I keep thinking it's Saturday. In fact, it's Friday. (Well, it's actually Thursday for a great many people in the world, but we won't go into that.) I don't know why I keep thinking it's Saturday: perhaps it's because it's the first day this week when I haven't been committed to do something specific, something that takes up enough of the day to make it feel as though I'm actually busy. (I am, but we won't go into that either.)
Monday I accompanied Arnold Bachop at Les Cleveland's funeral, at First Church. I hadn't seen much of Les in recent years, but when I was younger we had a good deal to do with each other when he was singing in various shows I was involved in. His extraordinary buoyancy and delight in life was spoken of again and again, and when someone said that they heard him climbing up the steps into a plane and saying, And how are you, my fine friend, that old Cleveland vibrant bass came back to me instantly. I've been addressed as his fine friend on a number of occasions, as no doubt has half of Dunedin. What an extraordinary larger-than-life personality he was. How it makes you feel that your own funeral is going to be a bit of a non-affair!
Normally on Monday afternoon I'd have been working with the Choristers, a group of elderly ladies who sing and give the occasional concerts at old people's homes. But we had to cancel this week's practice because of the funeral.
Tuesday we went to see Social Welfare to sort out the money we've made in the last financial year over and above what we're allowed to earn on top of the pension. That was a bit stressful, even though we were pretty sure of the outcome. It didn't take up a great deal of the day; nevertheless, it used up a good deal of our emotional energy, I suspect.
Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday: in the evenings I've been rehearsing The Sunshine Boys, along with various members of the cast. Some scenes are going very well; one that was going well fell over on Thursday, for no accountable reason.
Wednesday I met up with one of the members of the church's youth group, for lunch, and then went on to do some data input for the church office, only to find that some of the input I'd put in last time had gone AWOL and had to be put back in, and that after I'd input the recent data, I was left with $2.00 out. Very annoying, and I couldn't solve it at the time. Will have to have another look.
Thursday, I played for Arnold again, and for Peter Chin, also an old friend, and up until fairly recently, the Mayor of Dunedin. (Oh, I walk in exalted circles, I can tell you.) This time we were at the Senior Citizens afternoon that's held (I think) once a week in South Dunedin. A pretty cold day, so most of the Senior Citizens wisely stayed home, and our audience was less than twenty. Never mind, it was a cheery concert and we all enjoyed ourselves.
And so to today, where the only thing I had to do was give one of my granddaughters a piano lesson. That wasn't until late this afternoon, so the rest of the day was free. I spent some time brushing up on my lines for the play, particularly the scene that had gone awry last night, and sending off three flash fiction stories to an NZ contest that closes at the end of the month (I'd written all three of them earlier in the month, but tidied them up today). Did some more Arabic with my wife, took the dog for a walk, and generally potted around. Or so it seemed. I kept feeling all day that there was something I should have been doing, but whatever it was it didn't eventuate.
Watched another episode of Trial and Retribution, a series Lynda La Plante initiated back in the late nineties. At that time there was only one episode a year, and they were great massive three-hour jobs, usually spread over two nights. The later episodes (the series finished in 2009, I think) got shorter, and had less detail in them, which was a pity. Only two of the original actors made it through the whole series: David Hayman and Dorian Lough. They played two of the detectives in the series.
The show originally featured a long police procedural section followed by a trial, in which sometimes all the police work was unravelled and the criminal got away. However, in the later episodes, the trial section vanished almost completely (there was no trial whatsoever in the one we watched today - Ghost Train - for instance). There have been two distinct features of the series: a split screen technique which will often throw different elements of the story together (apparenlty La Plante wasn't fussed about this idea), and a kind of dwelling on of the grotesque details of the person murdered. Not only do we often get a glimpse of the deceased in all their gory glory, but the director will hark back to this several times during the show, so that all the hard work the make-up people have put in will get its due worth. Some of what they do is too graphic to watch, we've found, and we just have to shut our eyes until they get onto the next part of the story. Apart from that element, and La Plante's typical modus operandi of preferring female victims to male ones, females who are often badly abused by the males, the series makes gripping watching. It's had a real run of wonderful British actors, and Hayman in particular has been a wonderful anchor for the show.
