If you like fine wine, then life is just too short not to drink it. We aren’t telling you to hit the wine bars tonight and spend all your money; it’s just a metaphor for doing all the things you want to do in your life.
We think it’s especially important to make sure you enjoy the time you have in your retirement. As we generally work with people in their 50s and above, we focus on retirement planning a lot. Clients come to us to discuss the next 30 years of their retired lives, and there are quite a few who tell us they are going to live a ‘simpler’ life than they do now. Essentially, their aim is to spend less money in retirement than they did when they were working.
We believe, however, that retirement should be a wonderful time in your life when you can relax, travel, or drink fine wine – that is, do the things you actually want to do. Despite popular belief, we do encourage our clients to enjoy their money, both while they are working and once they retire. Your lifestyle choices shouldn't change just because you retire and you shouldn't stop having fun just because your career has come to an end.
Our general advice is to look at what you spend now on a yearly basis, and expect that amount to stay the same during retirement. For example if you spend $80,000 a year, you’ll need about $1.6 million in your super at the start of retirement. This is just a rule of thumb, though, and there are many, many factors that affect how much you need to have.
Our most financially successful clients are the ones who think very carefully about big decisions, but don’t sweat the small stuff. They wouldn’t bat an eyelid at buying a nice bottle of wine if that’s the thing they enjoy.
As we mentioned earlier, there’s a misconception that a financial adviser’s job is to tell you to save every penny and be frugal. But believe it or not, we are all for people enjoying themselves and splurging a bit, too. After all, what’s the point of saving and growing your money if you don’t also enjoy it?