Planning Your Retirement Income
To plan a comfortable retirement income, you have to assess the kind of lifestyle you'll want to live. This will help you assess your current financial position and determine the right strategy and actions you'll need to take to get there. Here's some common questions you can ask yourself when thinking about retirement:
- What is the cost of your current or preferred lifestyle?
- How do you want to retire?
- How are you controlling your costs?
- What type of retirement lifestyle are you picturing for yourself?
Answering these questions will give you a clear picture of your estimated budget and how much income will be needed to cover your costs. From there, you can start looking at government pensions, your super contributions, and the extra personal savings that can make your dream a reality.
Understanding Taxes In Retirement
When it comes to tax and government implications, this can change over time. For this reason, it’s always best to talk to a professional financial advisor who can assist you with tax approvals and superannuation withdrawals. The amount of taxes you pay in retirement largely depends on the account that you hold.
The rate of return is then only calculated on an after-tax basis. After-tax rates of return can seriously affect your overall income planning and is a crucial component of the retirement process. Thankfully, as you age, the return thresholds decrease due to the low-risk nature of retirement portfolios.
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Finding The Right Financial Advisor
Finding the right financial planner to assist you with your retirement can transform your investment strategy, your results, and your retirement. A team of trusted professionals are better qualified to understand the full scope of your financial needs while balancing the risks.
Thankfully, our team is fully equipped to handle all and any of your retirement planning needs. For a safer and more fulfilled transition into retirement, financial planning is best done early and with an advisor you can trust.
Going into Early Retirement
While we all wish to go into early retirement, you will have to take into consideration when you can withdraw your super. This ranges from ages 55 to 60 based on when you were born. If you do access your super prior to reaching 60, the amount of tax you’ll pay will differ. Withdrawing a super lump sum before your preservation age will result in a 22% tax payment or a marginal tax rate. This will be charged based off of which is lowest.
However, if your super withdrawal age doesn’t match up to your life plan and goals, there are a few ways for you to mitigate the risks of living without a super income. These strategies include:
- Slowly retiring from work and accessing your fund via the transition to retirement strategy
- Start financially planning early with an active savings schedule
- Pay off any loans or debts
- Boost your super contributions
- Build your investment portfolio with both long and short-term items
Staying on Top of Your Retirement Investment
Early planning is key to an enjoyable retirement. Understanding your goals, timeline, and super contribution strategies is a great way to plan for the future. To achieve your retirement goals, you have to make sure you’re investing in the right mix of portfolio assets. A common way to go about retirement planning is to construct a portfolio of both stock and bond index funds.
Although this can be done by yourself, talking to one of our advisors about a sound investment strategy comes highly recommend. This person will work with you to help craft a strategy that is right for your current and future circumstances.
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The Benefits Of Early Retirement Planning
While it may not sound overly exciting to plan for your retirement now - the advantages of early retirement planning are well worth the time invested. Such benefits include:
- Ability to stop working sooner
- Ability to reduce your work hours
- More money to retire on
- Having a clear financial end-goal Less stress/worry in retirement
- More money to leave as an inheritance