Is the focus on your SUPER disastrous for your Retirement Dreams?

Just the other day I was meeting a new client. A nice lady, Mary, who had a financial planner looking for a second opinion.

Mary, married for the second time, kids out of home but given their situations, needed some help financially.

While she was working a couple of days a week, she wanted to fully retire within a couple of years. She wanted to make sure she had everything covered, fearful she’d run out of money.

Mary was well set up with a good level of savings in super and a couple of rental properties with mortgages. Her kids were living in the rental properties and would eventually be left to them.

She’d been with her current financial planner for about 5 years. Overall she’d been happy with the discussions but one last conversation left her anxious and quite frankly annoyed.

Out of left field and at the end of her meeting, her current financial planner mentioned she’d be looking at a change of super fund.

On what basis, I asked…

A better performing super fund, she mentioned.

Mary asked what I thought about this suggestion.

My response…I don’t know.

Until I understand what Mary’s retirement lifestyle looked like, what she wanted to achieve and running her numbers.

The investment return Mary needed to safely achieve her retirement lifestyle…maybe it would be or maybe it needed to be something very different.

For Mary, she only had one shot at this, this was not a dress rehearsal…

The financial planner Mary was working with reflected old traditional financial planning. Where the focus is on investment products and investment returns as the hub of retirement planning.

Looking in the rear view mirror may be disastrous…

Straight away I knew this financial planner exhibited old school traditional financial planning. Where the focus was on the product and performance. It was what was driving the advice.

Don’t get me wrong performance is important, it’s the fuel driving your income in retirement. But the sole focus on this one factor can lead to all sorts of trouble.

Just because one super fund performed the best does not mean it will happen year after year.

What contributed to past performance may not contribute to future performance. It’s difficult to predict.

It’s interesting that the sole focus for most people is on performance. Take one look at the research and you might think a little differently…

While some of the advice was sound, it was setting Mary up for some heartache in her retirement.

Let’s look at how this advice should be provided, with your life at the centre of the advice…

Your successful retirement has nothing to do with the super fund you use…

You might find that statement a little confronting…maybe totally against what you know.

But it’s true, the super fund you use has nothing to do with you achieving a comfortable and successful retirement.

Many are distracted by the shiny object syndrome without mastering the fundamentals of retirement planning.

For many years, the financial channels “aka financial pornography channels” have been weaving their marketing magic on consumers for years. In some respects brainwashing consumers.

Where the focus has been on the product you use, the super fund you use and the investments you use.

Sure you’ve got to have your money invested and probably need a super fund to hold your investments.

But achieving a successful retirement has more to do with the process you follow and implement than the super fund you use…

You must master the fundamentals prior to getting into the fancy details, like which super fund to use and what investments to use…

If you get the fundamentals right, build a solid foundation you can have a retirement plan you can have confidence in and execute it.

Get your PDF copy of ENOUGH? here…

Where do you start?

It all starts with the lifestyle you want…

Is it a BIG lifestyle or a LITTLE lifestyle?

The experiences you want both now and in retirement.

Do you want a $100k once in a lifetime holiday to Antarctica?

Is it traveling the outback Australia in a caravan for months of the year?

Providing financial support to children and grandchildren?

More time to focus on your interests and hobbies?

Are you going to do these activities with your partner?

We only need to look back to when COVID wreaked havoc on our lives in March 2020.

Plans will change…you need to remain agile in your planning.

Understanding what you want to do with your time is key to a comfortable and happy retirement.

After all, that’s what it’s all about, LIFESTYLE…right?

How much is your Retirement Lifestyle going to cost?

Once you understand the lifestyle you want, it’s time to look at how much it’s all going to cost.

It is one million? Maybe two million? Is it a lot more or a lot less?

You need to know…

If you get this number wrong. I don’t need to tell you how this ends…

Get your PDF copy of ENOUGH? here…

What’s going to happen to your Retirement Nest Egg?

The most important step to achieving a successful retirement…

Once you define the lifestyle you want and how much it’s going to cost.

It’s now time to understand what’s going to happen to your retirement nest egg.

Using prudent numbers of course…

It’s not often talked about but is one IDEA that’ll answer most retirement questions you have…

Are you going to run out of money or die with too much?

You need to know…

Why?

You’re gonna have more fun at 60 than you will at age 85…

What if you could retire two years earlier?

What if you could take more trips to dream destinations?

Help the kids out financially, when they need it the most.

Live more comfortably…

Maybe after knowing what’s going to happen to your nest egg, you don’t need to take the risk you thought you needed to take.

It’s a simple concept, often overlooked and rarely talked about.

It’s all about understanding your long term cash flow.

You don’t want to get to 80, when you don’t have as much energy.

Have all this money, look back and think “I could have done more”…”I could have lived more”.

You don’t want that…

More Money or More Time…

Do you need more money or more time?

There’s a simple concept to help you figure out what’s really important to you.

Some of us want to be really wealthy in terms of money, perhaps multi millionaires. To the point where they have too much.

But think about it; what’s more important, having multi millions in cash/investments with little time left or having a million with 31 years left.

One of my clients was in that exact position. Had all the money she needed, inherited a lot. We encouraged her to tick off her bucket list. She kept putting it off…

So much so, she suffered an illness which has prevented her from ticking off her bucket list.

Now she has all that money and no time to enjoy it…

But here’s the thing, when we are young, we spend so much of our time trying to make and accumulate money. Then as we age, we spend much of our money trying to turn back time…

Would you rather have more money or more time to enjoy the money you have?

This is what real financial planning is all about. Helping you navigate the balance between money and the time to enjoy it before it’s too late.

45 days to Retirement Clarity…

Imagine for a moment you made one decision today that could result in you having all the answers to your retirement questions in 45 days.

You’d know how much money you needed for the rest of your life…the strategies and tactics to safeguard it and when it’s feasible to transition to retirement with confidence.

A complete retirement roadmap to guide you on your retirement journey…

Would that be valuable for you?

If you’re open to it, schedule a call with Glenn to discuss how you could have a completely personalised retirement roadmap in 45 days or less.

Request call by email Glenn at gdoherty@jigsawprivatewealth.com.au or click here to schedule a call.

Glenn Doherty – CFP – Financial Planner | Helping people within 10 years of retirement achieve a successful retirement

We work with people in Adelaide and around Australia via virtual meetings!

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