How much capital do I need to retire comfortably on ?

[fungus pudding]

A bit unfair blaming the boomers I suppose, my reasoning for this though is that they are a large voting block and I don't think it is coincidental that free tertiary education ceased after the last boomer graduated ............

As previously pointed out, the numbers attending university a few years back were insignificant compared to today. It wasn't easy to get in. They are still massively subsidised, and do end up on very good incomes if they take the right courses or enter the right profession.

[Beagle]

As previously pointed out, the numbers attending university a few years back were insignificant compared to today. It wasn't easy to get in. They are still massively subsidised, and do end up on very good incomes if they take the right courses or enter the right profession.

It was very difficult indeed to get in and very difficult to fund you living costs. Course fees themselves were ostensibly free but textbooks and living costs most definitely were not. Many students in the 1970's and 1980's like myself had to work part time during the year and full time in the holidays. I worked ten hour days, six days a week on my uncle's 5,000 acre farm for ten weeks in a row in the so called (for me), summer holidays in my late teens down in Gore Southland while my mates were out dating girls and having fun... backbreaking work some of it to pay my way through Uni) Students had to fund substantial parts of their costs to support themselves through Uni. A few years after I graduated and was earning good income I was paying the top tax rate which was 66%, (that is not a typo Aaron). As you can see, very few things in life are truly free. I repaid the course costs of my uni education with 66% taxation rates and considered myself lucky to get into Auckland uni in the first place, (it wasn't luck, actually it was extremely hard work at school).

These days its open to so many more people and they'll pay you an allowance for your accommodation costs as well so the availability of tertiary education is vastly more accessible than it was for my generation. Almost anyone has access to tens of thousands of dollars of interest free loans on the never never which don't become repayable until you hit a certain income threshold and are then repaid at 12% on income earned above about $20K.
The maximum tax rate you can now pay is 33% on income over $70,000 plus the student loan repayment of 12% so your maximum personal tax rate is 45%...mine was 66%, some 21% more.

It is disingenuous to suggest the baby boomer generation got their education for free. Course costs were effectively a loan scheme under a different guise and repayment rates were far stiffer through punitive top taxation rates of 66%. People had no option but to work hard to pay for their living costs and textbook costs as there was no cushy government funding scheme for them.

Aaron, you haven't answered my question earlier today. How many years have you been paying into the N.Z. tax system ?

[Raz]

Really the point should be who has made net contributed to the society regardless how long you have paid tax. I understand the social contract with super the problem is we have had more net takers than givers into the system. Now the greatest takers do not want to change the system to make it sustainable they just want to take it way from the next generation.

As an example many farmers through development expenditure in the past have paid limited income tax and then cash up with tax free with capital gains. That is not to say farming is easy life.

I can site many sectors and examples.

Rodgers comments are real however ignore his generation of accountants had deregulation to gain from and the job opportunities have been immense for that generation. Less than ten years later opportunities radically decreased and that has become more acute for the current generation.

I am under no illusion it is so much tougher for the current generation. Our parents cared about future generations and now it up to us to make the difference. This forum seems tends to suggest we are more concerned about ourselves and there lies the problem.

[winner69]

Aaron - one of the buggest cost for boomers over the years has been supporting their children (the future generations and probably about your age)

Parents dutifully paid university fees. i've lost track of the number of cars i've 'financed' and even now Mum seems sorry for them when 'I need a new hot water cylinder' etc etc etc etc.

Suppose thats called 'child support' not funded by the state .......or in a round about sort of way my 'entitlement' helping out Gen X and Gen Y ......ironic eh

[Aaron]

Aaron - one of the buggest cost for boomers over the years has been supporting their children (the future generations and probably about your age)

Parents dutifully paid university fees. i've lost track of the number of cars i've 'financed' and even now Mum seems sorry for them when 'I need a new hot water cylinder' etc etc etc etc.

Suppose thats called 'child support' not funded by the state .......or in a round about sort of way my 'entitlement' helping out Gen X and Gen Y ......ironic eh

You must think I am young. I am only just behind the last boomer. maybe that's why I feel more cheated than the kids of today. I am supporting two kids through university currently. Your kids are luckly they have you as a parent and mine are lucky they have the support and backing of their parents. Many other smart kids will be put off furthering their education due to the cost if they don't have the support of their parents creating a class society where only kids from wealthy families go to university and own their own home. Not the NZ I grew up in and I think it is a shame.

[Aaron]

Aaron, you haven't answered my question earlier today. How many years have you been paying into the N.Z. tax system ?

Dear Roger
I haven't answered because I assumed we would end up comparing who has contributed more to society over the years.
Also comparing going to Uni back in your day to what kids today have to pay today is weak. Students have always had to work in the holidays and part-time I am not saying it was easy back in your day but compared to todays students you had a walk in the park.
Anyway I have made this an intergenerational argument whereas I was hoping more to highlight issues that affect all NZers and making suggestions where govt might improve things. I'm sorry if anyone feels like it is a personal attack. It is only my opinion.
The worst thing you can do is ignore my posts as I find that most frustrating.

