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MickPC said..Really? You have to wait for a government decided age before you can cash in your own Super. That sux...I have ****all in my fund too, would'nt last a few years. My plans...Investing all my money in spending a bit more on Real Estate, then selling & renting & hoping I die before the money runs out lol...either that or farking off to somewhere less expensive to live, which is pretty much anywhere considering I live in WA...But yeah, I was wondering when the Abbott governemnt would start softening us up for farking up essential services like health care. Abbott was health minister when lil Johnny was still around & was keen to scrap medicare way back then. Julia Gillard did a great job keeping him in check. I agree something needs to be done to help balance the budget, but I'd prefer they considered looking at ministerial concessions first...farkers
Yes, it's a bad situation for boomers, we're a monster creaping towards them and the only answer they have is to continually move the goal post further and further away from us. I was one of those foolish enough to believe that if I, like my father before me, worked hard all my life and paid my taxes, then I would be rewarded with a pension that would allow me to, at the very least, keep a roof over my head and feed myself. That looks increasingly unlikely as I edge close to retirement.
I'm one of the fortunate ones because I do have my property to fall back on and I can always downsize, and I have considered property other than my abode but the numbers never seem to stack up all that well. In so many respects, you're relying on the capital gain as your nest egg, or the negative gearing on your tax, both have problems, firstly, while the general trend of property will almost alway be upwards, it's a gamble in the short to medium term that it will be enough to offset the initial capital outlay and/or ongoing servicing of a loan. Secondly, how do we know that the gov won't change the property tax laws again so that any negative gearing will be useless.
If I look directly at just the rental income from a property, assuming I was able to buy it outright, it does not seem to stack up in terms of returns when you consider all the ongoing costs of upkeep and management fees, assuming you employ a managing agent. You could save that management fee and do it your self, but tenants can be sh!ts of the highest order, I know, because I deal with them every day.
The situation could be worse if I borrowed in order to buy the investment property, because after I had done all the work to secure and maintain the property, I would have the additional burden of servicing a loan, I doubted that my return would have even been as much as a saving account interest rate, and every day I would be looking at the property market and having heart palpitations every time I saw that the market was flat or even downwards.
If you're over 60 and not employed full time, you're entitled to all of your super, this can them be placed in a managed retirement fund with varying degrees of risk, admittedly, if you choose a very low risk package, your returns will also be low, and regardless of the risk level, it will always be affected by market fluctuations, but then, so is your super. the thing i like about the funds is that each month you will get an income, however modest, and that income is essentially tax free, regardless of how much you earn, if you can manage to find another job at that age.
I'm tipping that the gov will probably get the poops with this and decide to change it again becaus they've already changed it once when they discovered that all these CEOs on 10mil a year were taking early retirement and dumping all their super and spare cash into these managed funds to avoid paying tax in retirement.
Like I said, they just keep moving the goal posts.
BTW, it does not seem to matter who's in government, they all want us to drop our pants, bend over, and take it like a man.
) .... by the time I'm 108yo crusty demon fossil maybe my super will be good to go ..... geez 
my little girl asked me a couple of months ago Dad if jesus died and rose from the dead doesnt that make him a zombie to funny 
