Retirement can feel like a distant question until, quite suddenly, it isn’t. Somewhere in your late 40s or early 50s the timeframe compresses, and the question you’ve been avoiding becomes hard to ignore: am I on track?
The honest answer for most Australians is “sort of, but not quite as much as you’d hope”. The useful answer takes a bit more work.
What “on track” actually means
There’s no universal target. The right benchmark depends on the retirement you’re planning for.
- A modest retirement, per the ASFA Retirement Standard, costs a couple around $49,000 a year and is largely funded by the Age Pension
- A comfortable retirement costs a couple around $74,500 a year and typically needs a super balance of around $780,000 combined at age 67
- A premium retirement (regular travel, private health, hobbies with real budgets, home upgrades in retirement) can run to $110,000+ and usually calls for well over $1.5 million in combined savings
None of those numbers apply to you personally until you compare them against your own spending. Our guide to how much you need to retire in Australia walks through how to work out your figure from what you actually spend today, adjusted for how retirement will look different.
Three questions worth answering honestly
1. Can I access my super when I plan to retire?
Preservation age (the earliest you can access your super) sits at 60 for anyone born after mid-1964. From 60, a transition to retirement (TTR) pension becomes available while you’re still working. A full account-based pension unlocks when you meet a “condition of release”, typically retiring after 60 or reaching age 65.
The rules matter because a common mistake is planning to retire at 58 or 59 without checking whether super is actually accessible. It usually isn’t.
2. How much super will I actually have?
Two ways to answer this:
- Log into your super fund and use its retirement projection tool. Most funds now show a projected income in retirement based on current contributions and balance.
- Compare against benchmarks. Our benchmarks by decade show median balances and ASFA targets for each five-year age bracket, from 30 through to 65.
If your projected balance sits meaningfully below your target, there’s usually still time to close the gap, especially if you’re under 60.
3. How long does my money need to last?
Retirement can easily run 25-30 years. A retiree aged 65 in 2026 has a median life expectancy in the mid-80s, and 25% of people will live past 90. The plan needs to fund all of it, not just the first decade.
The three variables that matter for how long money lasts:
- Your drawdown rate. A balanced portfolio can typically sustain a 5-5.5% drawdown for a normal-length retirement, though the safe rate is lower if you retire before 65.
- Your investment mix. Being too defensive at retirement age costs meaningfully more than being appropriately growth-tilted, because your money still needs to work for 20-30 years.
- The Age Pension. Most retirees will draw at least some Age Pension for part of retirement, and it stretches your own capital considerably further than a purely self-funded plan.
Levers that actually close the gap
If the answers to those three questions leave you short, these are the moves that reliably work.
- Salary sacrifice or personal deductible contributions. The tax arbitrage (15% inside super vs your marginal rate outside) is meaningful at every income level and compounds significantly over 10-15 years. See our guide to salary sacrificing into super.
- Concessional carry-forward. If your total super balance is under $500,000 at 30 June the prior year, you can use unused concessional cap from the previous five years. This is a large one-off lever that’s often ignored.
- Bring-forward non-concessional contributions. Up to three years of the non-concessional cap in one contribution ($390,000 combined for 2026-27) can move a lump sum from a property sale or inheritance into super with meaningful tax benefits.
- Investment option review. A large number of Australians drift into a “balanced” default option that doesn’t match their timeframe. Under 55, most people should be in a growth-tilted option.
- Downsizer contribution. If you sell your home from age 55, up to $300,000 per person ($600,000 per couple) can go into super from the sale proceeds, outside the normal contribution caps.
- Structured withdrawal plan. How you draw from super, and when, has a bigger impact on retirement income than most people realise. This is where a plan starts to earn its keep.
The decade that changes everything
For most Australians, the decade before retirement is when the numbers move the most. Peak earnings, kids becoming self-supporting, and the concessional cap rules all line up. Our retirement planning in your 50s checklist works through the 10 items worth getting right in that window.
Even if you’re past that decade, later-life levers like the downsizer contribution, TTR strategies, and unrestricted account-based pensions after a condition of release keep meaningful options open.
When to get advice
A retirement plan doesn’t need to be complicated, but it needs to be right. The decisions in the 5-10 years around retirement are the most valuable and the least reversible in most people’s financial lives. Getting them right typically saves several years’ worth of adviser fees in a single decision.
The signs it’s time for a proper retirement plan review:
- You’re within 10 years of your intended retirement date
- You’ve had a meaningful life change (business sale, inheritance, redundancy, separation)
- You’re not sure whether your current super investment option matches your timeframe
- You’ve been managing your finances yourself and want a second opinion before the decisions get harder
If any of those apply, book a free initial discussion with one of our retirement planning advisers. We’ll work through where you sit against your own target and what the practical next moves are for your situation.