[fungus pudding]

Dear Roger
I haven't answered because I assumed we would end up comparing who has contributed more to society over the years.
Also comparing going to Uni back in your day to what kids today have to pay today is weak. Students have always had to work in the holidays and part-time I am not saying it was easy back in your day but compared to todays students you had a walk in the park.
Anyway I have made this an intergenerational argument whereas I was hoping more to highlight issues that affect all NZers and making suggestions where govt might improve things. I'm sorry if anyone feels like it is a personal attack. It is only my opinion.
The worst thing you can do is ignore my posts as I find that most frustrating.

Well I can tell you a little of things in 'my day'. Had the opportunity to gain university entrance, which was then a requirement to go to varsity - but I simply couldn't afford it. So in 1965 began an apprenticeship with a govt. department. It was a five year term with no recognition of extra hours worked, so overtime didn't count. So this is the worst bit - as an apprentice I was paid 17 shillings and 6d per week. ($1.75) A pittance. Once my apprenticeship was completed I went straight onto the tradesmans' rate of $ 22 per week. (Decimal currency kicked in in 1967.) Sounds low but it good for its time. But as an apprentice we got less than 10% of a full wage. (wages rose rapidly after that with a burst of high inflation - I can remember in 1974 first getting a pay of $100 per week - big money) Admittedly that was the govt. and private employers paid much better and credited overtime off apprenticeship. The govt. had their own rules. The good that came out of it was it made me ambitious to do better. Just one little illustration of 'the good old days' and how 'easy' we had it.
By the time I had worked myself into a good financial position I had the 'privilege' of paying 66% tax. Wasn't I lucky!

[winner69]

NZ once had a Universal Family Benefit which gave Mum some money every week to spend on her kids

I was miffed when they stopped it for us 6 weeks after our 1st child .......paid into something they called social security tax surcharge for no return.

[Beagle]

Dear Roger
I haven't answered because I assumed we would end up comparing who has contributed more to society over the years.
Also comparing going to Uni back in your day to what kids today have to pay today is weak. Students have always had to work in the holidays and part-time I am not saying it was easy back in your day but compared to todays students you had a walk in the park.
Anyway I have made this an intergenerational argument whereas I was hoping more to highlight issues that affect all NZers and making suggestions where govt might improve things. I'm sorry if anyone feels like it is a personal attack. It is only my opinion.
The worst thing you can do is ignore my posts as I find that most frustrating.

I don't think its a weak argument at all. Kids now have ready access to Uni and interest free loans that go on forever. Plenty of people cruising from one Uni course to another and simply don't care about the interest free debt they're racking up as they have no intention of repaying it... Others accept that with the 12% repayment rate their top personal tax rate will effectively be 45%, a lot lower than the 66% I was paying.
The point is in my day there was no student loan scheme. NO ability to borrow money whatsoever. I can remember being so poor I broke down crying because I couldn't afford a replacement set of brake pads for my $500 scooter to get to Uni ($8 was the cost, I simply didn't have it). You never forget things like that. Here's another good point. I was fortunate to have the support of my parents. They could only afford to support one of us through Uni. My three brothers missed out. These days parents wouldn't need to make harsh decisions like that about selecting only one of their brightest, all could afford to go because of the student loan scheme. You maintain the current generation are hard done by. My example suggests the complete opposite. The current generation have opportunities previous generations did not. Try telling my three brothers who couldn't afford to go to Uni that baby boomers were the blessed generation !

Anyway Aaron with the education debate we are digressing a long way off on a tangent to the central theme of this thread I started. May I suggestwe get back to the topic clearly stated in the thread title. I think the answer for someone who wants to live a modest but comfortable lifestyle, has a debt free home and is collecting the superannuation which they're entitled to collect because they've paid tax all their lives is $1m. Obviously if one wants to travel overseas regularly in retirement, drive fine European automobiles and own a fancy launch they'll need plenty more.

[Beagle]

Well I can tell you a little of things in 'my day'. Had the opportunity to gain university entrance, which was then a requirement to go to varsity - but I simply couldn't afford it. So in 1965 began an apprenticeship with a govt. department. It was a five year term with no recognition of extra hours worked, so overtime didn't count. So this is the worst bit - as an apprentice I was paid 17 shillings and 6d per week. ($1.75) A pittance. Once my apprenticeship was completed I went straight onto the tradesmans' rate of $ 22 per week. (Decimal currency kicked in in 1967.) Sounds low but it good for its time. But as an apprentice we got less than 10% of a full wage. Admittedly that was the govt. and private employers paid much better and credited overtime off apprenticeship. The govt. had their own rules. The good that came out of it was it made me ambitious to do better. Just one little illustration of 'the good old days' and how 'easy' we had it.
By the time I had worked myself into a good financial position I had the 'privilege' of paying 66% tax. Wasn't I lucky!

This is something the current generation simply don't understand and take the gift of many many years of interest free loans for granted and then still bleat that they have to repay the money ! Opps, digressing from the central theme of the thread again