Stephen and Mary are in their mid 30’s and have 2 young children. Stephen works full-time and Mary part-time. They have a household income of $500,000 and home loan of $1,500,000 with $500,000 in offset. They have many lifestyle and financial goals they wish to achieve but are unsure about the best way to plan for the future to maximise opportunities and reduce tax.

After going through the financial roadmap process, Stephen and Mary received advice in many areas such as how to accelerate debt repayment, review of their household budget and cash flow management strategies, setting retirement goals, starting to invest on a regular basis (including tax effective children's education plans), tax optimisation strategies including a review of potential investment entities from individual name, family trust and investment company, consolidating and employing a consistent investment strategy for their investments (which includes direct investment property, private equity and shares), implementing appropriate insurances and implementing Wills and Powers of Attorney and Guardianship.

Stephen and Mary are now on track to accelerate the repayment of their home loan and have enough cash available to meet all planned expenses such as catholic schooling for their children, property renovations and an overseas holiday every year in addition to building wealth through their new investments in a tax effective way. 

Although they are only a few years into their financial plan, they are now on track to accumulate substantial assets and may be able to retire in their early 50’s.

“Without FinancialAdvisor.com.au we would probably still be treading water and not getting ahead financially but now we are excited about the future. We now have a structured step by step plan that we understand and can follow so that we start to work towards getting to be where we want to be in the future. We are grateful for FinancialAdvisor.com.au's help and advice.”

At this stage of life you are well underway with your career and have established financial foundations. You may have a home loan or an investment property or two and your main challenges are trying to juggle your busy work / life commitments.

You are time poor in nature and although you are not a novice at financial matters, you know that you need somebody to review everything and pull it all together in a co-ordinated and holistic manner. You know you could be doing better with your money and generally be more productive with your finances. In other words, there is currently wastage and you know it.

There are things in the back of your mind that you need to attend to but never seem to get around to doing them. Your super account could be doing better, maybe a self managed fund that you've heard about should be explored? You could also budget better and save more each month either into your offset account or into a portfolio of investments.

But as you do not set and review financial goals on a regular basis, you are not disciplined with your finances and reading books such as the barefoot investor provides you with many great takeaways, but without the guidance of a professional to shape the framework for a personalised financial strategy with specific future goals laid out, you are still underperforming your financial capacity.

If you work for a technology company, you may have share options and restricted stock units and given the large tax burden, want to look at ways to reduce this tax such as family trusts which you’ve heard some colleagues talk about.

Or you might be a self-employed dentist or lawyer and want to make sure that you have the right structures (trading company, family trust, bucket company etc) to protect your assets and legitimately minimise tax on your wages and profit.

But regardless of your employment status, you would benefit from advice to optimise your current situation and move forward with clarity and a plan, where you are kept accountable to the agreed milestones.

Or it could be a life event such as starting a family that kicks you into gear and realise you need to sort out your finances. Others need to rebuild after a divorce or work out what to do with an inheritance.

Whatever the situation, in this age group, earning capacity is nearing peak levels and as such, tax paid is also high. It is also a time where your living expenses are likely to be at the highest they’ll ever be. You may have children with education costs, otherwise overseas travel costs and general living expenses eat into your strong cash flow and you sometimes wonder where all your money is going!

But don’t fret, we’re experts in helping people in your situation and encourage you to take the first step and get in touch with us. We’ll workshop some ideas and start to help you get on top of the finances and move forward in the right direction with clarity and a plan.

Gen X & Gen Y

John and Gwen are in their 50’s and have 2 adult children still living with them. John is self-employed and both John and Gwen work full-time but would like to transition to part-time. They have a household income of $300,000 and home loan of $150,000 which is partially offset.

Their main concern is around whether they are maximising their opportunities with superannuation and when they will be able to retire and how much money they will require. They want to retire in their mid 60’s and are not sure if this is possible. After going through the financial planning process with FinancialAdvisor.com.au, John and Gwen received advice on how to maximise their opportunities within superannuation. The advice recommended they restructure the way they received their income and as a result, they now save thousands of dollars in tax and are also able to make additional contributions to superannuation – boosting their retirement nest egg. 

The financial plan also covered the issue of how much money they will require to achieve financial security and independence in retirement and showed projections based on different scenarios to provide them with a better understanding of how the different decisions they make could affect their financial position in the future. 

The advice also reviewed their budget (recommending they reduce spending) and provided John and Gwen with a clear repayment schedule for their remaining home loan, freeing up substantial cash flow that could be used to build their retirement savings. Insurances were also addressed, as were Wills, Power of Attorney, Power of Guardianship, and managing taxation and asset protection of the inheritances to their children.

“Several friends had mentioned how superannuation was a good way to reduce tax and save money for retirement but without help, we were not able to act upon it. After being introduced to FinancialAdvisor.com.au from a friend, we now have a fantastic strategy in place managed by FinancialAdvisor.com.au so that we can get the most out of superannuation and lower our tax bill.

We also now know when retirement is financially viable and hope to be able to retire a few years earlier than we thought possible on several more thousands of dollars each year to spend than we also thought possible.”


At this point your priorities are starting to shift. No long is your financial strategy focussed on taking risk and growing wealth, you are starting to think about whether you can retire at some point in the future.

And by retirement, this can have a wide definition, it is not necessarily retiring from work all together, but more having the freedom to choose how you decide to allocate your time each week without the constraints of having to earn a certain amount of money to make ends meet.

