ZG #1 - Zeke Calls BS On Gregarious News Gimmick 'Super Sweet Spot' (Retirement Strategy)

Imagine being told to spend down your hard-earned retirement savings just to qualify for a pension. Sounds like terrible advice, right? That’s exactly what the mainstream media is pushing—and I’m here to call it out.

In this episode, Zeke Guenthroth dives into the latest gimmick circulating in the media: the so-called "retirement sweet spot," which claims you can live better than millionaires with just $400,000 in superannuation. Spoiler alert—it’s a logistical nightmare.

🔍 What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why spending down your assets to qualify for the pension is a dangerous game.
• How compounding growth and dividends make $1M far superior to $400K.
• The risks of inflation, drawdowns, and relying on government policy for financial security.
• A real breakdown of the numbers behind successful retirement strategies.

💡 "Don’t let gimmicks dictate your financial future. Real wealth is built through growth, independence, and long-term planning."

🔗 Listen now and take control of your retirement planning:
🎧 Website: https://assetroad.com.au/the-finance-bible/

📢 Let’s start the conversation:
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DISCLAIMER:
The information in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice. It does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation, or needs. Always consider whether the information is appropriate for you and seek advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Debunking Retirement Savings Drain Myths
• 7:32 Optimizing Retirement Income Strategy
• 16:33 Avoid Financial Myths and Manipulation

Transcript

Zeke Guenthroth: 0:00

Imagine draining your hard-earned retirement savings just because the mainstream media told you it's the smart move, sacrificing financial security for a pension gimmick, and by the time you realise the truth, it's too late. Today I'm calling out this outrageous, laughable advice and breaking it down piece by piece and showing you what the real numbers behind a successful retirement should look like. Welcome back to another episode of the Finance Bible Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:39

You're joined with myself, zeke, and your co-host, oscar. But before we get into it, please note that nothing in this podcast should ever be considered as personal financial advice. But if that is what you are seeking, get in touch, let us know and we will hook you up with the correct professionals. Sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Let's get into it.

Zeke Guenthroth: 1:03

Welcome to the first episode of just me running a mark, doing what I do. We'll jump straight into it. I've been seeing a lot in the media lately about the pension increase. Everywhere I look, you've got the same claims popping up left, right and center about how to maximize your pension by reducing your assets. It's rubbish, simply put, outlandish, foolish, idiotic rubbish. Media outlets are encouraging you to spend your retirement savings, dropping them down to $400,000 so you can qualify for the full pension, and it's positioned as this magical, mythical strategy, but when you break it down, it's just simply another gimmick, and it's as easy as that.

Zeke Guenthroth: 1:49

This episode we're going to be talking about cutting through the noise, breaking down the numbers behind the claim, explaining why it's wrong and showing you how real wealth is built and maintained. That's probably the main part. Remember this Don't believe everything you see, hear or read, even from myself. Do your own research and always check the facts. If you hear something from me, it's probably right, but go and research it, check it yourself, make sure it is right. If you hear something in the media, go check it. Simple. What are they actually claiming, these media geeks? They're claiming if you have $400,000 in your super fund, you can live a better life than millionaires simply by claiming full-age pension with modest super drawdowns. Realistically, if you've got a million dollars in super, they're saying you won't live as good as someone with $400,000 because they can claim the pension and increase their overall income to more than what you can as a millionaire, by millionaire. We're talking this specific example one million dollars in superannuation. So apparently and I mean this is, this is written, it's not me making it up apparently the ideal strategy we'll call it is to spend your way down to a magical amount of $400,000 in your super fund. Because why would you want 1 million in super when you could have less common sense, right? Why would you have a million when you can just spend 600k and have 400k and do better than a millionaire? Well, I don't know. So we'll break that down and we're going to go through all the numbers. Eventually. We're going to go through all the numbers. Eventually, we're going to go through everything. But I just want to give some some context. First of all, today we're going to be talking about couples in particular, because that's what I've done the numbers on. But it does work.

Zeke Guenthroth: 3:34

A similar concept, spoiler alert the math is the same, no matter who you are, where you are, what you're doing. It's slightly different singles, but the concept is the same. Let's break down the claim. So the full pension for a couple okay, the full pension they're under the thresholds is $44,855 per year, but it's going to call it 44, 45k give or take. What they're saying is, if you get that full pension, you have $400,000 in super. Then you can live off about $72,000, $73,000 per year and the $28,000 difference there between the $44,000 and the $72,000, $73,000 is from your super. And they assume that you achieve a 7% return in your super fund but you're drawing down $28,000 of it per year to fund your retirement and get you up to $72,000, $73,000 per year income. They assume a consistent 7% growth annually, which isn't out of the ordinary. That's pretty standard. 7%, 8%, 9% that is fine. They don't take into account anything to do with dividends, which is a problem because dividends are in australia, an average of about three, three point five percent, which is great for income. But again, that only works if you've got enough principle to generate a decent amount of returns. Right, because 3.5 on 400k is bugger, all 3.5 on,000. So $400,000 won't cut up the long haul because it's not generating enough to keep building up, but we'll get onto that later as well.

