Australia's budget is done 'n' dusted - fish-and-chip wrapping if you're old enough to remember when newspaper was used to wrap the order. Much of the media's attention to the Budget focussed on jobs - the Treasurer's and Prime Minister's - with pre-Budget leaks supporting the blokes in the hot seat.
Budgets play important parts in everyday life. But they're not the be-all and end-all of our existence. It's like Buffy the Vampire Slayer said, 'Don't give me songs, give me something to sing about'. The eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau drew attention to what most of us have come to realise: wealth is not a question of having lots of money; it's about having what we want.
The Treasurer may not be too interested, but, in general, wealthy people outlive poor ones. As Mae West commented, 'I've been rich and I've been poor. And rich is better'. There is a wealth of information telling the amount we'll need to keep in reserve to live the way we'd like during our later years. We can opt to live off the smell of an oily rag, or we might aspire to something different. The 'Rule of 17' is just one of many DIY tools that can be used to help us calculate the size of our nest egg. Say, for example, (in addition to owning your own home) you estimate that your annual spend will be $100,000. Your retirement nest egg, therefore, will need to be 17 times that amount ($1.7 million). And if you plan to generate the $100,000 as interest from that $1.7 million, you'll need to secure an investment that delivers 5.88%, annually (1/17 X 100). You may, of course, heed Confucius's words of wisdom when he said, 'If you know what is enough, then you will have enough. But if you wait until you have enough, you will never have enough'. Ultimately, it will be your choice.
You and I know, of course, that living longer is not the key issue: the name of the game is living longer, better. Adding years to life is important, but so, too, is adding life to those years. So, the Budget needs to be kept in perspective. Only one of the 5Fs is Finances, Let's not neglect the other Fs - Food, Fitness, Friendships, and Future (always having something to look forward to). During this period in The Land of Oz, it's Finances turn to be emphasised.
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Budgeting
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