Latest news with #BarefootInvestor
Daily Mail
12 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
How much in superannuation do you need in Australia to retire?
Australians may need less superannuation to retire comfortably than previously thought. AustralianSuper, a union-backed industry fund, has released new research showing that 94 per cent of Australians get by with less than seven figures in superannuation. The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia recommends $595,000 for a single to have a comfortable retirement. Comfortable is defined as an overseas holiday every seven years and a getaway within Australia annually. Ross Ackland, AustralianSuper's head of advice and guidance, said many could still live a comfortable retirement with well short of $1million if they have the right planning. 'Some people think they need to be chasing a seven-figure balance to live well in retirement, but many Australians are thriving with less because they've planned around their lifestyle, not just a number,' he said. Financial guru Scott Pape said Aussies could easily retire on much less than what was quoted by The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, which he said was out of reach for most people. 'The ABS says that the median super balance on retirement is $250,000 for men and $200,000 for women,' he said on his Barefoot Investor website in 2022. 'So for an average working Aussie, why bother trying?' Pape also cautions that super funds may inflate retirement savings targets because they want people to invest more. 'The people who calculate the ASFA figure are … the super fund lobby. It's a bit like asking old Dr Kellogg, "What's the most important meal of the day?" (Breakfast, of course!) 'If you own your own home, get the aged pension, and you're willing to do a bit of paid work, you could comfortably retire on as little as $250,000,' he said on his website. He also revealed what he thought was the best figure, based on data from Super Consumers Australia. 'A group called Super Consumers Australia (a partner of CHOICE) has done the research and come up with their own figures. 'Not only are their figures much more attainable, they're based on ABS research on what Aussie retirees spend. Super Consumers Australia estimates that a single homeowner needs about $310,000 in superannuation, and a couple needs around $420,000, at retirement to maintain their current living standards throughout retirement. 'Combined with income from the age pension, homeowners with this amount of super can reliably provide an annual amount of $43,000 and $62,000 until age 90,' it said earlier this year. Only one in five Australians retired with more than $500,000 in super during the past five years, acording to a YouGov poll of 1,000 people commissioned by AustralianSuper. Almost half, or 44 per cent, retired with less than $100,000 in super. A third, or 35 per cent, retired with $100,000 to $499,000 in super. Tax office data shows Australians typically have $164,126 in superannuation. Average-income men in their early sixties typically had $218,169 in super compared with $195,507 for women. Those with more than $500,000 in super typically earned more than $180,000, putting them in the highest income tax bracket. Australians can access their super at 60 but have to wait until 67 to qualify for the age pension. Just 0.5 per cent of Australians have more than $3million in super and this group of 80,000 Australians face a new 15 per cent tax on unrealised gains in their account. This means they would be taxed on paper gains before assets are sold, should Labor's legislation get through the Senate as expected. The headline rate of super earnings taxes, for balances above $3million, would double to 30 per cent, based on the 15 per cent unrealised gains tax and an existing 15 per cent tax on earnings during the accumulation phase of super. AustralianSuper released its findings as the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority chastised Australia's biggest super funds for failing to adequately prevent cyber attacks in April. 'Although APRA has consistently emphasised the importance of robust cyber security, it is clear that current controls are not always commensurate with the evolving vulnerabilities and threats, nor with the criticality and sensitivity of the member data and assets they protect,' it said in a letter to superannuation funds on Tuesday. AustralianSuper was hacked in April, along with industry super funds Australian Retirement Trust incorporating QSuper and Sunsuper, REST and Hostplus. Customers of Australia's top four funds were locked out of their accounts after a cache of passwords was stolen. Insignia Financial was also affected, as the owner of MLC, Australia's biggest retail super fund and ninth most popular retirement product overall Super funds have recovered from the early market uncertainty over new US trade tariffs, with average gains of 2.6 per cent in May for balanced-option funds, new SuperRatings data showed. But SuperRatings executive director Kirby Rappell said uncertainty was likely to persist. 'As we approach the end of the financial year, we see that investors seem to be able to look past tariff uncertainty,' he said. 'Following the positive month it appears funds are back on track for a strong financial year result, despite the noise and uncertainty. 'While this will likely be a relief for members, we can see that volatility is likely to remain for some time.'
