It’s very possible to live a quite comfortable retirement lifestyle with a mixed private and government pension income. The sliding scale for pension eligibility now allows fairly high private income and assets and some assets (like your home) are excluded.
For many people, it’s not the actual pension payment that is important, but access to the Health Care Card, that can dramatically reduce health care costs including for medications. And there are other concessions, for example on rates. You get full Health Care Card and other benefits regardless of the size of your pension: qualifying for just $1 will do the trick.
In some situations you will be able to arrange expected income and expenditure so that, although you may not be immediately or always eligible for a part pension, you will be at some time in the future.
The rules of pension eligibility and the treatment of assets and income are complex and they change often, so keeping track and working out the best outcome for an individual/couple can take a lot of work. Many financial advisers are not interested in working that hard for people who are not at the top end of the net worth scale.
So we’d just like you to know that at Black Swan Event Financial Planning we are interested in helping you maximise your retirement, including gaining a part pension. You will get the same service and the same level of commitment, including from Principal John Cameron, as any of our high net worth individuals.
Call for a discussion.