As part of Seniors month in the Northern Territory, Financial Information Services (FIS) Officer, Terry, is offering a range of free seminars aimed at people who are close to retiring, and also people who are of working age, to help them be more self-sufficient in their retirement.
He’ll cover topics like age pension, superannuation and salary sacrificing, budgeting and estate planning.
“We should all start to think about retirement from the moment we start working. If you start to contribute a little bit of money over a long period of time, you get the benefits of earning interest on investments and that can make a big difference,” Terry said.
Terry has been a Financial Information Services (FIS) Officer at the Department of Human Services for the past 8 years. Based in the Northern Territory, Terry travels across the state to deliver advice and information to customers about complex financial matters.
“A FIS Officer is like a link between a complicated financial concept and our customers. We can take things that some people find difficult to comprehend, and explain it to them in terms that they find much easier to understand”, said Terry.
Whilst some people may take it for granted, Terry is very passionate about budgeting.
“People roll along from fortnight to fortnight and they may have a rough idea of how much money they’re earning and where it goes, but they haven’t really sat down and organised things or made a budget,” he said.
“I like to help people create a strategy for achieving a goal, such as owning a car, paying off a mortgage or saving for a holiday. I like to sit them down and ask about their priorities, then help them put together a strategy to achieve it.”
Terry will be running 31 seminars throughout August.
“They’re free, they’re available to anyone, and they can make a really great difference to someone’s life.”
If you’d like to attend a seminar held by Terry, or any other FIS Officer, you can visit the department’s Financial Information Services (FIS) page.
