Life stages

As you go through your life you have to make many financial decisions relevant to your stage of life. Select a stage that best describes you and see what you should be considering at this time of your life.

You have just started work and everything is ahead of you. You are just starting to find your feet in the workforce and there is much to learn.

Now is the perfect time to start planning for the future. Retirement seems so far away, but it will creep up on you. The earlier you start planning for retirement, the easier it will be for you to meet your financial goals.

Contributions
If you are not contributing to your fund, you should consider doing so. If you are contributing, you should consider putting in more. The difference that you can make to your retirement benefit can be substantial due to the effect of compound interest on contributions made early in your working life.

You may be eligible for Government incentives such as the Government co-contribution scheme. You can make an after-tax lump-sum payment via BPAY, EFTPOS, a cheque or Australia Post money order. You can also request your employer to deduct a fortnightly after-tax contribution (Eg. $40 per fortnight will be $1,040 for a full financial year). You may also request your employer to deduct a pre-tax (salary sacrifice) percentage each fortnight. Whilst pre-tax contributions are not eligible for the Government Co-contribution scheme, it can reduce your tax payable to 15% contributions tax rather than paying your marginal income tax rate that can be as high as 46.5% including the Medicare levy - resulting in a potential tax savings of 31.5%

Remember, you may spend more of your life in retirement than working for an income. So the more you save now, the earlier you will be able to retire. If you are paid fortnightly you will receive 260 pays in 10 years. If you work for 30 years that is only 780 pays. Make every pay count…

Insurance
Unfortunately, all our savings plans can come to grief if we have not yet saved sufficient monies to self-fund retirement and we suffer an illness or accident, which interrupts or terminates our working life.

ACSRF offers comprehensive insurance packages which go some way to protecting your plans. It is so commonplace to insure our possessions; however, our most valuable asset—our ability to produce an income—is often vulnerable and unguarded.

For further information, please refer to the Fund’s Product Disclosure Statement.

Budget planning
Whether you are just starting out in the workforce or nearing retirement, it is important that you have a clear understanding of your expenses. It doesn't matter whether you earn $20,000 or $200,000—if you are spending more than you earn then you are going backwards financially.

Common-sense budgeting, not building up credit card debt, as well as regularly contributing to your superannuation fund may assist you to have enough money at retirement to live comfortably for the rest of your life.

When you are starting a family, you suddenly have more responsibilities—a new member of the family who needs to be cared for. One partner sometimes has a reduced role in the workforce, causing a reduction in income.

Your plans for the future may change when you are starting a family, as finances may become a little more stretched and your priorities may change.

Life insurance
You should find out your current level of life insurance and determine whether this will be adequate for your extended family if you died or became disabled. Bear in mind that your liabilities (such as your home loan, car loan and credit card debts) may need to be paid off from your insurance payout. This may have a dramatic effect on the final amount that your family's future income will rely on.

For further information, please refer to the Fund’s Product Disclosure Statement.

Income protection
When one partner has reduced their income to raise the children, it puts much more reliance on the main source of income. It is very important to protect that income appropriately. Your financial protection is as important as providing your children with an education. After all, raising a family is difficult enough without the added pressure of losing your income through injury or illness.

For further information, please refer to the Fund’s Product Disclosure Statement.

Estate planning
To make sure that your family is looked after in the case of your death, you need to have an up-to-date legal will. You will want to make sure that your family has been provided for and that your assets are distributed in the most appropriate way.

Changing jobs or even your career can be an emotional and exciting time. Often, we change jobs to further our career. However, many of us may also decide to have a complete change of career, or to take on part-time employment—to slow down as we approach retirement.

When changing employment we may consider the new salary, job requirements and of course the new employer and their reputation, however, we often neglect to think about our superannuation conditions and entitlements.

Some employers pay higher than the 9% employer Superannuation Guarantee (SG) contribution that is required. Some employers may reduce the 9% employer SG contribution if you salary sacrifice into a super fund.

When changing employers we believe it is important that you contact ACSRF, so we can assist with your new superannuation arrangements. We can contact your new employer so that they continue to pay super contributions into your ACSRF account.

All that is required is for your new employer to complete an Employer details form. If there are existing employees who are members of ACSRF working at your new employer, this form is not required. You will just need to provide your ACSRF membership number to your new employer—so that when they pay their super contributions, they include your contributions on the monthly or quarterly payment schedule.

Please note if you change from one Catholic school to another within the dioceses covered by ACSRF, your superannuation and insurance arrangements (conditions apply) will continue.

Should you change employers to a non-Catholic employer, your existing units of Death and Total and Permanent Disablement (TPD) insurance cover will remain. However, if you are covered for Temporary Salary Continuance (TSC) this will cease. You are able to contact the Fund and reapply for TSC cover by completing insurance underwriting forms.

For further information when changing employers or your career, please contact your local ACSRF office.

Hopefully, you can retire with enough savings (from superannuation and other sources) to last you for the rest of your life.
Starting a financial plan as early as possible will help you do this. Remember, good health may keep you in retirement for 30 or more years.