Retirement Plan for those wishing to look at Do It Yourself Funds...

"Find out the big mistakes people make in their retirement plan and how you aviod them...

How People in the know are quietly setting themselves up to retire rich and how you can do the same...

Dear Friend,

With your permission, I'd like to take you behind the scenes and show you how a few well-informed People are setting themselves up to be rich when they retire. I'll take you past the pitfalls these people have been able to avoid, and then show you the bright retirement futures they've organised for themselves.

In this guide, I'm going to explain exactly how you can use a little-known but straightforward plan to make sure your retirement will be secure and full of choices for you, not a long misery in near poverty. The plan is responsible for some of the proudest retirement success stories you've ever heard.

It doesn't matter if you're just starting your working life, or if you're close to the end of it. It doesn't matter if you are Mr Average on an average wage, or you're in a top-paying position (that nevertheless isn't setting you up well for retirement). You'll learn exactly what this well-tested plan involves and precisely how to do it. It isn't what most people have passively settled for in retirement, it's fully explained in this report, and it is yours free.

This isn't theory and it isn't exaggeration. What I'm about to share with you comes from 18 months of hard research and information from behind the scenes. I applied my research first in a practical way to my own case, then to other cases I've helped with.

My name is George Slater. Before I tell you about my own success in setting myself up to retire rich let one of my clients say what he thinks of what you are about to read...

Is it really possible even for fairly ordinary Peoples to retire rich?

Absolutely!

The people who've been the most successful in planning for retirement - measured by the dollars they've saved in their funds - have a DIY Retirment Fund. On average each of these funds has $400,000 in it with an average per person of $230,000. (You can have up to four people in each fund, who can share the costs.) Compare that to the projected average in a government fund of only $39,000!

So the people who direct their own funds are doing a lot better than the ones who let others make the main decisions or who just assume the government will take care of them.

Let's take a look at a few success stories, beginning with my own...

1. I started with $16,000 in my DIY Retirment Fund in July 2000 and now have $250,000 - and it's growing fast.

When it dawned on me that my second-biggest investment, my DIY Retirment Fund, was controlled by somebody else, who I hadn't even met, and that they were charging me a hefty fee, whether or not they made me any money, I decided that it was definitely time to take control.

I started with a lot of research. That cost money and time. Then I worked out a plan and acted. I set up a certain kind of self-managed fund, paid the maximum allowable in salary sacrifice, consolidated my money from other schemes into that, rolled in a small redundancy package. In a fairly short time, I went from $16,000 in my retirement to over $250,000.

I've also insured my family against the worst, joint-ventured with myself for long-term profit, leveraged with warrants for growth, ridden what I hope is the end of a downward international swing by use of cash and invested in a number of solid-performing stocks. (Outside of the fund, I've managed to pay off my mortgage, invested in other stock and property, and got back over 85% of my PAYG tax.)

2. A married couple, partners in their family business, started with rollover facilities from their previous employers of $60,000 each. They were each putting $4000 a year into their existing DIY Retirment Fund, but weren't happy with its performance.

They set up a DIY Retirment Fund, rolled their existing retirement assets into that and redirected other contributions into it. They then used the fund to purchase their factory and leased the factory back into the business. Over 20 years, they built the assets in their fund to $950,000. The factory is still owned by the fund, as well as a range of shares, property, specialist trusts, and cash at fixed interest. They are in complete control and can decide to keep letting the assets build until they are 65, or one of them may take a lump-sum payment while the other starts a pension. Flexible, tax-effective, and under their control.

3. Harry was in his early 40s. He left an employer, with a rollover of about $200,000. Harry liked the idea of being able to control those funds himself - but how?

He asked his usual financial adviser, then asked other advisers. He kept probing. At last, one adviser suggested something that seemed spot-on: set up a self-managed fund. Which is what Harry did.

Harry knew a bit about People shares, and decided that his self-managed fund would invest in them. He got some extra share-market advice, invested in People shares and has been able to get returns of about 15% a year. (In the same period, most retail DIY Retirment Funds went nowhere or lost money.)