Just as a side issue for those who enjoy these things, the man who plays Miranda's boyfriend in the popular comedy series of the same name, Tom Ellis, was a murder victim in Season 11, which aired in February 2008. Seemed a bit odd killing of someone we like so much in a different setting...
Showing posts with label pension. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pension. Show all posts
Friday, May 24, 2013
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Superannuation
Yesterday there was a bit of flutter on Twitter about a pensioner in the Hutt Valley who was now being made to pay back his student loan - which he took out in 1999 for study - because the recent increase in the pension has meant he's crossed the threshold for repayments. He complained about this being unjust, and got called a 'cry baby' in some places, as well as being reviled on Twitter. I think the 'cry baby' post was perhaps a little over the top, but I guess that paying back the loan was always a possibility. (It's a very small amount, though see below.)
However, what I found unpleasant on Twitter - and on the site where he was called a cry-baby - were the sarcastic and aggressive comments of younger people who have yet to experience what it's like to live on a pension, and nothing but a pension. This is the pension where, if you're married, you actually get less each than if you're single. Yes, I know there are ways for two people to economise, but why should they be treated as some double act financially just because they're married?
This is the pension that has been paid for in advance by years of taxation. I worked for nearly fifty years. I paid tax throughout that time. I paid for that superannuation over the fifty years I worked. Younger people go on about how they're paying for superannuitants. No, they're not. Superannuitants have basically paid for their pensions through their tax, just as those now working are paying for their own future pension.
This is the pension that is about half of what I was earning before I retired. The figure I earned in my last three years of work was possibly the highest I'd ever received, and it wasn't anything like NZ's mean income. I'd often worked for incomes that were considerably less than that. Earning that kind of money makes it very hard to put anything away for your retirement, so in the end you're forced to rely on the superannuation.
I'm grateful for the pension, make no bones about it. However, what many younger people won't be aware of is this little catch. My wife isn't yet 65, but no longer has a job. Because I'm on a pension, thankfully she is able to receive a 'supplementary' pension. As a result, until she's reaches the age of 65, my superannuation figure goes down somewhat from the normal payment, and her payment equals mine. So we get less than many married pensioners. During the year she was able to pick up some work. However, between us, we're only able to earn $100 a week over and above our pensions - until she reaches 65. (The $100 a week, is of course, taxed, as is the pension itself - something many people don't think is the case, including Michael Laws.) The part-time, casual work she did in the last Work and Income year caused us to go over that threshold figure. Every dollar she earned over that $100 a week, is taxed at the end of the income year at 70%. This is not a typo. You have to make up your mind whether you think it's worth working and having some cash in hand, or whether it's not and thus avoiding the additional tax you incur (it's worked out at the end of the W&I year).
Perhaps I would at one time have thought superannuitants had it easy (although I was aware what my retired mother was receiving for many years, and it was never much). But in fact many superannuitants in the country are much worse off than we are, and we don't exactly consider ourselves flush for cash. So before you start criticising those over 65, think about what they may really be earning. Once they've paid for the essentials each week (if they can afford to do that) there's next to nothing left. Not much to show for years of giving your life to your country.
However, what I found unpleasant on Twitter - and on the site where he was called a cry-baby - were the sarcastic and aggressive comments of younger people who have yet to experience what it's like to live on a pension, and nothing but a pension. This is the pension where, if you're married, you actually get less each than if you're single. Yes, I know there are ways for two people to economise, but why should they be treated as some double act financially just because they're married?
This is the pension that has been paid for in advance by years of taxation. I worked for nearly fifty years. I paid tax throughout that time. I paid for that superannuation over the fifty years I worked. Younger people go on about how they're paying for superannuitants. No, they're not. Superannuitants have basically paid for their pensions through their tax, just as those now working are paying for their own future pension.
