Articles

Realise Your Dream

The Realise Your Dream blogs are written by Peter Kelly and Mark Teale.

Peter provides technical advice to financial advisers and accountants on superannuation, retirement planning and estate planning. He also has extensive knowledge in all aspects of self-managed superannuation funds and is a regular presenter at conferences, seminars and workshops. He is Manager; Technical Advice with Centrepoint Alliance Limited.

Mark has a great deal of experience, having worked for the Department of Social Security and Centrelink as a Financial Information Service Officer and Regional Manager for close to 25 years and for the last 15 years, he has worked for Centrepoint Alliance as Research, Paraplanning and Product Manager. He now works alongside PK as a Manager; Technical Advice part of the Centrepoint Technical team.

Naturally, his specialties lay in the areas of Aged Care, Centrelink and Veteran's Affairs and pushing people to realise that you are never too old to set yourself a challenge yourself.

13 August, 2019

Age Pension Update - July 2019

On the 1st of July the age pension asset and income thresholds increased, in addition to the increase in these thresholds the levels at which the deeming rates of interest are applied also increased. Two weeks after this date the government announced that the deeming interest rates would be reduced. The...

07 August, 2019

Should super be increased?

There is currently a debate going on around whether the government should delay or cease future increases in the rate of superannuation guarantee contributions beyond the current 9.5%. But before looking at the current debate, let’s consider how we got to where we are today. The superannuation guarantee system commenced...

31 July, 2019

Tour de France - A truly magnificent event for some?

If you are a regular reader you may already be aware, I am a middle-aged man who enjoys wearing lycra – MAMIL Middle-Aged Man in Lycra). I will very quickly point out that this is only when I am riding my road bike. I certainly do not look good or...

24 July, 2019

Retirement - Don't wait to live until you retire

“Retirement at 65 is ridiculous. When I was 65, I still had pimples” George Burns 1896 – 1996) A little while back Mark penned a blog about retirement and referenced his own pre-retirement journey. A copy of that article can be found here. However, today I would like to take a slightly...

17 July, 2019

Home

Home sweet home. There is no place like home. Home is where the heart is. Home is shelter from the storm all types of storms. The quotes about home are endless, but I believe at the core of most, a home provides a person with security, warmth, peace, comfort and...

10 July, 2019

What is Deeming and is it time for a change?

Over the last couple of weeks, you may have seen several articles in the media suggesting to the government that as a result of the recent cuts in the official interest rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia the age pension deeming rates should be reduced. For pre-retirees and for...