Last week the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates a further 25 basis points, bringing the official cash rate down to just 2.0%. The good news is that home loan interest rates should also come down which would save a household with a $250,000 loan approximately $52.08 per month.

However, what is the impact on savers and retirees with money in the bank?

I’m sure by now you have heard that due to rising life expectancies, increased government debt and uncertain economic conditions, our social security system is under more pressure than ever before. It is the primary reason why our government continues to make changes to superannuation and the age pension. What you may not realise is that this problem exists in most other countries in the world.

I often get asked what a Financial Planner does and the benefits of working with a Financial Planner. A lot of what I do is filtering through complex strategies and investments for my clients and finding what will suit them best, i.e. doing for them what they are unable or unwilling to do for themselves. However, sometimes my job is about helping people break bad habits and sometimes those habits are doing things that I think are common sense not to do.

In the 2014 May budget, Commonwealth Government Treasurer Joe Hockey announced that the age at which people would be entitled to receive the age pension would increase to 70, by the year 2035.

While at the time of writing this proposal still had not been legislated, the mere thought of working until the age of 70 has a lot of people nervous and, confused.

I recently received a call from a prospective client. Let’s call him Joe. Up until 12 months ago, Joe was in a high paid management role. Naturally it was also a highly stressful job so Joe made the decision to switch careers into something with less stress so he could enjoy life more. Unfortunately the trade-off is that he had to take a significant pay cut.

I recently received an email from a client asking whether any of the investments that I have her in have any inbuilt trail commissions. Over the last few years, any time I have received a question from a client I usually have an initial moment of panic, “How do I answer that?”, however I have recently come to realise that this is a reaction that comes from previous experiences and not a reflection of the advice I am giving today.

As a Financial Adviser, it is my job to help people use the resources at their disposal to achieve their goals and dreams. Most people desire to achieve Financial Freedom and possibly even become “Wealthy”. But what does “Wealthy” mean to you?

Anyone that knows me, knows that I have built my business on a) providing quality advice and b) building relationships with people to help them on their path to financial freedom. Having said all of that in my line of work, understanding the “Products” you are invested in or insured with is important and particularly knowing that cheapest is not always best!!

Earlier this year, I was contacted by a lady who was at the end of the rope. Her and her husband ran a business, were paying off their home and raising 3 children, but from one week to the next there just didn’t seem to be enough money to go around.

After some lengthy discussion, it appeared that they had been too generous in the past helping family out of their own sticky financial situations and the end result was that they had too much debt.

Good advice from an experienced, well-informed financial adviser can help you:

• save money

• protect against financial risk

• remove or manage debt

• grow assets

• provide strategies to improve tax outcomes

• plan for retirement

• identify entitlements for government benefits

• plan what inheritance is to be left to your dependents

• plan your move or the move of a loved one to aged care.

Welcome to 2014. I am one of those lucky people that love what I do, but even as much as I love it, by the end of 2013, I was exhausted!! I took 3 weeks off and feel amazing, I am rejuvenated and ready to take on all the challenges that 2014 will throw me.

This got me thinking and I took some time out to start formally writing up my bucket list, not just my goals but all the things I want to do, such as: take a surfing lesson, learn Italian, visit Machu Picchu. I used a website www.bucketlist.org, but a piece of paper would work just as well.

Financial planning is just as much about understanding your buying and spending habits as it is about understanding how to manage cashflow and debt.

This year, I have discovered that I learn by doing, often the hard way. We recently bought my husband a new car. In the past we have traded our old car in to buy the new one but we always felt that we were losing too much. If we were to trade my husband’s current car in we would have been lucky to get $2,500, but we felt the car was worth $5,500, so we decided to sell it privately.