The NSW Strategic Plan for Children and Young People

2022-2024

The NSW Advocate for Children and Young People is committed to building a future where all children and young people have:

Hope for the future Love, connection and safety Health and wellbeing

A good standard of living

Environments for joy and fun

Respect and acceptance

To find out more about the plan and how you can be involved, visit acyp.nsw.gov.au/strategic-plan-2022-2024 might need, or else what process to follow. The consequence is that you end up earning and spending until retirement looms large, at which time it can be too late to avoid unpleasant consequences. The essential twofold message is this: set an income goal, and set it while time is on your side.

So how much income might you need in retirement? Here are four possibilities:

#1: Rule of thumb

An easy rule to remember is 80 per cent of what you earned before you retired. This assumes that your living standard equals what you used to earn, with the sum but amount scaled back slightly because you won’t have work expenses.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that median weekly earnings for an employed Australian person aged 55-59 employed $85,335 (full time) and $37,142 (part time). 80 per cent would equate to $68,268 and $29,714 respectively.

#2: Retirement standard

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia’s (ASFA) Retirement Standard is an often-quoted benchmark. It distinguishes between two living standards: comfortable and modest. Assuming you want to aim for a comfortable level (daily essentials, health insurance, an occasional restaurant meal and an overseas trip once every seven years), ASFA’s suggests you’ll need $45,000 if you’re single (the age pension is $23,000) and $65,000 if you’re a couple (the age pension is $35,000).

What we learn is that the age pension alone won’t provide enough money for you to live a comfortable life (as described and budgeted by the ASFA) in retirement.

#3: Super Consumers Australia

Super Consumers Australia also publish a savings target for singles and couples to support an annual spending at three standards: high, medium and low. If you’re single, aged 57, are planning to retire in 10 years and are aiming for a high standard of living, it is estimated that your annual cost of living will be $54,000, and you’ll need to have saved $742,000. Your savings target becomes the amount of income-earning as-sets you need.

#4: Steve’s Simple Solution

Finally, there is the number I suggest: a nice round $100,000. Yes, it sounds high by the earlier standards, but it you could achieve it then you would almost certainly avoid a dreaded permanent fall in living standards when you retire from the workforce. Remember, the question to ask is not ‘Can I?’, but ‘How can I?’

So what’s your number? Once you have something in mind it will provide a goal to aim for, and a context to guide your investing strategy and individual investments. The alternative is to plod along and hope everything works out. This is dangerous. With more than 75% of retirees reported to be reliant on the pension to survive, the more things you leave to chance, the more chance things will go wrong.

This is an edited extract from Steve McKnight’s Money Magnet: How to Attract and Keep a Fortune that Counts (Wiley $32.95), available at leading retailers.