For those of us not in retirement - yet, the Christmas break is a great time to catch up on reading and to think a little more philosophically than we would normally when surviving day to day working and family life.

As the founder of Lifetime Retirement Income, I am deeply interested in retirement issues and noticed The Great British Retirement Survey 2019 published at the end of 2019. The report is comprehensive, with responses from over 10,000 UK based adults.

The survey is a good read and typical of surveys where solid statistics tend to bring out commonly held truths. In other words “good” research proves many of the attitudes and beliefs society already holds.

That said, there were some interesting results and while the survey is UK based, we suspect the results are similar to the attitudes of New Zealanders. These were some of the highlights:

• Women really need a hand to help them with financial confidence. Women were almost half as confident as men at maintaining their standard of living in retirement. This is something we often see in New Zealand and we want to be able to help.
  
  
• The retired community in the UK prefer the DIY approach to retirement planning over using financial advisers. This is Less obvious in New Zealand but reflective of our real experience at Lifetime, where the majority of our investors have joined us directly.
  
  
• More than half of those in retirement felt younger generations had it tougher than they did when it comes to finances. Given the challenges young Kiwi’s have in getting on the property ladder this felt very much like our New Zealand.
  
  

Outside these results the conclusion arrived at the ultimate retirement survey truism, if you save enough while working you can expect a fruitful retirement...

Yes, we know this. But what about the people actually in retirement today, there are over 600,000 New Zealanders aged 65 or older in various forms of retirement today.

These good people do not have the chance to reset the clock and start saving all over again. They live in the reality of today.

Our Spring and Autumn Retirement Income Seminars this year attracted thousands of retired people from Christchurch to the North shore in Auckland. Our largest attendance to date.

The messages from those attending the seminars were consistent and clear and unsurprisingly similar to those in the UK Retirement survey:

• Having a regular retirement income that can be relied upon for life is central to peace of mind in retirement.
  
  

If you are in retirement now and perhaps attended one of our seminars we can’t encourage you enough to start the new year with a little planning to improve your peace of mind in retirement. We know it can be confronting (and boring…) the benefits however are well worth the effort.

Watch this short video from one of our current investors, Sam, to give you an example.

It’s really easy:

• Work out how much you need to spend each year to cover basic living expenses (accommodation, food, healthcare, etc)
  
  
• If this exceeds NZ Super ($32,892 for a couple), visit our website and use the calculator to work out how much of your retirement savings can be invested to generate an income for life that will make up the difference between NZ Super and your basic retirement income needs.
  
  
• With your annual income sorted, give some thought to putting some savings aside for home maintenance and emergencies and perhaps an inheritance. Bank deposits can be good for these.
  
  
• What’s left of your retirement savings is confidently (peace of mind) available for enjoying retirement your way.
  
  

If you are in retirement now, seize the opportunity, plan a little, work with what you have and achieve financial confidence in retirement.

If you would like to discuss Lifetime, please feel free to book a call back and one of our friendly team members will be in touch.

Find out with the Lifetime Income Calculator!