Dementia insurance for retirees; Country living in a tiny little house; Extreme budgeting; How to ask for a raise; Your SOE sales preparatory work

Interesting to read the comments (98 % negative) re Simple Savings.  I myself subscribe to the site and use the savings forum daily - mainly as a way to keep accountable for paying off my mortgage and picking up any tips.

Problems with Dementia in over 80's is one thing but locking people out of their life savings in their 60's is quite another.

Yes the govt will splurge on the spin to pump the SOE share sale...and when it's all over...either power prices will rise and RISE...or dividends will slump...pump and slump!

By then Sir John Key, Sir Bill English and the Grand Poo Bah will be away and gone....taking their fat perks with them.

Unfortunately you can do all that is suggested in securing a raise, but some organisations just do not have the spare cash - especially when there are others all lined up for the same thing.  I like to think outside the square and whilst hoping a raise may finally prevail  - you may need to do a bit on the side and think about another stream of revenue generation to top up in these difficult times.  If anyone has any good ideas on what you could do in line with your 7am-6pm day job I'd love to hear it.  I've heard starting your own blog site might be rather lucrative once you have done the hard yards in the initial setup?

Nice one Amanda on the wee house that is...now try finding a NZ local govt prepared to issue a consent to the same size house for a family of five....good luck.

1) FFS so rip ppl off while saving and rip them off again while paying out.  Do these financial ppl have no morals what so ever? oh wait....no.....duh....

Whats so wrong with self managed saving and a self managed retirement income?  Many OAPs are still savvy at 70+ and have "all day" to work at it.....Yeah sure others are basket cases and then an annuity makes sense...but compulsory uh no.

I save by paying down debt as fast as I can, thats 5%+ Im saving....one pension in the meantime lost me 1.8%...like duh....

Strikes me that the pie is ever shrinking and the vultures are looking for a bigger share guaranteed monopoly by the state meantime....

regards

annuities are a pretty good way of insuring against longevity. if  'its' in your genes could be a really good bet.

that said they're not widely available, and that means less competition esp here in NZ, and margins are higher. perhaps rather than bung it all in an annuity just 30% of the retirement fund which when  supplementwith whatever Super is  availble could make quite a difference to the overall standard of living should you get ever get that  message from the Queen.

The question is whether you get it inflation adjusted as well. That costs even more but kinda makes sense of course.  

There are heaps of issues in retirement aren't there. Do you have debt, do you want to give a child some money, is national super big enough so kiwisaver can be considered to be funds for buying things, or will you sell your big home and move somewhere small. Some  may even use the kiwisaver payout to buy power company shares! (Actually everybody should have been saving up to buy them, there has been enough warning. But I suggest staying clear of Genesis, the carbon tax will probably rise once the govt has sold down) All of these things affect individual situations. Being forced to take out an annuity with kiwisaver could be very bad news for a large number of people. Then there will be those who would take their funds down to the casino......