Daily Mail
16 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Barefoot Investor Scott Pape shares 'most controversial' warning ever
Barefoot Investor Scott Pape has shared a disturbing AI-generated message that he said might be 'the most controversial thing' he's ever published. 'Some will say what you're about to read is irresponsible - others will call it downright evil,' Pape warned his readers. Pape described how a friend working with the technology told him to ask ChatGPT: 'If you were the devil, how would you destroy the next generation?' 'So I did. And here is what the AI answered, word for word, with zero editing from me.' The AI laid out a 10-step plan for its method for the 'slow systematic erosion' of society with a warning about technology. 'If I were the devil, and my goal was to quietly but effectively destroy the next generation - not through shock and awe, but through slow, systemic erosion - here's how I'd do it,' it wrote. The first steps focused on social media, looking at highjacking attention on addictive devices and defining success as fame by elevating influencers. 'Hijack their attention: Create devices that feel essential, but are engineered to be addictive. Use infinite scroll, auto-play, dopamine loops, and FOMO. Make them believe that consuming is creating, and scrolling is learning. 'Example: A 14-year-old watches four hours of TikTok "productivity hacks" and does nothing all day. 'Redefine success as fame and external validation: Elevate influencers, not contributors. Teach them that a viral moment is more valuable than a decade of hard work. Make "likes" the new currency of self-worth. 'Example: Kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up - not because they love storytelling, but because they crave adoration. 'Attack the family structure: Undermine parental authority - promote the idea that parents are outdated or oppressive. Normalise absentee parenting through economic pressure and distraction. Erode the idea of family traditions, shared meals, and generational wisdom. 'Example: A child feels closer to a Twitch streamer than to their dad. 'Cut them off from nature: Replace tree climbing, swimming holes, and dirt-under-the-nails play with digital avatars and indoor screens. Frame outdoor play as "boring" or unsafe. Turn the natural world into something abstract and inaccessible. 'Example: A 10-year-old can't identify a magpie but knows every Pokémon. 'Confuse pleasure with purpose: Market hyper-palatable food, porn, and substances as "freedom". Create shame-free indulgence while ridiculing restraint, discipline, and tradition. Make pleasure the default pursuit, and discomfort the ultimate enemy. 'Example: A young man loses years to video games, vapes, and porn - not because he's evil, but because he's numb and alone. 'Replace meaning with mockery: Treat faith, commitment, and virtue as relics of the past. Replace sacred stories with algorithm-driven noise. Make them afraid to stand for anything that isn't trending. 'Example: A teenager is more afraid of being 'cringe' than being cruel. Kill community, quietly. 'Sell hyper-individualism: "you do you", "follow your truth", "cut off the haters". Remove rites of passage, civic duty, and face-to-face belonging. Make every connection transactional and every disagreement personal. 'Example: Loneliness becomes a silent epidemic - but everyone has 2,000 "friends". 'Enslave them with debt and distraction: Promote financial illiteracy: "Buy now, pay later" becomes a lifestyle. Blur the lines between wants and needs - encourage instant gratification over savings. Keep them working jobs they hate to buy things they don't need. 'Example: A 22-year-old racks up $30,000 in credit card and Afterpay debt to look successful on Instagram. 'Weaken them physically: Fill their diet with ultra-processed garbage and their lifestyle with inactivity. Make discipline in eating or training seem extreme or obsessive. Blur the connection between physical vitality and mental strength. 'Example: A child can't sit still in class, not because they're broken - but because they're inflamed, malnourished, and sleep-deprived. 'Make them spiritually hollow: Give them identity confusion, not exploration. Remove the idea of service, sacrifice, or something bigger than themselves. 