When you’re busy enjoying life, retirement can seem a long way off. But with Australians living longer and staying more active in retirement than ever before, your retirement lifestyle is not something to be left to chance.
A holistic approach
Darren will take takes a holistic approach to retirement planning, with a personalised retirement plan designed to help you enjoy the retirement lifestyle you’ve been looking forward to. Your plan covers every aspect of your financial life, including risk protection and estate planning, so you can be confident that your family’s future is secure.
We develop your plan using a disciplined process, founded on a thorough understanding of your situation and aspirations:
1. Understanding
Retirement is a very personal thing, and everyone has a different vision for their future. That’s why we start by developing a detailed understanding of your lifestyle goals, both before and during retirement.
We’ll also clearly outline our services and our fees, so you’ll know upfront what our advice will cost and what you’ll receive in return.
2. Strategy
Having uncovered your financial goals for retirement, we’ll develop a strategy designed to help you achieve them. We’ll review your existing super arrangements to ensure they support your goals, identifying any gaps and emerging risks that could impact performance. Then we’ll create an ongoing strategy to maximise your super, with tax-effective options to boost your contributions and investment returns.
We’ll document our suggested approach in a detailed Statement of Advice, setting out your investment, superannuation and wealth protection options, and bringing your financial strategy to life.
3. Implementation
When you’re happy with your financial plan, we can help you execute it, building and managing your portfolio of wealth creation and protection solutions. In doing so, we work in close collaboration with you and other professional advisers, like your accountant, to achieve the best possible outcomes.
4. Review
We’ll meet with you regularly to advise you on your progress and keep you informed about new opportunities, emerging risks and regulatory changes. So you can relax and enjoy life, confident that your financial future is in good hands.
Retirement planning strategies
Here are some of the retirement planning strategies we may help you explore, depending on your individual situation:
- Salary sacrifice. Making pre-tax contributions through salary sacrifice provides the dual benefit of reducing your taxable income and maximising your super contributions. For someone in the highest tax bracket, that can provide an upfront tax break of 31.5%. And because earnings within super are taxed at a maximum of 15%, you’ll also build more wealth over time than in a comparable non-super investment.
- Contribution splitting. For couples where there is a considerable difference in earnings, there can be a significant tax benefit in diverting extra super contributions to the lower-paid partner’s account.
- Self-managed super. If you are looking for greater investment choice and control, a self-managed super fund (SMSF) can be an attractive choice. We’ll help you manage the complexities of setting up and administering your own fund, developing a personalised investment strategy that maximises your opportunities, while keeping risk under control.
- Retirement income streams. Once you’ve stopped working, the right choice of retirement income stream is essential to fund your retirement lifestyle over the long term. We can help you select the best option for your personal situation, then structure your income to support your changing circumstances.
- Wills and estate planning. We can help you explore options for transferring wealth effectively to leave a lasting legacy for your family, including testamentary and family trusts.