This is the pension that is about half of what I was earning before I retired. The figure I earned in my last three years of work was possibly the highest I'd ever received, and it wasn't anything like NZ's mean income. I'd often worked for incomes that were considerably less than that. Earning that kind of money makes it very hard to put anything away for your retirement, so in the end you're forced to rely on the superannuation.
I'm grateful for the pension, make no bones about it. However, what many younger people won't be aware of is this little catch. My wife isn't yet 65, but no longer has a job. Because I'm on a pension, thankfully she is able to receive a 'supplementary' pension. As a result, until she's reaches the age of 65, my superannuation figure goes down somewhat from the normal payment, and her payment equals mine. So we get less than many married pensioners. During the year she was able to pick up some work. However, between us, we're only able to earn $100 a week over and above our pensions - until she reaches 65. (The $100 a week, is of course, taxed, as is the pension itself - something many people don't think is the case, including Michael Laws.) The part-time, casual work she did in the last Work and Income year caused us to go over that threshold figure. Every dollar she earned over that $100 a week, is taxed at the end of the income year at 70%. This is not a typo. You have to make up your mind whether you think it's worth working and having some cash in hand, or whether it's not and thus avoiding the additional tax you incur (it's worked out at the end of the W&I year).
Perhaps I would at one time have thought superannuitants had it easy (although I was aware what my retired mother was receiving for many years, and it was never much). But in fact many superannuitants in the country are much worse off than we are, and we don't exactly consider ourselves flush for cash. So before you start criticising those over 65, think about what they may really be earning. Once they've paid for the essentials each week (if they can afford to do that) there's next to nothing left. Not much to show for years of giving your life to your country.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Gold and the IRA
At the end of February this year, my job comes to an end. I'd known about the possibility for a while, but my initial reaction was that I'd really like to carry on working, because I enjoy working.
I became eligible for the pension/superannuation in May last year, so I've been getting that as well as my wages (well, I've been getting the bit that the Inland Revenue will allow me to have once they've taxed it quite heavily as secondary income).
I've been on holiday since the day before Christmas Eve, 2010. And something dreadful has happened: I've begun to consider that maybe retirement isn't such a bad thing after all. Freed from that constant stricture of having to go to work and stay there until the hours are done, I'm feeling quite good about the possibility of not working at all. However the income aspect is a bit of a problem, and maybe part time work somewhere (without stress or responsibility!) would be useful, just to pay those nasty bills that turn up occasionally.
I came across the acronym, IRA, recently. It isn't related to that Irish group who went round shooting innocent people (and some not so innocent ones) but stands for Individual Retirement Account - or Arrangement, depending on who's telling you what it means.
Regrettably I don't have
much of an IR Arrangement...seldom having worked in a job where there was a pension attached, I'm having to rely on the Government to see me through (and they, money-grubbing people that they are, are even taking the tiddly bit of English pension I earned thirty plus years ago and using it to pay my pension here!) So I won't be taking up a gold IRA even though it sounds like a great idea...because the amount of gold I've got is pretty much limited to my own wedding ring and my English grandmother's one - and that looks like a very skinny curtain ring, anyway. Talking of rings, the phrase IRA gold has a nice ring of its own, but unless some currently unknown relative dies and leaves me some gold in their will, it's going to have to continue to ring without my appreciating the sound.
I don't know much about investing in gold (for the reasons stated above) but seemingly: Gold IRA accounts benefit from negative economic, political, environmental, or monetary conditions [that] contribute to a rising gold price. This is the reason gold has always been referred to as the “crisis commodity” and why investors are rolling their 401k and 401b's into Traditional gold IRA and Roth IRA gold accounts.
Does this mean anything to you? Plainly it means something to people who have gold to invest, so I checked out the Web and found out this: In the United States of America, a 401(k) retirement savings plan allows a worker to save for retirement and have the savings invested while deferring current income taxes on the saved money and earnings until withdrawal.
