I am anxious about my parents. Dad is 79 and Mum is 74. They both retired last year with no super; they have $500,000 in an ANZ Plus account. They don’t trust financial advisers – no offence intended, they don’t trust anyone about money. They own their home and four cars. How can I improve their financial situation?
You’re in a tough spot here. Trying to help people who don’t want to be helped is unlikely to lead to a happy outcome for anyone involved.
Hopefully, they are getting the age pension, and if they are happy living off this plus their savings, then I think you just have to let them be. It’s a shame that they aren’t making use of the superannuation system, but you can’t force people to do things they don’t want to do.
Unfortunately, sometimes when people don’t want to be helped, there isn’t much you can do.Credit: Simon Letch
If we make use of the Home Equity Access Scheme, does that lower our assessable assets for age pension purposes?
Because your home is already ignored for the age pension means test, using the Home Equity Access Scheme has no impact on your pension entitlement. Note, this does assume that the money you receive via the scheme is spent.
Were you to accumulate it in a bank account, then of course your assets would increase and therefore there would be a negative impact on your pension. But then, if you aren’t spending it, why access the scheme in the first place?
I’ve just turned 65, and my super’s lifestyle option automatically shifted to Conservative Balanced. I plan to keep working part-time until around 70, and I am considering moving about 10 per cent of my super into a higher-growth option until age 67–68 to potentially boost my balance and returns. What are your thoughts on this approach?
Congratulations on taking an interest in your super and picking up on this change. I actually think the automation of this asset allocation change is borderline negligent on behalf of the super fund.
Your money needs to last you hopefully 30 years or more, and therefore, as you have identified, it is important that you have exposure to growth assets to protect against longevity risk, that is the risk that your money runs out during your lifetime.