What to do with a redundancy payout
Make sure you plan your next move carefully to make the most of your payout
3 min
You wouldn’t really call a redundancy a career highlight given you’re losing your job. But you’re being compensated for that loss with a lump sum of money – in some cases up to a year’s salary or more.
Experts agree that a redundancy is not necessarily the career death knell it may at first appear.
For many, a redundancy and the payout that comes with it, can be the opportunity for a new start; perhaps a career overhaul, the chance to start a business, a slide into early retirement or the opportunity to boost your superannuation or pay down your mortgage. It could even be a long-awaited extended overseas holiday.
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The opportunity a redundancy brings really depends on where you’re at in life, your age – and the amount of money you receive.
“It can very much be a re-start,” says Steve Mickenbecker, money expert at finance comparison site, Canstar. “People (who get a redundancy) tend to re-visit life goals, they ask themselves ‘What do I want to do? What do I value?’. The beauty is you’re being paid a sum that gives you some breathing space to work this out.”
What you do with your redundancy payout will depend on whether you need to live on the money while you look for another job. If you’re on the job market, you may need to make the money last an uncertain amount of time.
If this is the case, the first step should be to make a personal budget, which you can do using online tools and calculators, or with the help of a money coach or financial advisor. Beyond that, your options are simple – invest it or spend it – says Noel Whitaker, a finance columnist and author of Retirement Made Simple. However, the best financial roadmap will vary from person to person.
“I would start by talking to an advisor or your accountant at the outset who can explain the tax implications associated with a redundancy payout, which can be complicated,” Whitaker says. “The best thing you can do regardless of which option you take is to stay as flexible as possible. For instance, you can pay down your mortgage, or you can put your money into your mortgage off-set account, if your loan has one, so you can still access it should you need it.”
He says age also plays a factor. If you are older, you may want to put it in your super knowing you won’t be losing access to it for long, an option that is less attractive to someone in their 30s, for instance, who will not be able to access that money for several decades more.
Bryan Ashenden, the head of financial literacy and advocacy at wealth management company, BT, breaks down the figures on investing versus super.
“With an investment, you will get the benefit of not only the dividend or return, but also capital growth depending on how you invest the money,” Ashenden says. “For example, a $20,000 investment may generate a four per cent income return (or $800 per annum) but may also provide a capital growth of five per cent per annum (or $1000). So, after one year, your $20,000 investment is worth $21,000 and your $800 income return could either be re-invested or perhaps used towards repaying some of your home loan principal or interest.
“If invested via super, with the same rates of return, the $800 income return would be worth $680 after tax, but because it is locked in the super system until you access it, it can be reinvested (with the $1000 capital growth), meaning you have $21,680 as a net investment after one year.”
The added benefit of investing via super, he says, is that when you access the funds after the age of 60, the money comes back to you tax free. For some, the temptation to invest in a small business venture could also be alluring. But that could be a high risk option.
“There are a lot of challenges (to small business) in today’s environment,” says Small Business Association of Australia CEO Anne Nalder. “It’s not a booming period, with inflation tipped to go close to eight per cent by the end of the year and interest rates also going up.
“If you are going to invest in a small business, look at the potential growth areas and go into something you’re good at, familiar with and passionate about.”
Ultimately, while taking a holiday is a ‘sunk cost’ it could be just the refresher you need before making your next move.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
Couples find that lab-grown diamonds make it cheaper to get engaged or upgrade to a bigger ring. But there are rocky moments.
4 min
Wedding planner Sterling Boulet has some advice for brides-to-be regarding lab-grown diamonds, which cost a fraction of the natural ones.
“If you’re trying to get your man to propose, they’ll propose faster if you offer this as an option,” says Boulet, of Raleigh, N.C. Recently, she adds, a friend’s fiancé “thanked me the next three times I saw him” for telling him about the cheaper lab-made option.
Man-made diamonds are catching on, despite some lingering stigma. This year was the first time that sales of lab-made and natural mined loose diamonds, primarily used as center stones in engagement rings, were split evenly, according to data from Tenoris, a jewellery and diamond trend-analytics company.
