What constitutes a comfortable retirement?

Much of my time is now consumed with thinking about, planning and preparing for retirement. I'm 49 and we don't have a mandatory retirement age in Australia but you can access your superannuation savings once you turn 60 if you are born after 1964. At age 67 you can access the government paid pension if you don't have sufficient funds to support yourself, one suspects this will probably be raised to age 70 in the next decade so people in my age bracket had better be prepared.

The cost of living is outrageous in Australia and it is my belief that I want to retire as soon as I can so I can enjoy a healthy outdoor lifestyle while my body holds out. I suspect a further 10 years of living will limit my mobility as I spent a large proportion of my working life as a blue collar worker. The fifteen or so years of physical work takes a toll on the body, although by my early 30s I had accepted my fate and taken a desk job to lessen the toll on my body.

So, like many others I have to consider health issues and the required support services. My plan is to live the summer months in Australia and the winter months overseas. This will take some planning as I will have to finance an Australian household all year round as I don't wan to give up my primary residence but with just base electricity and water charges the cost might be achievable. There is council rates, they hurt and telephone and internet would expected to be minimal as I wouldn't be seeking large data plans.

Perth is a great place to live in summer but there is so much of the world I want to visit. The northern hemisphere just happens to be in summer whilst Perth is suffering through another dreary winter so an endless summer is possible. Fortunately Australia has reciprocal health agreements with eleven countries including the UK, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Belgium and Italy - my future is pretty much planned.

Pewsey Vale Riesling

I love Pewsey Vale Riesling, I was introduced to it by my old man when we sit out in the back garden on a Friday night. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Eden Valley reds, but their dry whites are high on my list as a pretty good example of warm climate wines.

On Friday, instead of driving my car to work I catch two trains and a bus from my place to work and two buses to my parents house after work. Whilst I could be hitting the city on a Friday, I enjoy the time with my family and wouldn't swap it for anything. I know I will be having a few drinks and this is the responsible way to prevent drink driving by planning ahead.

So what I do now is send cartons of wine from my supplier straight to my parents house as my father has been retired for over twenty years and I am still pulling a salary - simple economics really. But in typical old man style, he likes to pick up the bill all the time so I have to make sure I am paying my way. So when I go to the wine rack or refrigerator I try to select something that I purchased so I don't drain his stocks.

However, if I find a bottle of Pewsey Vale Riesling in the refrigerator - all bets are off. When I was researching this riesling I logged onto the Pewsey Vale website and was surprised to find they had four rieslings in their range. Now I had the embarrassing task of finding the one I liked, not such an easy task I found out. I like dry white wine and Pewsey Vale sits well on the dryness factor, yet still exhibits fruit and character.

So, to the tasting notes; according to Pewsey Vale this riesling exhibits dried herbs, white flowers with lemon and lime overtures. Ok, I get the zesty citrus flavours but would never have described white flowers as a taste and seemed to miss the dried herbs. However, I feel this is more complex than pure citrus flavours so what would replace the dried herb aroma?

I'm struggling now to describe the aroma and instead move on to the palate with tropical fruit, astringent acidity keeping the flavours in check with a fine balance of the pale straw coloured white wine with twinges of green hues. They recommend enjoying with salt and pepper squid, natural oysters, seared scallops or a Thai beef salad or like me just enjoy this wine on a warm summer Friday night with good company.

Disposable coffee cup madness

I believe in the virtues of capitalism and the benefits that the private sector brings to the masses through free choice and efficiency; however, what I don't support is serving coffee in cardboard cups. Capitalism has a social and environmental aspect; we all understand the need to create profits but these shouldn't come at the expense of society and the environment.

As both consumers and shareholders, we have the ability to dictate corporate decision-making through our purchasing power and habits. The major issue with disposable coffee cups is that they are mostly not recyclable and end up in landfill - this is a terrible outcome for everybody. This is not only inefficiency, this wastage is detrimental to the environment with the plastic caps and cardboard insulators adding to the waste. Single use plastic bags are being phased out in Western Australia and one hopes the policy may be extended to disposable coffee cups to protect the environment.

Strategies may include a levy on disposable coffee cups to change consumer behaviour as a deterrent although I would prefer to raise awareness through a shared ideals. As I believe in free choice, we as consumers can exercise our free choice and choose to not purchase our coffee in disposable cups instead selecting our coffee served in real cups and not rely on government intervention. As a collective group, we have the ability to change corporate behaviour through consumer behaviour.

So what is fake news?

I was reading a BBC news article on how fake news plagued the news scene in 2017, there has been cases of news organisations and departments requesting such articles to not be reposted or passed on. For most of us the term fake news is a Trumpism that may lead to an even more diminished status as he seems impervious to any news published criticising himself or his administration.

So based on the BBC definition, what is fake news?

1. Completely false information, photos or videos purposefully created and spread to confuse or misinform.
2. Information, photos or videos manipulated to deceive - or old photographs shared as new.
3. Satire or parody which means no harm but can fool people.

