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Join us this Friday for another live-web interactive at 12:30 p.m. where we'll talk to Mercer's Martin Lewington about retirement readiness and the Kiwi savings plan.

Personal Finance
Join us this Friday for another live-web interactive at 12:30 p.m. where we'll talk to Mercer's Martin Lewington about retirement readiness and the Kiwi savings plan.
26th Mar 12, 1:39pm by Amanda Morrall

By Amanda Morrall

A recent survey looking at New Zealanders retirement readiness found that 63% are not saving enough for retirement. What's more concerning, nearly 80% think their savings will run out before the end of their lives.

With increased life expectancy and medical advancements retirement could take up a third of your life.

How much will it take to enjoy and comfortable retirement and what can you do to ensure you're taking the rights steps to get there?

Join us this Friday at 12:30 p.m. for a live web chat with Mercer New Zealand's Martin Lewington who will discuss challenges around retirement savings for New Zealanders and strategies to save.

Martin is managing director of Mercer New Zealand, which is running a series of nation-wide seminars on retirement readiness. (See link for details here).

If you can't participate in the forum but would like your questions answered, please email them through before Friday to amanda.morrall@interest.co.nz

As usual you can join the forum by logging in as a registered user to our site and clicking on the relevant story at the top of the homepage. You can also join us via Facebook.

Please remember that the discussion will be general in nature and Martin can't answer specific questions. The session will last 30 minutes so please to take the opportunity to join the discussion while it goes live.

Amanda

 

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15 Comments

by  Rob  |  29th Mar 12, 2:19pm 1332983981

So much truth. Billions of dollars of retirement savings have been lost in  finance company failures alone, mainly because investors believed that NZ had systems in place to protect them and their investment. At the time we had more consumer protection for toasters failing, than for investments. Also NZ s financial litracy isn't good, as it isn't taught in our schools. Only now after the event have systems been put in place to minimise this happening again.

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by  Boatman  |  26th Mar 12, 3:22pm 1332728549

Amanda , Well done on your series of articles , extracts from other articles , etc about reitrement.

As a baby boomer , I am building a robust "warchest " for my retirement which will be in 7 years time .

My wife and I want to be able live comfortably , to travel , to visit our future grandchildren ( they will probably be born in Australia) , and enjoy just a few of the finer things in life , and not get old in poverty .

This stuff is really important to some of us who dont want to be a burden on the state in our old age.

I notice from my comments i.r.o. Neville Bennets Column (dutch disease), there is strong resentment to us B-B's who are precieved to have taken everything .

This could not be further from the truth 

I have saved 10% of my earnings pretty much every year since I started work as a nineteen year old . I studied part time at evening school to get qualified 

My wife and I are in our  fifties , we are now mortgage free have some independent income and are modestly comfortable .

Our prudence, hard work and savings ethic has made us comfortable , but it seems people resent our relative success.

I dont get it 

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by  Amanda Morrall  |  26th Mar 12, 4:44pm 1332733443

Boatman: At the risk of getting pilloried, I think BabyBoomers get a bad rap...the one's I know have worked very hard for their money (my parents included) and deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Good on you for your savings efforts and undoubted sacrifices; your kids and grandkids will thank you for it and for the visits in time so they can catch a break.:)

Make sure to tune into that web-chat...

Cheers,

Amanda

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by  Ms de Meanour  |  27th Mar 12, 5:25pm 1332822331

Not denying any of that.  But the fact is that younger people starting out now face the prospect that even if they work just as hard, be just as thrifty, make just as much sacrifice as Mr and Mrs Boatman and Amanda's parents did - they will not be able eventually to enjoy the fruits of that labour, as today's aged and ageing are doing.  That is because an ever increasing slice of that fruit will have to be taxed to pay for the debts and entitlements of those elders. 

 

We don't know enough about Boatman's individual career to know whether he individually has paid as much in tax into the public purse as he will, over the course of his life, get out of it.  Quite possibly he, individually, has done.  But his generation as a whole has not.

 

 

  

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by  jimmy squirrell  |  29th Mar 12, 2:39pm 1332985195

dont want to pillory. They have worked hard but no harder than Gen X / Y yet they got some fairly good perks such as free education, more generous retirement packages, non means tested pensions etc. And although they deserve what they have saved and paid off on their mortage, the massive capital gains they have enjoyed come courtesy of the future hard work of gen X / Y who must now pay off massive mortgages to maintain these price levels. If its the boomers who refuse to consider neg gearing changes or capital gains (given they are the ones with most of the capital and the most to lose) then we're entitled to sling a few arrows.

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by  skudiv  |  26th Mar 12, 5:02pm 1332734530

Why save when we have govt guaranteed super?

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by  MortgageBelt  |  26th Mar 12, 8:04pm 1332745488

Maybe because it's the right thing to do regardless of dis-incentives.  Like the kids playing sandcastles at the beach - at the end of the day the waves wash it all away.

Utlimately, we all die and someone else gets all our money/assets, some get serious illness for several years before dying, some will lose their money in a business or bad investment. 

The first & best investment is a debt-free home.  Thereafter all debts repaid before retirement.  Then some cash savings.  Kiwisaver is an option. Then more risky investments - shares etc.   Invest in your kids - that is an "investment" that outlives you... 

Develop resilence: if you lost it all - have you got the ability to keep going/spring back?  That's why education (in the broader sense) is an investment that can never be taken (as long as you keep living!).    

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by  Ms de Meanour  |  27th Mar 12, 4:57pm 1332820620

Up to you skudiv, and depends on your individual circumstances. 

 

If you are such a low-income person that you think NZS will enable you to maintain a comparable standard of living in your old age as you have in your working years, then saving during your working years probably doesn't make sense. 

 

On the other hand, if you are a higher income individual and you don't bother to save on the basis that you'll have NZS to live on when you retire, you are in for a nasty shock.  You won't starve to death; but you will need to make some radical and probably painful adjustments in your lifestyle.

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by  Christov  |  28th Mar 12, 11:22am 1332886936

Gotta say Amanda the way I think ,I'll be ready to retire just after the switch goes up or the fuse gets pulled ...

 I will not go quietly...I shall kick and scream and feel no shame in doing so.

Retirement.......can also be an indoctrinated thinking....slowing us down ...or just moving us along.

Bumper sticker for the crisp......

                                                 Retirement Kills

                                                                    t.m. pending

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by  Amanda Morrall  |  29th Mar 12, 2:07pm 1332983220

Cheers Cristov. If you love what you do, retirement isn't necessary. I stopped pestering my father (age 67) to retire long ago. He'll expire the day he retires probably so why begrudge a man a job. He works for himself and is still very much in demand for his expertise worldwide -- including NZ for which I'm grateful for as I get to see him once a year.

 

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by  iconoclast  |  29th Mar 12, 2:32pm 1332984722

For Amanda and Christoff

"The desires of man increase with his aquisitions; every step which he advances brings something new within his view, which he did not see before, and which, as soon as he sees it, he begins to want. Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with everything that nature can demand, then we sit down to contrive artificial appetites."

Samuel Johnson 1758

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by  ex agent  |  29th Mar 12, 1:43pm 1332981811

Boatman what kind of investments have you got into to set up your retirement ?

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by  Amanda Morrall  |  30th Mar 12, 11:51am 1333061508

V interesting. Thanks!

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by  Alex Tarrant  |  20th Apr 12, 8:37am 1334867848

It's gone now SL

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