Increased Income Required In Retirement

[Andrew Williams]

The income required in retirement to fund a comfortable lifestyle for a couple is on the rise according to The Association of Australian Superannuation Funds of Australia’s (ASFA) Retirement Standard which regularly measures how much income is required for a couple to afford a comfortable retirement lifestyle (the definition of this is):

 

Enabling an older, healthy retiree to be involved in a broad range of leisure and recreational activities and to have a good standard of living through the purchase of such things as; household goods, private health insurance, a reasonable car, good clothes, a range of electronic equipment, and domestic and occasionally international holiday travel.

 

In the June 2013 quarter the amount required was $56,406, the latest September Quarter research suggests that now an annual income of $57,195 is required. That’s a rise for the quarter of 1.39% which equates to over 5.5% on an annual basis.

 

Quite a big jump this quarter and well above inflation, well worth keeping an eye on though so that navigating your path towards retirement doesn’t hit you out of the blue!!

 

The breakdown of the expenses looked at to calculate these figures can be found here: http://www.superannuation.asn.au/res...ement-standard

 

Regards

 

Andy

[StraighttothePoint]

We have exactly half of that as an income so it looks like we need to:-

 

Be older and not be enabled, keep our fingers crossed that we remain healthy, walk more rather than pay to be involved in a broad range of leisure and recreational activities and to have a a below standard of living through the minimal purchase of such things as; household goods, rely on medicare, an older second hand car, ok clothes, a reduced range of electronic equipment, and no domestic holiday travel and save everything cent for the annual international travel trip!!

 

Will we survive - yes. This is a serious issue facing many and a bit of forecasting / planning is probably very necessary, more so now that folk are coming here and taking on potentially high levels of debt later in life and/or staring over at a later age. Some of us can only do what we can do because we do not have the earning power, or the time to correct anything, but many others can at least start thinking about it.