Skip to main content

Do you have enough money to retire on?

Does anybody really have enough retirement income?

Okay, the really rich, but for most people today, there will definitely be a cutting back after retirement.

And that’s the crux.   If you are used to living a certain way, it is not easy to change your patterns when you stop working.

A combination of the new Liberty Life ad and an excellent presentation to Accsys clients and staff by Professor Jackie Arendse, got me thinking.

Liberty says that the average monthly earner receives 480 payslips in their lives.  If you retire at 60 and live until 85, you will have 300 months when you don’t earn a salary!   That is a frightening thought.

When you consider that the average age keeps rising, and retirement ages have not been increasing at the same pace, planning for retirement becomes more critical than ever.

Rumour has it that the first person to live to 150 has already been born.   What do you think her retirement age will be?

Retirement Reform

No wonder the government have looked at Retirement Reform (definitely capitalised).

Supposed to kick in from March, 2015, it now appears to have a “go live” date of March, 2016. 

Unfortunately, reaction has been less than positive.

There has been a noticeable increase in resignations from people who have decided to realise their retirement income as there are fears that the money will disappear.

Feedback from Provident Fund contributors is also less than enthusiastic.   The move towards annuitisation, partial or full, has not been generally well received.

Will you be 55 by March 1st, 2016?

This is the first time that I have heard people feeling delighted that they are going to be 55 by March, 2016, the reason being that they stay on the existing model.

Two of the major issues the government is trying to address?

1.       Fast erosion of lump sum payments at retirement
2.       Resignations in order to receive retirement income

Worthy goals.
 
Like most people getting closer to the 480th payment, I wish I had done more to provide for retirement.

I have some questions

Will the government moving provident funds closer to a pension structure make the difference?

What about the companies who do not offer Provident or Pension funds?   We see high numbers of job applicants who receive no benefits. 

Do the Life Skills classes at school and tertiary institutions cover saving for the future in enough detail?
 
How many of us have received our financial advice from somebody who stands to gain from the transaction?

We need more objective education and information earlier.   Nothing we do will change everything, but it would be a great start….

Links, References and Notes

Business Connexion:Accsys
email:      tschroenn@accsys.co.za
twitter:   @TerylSchroenn

 Note

 Thank you for reading Teryl@Work.   Should you wish to use any of the material, please acknowledge this blog as the source
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Its all about the numbers - retirement age

Weight, height, age, dress size, shoe size, all numbers that we (and the media) use to define people. I was fascinated by an article from the Leicester Mercury where the age of each witness to a bus crash in January were carefully listed. Sue Kellett, 56, whose front garden is bordered by the wall, was one of the first at the scene. Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.html#ixzz31lXUuyZg Read more at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.html#9cHShVptF30lJw4X.99 Sue Kellett, 56, whose front garden is bordered by the wall, was one of the first at the scene. Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.html#ixzz31lXUuyZg Read more at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.htm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Feeding the Right Wolf

Feeding the Right Wolf This Cherokee story resonated with me (see below).     Like many business people, I get caught up in managing details, instead of focusing on strategy and growth.   Measuring myself against the Good Wolf concept has become a way of thinking for me. Feeding the good wolf - focusing on the right stuff! In a previous article on this topic, I commented that the message is simple, the wolf you feed is the one that grows. The good wolf attributes in a business are where we ideally should spend our time, that good old 80 – 20 rule focusing on our   engaged employees, improving client experience and quality of product,   to name a few. Creating a Good Wolf Environment While we have many different tools – appraisals, customer and employee surveys – to try and understand the temperature and levels of entropy in our businesses – the truth is that it is really difficult to explain to people that they are not seen as feeding the good wo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is the employee toxic or simply disengaged?

Is the employee toxic or simply disengaged?  And how to tell? Dissecting Employee Behaviour We spend hours of management time dissecting employee behaviour to ensure that not only is each employee delivering to a minimum expectation, he or she is not actively undermining the effectiveness of the business. We design KPAs (or KPIs, or whatever we want to call them), we run regular appraisals, we discuss career paths and succession plans, and  as long as toxic employees are delivering on their job description, we keep them! It’s only after they leave, when you hear the collective deep breath of relief from colleagues and management, that you can be absolutely sure of the negative impact. Underperformance vs Undermining My view has changed – rather an underperformer, than an underminer. So what to do? Once you have firmly established that undermining is the problem, the first step is to tell them that you are onto them! Never an easy task, because very few p...
Post a Comment
Read more