Harry's wife joined the new DIY Retirment Fund too. But she only has about $5000 in it. She is a non-working spouse, but she did have some superannuation money accumulated from casual work. By joining Harry's fund as a separate member, she avoids high charges and gains control.

4. Mal retired in his early 50s from the public service, with a rollover of about $550,000. He made a quick decision to roll the money into a large retail fund. That cost him a great deal in fees, and the fund didn't perform well. He wanted to get out of it and into something better.

Even though the retail fund had no visible entry charge, it was a deferred entry fund that loaded in back-end management fees. It meant Mal had effectively been charged about $20,000. Worse, the fund's rules didn't let him move his money to another fund for five years - not without penalties.

After 14 exasperating months, Mal grew so irate about the fund's sagging results and their grudging service that he started looking for a way out.

He got advice and was startled to hear that if he set up a self-managed fund, he'd have full control. He hadn't realised that was possible. What's more, the setup cost would only be about $2000, instead of the $20,000 he'd paid to get into the retail fund.

His independent advisers had a look at the rules that locked his $550,000 in the retail fund, and they planned an escape tunnel. Mal could take money out without penalty, if he did it slowly during the next four years. That's what he started doing.

He now has about 50% of his money in his own self-managed fund. He was able to put that into more diversified investments (such as instalment warrants) and therefore invest this half of his retirement money much more profitably.

His wife also rolled her smaller DIY Retirment Fund of about $10,000 into Mal's self-managed fund. That saved her fees and gave her control, as a separate member.

5. Martin emigrated from the UK to Australia six years ago, in his early 40s. He left behind about $350,000 tied up in UK DIY Retirment Funds. When he tried to roll that money into People DIY Retirment Funds, the retail funds here weren't able to help him. But he refused to give up.

Most of Martin's UK money was in a guaranteed minimum-pension fund. That fund wouldn't release the money to an People fund unless the People fund would make exactly the same minimum-pension guarantee. But People retail funds weren't willing to do that.

Martin solved this by setting up a self-managed fund. All his retirement money, including the $350,000 from the UK, is now entirely under his control, in one self-managed People fund.

His wife had about $20,000 in UK retirement, and that money has been transferred into her part of the self-managed fund.

6. Paul was in his early 50s, when he was made redundant by a large People company. He had about $500,000 in a DIY Retirment Fund, and wanted to roll it over into something more interesting than a standard retail fund.

Paul didn't have much financial experience, so he didn't want to make day-to-day decisions about the investments in his retirement. On the other hand, he didn't look forward to more years of boring superfund reports that told him his funds had gone up a little or down a little.

He found out - almost by chance - about self-managed funds. He felt like slapping his forehead. It was perfect! He'd feel in control, he could decide on a broad direction for the investments, and learned there were also opportunities to minimise tax.

Paul had the fund set up, and he's happy. It's much more diversified than a retail fund, and he has saved some tax. His wife is a member as well, but she doesn't have much in the fund because her employer doesn't give her a choice of funds.

Please keep in mind... these cases are all about sensible, hard-working people - but they're not financial geniuses. What sets them apart? First, they were lucky or persistent enough to find out how to do these things. Second, they had enough drive to see it all through. Most did it the hard way, like I did: painstakingly finding out things, checking it all out with their advisers, planning the steps, then carrying them out.

The bright news is that you can apply the same plan that these successes used, and maybe rise to even greater success, but without the grinding research and long months.

But you'd be normal to wonder....

Is it possible for anyone at all to use this plan to retire rich?

No! Here are three tests:

1. Are you an active sort of person, able to take control of a project?

2. Are you comfortable following step-by-step procedures?

3. Do you want to retire rich, with all the options and security that brings? (Some people really don't want that. They're happy to live close to poverty, hoping they'll stay healthy, and entertain themselves reading library books.)

The facts certainly show that most people won't retire rich, or even in very comfortable circumstances.

