Podcast142: Investing in Bonds in Retirement?

06/24/19 • 18 min

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Informed Decisions Independent Financial Planning & Money Podcast

Investing in Bonds, particularly in retirement (or once we stop working full time!) is the norm. If you are a member of an Occupational Pension scheme or you have a mass-market pension fund you are more than likely signed-up to LifeStyling on your scheme. We covered it in Blog 53. What LifeStyling will do is move a large chunk of your pension or investment portfolio from Equities and into Bonds as you approach your 'normal retirement age'. Can be a good thing, can be a not-so-good-thing.

This week I aim to share a short piece outlining the key aspects of Bonds, how they work, what you need to know about them if investing in them, and how they can stand to benefit/hinder investors in the mature stages of their financial planning. We will focus on Bond funds, and Bond Index Funds specifically in this weeks' edition.

Paddy Delaney

Paddy Delaney

Previous Episode

Podcast141: What You Should Know About ARFs

Welcome, and thanks for checking out Informed Decisions Blog. Over the past couple of weeks we have focused on managing finances in later life. Last week we explored the 2 options many of us have when we get to draw our retirement funds, Annuity or ARF.

Seeing as it currently accounts for the majority of retirement income strategies it will form a large part of coming weeks. We will be exploring how one can attempt to maximise the income one gets from an ARF. Make sure you stay till the end because we will also be exploring how you can aim to ensure that your ARF lasts at least as long as you do - and hopefully longer, potentially leaving a sizeable legacy to loved-ones.

This week we will now share insights on some really important aspects of Approved Retirement Funds (ARFs). I was being a little cheeky calling this 'what you should know about ARFs' but I do honestly believe these are the basics. I also believe that knowing these fundamentals will help, whether you already have an ARF, or will have one in the future.

We will determine how ARF-income is taxed, how it is handled on death, and explore how you can maximise the income you get from your ARF. This latter element is an entire science on it's own however I will intro the main aspects to consider.

Thanks,

Paddy Delaney

Next Episode

Podcast143: How Long Will My ARF Last?

How long will my ARF Income last? This week we continue our analysis of how we can actually go about drawing and maximising our pension and ARF incomes when we reach the age where we start to 'spend' instead of 'accumulate' our money.

For me at least this is the fun bit for us. We don't have pensions because we want a pension, we have pensions because we want what it can potentially give us. Ultimately what it will hopefully give each and every one of us is financial independence and choice when we get to that stage of life. Unfortunately this is the bit that doesn't get very well covered in media and education. What we tend to read and hear about is 'the pension' or 'the ARF' (the products people are trying to sell us!) - we rarely hear about the finer details, and the details that will be the most significant when we get to that stage. I aim to arm you with the ideas and knowledge now so that you can achieve tangible results when you get there yourself and you are drawing an income from your ARF or other pension funds.

We will be looking at two core aspect to Retirement Income Planning; Withdrawal Rates, and Dynamic Spending Strategies. First up are Withdrawal Rates.

Paddy Delaney