Thousands of Australians receive tax refunds every year. Some refunds won’t even cover the cost of a pizza to celebrate, however many are quite substantial. If you’re one of the lucky ones, what will you do with your tax windfall? If you go out and spend it, all you’re doing is giving part of it […]
Archive for the ‘Budgeting’ Category
What will you do with your tax refund?
By admin • December 4th, 2018What is the pension loan scheme?
By admin • December 4th, 2018Currently 1.8 million Australian homeowners receive some level of age pension, with around 700,000 on a part pension. What many of these part-age pensioners may not know is that, along with recipients of the disability support pension, carer payment and some other Centrelink payments, they are able to access some of the equity in their […]
Buy now; pay later; manage carefully
By admin • November 28th, 2018Before heading off on an overseas holiday, Sam decided to buy an expensive new camera to document his travels. The camera store offered a ‘buy now, pay later’ option, and attracted by the ‘no interest’ promise of the credit provider, Sam signed up. All was well to begin with. Sam had a great time on […]
Rentvesting: the not-so-new phenomenon
By admin • November 28th, 2018At first glance it seems like a strange thing to do: rent out a property that you own while paying rent to live in somebody else’s place. Yet this phenomenon of ‘rentvesting’ is proving popular, driven by a mix of lifestyle and financial factors. Why do it? A prime reason to rentvest is to get […]
Millennials and finance – your unique needs
By admin • May 30th, 2017If you entered the world between 1980 and 1996, you’re part of the “millennial generation”. You’ve grown up in an age of unprecedented abundance and incredible technical innovation, and as a group, enjoy a greater wealth of opportunity – professionally, socially and recreationally – than any previous generation. Many goods and services have never been […]
Tap and go – is it too easy to use our credit cards?
By admin • May 30th, 2017
Talk about hammering the plastic. In November 2016 Australia’s 16.7 million credit card accounts were used to make 226 million transactions with a total value of $27.8 billion. We are currently paying interest on $32.2 billion worth of credit card debt, running up an annual interest bill of over $5.6 billion (that’s $5,600,000,000!). It’s not […]
You CAN save one million dollars!
By admin • February 23rd, 2017One of the most common questions I’m asked as a financial adviser is “will I have enough to retire?” It truly is the sixty-four thousand dollar question and if $64,000 was the answer, we’d all be on easy street! With so many variables involved, there is no set answer, but these days with many of […]
To stay on track, it pays to look back
By admin • February 23rd, 2017Financial planning is, by its nature, forward-looking. What counts is where you are now and what you do in the coming months and years. That said; there’s good reason to pause and take a look over your shoulder to see how far you’ve come. Why? Because taking stock of what you have achieved so far […]
Super or the mortgage?
By admin • November 29th, 2016Many people wait until their home loan is paid off before investing more in super. However, if you are currently making more than the minimum home loan repayments, you may be better off when you retire if you make additional super contributions instead. Why super? There are two key reasons why topping up your super […]
Insurance in super – is your cover adequate?
By admin • November 29th, 2016You have insurance cover in your superannuation right? You probably think you’re adequately covered, yet if something were to happen to you, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise – and by then it might be too late. An example from an adviser’s perspective: I met a new client recently who was in quite […]