"The present cohort of retirees is doing it tough, with the average retiree couple over 65 living on about $480 per week ($25,000 per year), and the average single retiree on $248 a week (less than $13,000 a year) (ABS 1999). About 83 per cent of eligible people over retirement age receive some Age Pension, with about 68 per cent of those paid at the full rate (Centrelink 1998). And by comparison with other major countries (including those, like Australia, for whom retiree income comes predominantly from the state), our retirees are relatively badly off (Johnson 1999)." Dr Michaela Anderson Achieving an adequate retirement income - how much is enough? ASFA Research Centre October 1999.

That's partly because they haven't informed themselves fully (which is admittedly hard in this complex field), or they're assuming that "she'll be right" - the government or someone will look after them. Or maybe they do have an idea what do to, but don't have the willpower to act and get it done.

I was lucky enough to have the right background to get to the bottom of all this, and also the right kind of personality (study the map, grip the steering wheel, and keep going, no matter how many potholes there are). But if I HAD found a down-to-earth Action Guide, giving the steps I needed, I could have saved myself nearly two years! I did get there anyway, after a great struggle. Along the way, I discovered some other people who'd also found the same path to success.

18 months of research

The plan I'm about to share with you came out of 18 months of painstaking research. All that work meant that I've become quite an expert. I'm not saying that to big-note myself. I'm just wanting to establish my credentials at this stage, so you can begin to see that you can trust what I'm about to tell you - and you'll know it's based on experience, not some theory.

I can lead you through a plan that will improve all your retirement prospects so much that you'll end up agreeing that "retire rich" is an accurate expression, not hype. I'm able to help you, because I helped myself, and then helped others. What I'm about to tell you may prove to be one of the most valuable things that's ever come your way.

How did I become an expert? Accidentally!

Here's what happened...

In July 2000, I'd worked out that once again the tax man was going to do better out of me than I was out of him. That year my retail fund had made a 6% profit, although the stock market had made about 25%. I wouldn't have minded so much but I was supposed to be in an 'aggressive fund'.

It was time to get serious if I was going to retire rich and choose when I wanted to retire. There was, however, a problem. What seemed like an easy thing ended up taking an expanding and gruelling time to research, review and then put into practice. I went to numerous seminars, meetings, read many books (including the few there are on superannuation) and talked to loads of 'experts' (most were just selling products). In the end, it took me 18 months to put it all in place.

There are plenty of books telling you how to get rich, and I've read lots of them. (I got used to doing this kind of meticulous research when I was working on my MBA.) The books ranged from excellent to terrible. Some talk about retirement planning and others don't. Almost without exception, they mentioned two things: first, saving, and second, compound interest.

Most of these writers think that you, the reader, will be happy to change things in a fundamental way. For example, leave your job and start your own company, use all the equity in your house to buy an investment property every year for the next ten years, start working in a network-marketing organisation, or trading shares, etc. Radical and maybe scary. Each of these ideas can be sound, but most people just aren't going to do these things. So their retirement planning won't work if they haven't first copied the get-rich or build-wealth method.

The next books I tackled were on retirement. I was hoping that they'd give me lots of info about how to calculate how much I would need, look at what I already had, talk about investment strategies, options and case studies and tell me how to go about directing and managing a team. Unfortunately they mostly covered the lack of government action and how to actually run a fund yourself. Exactly not what I wanted to see.

Then I started downloading a stupefying amount of information from websites like TAXATION OFFICE, APRA, and ASIC, and quite a number of technical guides. I can warn you it isn't something that you should get into lightly. What these massive texts explain is how to do everything legally, fill in the right stuff on time and where to get it all from and some important technical issues with some interesting set-ups within funds.

Next I started devouring books on building wealth in property and retiring on the rentals. A good method and I've invested in property lately. But in nearly every case, they talk about buying property for negative gearing and doing up and selling and putting all your money into property and not into superannuation - because you can never get at retirement until you retire. But no mention is made that you can do a lot of similar things within your DIY Retirment Fund anyway, and with very effective tax benefits!

I went to seminars, free talks, and interviews. But found they just pushed products. They didn't find what you needed and then match that need to a product. (But I suppose that's why they were free!)

As I said earlier, what I didn't find was a Action Guide to help me understand the steps I could take to quickly gain control and end up with a high guaranteed income in retirement. Much less any Action Guide that told me a way to enjoy planning my retirement! I had to sweat all that information together myself.