Zeke Guenthroth: 5:13

Another issue with the pension is basically it comes in at 67. So if you are floating around 60 years old you want to retire, then this strategy doesn't work for you anyway, because you're going to be seven years without the pension. So how do you live? You don't? The next thing to talk about is how reckless it is to spend your money down. If you've got a million, they're practically inferring okay, go ahead, spend 600K and drop your super down to 400,000. So just get rid of that 600,000. Why would you keep it? Common sense? It's a magical, mystical land we live in, where you just get unlimited money and rely on the pension and you're going to be better off than someone with a million dollars. No common sense applies. In fact, even just suggesting this in an article on Facebook is outlandish, reckless and it can cause a lot of problems.

Zeke Guenthroth: 6:10

What they're saying is get rid of the safety net so you can rely on the government. That's virtually like saying oh, why don't you quit your job tomorrow and rely on the doll on Centrelink? Spending your savings to qualify for a pension leaves you with less flexibility, no buffer for unexpected expenses and no control over your future. What about holidays? What about medical expenses? What about if something goes wrong? Why would you want to rely on the government and not have a safety net at all? So that's just another thing to bring up. Inflation is also a risk. You know, if grocery prices go up, it's a silent killer. Your purchasing power goes down. You can't buy as much things, whereas if you've got money invested, then it goes up with inflation. What the media wants you to believe is that financial security comes from spending all of your money. But here's the truth Poverty isn't a strategy and dependency is not freedom.

Zeke Guenthroth: 7:03

What do we actually need to do and break this down properly? Okay, we'll jump on into it. We need to talk about compound growth and dividends a bit further to get into the real numbers. But compound growth works in a way where, if your super grows at 7%, it doubles roughly every 10 years. So if you have $1 million at $60, you're looking at around $4.7 by the time you're 90. That's the power of compounding.

Zeke Guenthroth: 7:32

There is a compound interest calculator. If you go on like moneysmartcomau then oh, actually it's moneysmartgovau, I think, because it's government. But if you go on that website, you can put in calculations and figure things out for yourself. It's pretty easy. And dividends come in at about 3.5% dividend yield. So 1 million would generate you 35K per year and then your compounding growth 1 million would generate you about 70,000 per year, and then your compounding growth 1 million would generate you about 70 000 per year. That is a fair breakdown on the actual numbers and getting a bit of an understanding before we dive into the actual claims and how they work.

Zeke Guenthroth: 8:07

So the theory behind the article is and there's three different scenarios scenario one is the article, scenario two is me and scenario three is me. Number two is we're going to rely on dividends only and number three is we're going to use some dividends and some growth. We'll come back and explain them. So the pension strategy number one, the magical strategy, the government strategy, the media strategy, whatever you want to call it, the idiot strategy they say get down to 400K super and rely on the pension and draw income from your super as well. So year one you've got 400K, you get that 44K pension and then you get 28K give or take from your super. So you draw down the growth on it and a bit more as well. So you won, you have 400K and you draw about. We'll just round it up, we'll call it $73,000 in the year to live on.

Zeke Guenthroth: 9:07

Now, that's fine. You can do that for the rest of your life, until you're 90, if you really want, if you only want 72 grand per year, and when you hit 90, you end up with about $300,000 left. So it's not a huge problem, right, if you want to live on 72 grand as a couple. But if you've got more house repayments, if you've got any form of holidays, you want to do any medical expenses that come up that you need to pay, then your super balance is going to dwindle pretty quick and you'll run out of money in your super and then you're just relying on the pension, which is that 44, 45 grand that we're talking about. So what would happen then in the event that you are a couple that's used to a bit higher level income, let's say a hundred thousand?

Zeke Guenthroth: 9:51

Well, year one, you need to draw down an extra $28,000, so $56,000 from your super, getting you up to that total of $100,000 because you got $45,000 from pension, $55,000, $56,000 from super. Okay, then your balance drops to about $350,000. Year two, it drops to $300,000. Year three it drops to $250,000, and so on. It gets lower and lower. You run out of super and before it's been five, six, seven years, you're relying on that 44, 45k from the pension, pointless You're done, you're out of money, game over.

Zeke Guenthroth: 10:26

So that strategy is terrible, it's dumb, it's outrageous. The fact that they would even say spend 600 grand, go on a spree and dwindle your savings to qualify for the pension is just one of the most outlandish claims I've ever read in my life and I've read some stuff. So what are the other two scenarios and what are the better ways to do it? And this will depend on you and your spending and it's not financial advice. But if we just move on to scenario number two, which is dividend only so this is when we live purely on the dividends If we've got that $1 million and it's growing at 7% per year, then it gets to about $1.07 mil at the end of year one and it will pay you $35,000 in dividends. So you live on that $ grand in that instance it's important to note here that this can start at age 60 because you're not relying on the pension anymore.

