BUSINESS EXCELLENCE: Are you retirement ready?

Australians are bombarded with broad brushstroke messages about savings required for retirement.

Common measures and targets for adequate super and savings balances may provide a starting point for discussion, but reality suggests they can also mislead.

Media articles suggesting you need $1 million to retire comfortably can serve to promote saving for life after work, however they can equally leave us feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. For some, the fear of outliving your money is an entirely legitimate one. However, our experience working with local retirees suggests the numbers quoted are only scaring people who don’t really need to be all that afraid.

We spend most of our lives working towards retirement, saving and putting away as much as we can to get there. Even with a lifetime of savings, investments and super, we worry. So maybe, instead of thinking “I don’t have enough”, it might be time to think “How do I make what I’ve already got work for me?” – you might surprise yourself.

To help you along, a good place to start is knowing how much you are likely to spend in retirement. For most of us, this can be difficult to quantify. The ASFA Retirement Standard has been developed to help solve this problem by objectively outlining the annual budget needed by the average Australian to fund a comfortable standard of living in their post-work years. It provides benchmarks for a comfortable ($42,953 and $60,604) and modest ($27,425 and $39,442) standard of living, for singles and couples respectively.

You will typically spend more per year from 50-75 than you do from 75-95. If you have lived a financially conservative life, you generally don’t overspend in retirement.

While we’d love our parents to be around forever; the reality is that at some point you may receive an inheritance that helps your financial position.

The prospect of receiving a Centrelink Age Pension to supplement your income as your wealth decreases is rarely considered by many retirement calculators or super fund statements.

Having put such a positive tone to the above observations, we are certainly not suggesting you become financially irresponsible, but we do recommend you enjoy what you have worked so hard to accumulate.