That's how I became enough of an expert to write the Action Guide I never found.

And in all this research and nosing around, I found quite a few things that disturbed me. For example....

The bulk of advice is product-driven...

Which doesn't mean it's bad, it just means it's narrow. If someone is selling a superannuation product, you'll get the best advice from them on which of their products to buy. But they won't tell you other approaches that may be much more to your benefit - and often they don't seem aware these perfectly legal and sound approaches even exist. (I know, because I've been to a lot of investment seminars run by promoters of products, and I've asked plenty of questions.)

So you get this narrow view. And frankly there's also a lot of confusion. The whole superannuation area isn't quite as complex as People tax law - but it's close! People tend to glaze over and give up.

So I wrote my Action Guide and created all the backup services and information you need to get a hold on all this, and adjust it to your own retirement vision.

My aim is simple: to help you make use of little-known superannuation administrative flexibility and generous tax breaks, so that you can quite quickly and without risk get your superannuation growing fast. And I back that up with my commitment to your success: I give a guarantee that's almost outrageous. At the end of this report, I'll tell you how to take advantage of my results-assured, unconditional guarantee.

But that's enough about my background now. To get the most from your Retirement Plan, it's essential for you to realise there are five myths that hang in the People air like some invisible paralysing gas. Let me start by blowing away...

The five most common myths about Retirement Plans

DIY Retirment Fund Myth #1: It's better to let experts look after your funds.

Reality #1: In all the seminars I went to, someone always asked this question: "Why should I control this all myself? Isn't it easier just to let somebody else do it?"

The answer is, of course, "Yes it's easier to let somebody else do it." But think what you're letting them do! You're giving them control of your second biggest asset (most people's house is their largest asset). You're letting them control how you're going to spend your longest-ever holiday! Maybe 20 to 30 years!

Now why do I call retirement a holiday? Because it's pretty similar. When we go on holidays, we're doing different things to the normal 9-to-5 grind. Of course you'll be living at home for most of the time, but it won't be like when you were working - you'll probably want more education, more sports, more time for visiting the children and spoiling the grandchildren, helping out at the Church or volunteer organisation, and more travel.

Strangely, people spend more time planning their yearly holiday than planning their whole retirement - their longest holiday!

DIY Retirment Fund Myth #2: I don't have to worry because the government will take care of me.

Reality #2: Many Peoples innocently think that the government will ensure they'll be OK in retirement. They think that because the government has raised the retirement surcharge rate for workers on over $450 per month to 9% for year 2003 payment, that solves anything.

Unfortunately, no. For Mr. Average it means $3780 per year ($42,000 x 9%). If that had been the case over 40 working years, that would have amounted to $151,000 plus interest. Not too bad. But mandatory payments to retirement funds have only just come in, a lot of people don't work constantly for 40 years and when younger they're often paid less than the average. So Mr. Average isn't who you want to be. In fact Mr Average has only $39,000 in his projected retirement funds. That means a lump sum payment of $4000 and a yearly payment of $3,500. Plus the State pension. Have you ever tried living on $15,000 a year?

You don't want to be Mr. Average. (It wouldn't be the penny-pinching existence that I'd care for.)

DIY Retirment Fund #3: My house is valuable and that will help with my retirement.

Reality #3:

You can't count the equity you've built up in your house for retirement funds unless you're planning to:

Re-mortgage your house and invest the capital and hope to get a better return than the current base rate year-on-year, and find a bank to do it.

Sell your house, invest the money and rent.

Sell your house, invest the money and live with your sons and daughters.

Sell your house and spend everything on a round-the-world splurge and then come back and live off your investment.

One or two people in a hundred may say, "Yes. that's us! We're going to sell the house and rent a small two-bed apartment in a retirement or lifestyle complex." Or they'll say, "Yes, we have so much in our DIY Retirment Fund that we're going to sell up and travel the world and rent when we get back."

But most people say, "This is our family home and we're staying put!" Or you may have already downsized into a smaller place closer to the amenities (if not and you still have your ageing sons and daughters living at home, it's a thought!) And if you're going to do some of the above, you probably are only going to realise a portion of the value of your home. So you can't count your equity in your home. Sorry

DIY Retirment Fund Myth #4: Money put into retirement fund is just money lost.

