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27 April 2024
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The financial advice sector is experiencing a form of market failure where demand for the type of advice now favoured by the industry is limited by the cost of supplying it. Here's how the industry can best move forward.
Few of us will reach 80 years old without some kind of mental impairment that will cloud our financial decision-making. It's wise to take such decision-making out of our hands while we have the mental capacity to do so.
The number of financial advisers in Australia has almost halved at a time of greater need than ever. What has happened to the industry and its clients as yet another Quality of Advice Review takes place?
While the gender pay gap is slowly improving in the workplace, ATO data shows Australian men aged 55-59 average $50,000 more in super than women of the same age. Financial advisers have a role to play.
Family trusts are used to hold wealth, with benefits like asset protection, tax planning, capital gains tax discount and ability to carry forward losses. But there are disadvantages that must be weighed up.
While good financial health is desirable, it’s often an imprecise concept. A simple universal framework comprising five indicators with benchmarks enables an objective assessment of personal financial health.
Depending on personal circumstances, it may be time to rethink the bias to paying down housing debt over wealth accumulation in super. Do the sums and ask these four questions to plan for your future.
Let compounding do its work. It starts slowly. This is why many of those who start an investment programme (or fitness programme, dietary change, sport, or business) give up in the early stages.
Aged care should not be narrowly defined, as opportunities include home care, granny flats, retirement villages, land lease communities and residential aged care. Take advice and don't rush it.
We often focus on the implications for financial security of being unable to save enough for a comfortable retirement, but mental wellbeing is as important. Financial advice can help.
When more than half of retired Australians restrict their spending to less than the age pension and fear running out of money more than death itself, they may be denying a better lifestyle for themselves.
With limits placed on the size of a pension SMSF, there may be good reasons to establish a second SMSF and segregate assets and strategies for optimal outcomes, if the effort and cost is worth it.
The ATO has released all the superannuation rates and thresholds that will apply from 1 July 2024. Here's what’s changing and what’s not, and some key considerations and opportunities in the lead up to 30 June and beyond.
Life has radically shifted with my brain cancer, and I don’t know if it will ever be the same again. After decades of writing and a dozen years with Firstlinks, I still want to contribute, but exactly how and when I do that is unclear.
Australia will have 3.7 million more people in a decade's time, though the growth won't be evenly distributed. Over 85s will see the fastest growth, while the number of younger people will barely rise.
Being rich is having a high-paying job and accumulating fancy houses and cars, while being wealthy is owning assets that provide passive income, as well as freedom and flexibility. Knowing the difference can reframe your life.
Investor disgust, consolidation, de-listings, price discounts, activist investors entering - it’s what typically happens at business cycle troughs, and it’s happening to LICs now. That may present a potential opportunity.
The $3 million super tax will capture retired, and soon to retire, public servants and politicians who are members of defined benefit superannuation schemes. Lobbying efforts for exemptions to the tax are intensifying.