Zeke Guenthroth: 11:27

So year three we'll just fast forward a few years so I can provide numbers and make sure that you guys are understanding the numbers behind it. So it continues to grow at 7% per year. At the end of year three you've got about 1.2, 1.25 million and your dividends now your 3.5% on that is about 40,000. So still not a huge amount. Not a huge amount. Year five it goes up a little bit more. Fast forward to year 10, you've got about $2 million in there and you're getting about $64,000 worth of dividends per year. That's a bit of a better number, but it's still not really where you need to be or want to be.

Zeke Guenthroth: 12:03

If we fast forward to 23 years, which is age 90, assuming you start at 67, then you've got about $4.7 million, which pays you about 150K per year. So there's a very big jump because compounding, the more it goes on, the better it gets right. If you get to that point, you've got 4.7 mil left and you've got 155K per year coming in. So you can figure out as you go. Do you want to draw down more? Do you want to draw down less? What do you want to leave for your children? And that's one of the main things with this strategy is, this is more of a setting up your children kind of strategy. Or, if you don't have a large expense. So with strategy one, the pension strategy, one of the biggest problem is if you want to create a legacy or leave something for your children, you've got nothing. At the end it's game over. With this scenario, you've got 4.5, 4.7 million remaining that you can pass on.

Zeke Guenthroth: 12:56

Here is where the fun begins. Scenario three, which is dividends and growth If you take 3% of the growth out of your super fund and you leave it growing by 4% per year, so you've got the 7% of grows you take 3 of it and live on that and live on the dividend, so it's only growing at 4% now. So it only goes up to $1.04 million at the end of year one, but it can pay you $65K in income that year. If you move on to year three, then it's only worth $1.12 million, which is like $110 grand less the scenario two, because you're taking that growth out. Remember, it's worth 1.12 mil, but it can pay you 70 grand a year at that point, which is very similar to what the pension strategy pays and close to double what the dividend strategy pays. You then move on to year five. It's at 1.22 million. It's paying you 76k.

Zeke Guenthroth: 13:55

Move on to year 10. It's about 1.5 million, pays you 90k. And then year 23 is where you get a lot of fun happening. That's now 2.5 million nearly and it's paying you 154k per year. So that strategy you get more income quicker. Within a couple of years you're on the same amount as the pension strategy, so the pension plus super, but you're on dividends and growth. You're not actually drawing your super down. Your super's still going up and you've still got 1.2 million in there. You hit the age 90 if you retire at 67, and you've got 2.4 million, paying you 154K a year. So your income's really good and you've still got 2.4 mil left for whoever's nearby if you pass away, so your family, your children, whatever, whoever your beneficiary is.

Zeke Guenthroth: 14:57

So just to break it down again strategy one pension strategy, the magical myth. You've got a low amount of money as a base, but you get a decent amount of income. You get 72 grand a year until you run out. You start off on 72 grand a year, but there's a potential that you end up on 44k per year with no money left. Scenario two, which is dividends only you start off with a decent base 1 million but you're only getting 35k of income per year, but then you end up with a base of nearly 5 million, getting an income of 150k per year. So your kids get a lot.

Zeke Guenthroth: 15:34

Scenario three, which is dividends and growth. But you allow it to still grow. You start off with $1 million. You're getting $65,000 per year for the first couple of years and within three and a half years you've overtaken the income level on the pension strategy and you finish in 23 years with nearly $2.5 million and $154k income per year, as opposed to the $44k with no sum. Here's the truth. Spending your way to $400k from $1 million spending $600,000 gets you $72k per year and no security, whereas if you grow the million to 4.7 million, it gets you 155k a year and complete freedom. Which one sounds better to you? Common sense, right? Just to summarize pension strategy isn't security, it's dependence. Real wealth comes from growth and independence and common sense.

Zeke Guenthroth: 16:33

Always question what you hear and make decisions based on numbers, not gimmicks. Moving forward everything you see in the media about finance, about share prices, about superannuation. When you see a clip that says, oh, this is how much the average couple in australia needs to retire on a comfortable income or whatever the nonsense is, it's absolute statistical garbage. It shouldn't be read. It shouldn't be listened to, it should be completely ignored, and the fact that they can even put it up is absolutely baffling and mind-boggling. So ignore it.

Zeke Guenthroth: 17:06

Do your own numbers, research everything, contact professionals, do what you need to do to make sure that you understand and take the right steps, Because if you read that and you go and spend your 600k to try and get this magical strategy, that 600k is gone. You're not getting it back and then you're going to run out of money and it's going to be terrible. If this episode opened your eyes, share it with your friends, your family, put an end to bad financial advice. Put an end to the media manipulating people into running out of money. And remember again don't believe everything you hear, even from me. Do your research, plan wisely and take control of your financial future. Dale, as always, we hope you enjoyed the episode and if you did, you know exactly what needs to be done.

Speaker 2: 17:55

Hit that follow button, subscribe, share it to friends, family or even your co-workers, as sharing this podcast helps not just us, but everyone in the world to learn about their finances. Thank you, dale.