Reality #4: People keep telling me that putting money into a DIY Retirment Fund is lost money because you can't get to it until retirement. Almost 50% wrong. If you have a self-managed fund, you have complete control.

But the other point - that you can't get hold of it until you retire - is completely correct. Yes, that's right and that's exactly what it's for: your retirement. There's no point in having retirement savings unless they're used for that purpose.

And I'll say again, think of it this way: it's your guarantee, whatever happens - retrenchment, business fails, your house is repossessed - you'll still be able to retire rich.

Most people who say you lose your money by putting it in retirement funds have no savings and normally no wealth. What they're actually saying is: "I don't want to put money away because I have no savings and couldn't get by being out of work for one month, so why risk putting it into a retirement fund?" Short-term views and very precarious. Ask them this question: "OK, what are you doing? Show me the valuations and your current statements." Don't just let people give you advice.

DIY Retirment Fund Myth #5: Retirement funds is boring.

Reality #5: Do you think that your money in retirement funds has to be only in shares and managed funds? Wrong! If you have a business, you can buy the business premises with your DIY Retirement Funds. If you have shares, you can buy these from yourself with DIY Retirement Funds. If you like to buy art, wine or other collectibles, you can buy these to invest with your DIY Retirement Funds, as long as they pass an investment test.

You can joint-venture with yourself in DIY Retirement Funds. For instance, you can buy a plantation forest yourself and then pay the maintenance charges via DIY Retirement Funds. This cuts tax, with no outgoings from your income, but with good returns that are then split between you and your DIY Fund. So your DIY Fund does not have to be boring.

If you're an expert at something or you're absorbed in a hobby, then this might be a way of fostering your knowledge and also keeping yourself interested in your DIY Retirment Fund. The more you work on your fund, the better it will do.

I should point out here that you're not allowed to have art, wine or collectibles at home. These types of investments are highly regulated and I wouldn't recommend them without the necessary support from your legal, accounting and financial advisory team. Get advice, just to be safe.

Also and very importantly, you can insure yourself and your family with your DIY Retirment Fund. This can help your tax and protect your family.

I now find that investing in my DIY Fund is as fun as it is rewarding. What was once a "shove it in the bottom drawer and forget it approach" is now "what am I going to do next?"

OK Knowing the reality, now what?

Understanding the reality behind the five common myths can be a shock. But a shock wakes you up.

Knowing the reality, what's the least you should do? I'd say it's to stay alert and begin to work toward a better retirement plan. I know this can sometimes take a while to adjust to, so I offer a FREE monthly newsletter. It covers new or proposed legislation and the effect it may have on your existing fund, the choices you have and how to make the right one. There's no catch or obligation - it's really free, for a year. To sign up: just let me know in any of the ways given in the Contact Information inside the front cover. (You may prefer email, for example.)

When I talk about my own experience, most people ask me if they could do the same. The answer comes in two parts: first, yes you too can take complete control of your retirement planning, but second, everybody is different so you'll probably not do exactly what I've done. You can adjust your plan and you should.

To scare you a little and give you more incentive, imagine what your yearly holiday would be like if you planned it like your retirement:

The government would make your employer pay 9% of your wages into a "holiday pot." A branch of the government, the TAXATION OFFICE, then takes 15% of this as a contribution tax, so you really only get 85% of the money. Once a year somebody sends you a report that's hard to understand and it all cost you about 3% of your savings, with no guarantee that the fund will increase in value.

At the end of your working life, they tell you how much money you have available to spend on a holiday. In most cases, it will only be about $30,000 for a 30-year holiday, plus a small amount from the government that isn't guaranteed into the future. (Per person, the average government fund has $38,000 in it, the average retail fund $28,000.)

But it's your retirement and your holiday not the retirement-fund manager's, not the government's, not your employer's - it's yours.

And this is important: in spite of the myths and confusions about DIY Retirement Funds, if you inform yourself and show some drive, you can pull free of this depressing stagnation and bleak future, and join a select crowd that already have an average per-person $280,000 in their self-managed funds.

