• We Asked

Building Bridges for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth

We Asked

We Asked

Real Insights from Real Retirees

Many of our pre-retiree clients are curious about retirement. So we decided to ask our retired clients what advice they would provide to someone considering retirement. They provided us with some incredibly thoughtful answers, covering everything from money concerns and investment uncertainty to time management and mental health. Scroll down to get real insights from real retirees.

We Asked

What Advice Would You Provide To Someone Considering Retirement?

Find the answers HERE

“Seek out as much information that you can find about superannuation and retirement plans and go with what suits you. Have a circle of friends, hobbies + interests prior to retirement, don’t rely on work as you main interest in life.”

“My advice would be to get good financial advice. Make plans and stick to them as much as possible. Make sure you keep active, both mind and body. Mind, I like to do crosswords or sudoku and the like. Keep in regular touch with younger people, they make you “think young”. Make sure you have some “me time” so you can do what “you want. Whether thats with mates, or alone. Body, you dont have to run marathons, however dont just sit around watching the time go by, even though some of that is quite relaxing.”

“Start planning your retirement and what you life is going to look like after you finish work at least 12months before the retirement date – not just from a financial perspective but from a life’s perspective what am I going to do to fill my days, what is my purpose, remember if you were active before retirement remain active, dont sleep in too late in the morning just because you are not traveling to work-sunrises always make you feel better.”

“If you feel you have sufficient funding to provide a realistic healthy lifestyle for what you consider to be your life expectancy and that of your spouse, If you can find comfort with your choice of a less stressed future and enjoying the fruits of your hard work, then retire.”

“Get GOOD financial planning advice. Don’t listen to friends and their advice, they only think they know, it’s too big a decision. Good advice is not cheap. Many of out friends have tried to manage funds themselves because they won’t spend the money. Most have not accumulated anything like ourselves. Get unbiased advice…being involved with teaching, I would advise to look outside the ‘normal’ of Q Super, REST etc. We looked at all those options as well, but have been with RFS for the entirely with outstanding results. They are always only a phone call away. When we live and travelled overseas for such lengthy periods, what a comfort to know that someone was looking after us and monitoring our finances for us. So my final advice…if you are still “thinking about retirement” then stop overthinking it…and make a decision and DO IT! With professional people running and controlling your finances IT WILL WORK we can attest to that from the past ten years.”

“(Understand) the benefits and risks of investing one’s super versus fixed deposits in the bank. How investing can help to maintain a longer term quality of life. Try not to listen to some of the negative hearsay from people around you regarding the risks and fees associated with investing in the share market.”

“The advice we would give to anyone considering retirement is to talk to a financial adviser sooner rather than later so you can plan for retirement, set goals and have confidence that you are on track to achieve those goals. Retire with realistic goals and develop hobbies/things that interest you.”
We Asked

What Was Your Biggest Concern Before You Came to Us for Advice?

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“Do we have enough money to continue our lifestyle and be sure that we won’t have to go back to work?”

“My biggest concern was- do we have enough money to live relatively comfortably for the rest of our lives (assuming we can’t rely on the Government in years to come)?”

“Did I have enough money set aside to live a very comfortable retirement and to maintain a similar lifestyle…and not have to go without?”

“Our biggest concern was wondering if we had enough money to ride the ups and downs of the share market. How was the allocated pension going to work for us?”

“When we considered retiring our main concerns were financial – would we have enough money to allow us to enjoy our time? No use being retired if we can’t travel. Other issues were Global financial instability and costs of investing in shares. We also needed to shift our investments so that we didn’t have so much money tied up in our home. Retiring at 57 and 61 meant we needed to be financial for around 30 years which is a long time without wages.”

“Obviously concerns when retiring are whether or not you have enough money. In our case we thought we did. Other concerns were making best use of the retirement package.”

We Asked

What do you Wish you Knew Before you Retired?

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“We wish we knew what our lifestyle costs would be. (Pre-advice) We never sat down and worked out accurately how much we spend each year until we were serious about retirement How good it feels to be free to do things whenever you want”

“Life is unpredictable and you can’t control the future. If you believe (together with your financial adviser) that you have enough funds then just do it! While waiting to retire, try not to count the days down as ifyour current life is worth nothing. Stress happens in life no matter what, whether you are working 50 hours a week or none at all. It’s all relative.”

“I wish I knew to save money for a rainy day”

“Seek advice from a financial adviser you trust and can relate to”

“It takes a lot of effort to live life outside of the structured work environment, be prepared to tackle and organise your time like it was a work day to a certain extent, otherwise months and years will pass by and you’ll look back in frustration which will only add unnecessary anxiety to your lives”

“If you listen to good advice and planning – your money WILL last. I had little idea how investments would grow. In our case there was no need to be concerned about ”eating into our savings”, the growth we have achieved has been fantastic. We have travelled the world and lived overseas for much of the past ten years..pre covid..we owned a large new motorhome overseas, now sold and have a new caravan, two new cars and have done a dozen cruises around the world. My wife and I still have more money now than when we first started with RFS”

“What we wish we knew before retirement was that it was OK to give yourself permission to retire when you would like and not just at age pension age.”

“The benefits of accumulation and contributing any spare monies into one’s super from a younger age”

We Asked

What Stopped You Retiring Earlier?

Find the answers HERE
“Being confident that our money will generally increase rather than decrease due to our investments vs spending. Availability of a redundancy package fromwork, not having RFS Advice earlier”

“Hadn’t stopped to think about it – I was too focused on work (which incidentally I enjoyed) until a life changing moment caused me to reconsider my values and what was important to me”

“Not having accumulated enough Super to last throughout my retirement”

“Work-had to sell business and that was a process”

“What stopped us from retiring earlier was I was still enjoying my full time work and wanted to see out my career before retiring. So waited until the time was right for me. My husband was older and ready to retire so he semi retired waiting for me”

“Work and my beautiful partner’s reluctance to finish working – reaching our financial goal, the amount of super we thought we would need to support our required income.”