Due to the current global economic crisis the subject of pensions and savings on a whole, have been in and out of the media on a consistent basis, and with the talks of inflation and whether the Bank of England is going to increase interest rates again and the consequences of that, the consensus is that the idea and structure of a pension and with it the signification of retirement is no longer viable in the 21^st Century.

What is a pension?

A pension is a form of long term saving to provide individuals with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income after employment; otherwise known as retirement.

Here in the UK, pensions first came into existence in 1670 for Royal Navy Officiers but it was in 1946 that the National Insurance Act, or pensions as we know it, was introduced providing a State pension for all, with payments being received from age 65 for men and 60 for women, effective from 1948.

At that time the life expectancy of individuals were low, unlike now in 21^st century people are living longer due to the various advancements in medical technology and other factors.

The pension is nearly 62 years old, and like most things man-made, i.e fait currencies, it has an expiry date, and that date seems to be just around the corner for many here in the UK and other parts of the world.

Why the pension crisis?

The main problem is that the pension model is broken.  Open any newspaper, online article on pensions to see this.  There are not enough people, especially young people paying into the system in which they will not actually benefit from. Governments have purged it. In addition to that there is the stigma of saving for a pension that you may not get out what you put, as has happened to a number of individuals over the years.  The received to many individuals have lost a lot of money from bad investments and scams; such as the Robert Maxwell pension scam and Equitable life.

Ultimately, we are not saving for our retirement due to a number of factors including the rising cost of living (via inflation), cost of education, and the fact we live in a time of ‘buy today’ rather than ‘Save and Spend’.

SIPPS

SIPPS is an alternative to the traditional pension schemes we generally think of.  It stands for Self-Invested Personal Pensions, and are not for everyone. If it is however for you, then you should, of course, and with everything do concerning your finances, carry out own due diligence by comparing and investigating what is best for you and your money; as well as get financial advice – FREE financial advice – which you can do so with Life UK Financial.

Below is a video on SIPPS from LoveMoney.com

As you can see one of the most interesting and attractive things about a SIPPS is its flexibility it gives to use different vehicles to fund it, including property and gold.

I am sure most are aware of the growing popularity of gold and how it is a store of value against growing inflation, however just to clarify not all Gold  can be SIPPS related. The government rules that gold you buy must be of a specific kind. The formal definition of what is required is “gold of a purity not less than 995 thousandths that is in the form of a bar, or a wafer, of a weight accepted by the bullion markets”. You cannot buy – for example – sovereigns.

‘Good Delivery Bars’ are the type of bars accepted by the bullion markets. The standard is a 400 oz bar of at least 99.5% purity.  The fine (pure) gold content of these bars is the standard unit of account of the bullion markets, so if you own 100 grams of gold you own 100 grams of pure gold, which is a bit more than 100 grams of the actual bar.

An alternative to this is to purchase a Gold saving/purchase plan, which you can do with KB Gold. Their gold is 999.9 24k gold bullion kinebars in various sizes (0.5grams to 5 grams) which you can buy on a monthly basis starting from €50 a month.

There are currently so many adverts prompting you to sell your gold, but I say buy gold! There is a reason why it is going up and will continue to go up! Get financially savvy about this and don’t allow preconceived ideas about gold and the sort of people who buy gold, to stop you from enquiring about how acquire it for yourself and family. You can do this cost effectively, even on a tight budget!

To attend a webinar on KB Gold and find out how it’s simple and cost effective purchasing plan can benefit your long term and short term savings plan please go to http://my.dimdim.com/goldfromkb.com/ tonight at 8pm GMT for our weekly webinar.

Alternatively, if property is your thing, then have a look at Platinum Investment Property Ltd, whom I mentioned in my property blog post last month. They are also holding a webinar tonight at 7pm GMT at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/937753827. If you would like to attend this instead of the gold webinar, then no worries, at it ends at 8pm. Not only that but you can review a pre-recorded webinar on KB Gold by clicking here.

To end, Robert Kiyosaki, author of the No.1 bestselling personal finance book of all time ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ has been predicting this economic and thus, pension crisis for many years with many pouring scorn on his thoughts and opinions. He says the old ways of doing things, going to school, getting a job and retiring with a good pension is now obsolete! And that is one keeps doing it the old way they will be financially wiped out, which is what we are seeing up and down the land, especially to the middle class’.

“Without Financial Education, your money flows to those who profit most from your financial ignorance.’ Robert Kiyosaki.

This is why financial education is so important to ALL of us and MUST become a part of our daily intake knowledge,

To your success,

Butterfly Wealth Creation

P.S. I will be speaking at the ‘Develop Your Wealth Creation Mindset’ event at the South Bank University on Wednesday 9^th March. Please click here for further details and I hope to see you there!

Also, the deadline for the Club Asteria membership offer closes this Sunday 31^st January. Click here for details.