The rise of lab-made stones, however, is bringing up quirks alongside the perks. Now that blingier engagement rings—above two or three carats—are more affordable, more people are dealing with the peculiarities of wearing rather large rocks.
Esther Hare, a 5-foot-11-inch former triathlete, sought out a 4.5-carat lab-made oval-shaped diamond to fit her larger hands as a part of her vow renewal in Hawaii last year. It was a far cry from the half-carat ring her husband proposed with more than 25 years ago and the 1.5-carat upgrade they purchased 10 years ago. Hare, 50, who lives in San Jose, Calif., and works in high tech, chose a $40,000 lab-made diamond because “it’s nuts” to have to spend $100,000 on a natural stone. “It had to be big—that was my vision,” she says.
But the size of the ring has made it less practical at times. She doesn’t wear it for athletic training and swaps in her wedding band instead. And she is careful to leave it at home when traveling. “A lot of times I won’t take it on vacation because it’s just a monster,” she says.
The average retail price for a one-carat lab-made loose diamond decreased to $1,426 this year from $3,039 in 2020, according to the Tenoris data. Similar-sized loose natural diamonds cost $5,426 this year, compared with $4,943 in 2020.
Lab-made diamonds have essentially the same chemical makeup as natural ones, and look the same, unless viewed through sophisticated equipment that gauges the characteristics of emitted light.
At Ritani, an online jewellery retailer, lab-made diamond sales make up about 70% of the diamonds sold, up from roughly 30% two years ago, says Juliet Gomes, head of customer service at the company, based in White Plains, N.Y.
Ritani sometimes records videos of the lab-diamonds pinging when exposed to a “diamond tester,” a tool that judges authenticity, to show customers that the man-made rocks behave the same as natural ones. “We definitely have some deep conversations with them,” Gomes says.
Not all gem dealers are rolling with these stones.
Philadelphia jeweller Steven Singer only stocks the natural stuff in his store and is planning a February campaign to give about 1,000 one-carat lab-made diamonds away free to prove they are “worthless.” Anyone can sign up online and get one in the mail; even shipping is free. “I’m not selling Frankensteins that were built in a lab,” Singer says.
Some brides are turned off by the larger bling now allowed by the lower prices.When her now-husband proposed with a two-carat lab-grown engagement ring, Tiffany Buchert, 40, was excited about the prospect of marriage—but not about the size of the diamond, which she says struck her as “costume jewellery-ish.”
“I said yes in the moment, of course, I didn’t want it to be weird,” says the physician assistant from West Chester, Pa.
But within weeks, she says, she fessed up, telling her fiancé: “I think I hate this ring.”
The couple returned it and then bought a one-carat natural diamond for more than double the price.
When Boulet, the wedding planner in Raleigh, got engaged herself, she was over the moon when her fiancé proposed with a 2.3 carat lab-made diamond ring. “It’s very shiny, we were almost worried it was too shiny and was going to look fake,” she says.
It doesn’t, which presents another issue—looking like someone who really shelled out for jewellery. Boulet will occasionally volunteer that her diamond ring came from a lab.
“I don’t want people to think I’m putting on airs, or trying to be flashier than I am,” she says.
For Daniel Teoh, a 36-year-old software engineer outside of Detroit, buying a cheaper lab-made diamond for his fiancée meant extra room in his $30,000 ring budget.
Instead of a bigger ring, he got her something they could both enjoy. During a walk while on an annual ski trip to South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Teoh popped the question and handed his now-wife a handmade wooden box that included a 2.5-carat lab-made diamond ring—and a car key.
She put on the ring, celebrated with both of their sisters and a friend, who was the unofficial photographer of the happy event, and then they drove back to the house. There, she saw a 1965 Mustang GT coupe in Wimbledon white with red stripes and a bow on top.
Looking back, Teoh says, it was still the diamond that made the big first impression.
“It wasn’t until like 15 minutes later she was like ‘so, what’s with this key?’” he adds.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