Sounds like a nifty plan, and I'd really like to be involved in a 401k gold plan in my imminent old age. Certainly appeals more than storing the gold I don't have under the bed. All I have to do (if I'm a gold holder, instead of a Gold Card holder - which I actually am) is do a gold IRA transfer.
Actually it's possible that the Irish IRA might well be interested in a gold IRA transfer....certainly more than a Gold Card transfer. Still, Gold Cards are not to be sneezed at. I travelled from Wellington to Paraparaumu on the train the other day - and back - for free because I'm a Gold Card holder. That was a Wow moment for me, really. So far my Gold Card has done nothing more than get me to and fro on the buses either at a discount (in peak hours) or free (in off peak). I'm not complaining, it's just that the train trip was the best bonus I've had in a while. Even getting into the movies with a Gold Card isn't much cop - you save all of six dollars....that's also pretty much Wow, but in a rather different mode.
Photo courtesy of IzaD KasmijaN
I became eligible for the pension/superannuation in May last year, so I've been getting that as well as my wages (well, I've been getting the bit that the Inland Revenue will allow me to have once they've taxed it quite heavily as secondary income).
I've been on holiday since the day before Christmas Eve, 2010. And something dreadful has happened: I've begun to consider that maybe retirement isn't such a bad thing after all. Freed from that constant stricture of having to go to work and stay there until the hours are done, I'm feeling quite good about the possibility of not working at all. However the income aspect is a bit of a problem, and maybe part time work somewhere (without stress or responsibility!) would be useful, just to pay those nasty bills that turn up occasionally.
I came across the acronym, IRA, recently. It isn't related to that Irish group who went round shooting innocent people (and some not so innocent ones) but stands for Individual Retirement Account - or Arrangement, depending on who's telling you what it means.
Regrettably I don't have
much of an IR Arrangement...seldom having worked in a job where there was a pension attached, I'm having to rely on the Government to see me through (and they, money-grubbing people that they are, are even taking the tiddly bit of English pension I earned thirty plus years ago and using it to pay my pension here!) So I won't be taking up a gold IRA even though it sounds like a great idea...because the amount of gold I've got is pretty much limited to my own wedding ring and my English grandmother's one - and that looks like a very skinny curtain ring, anyway. Talking of rings, the phrase IRA gold has a nice ring of its own, but unless some currently unknown relative dies and leaves me some gold in their will, it's going to have to continue to ring without my appreciating the sound.I don't know much about investing in gold (for the reasons stated above) but seemingly: Gold IRA accounts benefit from negative economic, political, environmental, or monetary conditions [that] contribute to a rising gold price. This is the reason gold has always been referred to as the “crisis commodity” and why investors are rolling their 401k and 401b's into Traditional gold IRA and Roth IRA gold accounts.
Does this mean anything to you? Plainly it means something to people who have gold to invest, so I checked out the Web and found out this: In the United States of America, a 401(k) retirement savings plan allows a worker to save for retirement and have the savings invested while deferring current income taxes on the saved money and earnings until withdrawal.
Sounds like a nifty plan, and I'd really like to be involved in a 401k gold plan in my imminent old age. Certainly appeals more than storing the gold I don't have under the bed. All I have to do (if I'm a gold holder, instead of a Gold Card holder - which I actually am) is do a gold IRA transfer.
Actually it's possible that the Irish IRA might well be interested in a gold IRA transfer....certainly more than a Gold Card transfer. Still, Gold Cards are not to be sneezed at. I travelled from Wellington to Paraparaumu on the train the other day - and back - for free because I'm a Gold Card holder. That was a Wow moment for me, really. So far my Gold Card has done nothing more than get me to and fro on the buses either at a discount (in peak hours) or free (in off peak). I'm not complaining, it's just that the train trip was the best bonus I've had in a while. Even getting into the movies with a Gold Card isn't much cop - you save all of six dollars....that's also pretty much Wow, but in a rather different mode.
Photo courtesy of IzaD KasmijaN
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)