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Tag: Concessional contributions

Two fears blend for one nightmare

Bastards. It’s like some financial arch-devil was sent down to blend all of my worst fears into a single nightmare. What the hell is going on? Both sides of politics have declared “open season” on two of my primary investment loves – superannuation and property investment. Cripes! What if you like both? If you run […]

Retirement is not the best option

    It’s a horrible realisation that hits everyone in about their late 30s. You are older than any of your sporting heroes. They’ve retired. Unless you watch lawn bowls, snooker or darts – coincidentally, all games where you can drink while participating – or your favourite is cricketer Brad Hogg, they’ve all given it […]

Flying the flag for fair-er when it comes to super

  What’s just happened is no Harold Holt situation, but when you “lose” a prime minister, you tend to lose a few other things too. One of them is a whole bunch of promises. Out the window go the old ones. The new guy wants a clean slate and a whole set of new promises […]

Lifting the lid on property in super

      SUMMARY: SMSFs awoke to geared property earlier and in bigger numbers than previously realised. The hunger for geared property inside self-managed super funds is far bigger than previously understood. The Tax Office on Monday made a second consecutive massive annual upward revision of official figures regarding how widespread property gearing in super […]

Avoid a super contributions trap

SUMMARY: Getting around the traps to super contributions pre- and post-65. Getting money into super can be confusing, particularly for those at, or getting toward, the end of your working life. Turning 65 is when getting access to your super is easy. But putting money into super becomes more difficult. But not impossible, under the […]

What are some of the most important things you should know about your super?

Generation X is often accused of being fatalistic about superannuation. Many believe it will be hoovered up by government taxes, crash before they receive it, or taken by frauds. But they’re not acceptable excuses for taking a bad attitude to super. Most importantly, Xers need to understand that super is our money, we just can’t […]

SMSFs are not paid to panic

SUMMARY: The message on asset class diversification has never been clearer. If you’re a self-managed super fund trustee and your guts haven’t been churning in recent weeks, then I know something about you. You’re fully invested in cash. And while that has served you well in the last fortnight, it’s been a number of years […]

Permanent chaos – Super’s relative stability

Permanent chaos can be overwhelmingly tiring. A bit of stability and consistency in life is generally welcome. An example of chaos? Greece. Who would be them at the moment? Flat broke and can’t decide whether or not to eject themselves from the Eurozone. Cravings for stability apply to your money, too. Regular paycheques suit many […]

Money for nothin’? You gotta earn it!

There is a period in every parent’s life where all vacations seem to be “holidays in hell”. Who would travel with kids by choice? Tired kids meet airport security. A truly volatile combination. I’ve never sweated more quickly than when I was forced to softly scream at my eight-year-old boy to stop talking about “blowing […]

Now’s time to go hard, Gen-Xers!

I have a rule with Mrs DebtMan. Well, I have a few. So does she. And hers includes no mobile phones at the dinner table. She goes all Cujo-like – frothy at the mouth – if I receive 100 texts over dinner from the school-dad, punting-club “Turkeys”. Which is often. But one of my rules […]