Sharmaine Francois, Asst. Manager
A relatively well attended seminar which featured Assistant General Manager of the Bank of Montserrat, Mrs Sharmaine Francois, dealved into ‘The Importance of Retirement Planning’.
The Bank of Montserrat Ltd. Seminar which also featured Mr. Kenneth Scotland, Director of the Montserrat Social Security, was held at the Brades Arts and Education Centre on Tuesday, August 11, 2015.
Kenneth Scotland, Social Security Board Manager
Retirement is an extension of living, Francois noted in her presentation asking some questions of her audience.
- When was the last time you thought about what you might be doing in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years or even 40 years?
- How many of us have really started to plan our strategy for how you will make this happen?
- How many of us depend on our Social Security pension to sustain our current standard of living?
How many of us believe we have adequately plan or planning for retirement?
She told them, “Increasing life expectancy, and that’s one of the reasons why we need to plan because people are living longer, protection for spouse and dependent; we need to be thinking of that; falling interest rates, increasing cost of health.”
“At retirement 65 upwards is when the health may call for a lot more attention and there is a cost that comes with that. Protect post retirement life style, and that is why one of the critical reasons why we need to plan,” she said.
She also encouraged, “What we do not want is pre-retirement where you’re able to live comfortably, our standard or living of over $4000 and post-retirement we cannot afford that 4000 living standard, we have to step it down to $2000. So that is something, one of the reasons why we must plan. Future goals like children education, buying house etc. all of those are part of the whole process in terms of why the need for planning.”
Mrs. Francois also gave thoughts as to, asking: “Why women are more concern about retirement?”
In the presentations they addressed such matters: Retirement planning involves setting aside enough money during one’s working years to provide income during retirement.
Retirement planning is about more than investing and saving. It’s also about enjoying your life after you decide to retire from your career or job.
In his brief presentation the Social Security managing director Scotland while echoing earlier statements by the Asst. Manager said that financial planners advise against planning to live solely from Social Security pensions, while the reality is, Social Security pension is often the only source of income many people have in retirement. He offered some advice on what the retirement income should be when compared to the pre-retirement income.
“As a guideline when entering into retirement one should ensure that their retirement income is at least 80% of their pre-retirement income,” he said.
The Director told the guests, “In other words, if you are earning a salary of $4000 now before retirement. You should be having a package or looking to achieve a package of at least $3200 per month. I am purposely saying retirement income as opposed to pension and the reason for that is that there is no one pension that would allow you to get an 80% retirement package that you are looking for. So, then you will need one, two, three, four pensions or something else to amend those pensions.”
Michael Joseph Manager
Manager of the bank, Michael Joseph chaired the presentations, using the opportunity to encourage attendees to ‘Start building your Retirement Nest Egg’, by open an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). A young bank staffer Miss Amivi Bledze
Amivi Bledze
gave a vote of thanks of behalf of the bank, followed by light refreshments.
Attendees at the end suggested they should hold more such events to inform and educate their customers.