Some Peoples never get to the first step because no one has ever told them the whole story. Other people do hear about it, or part of it, but they're intimidated by the way it's explained: it's choked with jargon, and someone else makes decisions that you can't really understand or control.

The key to success is to penetrate the myths, get used to the realities, work out a sound plan, and then DO it. In a way, it's so simple.

Success Step #4 Pay for good advice.

In all the books I studied, there was an underlying theme: copy what successful people have done (often referred to as 'standing on the shoulders of giants'), preferably by finding a mentor who's been successful with at retirement plan.

Your mentor can be me to start with, unless you know somebody else who's done it.

I've been to countless seminars, and one of the first questions asked of the presenters is "how much do you charge?"

If you go to a financial adviser who isn't independent, you'll get the best advice about the product he or she sells. You may be charged a smaller fee up-front for the advice, but somewhere along the line you'll pay in another way. Probably there's an annuity that's siphoning money from the insurance company to the adviser.

If you go to a normal high-street accountant, you'll get a very good deal on your standard tax return - if you are fairly standard. If you want good independent advice from financial advisers and accountants and investments, where these people will often invest your money without an annuity and at wholesale rates, then paying $2,000-$4,000 a year on a complete investment portfolio of $250,000 in DIY Retirement Funds, $200,000 shares and other investments is worthwhile and around the right benchmark.

In their book "The Millionaire Next Door" researchers found that millionaires cared far less about the cost of their advisers than non-millionaires did (who in general were far more touchy about paying fees). The millionaires were far more interested in what experience, knowledge and specialisation the adviser or accountant had. You pay peanuts, you will get monkeys. If you pay peanut-shells, you won't even get monkeys!

A research paper by Michael Rice and Ian McEwin stresses that funds that try to save on charges of financial planners normally hold too much money in cash. They miss enormous gains and those lost gains make the charges they "save" look pathetic.

From my experience, I'd suggest that you should pay an adviser up-front for the information they give you. (That doesn't mean before they give it to you. It means pay for the service with money outside of what you're going to invest.) Their fee is normally tax deductible. In most cases it means that all the money you're investing works for you and there's no commission or annuity taken out.

"Who is paying for those nice big offices and expensive lunches? You. If you are invested in a retail fund for 40 years of hard work, you get to pay the average fee of $177,000." Barrie Dunstan, People Financial Review, 31st July 2002 in reference to the senate select committee on Superannuation.

Success Step #6: With all that in mind, use this action summary.

1. Break through to reality by educating yourself.

Subscribe to my free newsletter. And ask for my free 9-page list of references - you can check these references out of libraries or buy some of them. (Tick the final form at the end of this report to get started.) Study as much of the reference material you can.

OR...

Get straight to the meat of all that by buying a copy of my Action Guide "How to Retire Rich" (see the order form at the end.)

One way or another, you need to understand the fundamentals of what's going on and what your real choices are, or you can't take control and make this fly.

2. Calculate how much money you've already put away.

Total up all your DIY Retirment Funds, even the small ones, every savings account, all your shares. If you don't know what's in your Retirment Funds, write to your retirement-fund administrators and ask for the current value, projected value when you are 55 and at retirement. (If you invest in my Action Guide, you can also get a series of templates to make this easy: letters, faxes and email templates to find out how much you have in your DIY Retirment Funds, and how to get it from different countries, if you've left it behind elsewhere.)

Think hard about where you may have old DIY Retirment Funds. People do forget about them. Don't let it happen to you!

3. Calculate how long you and your partner are likely to live.

There are websites where you answer some basic questions and can get an estimate. Like the ones listed at http://dmoz.org/Health/Aging/Life_Expectancy/Calculators/

You need to be honest in doing this. It's for your own planning, there's no point deceiving yourself. You need to be truthful about the amount of exercise you get, your weight, whether you smoke and your alcohol intake. It's also a good idea to find out as much as possible about your family background, to see if there are any hereditary problems (and if so, also let your children know about it, for their own future use).

