Life Journey Series - Preparing for Retirement

​We know, we know. Retirement seems like it’s soooooo far away. What’s the point in planning and saving for something that won’t happen for like 20, 30 or 40 years? Let’s just back up a bit and put that in other words. That is 20-30- or 40 more years of WORK! If you are in your 20’s you will likely be working for at least another 40 years! Is that what you want? No, I didn’t think so. 

​Let us get started then.
 
A bit of foresight and planning for your retirement may shave years off your working life. Sure, you won’t be able to access your super until 55 and only if you are permanently retired. Also, the Government hopes to push the pension age to 70 by 2035 (thanks). But that doesn’t mean you can’t make some smart choices that will let you hit the golf course, play bridge and drive super slow when totally unnecessary sooner and longer.
 
Many clients come to us in their 50’s, we can and do help them a lot but the sooner you start, the bigger the returns. Compound interest, baby.
 
As an example, just the other week a client came to us. They were in their 50’s, a professional earning $90k pa with a surplus of around $120 a week. By using some great strategies, we saved them $3.5k + pa in tax and will boost their super by around $240k over 17 years. Just imagine how much we could have saved them if they had come to us sooner!
 
“Begin with the end in mind.”.
 
Ask yourself, what’s all this work actually for? Sure, it’s to keep you alive and hopefully prosperous at the same time. But the end goal for us all is to not work forever. Unless your job is, we dunno… a beach tester in the Caribbean. No, seriously, your future-self will absolutely love you if you start making some moves to make the golden years, more golden.
 
Also, life expectancy is only going up. For many of us, we’ll be living well into our eighties and possibly nineties. Just think on that for a moment. If you retire at 65, you’ll still have at least 20 years of bingo a head of you. Well, if you don’t want to just play bingo, make some plans. 
 
The easiest way to start putting extra away for retirement is making voluntary contributions to your super. But that is definitely not the only way. There’s a lot of different tactics that can be employed to get great results. At Visia, we’ve got you covered. Come and have a chat and let’s see if we can get you into an early retirement, or make sure your prepped for those glorious golden years. 
 
Kora Drage is an Authorised Representative of Financial Wisdom Limited ABN 70 006 646 108, AFSL 231138. The information contained in this article may contain general advice. It does not take into account your financial circumstances and objectives. You should consider talking to a financial adviser and read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) before making a financial decision. Any views and opinions provided in this article may not reflect the views and opinions of Financial Wisdom Limited