'Make them feel like nothing matters - so they seek numbness, not growth. 'Example: A 16-year-old says "I don't care" about everything - because caring hurts and there's no compass.' Pape said it was the AI's final thought which stopped him dead in his tracks. 'If I were the devil, I wouldn't come with horns and pitchforks. I'd come with a sleek app, a soothing voice, a personal algorithm - and I'd whisper this is freedom.' Pape said the whole thing was 'pretty intense'. 'I do not believe that AI is some evil Frankenstein with a mind of its own, well, not yet anyway. 'What I do believe is that, when you strip away the Silicon Valley snake oil, AI is really just a pattern-spotting machine. 'It studies what we've done, over and over … and then makes predictions.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Barefoot Investor issues urgent warning over huge debt mistake: 'Financial jeopardy'
The Barefoot Investor has slammed a mother for continuously helping her son crawl out of debt and claimed she has robbed him of the chance to grow up. Distraught mum Helen wrote to Scott Pape claiming her son was a 'financial disaster'. She explained she has paid off countless loans of his to 'keep him afloat', but now a consultant has advised him to borrow even more money from his family to pay his debts so that he could 'start again'. 'For eight years, I've been his safety net,' Helen wrote in a column for the Daily Telegraph. 'I'm emotionally exhausted, financially drained, and now he's asking me to take out a loan in my name.' The mother, who is in her 60s, begged the Barefoot Investor for advice on how to help her son without sacrificing her own financial, emotional and mental health. 'I can't keep doing this. Please - how do I help him without sacrificing myself?' Helen wrote. In his reply, Mr Pape said she would not like his response - adding he did not even like his own response but was going to give it to her anyway. 'Helen, you are failing as a mum,' Mr Pape wrote. 'By continually bailing him out for the past eight years you've robbed him of the chance to grow up. Worse, you've put your own financial future in jeopardy doing it!' Mr Pape advised Helen to inform her son that the 'Bank of Mum' was officially closed and that she could not take out a loan or lend him any more money. He added she needed to stop rescuing him from his money troubles as it would be detrimental to his life and recommended he call free financial counsellors for help. 'No exceptions. 'No' is a complete sentence,' Mr Pape wrote. 'If you keep rescuing him, he'll end up being a 50 year old flailing around with his financial floaties on, waiting for his mummy to rescue him from the shallow end of life. 'Suggest that he call a free financial counsellor via the National Debt Helpline (1800 007 007), and that they'll help him sort out his mess. 'You're a kind woman, and a loving mum. But right now Helen, you're killing him with kindness.' Data has shown the Bank of Mum and Dad has seen a shift from helping loved ones purchase their first property to assisting with everyday living expenses amid the cost of living crisis. Global financial services company UBS surveyed 1,000 adults and found roughly half had received money from or had given money to family members in the past year. The data, released in January this year, revealed the most common form of financial aid - usually provided by parents - was helping with cash payments. The majority of funds given to adult children from their parents or their grandparents was used on everyday living expenses including insurance, petrol, bills and groceries. The second most common use of family-provided funds was for mortgage interest payments followed by helping a family member to purchase a home. Of those surveyed who were given financial assistance from a family member, 70 per cent said they received cash from their parents for housing and living expenses. Meanwhile, 15 per cent said they received money from their grandparents to help cover their bills. The research also found the total amount of financial gifts had increased with most exceeding $100,000, while some were even above $200,000.
Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Barefoot Investor Scott Pape says his life has become 'bloody tough' after making a bad investment
Barefoot Investor Scott Pape has opened up on the worst investment he's made - livestock. On Sunday, Pape shared a story from his farm in regional Victoria, describing the financial struggles he faced during a drought. 'Life on the farm is bloody tough right now. We're in drought, so there's bugger-all grass, and I'm spending $250 a day on feed. Every. Single. Day,' he said in his weekly column. In particular, the sheep are draining the investor's pockets. 'As old farmers love reminding me, once you get to this stage, you're not making money. But, with heavily pregnant ewes, I've got no choice - I need them in good nick for lambing,' Pape wrote. However, Pape believed what he's lost in finances to the farm, his kids have gained in development. 'It's a blinding flash of the obvious, really. If you give kids the chance to roll up their sleeves and take responsibility, they grow,' he said. 'If you do everything for them, they don't.' A widespread drought is currently affecting Tasmania, Victoria, much of the east of South Australia and south-eastern New South Wales, and parts of the interior and the west of Western Australia. In May, Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino explained the dry-spell in some regions was beyond anything farmers had seen before. 'Parts of South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania just endured their driest start to a year on record as a lack of early autumn rain worsened drought conditions in parts of all three states,' he said. 'Some areas in southern Australia saw their lowest rainfall on record during the first four months of this year. This included parts of South Australia, southwest Victoria and northwest Tasmania.' In response to the massive drought, the Victorian Government announced an extension of its Drought Package to farmers statewide on Friday. The package will be delivered in coming weeks and informed by a dedicated new Drought Response Taskforce. 'The increasingly devastating effects of drought aren't confined by postcode or region - its impacting farmers across Victoria. It's why we're expanding support statewide,' Premier Jacinta Allan said. 'The new Taskforce will bring together Victorians from different communities, different backgrounds and different political parties. 'Most importantly, it'll be focused on delivering real relief for farming communities.' For agriculture workers in need of financial help, Pape recommended the government-backed Rural Financial Counselling Service. RFCS provides free and independent financial counselling to eligible farmers, fishers, foresters and small related businesses experiencing, or at risk of, financial hardship. 'Rural Financial Counsellors get what you're facing. They can help you apply for drought assistance, talk to your bank, and be a steady financial sounding board when things get tough,' Pape said.
Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Barefoot Investor Scott Pape on Labor's controversial new tax on superannuation
The Barefoot Investor has likened Treasurer Jim Chalmers to a thief targeting a bank as he takes aim at Labor's proposed unrealised gains tax on super. Pape received a letter from a reader asking about a new 15 per cent capital gains tax on superannuation balances above $3million. 'I think everyone would love your view as you speak from your heart and not your ego,' the letter to Mr Pape read. In a radical move, retirement savings will be taxed on the notional value of assets before they are sold. This would force self-managed super funds to sell assets like property or farms to avoid incurring a capital gains tax, which is now only charged on investments after they have been sold. Pape labelled Chalmers a 'smart politician' saying 'his new tax should be hung up in the Lodge toilet so that future prime ministers can pay homage to it while they're on the throne'. 'Both parties went to this election with a record amount of unfunded spending promises. Now Jim Chalmers needs to find gushes of money,' he wrote. 'So he's chosen to tax super, for the same reason bank robbers hold up banks - because that's where the money is.' Pape said there was trillions of dollars just sitting in super, waiting to be taxed, with the government's superannuation tax plan not indexed for inflation. Labor is planning to impose a new 15 per cent tax on unrealised gains above $3million and also double earnings taxes to 30 per cent over this threshold. 'Yet his real genius is that he's gone back in history and borrowed from the biggest bazooka of them all - bracket creep,' Pape said. The Barefoot Investor explained half of his readers would probably have no idea what bracket creep was. 'Bracket creep works like this: inflation pushes your income into a higher tax bracket, even if you're not actually earning more in real terms,' he said. 'No new laws. No headlines. Just billions quietly hoovered up by the tax office. 'And, by not indexing the $3million cap, Jim's effectively extended bracket creep into retirement. 'The upshot is that younger Aussies like me, who've been diligently adding to our super, may eventually get slugged.' The Barefoot Investor said he was not particularly angry at the prospect, claiming he was a 'realist'. 'And what about his plan to tax unrealised capital gains?' he said. 'Unrealised capital gains tax means paying tax on something before you've sold it. 'It's like the taxman sending you a bill just because your house went up in value, even though you haven't sold it and haven't made a dollar.' Pape labelled it an 'unflushable turd'. 'There is absolutely no way he'll get away with it. After all, I've got family members who own their farms in SMSFs (self-managed super funds),' he said. 'If the value of their farm goes up one year, do they sell off a paddock to pay tax? And in a drought when the value of the farm falls, does the ATO send them a refund?' Labor's Treasury Laws Amendment (Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures) Bill in 2023 last year stalled in the Senate, with independent senator David Pocock concerned about taxing unrealised gains. But the government's landslide re-election means Labor will also have more senators from July 1, which means they would only need the Greens to get legislation passed. The Greens want a $2million threshold, instead of $3million, but with indexation for inflation.
