how this organisation and the government spends and allocates our money...heaven help us.

I will stick with my opinion...believe that Centrelink and the government cares one iota about you, you have your faith in the hands of gypsies.

Trust Centrelink and the government-------sure can't!  

The Centrelink seminars are worth the effort. Been to two.

www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/financial-information-service

No more comment from me, but here are some cut and paste articles regarding future pension changes...

http://www.superguide.com.au/smsfs/300000-retired-australians-to-lose-some-or-all-age-pension-entitlements

 

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pension-assets-test-changes-worse-than-claimed-says-industry-super-20150621-ghtjk3.html

 

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-07/budget-government-to-outline-changes-to-age-pension/6450946