Ok, completely false information, photographs or videos is a given, so too is manipulated photographs or video footage; however, satire and parody is the interesting definition. The BBC along with many other broadcasting services all engage in satire, comedy and parody much to the humour of it's viewers and subscribers. Are people that uninformed or unsophisticated that they are confused by satire and parody?   

Certainly social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp have to do more to prevent fake news spreading. I have always been told to check the news site, is it a reputable news site bound by journalistic integrity? The same commentators also claim that the reputable news companies are feeding the masses misinformation so we have an issue here. I certainly don't believe all these conspiracy theories kicking around but do believe news broadcasters need to improve their reporting with more facts based reports and less sensationalism but opinion pieces are the staple of news networks and should be viewed as opinion pieces. 

From boom to bust - what happened to Western Australia?

Technically, Australia hasn't had a recession in over 26 years although we have had a number of slowdowns. In Western Australia, we saw mining boom one and mining boom two; the two booms were interrupted by the GFC in 2008. The financial data we have been presented is that the Western Australian economy isn't in recession although the average person wouldn't know it, this feels exactly like a recession.

We didn't really have a mining boom per se, we had a construction boom related to mining driving the economy of Western Australia. This distorted investment, employment and prices in Western Australia with a distinct mining focus and no plan B. So what happened? As the boom was related to mining construction, we know this has a finite life as construction is project based so. Mining production was already under way; this was mostly related to expansion of existing projects although some new projects were also initiated.

The Chinese demand waned, this has had a dramatic effect on commodity prices with the Western Australian Treasury Department generating revenue forward estimates on commodity prices that were inflated. They were conservative based on the actual prices at time of calculation, such has been the free fall in prices. The state government imposes a royalty on mineral extraction based on price and not volume, this is basically a tax. However, Australia now has a goods and services tax (GST) since the mid 1990s with federal collection distributing revenues to the states.

Due to the distribution model, Western Australia only receives approximately 30% of the tax it generates. As a result, state government services have been reduced, infrastructure projects cancelled, jobs lost and investment curtailed. The state now has a debt equal to the tax shortfall, the other states who have benefited from the GST revenue are unwilling to give up their windfall. Finally, there was the spending spree of the government and infrastructure projects initiated within an eight year reign, the issue with governments is they want to make short-term decisions so they gain the credit for infrastructure development.  

The Adelaide Convention Centre

My father and myself headed down to Adelaide for my graduation ceremony and at age 48, I had never been to one before so I was actually kind of interested. Normally I just get a certificate sent out in the mail as I'm not really into the whole formal award ceremony - this time was different.

However, as I had only briefly driven through Adelaide on route from a Melbourne to Perth in the early 1990s, it was time to properly visit Adelaide. That drive that took thirty four hours so I really relished the opportunity to explore the capital of South Australia. Spending the first afternoon wandering around the Torrens River that cuts through Adelaide, we made our way over to the convention centre for a look around. While we knew we would be here on the Wednesday, the time spent to aquaint ourselves with the facility was time well spent.

This was ideally located on the Torrens River with sweeping views of the riverbanks. I also found out the Adelaide Convention Centre was the first purpose built convention centre of its type in the country and I think they did a fantastic job. Whilst the graduation ceremony was a little drab as everyone required equal time to receive their certificate and pose for the obligatory photograph, the views from riverbank suite after it was all done was perfect. Upon leaving we were right in the CBD and we wandered up North Terrace and onto King William Street to grab a celebratory drink and meal.

The retirement standard

Despite the enormous pool of retirement savings in Australia, the average person falls well short of what would be considered an ideal retirement income. 

Naturally, retirees aspire to the standard of living they have grown accustomed to with $750,000 widely viewed as a comfortable retirement sum to fund a reasonable standard of living higher than the ASFA recommendation of $640,000 that is still a pretty tidy sum. Whilst it is better to have a $110,000 buffer - few can afford that.

In order to achieve achieve retirement goals, an annual pension of $44,000 is considered adequate for single person, the ASFA figure is $35,000 but I prefer to be a little more conservative. About $60,000 is required for a couple as shared bills tends to reduce the cost of living. 

For the average worker, in order to achieve such goals may need them to take greater investment risks, increase contributions during the accumulation phase, pay lower fees, remain in the workforce longer or alternately they could learn to live on less.

Why work all your life and then budget to live on less, better to start saving a percentage of your income and still enjoy a reasonable life along the journey? There is an argument to enjoy your money now and just rely on the age pension instead taking a lump sum superannuation and squander your retirement benefits. 

This is a difficult decision as the government keeps changing superannuation rules mostly due to their fiscal incompetence with the onus and risk returned to the taxpayer. I still believe forgoing a degree of your salary to fund a retirement despite the risks as the future of the aged pension is rising and the benefits likely to decline.