In the past you had time to make up for losses and were inlined to take more risk due to this fact however now, time is now getting shorter and you do not have the same luxury of time when making risky financial investment decisions.

So then comes the crossroads, how do you make sure that you are on track to hit your retirement goals and what actions do you need to be taking to get there. And how to maximise the interaction being being self funded in retirement, but also leveraging the benefits and assistance offered to retirees by the federal government - something known as achieving the retirement sweetspot.

Now is the time to seek out and implement a well structured retirement plan designed for your future needs. It will cover practical issues such as whether you should make extra superannuation contributions, how to boost retirement income and overall tax effectiveness, reviewing your existing investment assets, agreeing on a plan to reduce your debt to zero and working out your succession plan to ensure your assets pass to who you wish to in a tax efficient manner.

Our financial roadmap process covers all this and more. We will analyse your current situation and create a step by step roadmap for you with easy to follow actionable items.

We challenge your thinking about your investments and help you engage with the right mindset  as you work towards retirement. For instance, investment properties that have produced strong capital growth may have served you well in the past but after you stop working, passive income becomes more important than capital growth.

So working out a strategy to transition to passive income focussed investments (such as a house and granny flat or airbnb style apartment) in a way to also minimise capital gains tax is a key part of your retirement roadmap. 

The financial roadmap process also covers scenario analysis so that you have clarity over the financial impact of decisions you could make such as:

- What if I reduced to part-time work?
- What if I retired earlier (or later) than I planned?
- When is the best time to retire financially?
- What is the impact on my finances if I provide an early inheritance to my family, will I get more government benefits?
- What is the financial impact if I downsize home versus not downsizing?

We provide this scenario analysis and actionable advice on the most effective way to growth wealth towards defined retirement goal posts, reduce your taxes, repay your loans and optimise your finances in order to meet your post retirement spending needs all within the framework of the financial roadmap.

In summary, we assess your financial and lifestyle goals and put together a retirement focussed financial roadmap in order to firstly determine if you are on track, and then what changes and optimisations are required to maximise your finances in the years leading up to your retirement. By seeking professional advice, we hope that you will retire earlier, and with more money to spend like many of our clients do as a result of our work with them.

Retirement on the Horizon

Ken and Julie are in their mid 60’s and have recently retired from the workforce. They have also sold an investment property and have a lump-sum to invest. They are not sure what the best way is to invest the money they have. They want:

* A regular income stream
* Good investment performance
* Stable returns with minimal risk of large investment losses
* To maximise Centrelink benefits
* Provide an inheritance for their children and grandchildren

Their 4 adult children are all non-dependant and they have 2 grandchildren. Upon their passing, they wish for their remaining assets to be distributed to their children and grandchildren and the money be protected from their children’s spouses should their children divorce in the future.

After going through the financial planning process with FinancialAdvisor.com.au, Ken and Julie received advice on how to invest their assets and achieve their requirements (regular income and good, stable returns). Advice was provided to maximise tax-free lump-sum contributions to superannuation working with age based restrictions on how much money can be contributed.

Centrelink benefits were projected and by holding assets in the name of the younger spouse, they were able to receive the full age pension for 3 years longer than otherwise would be the case. All other Cenrelink and Government entitlements were outlined and advice given on whether they would qualify.Advice was also provided around the establishment of appropriate estate plans to ensure a smooth transition of wealth to their children and grandchildren, while having that money protected from frivolous spending or future divorce.

“We are happy with the advice provided by FinancialAdvisor.com.au. We don’t need to worry about managing our investments as we know that we are in good hands.”

After retiring, you do not want surprises financially. You do not have the timeframe to recover from a 20% share market crash and you do not want to worry about your finances.

You want to enjoy financial security and independence in retirement and have a stable income stream from your investments that will survive your whole lifetime, and if you can arrange your finances in a way to also maximise Centrelink and other government benefits - then no harm there.

Getting the right investment mix of cash, bonds, property and shares is important, as is minimising any product cost associated with your super and other investments.

If you have children, grandchildren or nieces and nephews, it would be nice if you were able to provide them with unexpected gifts to help them along in life too.

Structuring your investments with the tax effective superannuation environment in mind is also important. Understanding rules such as the property downsizer rule, catch up concessional contributions, transfer balance caps, account based pension drawdown requirements and age based contribution caps to name a few.

As you can see, it can be overwhelming trying to navigate the best pathway for a financially successful retirement set up, and that is where we come in to assist.

Make sure that you are minimising, tax, maximising income, and protecting your capital for your lifetime.

Age care costs may come into play at some stage so thinking about this in advance and working through funding mechanisms for things such as the aged care bond (refundable accommodation deposit) and ongoing daily aged care fees in advance in prudent if staying in the family home becomes unviable down the track.

Working through estate plans are also crucial at this point. Who will receive your assets, at what point, under what terms and in a tax effective way are some of the issues we tackle. 

Overall, you have worked hard to get to a position where you can now retire and live off the income that your assets can produce. Our role is to optimise your retirement position so that you are using all the rules, and all the right investments in your favour to maximise income and minimise risk.

Life
Stages

Success is not achieved by accident. We work with you to build a personalised 'financial roadmap' so that you have clarity and direction with your finances and move forward in a clear and purposeful way.

35 — 49

I want a pathway to financial freedom and I know I could be doing better with my finances

50 — 64

Am I on track financially and how do I achieve my retirement sweet spot?

60 +

Help me protect my wealth and generate strong passive income

Life Stages