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Here are the words direct from the LOPS
Centrelink provides good advice in a booklet "Securing Your Future" by their Financial Information Service
(FIS), especially these hints:
In our considered view the ONLY person who can do all that is the LOP Him/Herself, BUT only if that LOP has access to a Tool that "crunches all the numbers" whenever the LOP says "now I wonder if we can afford that Jayco Sterling as a lump sum from our Super, and just how much should we 'put & take' into/from an Allocated Pension AND exactly how much might we lose (if any) from our hard earned Aged Pension if we do that?"
Enter the LOPS (Little Ozzie Pensioner System) to do just that task for every LOP. The LOPS is not designed by Computer Nerds but BY a LOP (who WAS a Brain Scientist/Rocket Surgeon) FOR LOPs, so it fully understands that most LOPs are not Rocket Scientists, so want a dead simple Tool, and with BIG LETTERS they can read with their failing eyesight (one of the many simple logical requirements where Computer Nerds have Failed Dismally).
So does the LOPS claim to "replace" a Financial Planner? The FIS says:
We say, that that is a bit hard on "Financial Planners" and we note FIS has now changed the term to "Financial Advisers", which seems to be in perfect agreement with our stance that only YOU can come up with an overall plan. Indeed Financial Advisers are an important link in the chain and we will leave it to them to argue their case.
Perhaps the best overall advice comes from the Rolling Stones, way back when we were young, in their song "Time is on My Side". Time is what you have, and the LOPS allows you to grab a cup of tea, sit down at your computer and work on your plan. And then you can come back next year or 5 years down the track "as time goes by", for example after "doing the Grey Nomad bit" and wanting to "reset your goals" to doing the Seniors Golf Circuit or whatever. That is, the LOPS is NOT just a "one time only adviser". Another example might be if the Govt. changed the deeming rate (or any other rate) and you needed to re-plan."
Here is the Title Screen of the LOPS, and you can see that it is an offshoot from the system at csacalc.com which was our FREE aid to Child Support "customers", produced in one week while we waited for Howard's computer nerds to take 3 years and $680 million of Taxpayer Funds to make the "official" version. The difference with the LOPS is instead of the "bureau service" we provided at csacalc, the LOPS is a matter of YOU buy the whole software application to use on YOUR PC. So, while the "maths" working in the background might be described as "mind boggling", we have spent some time to make it SUPER EASY to use, even if you have never used a PC before.
The pensioners you see below are in fact Chelsea Pensioners, back at time of Waterloo, about 100 years before we had an Aged Pension scheme in Australia.
There are 3 main screens of interest (as well as MyPie budgeting facility) in the LOPS, and as you can see buttons up top allow you to flip instantly from screen to screen. But first of all please meet Duncan (of course not his real name) whose Plan we are working on right here. In this screen below we see the all important Aged Pension Test and Duncan has already used the WHAT-IF facility to fine tune his plan to "equalise" (as far as it might help him) the Assets and Income Tests, while still having sufficient up front income to be a Grey Nomad for 10 years or more. And as you can see, if he lives to be 100, his average amount of Aged Pension is still 95% of the Maximum possible.
But before we start, the example here is for a SINGLE LOP, albeit a version is also available for a LOP COUPLE, and who knows, Duncan may just find a perky old pensioner lady on his travels and upgrade to the LOPS for Couples.
Before going any further, the sad news is that Duncan's "batting average" is not only "known" (at less than 20 years) by Big Brother but is also built in to the calculations (for the Income Test in this case), so Duncan is hoping to at least get his "travels" over in that 20 years or so, and bat on to "the ton". In any case the LOPS displays these figures for your information.
The Combined Results screen shows (lower graph) how Duncan has honed in on a Plan (using the LOPS) where he will have more "up front", reverting just to the Aged Pension should he live past 85 (and who knows, the kids might just "repay" some of the millions Duncan spent on them). The Aged Pension is shown up top.
The Allocated Pension screen shows how the capital will "peg out" at 20 years or so in the lower graph. The top graph shows the annual drawdown amounts. In this case there is some "red", meaning Duncan's choice of $9,000 pa has attracted some Income Testing, but in his case the LOPS was telling Duncan that the Asset Test was the one "controlling things" so he was able to "fill in" that extra income with no effect on his Aged Pension.
In fact here was the original result where Duncan used the Minimum drawdown of $5,000 pa. You will see that the LOPS has automatically worked out the Minimum drawdown (of the Residual) "as time goes by". The lower graph however was the real turn off for Duncan, ie if he "popped off" at 85, there was still $101,000 left for the kids.
Here is an example of an input screen, in this case the Your Income screen.
And to change the $5,000 drawdown to $9,000, all Duncan did was click on the "Click to Update" button above, and Bingo it was just Easy-Peasy.
There are just so many smart goodies to be found at Column 4, the WHAT-IF Scenarios that we will leave that discovery for you with "Time on My Side". But here is a sneak preview where Duncan asked how much drawdown to have the Allocated Pension capital peg out at age 85. As you can see it did several million calcs in about 9 seconds and said $8,691 pa, which Duncan rounded off to $9,000.
To round off the LOPS we have the MyPie budgeting system, starting with your very own Future Fund (ie not the $65 Billion one Capt Smirk took from you to pay those with UNFUNDED super, like Smirk). As you can see it converts Annual expenses into a Monthly kitty (to put under the pillow or wherever).
Then the Monthly Expenses screen already knows your total income (except any Rent Assistance, which you can now add). Then you nominate your Monthly expenses (note the Future Fund is already there at the bottom).
Finally, all the above is combined into TWO Pies. The Thick and Fat one uses RED for Expenses and GREEN for the Residual. The Thin pie is the makeup of the RED Expenses. Duncan's main expense is staying at caravan parks (although he gets some Rent Assistance to help), but the GREEN amount (lower right) is $182 per week so should cover food etc and a few beers, after all "I'd Love to have a Beer with Duncan".
