Retirement Annuities Q&A
A retirement annuity can be an excellent vehicle to save for your retirement, particularly if you are a small business owner or a self-employed professional – and therefore do not contribute to a corporate pension or provident fund.
Furthermore, even if you do belong to a corporate pension/provident fund, there may be tax benefits to be gained from contributing to a retirement annuity.
To provide further insights into this, we have put together a Q&A which explains what retirement annuities are, and how they work…
Enjoying Retirement: A Letter to My Daughter
I mentioned when I started the blog that I would post the occasional light hearted article. This is one of them. Peter Sullivan, former Editor-in-Chief of Independent Newspapers and one of our contributors, is someone who is particularly adept at living a portfolio life (click here to read “Life Can Be Good in a Portfolio Life”). He is retired but is as busy and active as he’s ever been (have a look at our recent article “Rethinking Retirement”). He recently celebrated his 65th birthday by going on a cycle tour through the Karoo with a group of friends. Here he describes the joys of the experience in a letter to his daughter, Helen, who is working in the United States…
My darling daughter Helen
What a pity you couldn’t join my 65th birthday cycle ride through the Karoo. You would have loved it. Happy as you are in New York, South Africa is still special to you I know, and the Karoo a very special part of it. Your great-grandfather was born there. Cycling is the best way to see it, specially with friends.
Funny Business by Rico
I did laugh at this cartoon by Rico, as the earlier you start saving the better. But if you missed it, read Rethinking Retirement – it’s never too late and you can continue saving and growing wealth even in your ‘retirement’ years.
Life and Living Annuities (Q&A)
There is a great deal of misunderstanding surrounding the rather complex world of life and living annuities. Indeed, these products are often confusing and difficult to navigate for the lay person.
Below is a Q&A that seeks to simplify these products and promote a better understanding of their benefits and potential drawbacks…
Rethinking Retirement
In the not too distant past, retirement was a very straightforward process for most working people.
The average middle class working professional would spend a substantial number of years (if not their entire working life) working for the same company. When a certain, specified age was reached the employee was then waved off with a pension package that would be sufficient to allow him or her to maintain a decent standard of living as an official retiree.
All very reassuring, right?
Life Can Be Good in a Portfolio Life
This is an interesting article by one of our contributors, Johann Redelinghuys, which encourages us to think in different, innovative ways about work and retirement…
…In London, a retiring chief executive would collect several board appointments, take on the chairmanship of a suitable charity, perhaps do some teaching at a business school, throw in a little travel and golf – and then be satisfied he had created a “portfolio life”.
Are We Born to Spend?
Behavioural Economics has become firmly established as both a tool through which to assist people with their finances, as well as a lens through which to assess and analyse the way we handle money.
While it is still a relatively new concept in South Africa, perhaps we can draw on the discipline to tackle our dismal savings rate and poor financial habits?
In this brief excerpt from a Finweek magazine cover story by one of our contributors, Jessica Hubbard, she asks the question…
Are We Born to Spend?