Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Lifestyle Newsletter 15 April 2008




FIVE TIPS TO PLAN YOUR RETIREMENT

You should start now to plan how you will spend your retirement years.

These five tips will help you along the way:
1. Change how you define retirement.
2. Create an identity outside the workplace.
3. Slow down.
4. Renew your relationships with family and friends.
5. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

And remember, retirement isn’t an all or nothing event.
Rather it is the time of your Renaissance.



THE PROBLEM WITH RETIREMENT PLANNING WEBSITES

Retirement planning websites – those that are selling financial products - try to have us answer questions about our finances in retirement.


However most of us can’t possibly create an answer because we have no basis of any “retirement experience” to base our answer upon.

Asking someone who is ten or five years away from retirement to imagine what kind of retirement lifestyle we want, how much we’ll need to live on, etc. is a fruitless effort. Yet, that’s exactly what today’s spate of retirement calculators and sites are asking us.

But I’m not suggesting that I have the solution.

Pre-retirees have questions, not answers.

If you were to sit down with pen and paper, you may want to ask yourself:

· How likely is it that my income will continue to grow from now until I retire?
· Is my current investment style truly as conservative or aggressive as I might think it is?
· Given that I have to prepare for 25 years of retirement, when should I commerce a conservative strategy?
· Will I have to make large investments — like parents’ health care or paying off the mortgage — between now and when I retire?
· How much money will l really need on an annual basis to live my desired retirement lifestyle, and what kinds of retirement lifestyles are we even talking about?
· How much money will I need for health care when both of us reach 80?

I won’t drag this on and on with all the questions that I personally think are appropriate for my own circumstances.

All I know is that retirement planning sites still have a lot to learn about how to assist pre-retirees plan for our future.

GOOD NEWS FOR INVESTORS

Chief Economist for Master Builders Australia was quoted in the “Australian Financial Review” 8 April 2008 as saying:

“About 158,000 homes were being approved a year, but heightened immigration and natural population growth suggested at least 190,000 additional dwellings were needed to satisfy demand, with a further 20,000 a year required to help make up for the existing shortfall.

“Australia now seems destined to experience a chronic shortage of housing for an extended period.

“Higher interest rates weaken investment in housing and this compounds the undersupply”.

· Consequently my conclusion is that growth in rental incomes will remain strong.


GOOD NEWS FOR “WAGE SLAVES”


Quirky humour is front page news these days, which reminds me of one of my favourites - from early in my career:

“They can’t sack us; slaves have to be sold”.

(Totally off-subject, but that’s my quirky humour)


Regards


Bernard Kelly www.retirelaughing.com mobile 0414 778 518 cell phone 61 414 778 518


PS As I don’t spend my advertising budget on traditional media, I’m able to pay you $1000 for successful referrals

I would be delighted to be your personal financial coach over the next five years and share a strategy that will dramatically reduce your learning curve.

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