Tough Times Ahead for Retirees One of the key determinants of term deposit rates is the Official Cash Rate (OCR), which is the principal monetary policy tool used by the Reserve Bank to maintain price stability. Reducing the OCR has a stimulatory effect on the economy, as borrowers take advantage of lower rates to spend more. Eventually the increased demand for goods and services leads to higher inflation. While the focus...

Why You Need to Own a House The percentage of households who own their own home has dropped to the lowest level since 1951 according to figures released this year by the Department of Statistics. At the peak of home ownership in 1991 around 73.5 percent of households owned their own home; now that number is less than 65 percent. What we are seeing is increasing concentration of property ownership in the hands of a smaller...

Are Family Trusts Still Worthwhile? The family trust gained popularity as an ownership structure for property and investments to help minimise tax and estate duty and maximise entitlement to residential care subsidies. The abolition of estate duty some years ago, reduced income tax benefits and the increased scrutiny placed on trusts within residential care subsidy applications have all lessened the importance of some of ...

Giving Back When we leave this world, we take nothing with us, but what we leave behind can make a big difference to others. It is usual for surviving family members to be the beneficiaries of an estate but increasingly, charitable organisations are benefiting from the generosity of community-minded testators. The purpose of leaving behind assets for the next generation is to contribute to their well-being. Insightful peo...

Financial Abuse Domestic violence can take many forms and it is important to recognise that financial abuse can be one of them. Financial abuse may or may not be linked to physical abuse and can be hard to detect by others. Lurking inside what appears from the outside to be a normal relationship may be controlling and threatening behaviour which is psychologically damaging. Victims in such relationships are often too asha...

Life Planning for People Who Can't Plan Financial planning and life planning are inextricably linked. After all, the purpose of having money is so we can live the life we want. The starting point of a financial plan is always to ask, ‘What are your goals?’ The art of financial planning is to work with people to draw out their individual approach to life rather than applying a standard template. There are people who s...

Spending and Saving Conflicts for Couples There is no doubt that arguments about money are one of the key causes of conflict in relationships. When money is in short supply, arguments often revolve around differences in attitude towards spending and the distinction between needs and wants. The interesting thing about financial decisions is that they are never right or wrong. A good financial decision is one which is made ...

Four Things Young People Need to Know About Money It is rather tragic that we don’t acquire the knowledge and insight we need to get the most out of life until we are near the end of it. The basic principles of financial success do not change over time and there is much that young people can learn from those who have been before them. Despite their meagre household incomes and large families, our forebears were able to ...

Starting Over Life is full of ups and downs which have financial implications. How we respond to different circumstances and situations has a cumulative effect over time which can lead to significant differences between people in terms of their financial outcomes later in life. There are many things that go wrong in life – poor health, redundancy, business failure, death of a family member, or the end of a relationship....

A Financial Plan for You While most people know what lawyers and accountants do, awareness of the financial planning profession is low. That probably has something to do with the fact that there are very few Certified Financial Planners. They number in the hundreds rather than the thousands. While there are often very compelling reasons to use a lawyer (for example. the sale or purchase of a property) or an accountant (fo...