4. Work out what you'll have paid off by the time you want to retire.

You may have paid off your home, but still have negatively geared investment property. You may still have car repayments. The point is to estimate the lump sum you'd need to pay off all that.

If you have your own business, factor in how much you may get for it. You need to consider getting paid out, or getting paid some or all of it over a longer term. Alternatively, you may wish to transfer it as a gift to your children or others. That will need some planning to make sure you don't get presented with a terrifying tax bill in the future.

5. Ask your paymaster(s) if they'd be willing to salary sacrifice on your behalf into your own DIY Retirment Fund.

If you invest in my Action Guide, there's a letter template for this. Otherwise you may need to consult your accountant or financial adviser first.

If you're self-employed or own your business, then you'll definitely need to talk to your accountant about it.

6. Work out the lifestyle you want in retirement.

Don't make a sour face about this! It's supposed to be like planning a long, long holiday! Picture your ideal retirement. The point is to see how you can then make it happen.

You need to get a clear picture, and estimate the costs of a lot of things, in detail. You can do this yourself - if you're used to this sort of calculation - or get help from your financial adviser. I also have a template spread-sheet that makes it very easy: you can get that with my Action Guide.

7. Work out your current spending cash-flow and your current balance sheet.

If you don't know exactly what that means, you'll need to get help. Again, see your financial adviser or accountant. Or if you decide to plug into my system, there's a spreadsheet I supply that's already filled in with an example. I make everything as easy as possible.

Whatever you do, don't skip this step!

8. Consider how much you could cut back from your current spending, if you had to.

This isn't supposed to be a frightening exercise where you imagine yourself living in a caravan and eating beans and rice. It's just to see what may be possible, fairly painlessly.

It helps if you divide your costs into Needs, Wants and Left-Overs. For example, I used to have a very well-paid job in the IT sector. I was flown here, there and everywhere by my employer to do presentations. When I left the job and came to Australia, my wife and I were still both members of the Qantas Club. But we now had to pay for that, instead of my employer. Was it worth it? We analysed it like this:

Yes, we still wanted to be members (costing about $550 for the two of us).

No, we didn't want to be life members (at about $3500 each).

And we weren't planning a flight for six months (we could let our membership lapse for six months without having to repay the joining fee).

So we decided to stay in the club, but put off our repayment for six months - or until we booked another flight - whichever came first.

So the Qantas Club wasn't a Need, it was a Want, and it was also a Left-over. And we delayed paying $550 by six months.

You can also do all this conveniently on a spread-sheet, like the one you can get with my Action Guide. (I've highlighted sections in it, where I've found that people can often save money, and without sacrificing anything important.)

9. Book a time to see your accountant or financial adviser.

As soon as you've done all the background work in the first eight steps, you need someone with the knowledge to adjust it into a plan that suits you and that will make Step 6 work - your golden vision of how you want to retire!

The point of you doing all this background work in the earlier steps is this: first, it means you actually understand what's going on, you can take control of the process, and you only use advisers for helping you with technical things and legal points - exactly the way they should be used. It's also a lot cheaper, because a good adviser would take you through those same steps anyway, and you'd be charged a fairly high hourly rate for pretty humdrum work.

If you prefer, you can use the certificates you can get with my Action Guide and get a big reduction in adviser fees. And you'll get advice from people I've come to trust and who know all about the things I'm talking about. (They aren't narrow advisers, or people who just push this product or that. They're on your side, 100%.)

10. Work with your accountant and financial adviser to come up with a plan of action.

After your first meeting, you'll probably get an outline plan. It will most likely include a summary of your current position, when you wish to retire, and a summary of the lifestyle you want when you retire. There's likely to be a gap that has to be filled with extra money from somewhere: extra savings, salary sacrifice, one-off investments, setting up a DIY Retirment Fund, ways to make better use of your retail funds, ways to consolidate funds and save on fees, structures for the self-employed (if you are), insurance cover within DIY Retirement Funds and many other things.

You will essentially be working with a team of advisers, and you'll need to take the lead. The advisers can explain your options. You have to decide. They'll react to what you want.

To sum it all up....

This retirement plan really works!

Now click on the above to take the first step in your retirement plan