You know it suddenly dawned on me that people often have no idea what I do or my company does for people.
Over the years we have jokingly called ourselves the millionaire makers because so many of our clients require over $1,000,000 in retirement to be able to provide them with what they want in retirement.

I know lots of you will shudder and say that’s unrealistic etc etc, however the reality is that the only reason people make those comments is because they have been conditioned to think that a million dollars is a lot of money. It’s not.

If you think about it though it’s not hard to figure out that needing a million dollars to retire on is not so far fetched, think about it. At the moment you can get say 6% at the bank on a fixed interest account. So if you and your partner earned say $40,000 each per annum that’s $80,000. you decide you want to live on that same income so work back, how much do you need to give you $80,000 if you are getting 6% from the bank? It’s about $1,350,000. See not hard to find out you are going to need a large lump sum for retirement.

But wait you say, we only need $40,000 when we retire…… oh really? So you are immediately saying you will take a 50% pay decrease, imagine if you had to do that today ….could you? Probably not but we won’t have the mortgage you say….. no you won’t but you will have an awful lot of time on your hands and most people tell me they want to spend that money traveling…Is traveling cheap….nope.

Anyway lets say you did decide you could retire on half what you are earning today and you could travel on the cheap or do whatever it is that you decide you will do in retirement, you still have to factor in inflation.

That’s right, unless you are going to retire tomorrow inflation is going to get you. So the $40,000 that you decide you could drop down to is now $40,000 in 10 years time which means it’s more like to be around $60,000 that you need (find a inflation calculator somewhere and pop in figures like 4% per annum over 10 years) so again we get to the calculation….. $60,0000 needed, 6% earning rate so money in the bank needed….$1million.

Anyway enough harping on about that. When we do the numbers 99% of people have needed more than $1,000,000 in income producing assets for their retirement, which is why we jokingly called ourselves the millionaire makers.

So why did I start this post? Because I just finished a strategy for a couple who have 19 years until they retire.

As I completed the strategy and looked at what we will accomplish for them it dawned on me how much value we provide to our clients.

You see this couple have 27 years to go on their existing mortgage (does that sound familiar?) and they needed $1,500,000 in income producing assets for them to be able to complete all their goals including overseas travel, $60,000 in today’s income, a yacht and various other goals.

When I completed the strategy we achieve the following for these lovely people.

Home paid off in 10 years and 8 months.
Interest saved on mortgage…. over $200,000
Tax saved……over $80,000
Wealth created for Retirement $2.1 million dollars.

Now don’t be shocked…this couple have 19 years to achieve this and the combined income is $100,000 however the monthly surplus they can put towards their strategy is only $150 per week.

So I thought I might brag a little.
We have helped so many people accomplish the same thing over the 9 years I have owned Financial Gain Australia and now Financial Gain NZ (which trades as Professional Investment Services), that I thought it might be time to let people know that this is possible and the service is out there for people who want it.

Today I read about a new product being released in Australia for investors. Fantastic.
Hopefully ANZ will bring this product over the ditch as well and provide it here for kiwi investors.

The following is an excerpt from the article.

The ANZ Portfolio mortgage operates like a line of credit and is geared to enable investors to consolidate multiple loans under the one facility with the added convenience of up to 12 sub accounts. Equity can be released quickly when opportunities arise allowing investors to move quickly when required.

The investment market looks particularly strong at present. Prices have largely remained stable across most markets over the last few years while rental values have continued to increase.

“Given the ongoing pressure of property undersupply and increasing demand due to migration we see considerable potential for the investment market over the coming 12-18 months.“

Mr Bock said that the product had been a year and a half in development and admitted that there was “an element of coincidence” in the present investment market potential and the product launch.

The timing, he said “couldn’t have been better.”

It is interesting spending so much time with the kids.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I have spent the whole day working as school holidays has meant most of the time I have been doing various daddy things.

The newspaper has not been opened.

Emails have been reposnded to slowly.

The movie theatre and parks have seen a lot of me.

These school holidays have meant that I have been on a sort of island, you know where you go away and when you come back you find out all sorts of things have happened. The difference here though is that not a lot has happened in my time away.

Mortgage rates are where they were.

The dollar is still at about the same level against the greenback.

Property prices has been steady.

The share market has moved upwards slightly over the week or so.

And my shoes are extremely muddy. It pays not to wear dress shoes to a muddy park.

Maybe I should go on holiday more often.