By Dennis Spiroski, Senior Financial Adviser, Navigate Advisory
| Quick Summary: There’s no universal magic number for retirement savings. “Enough” depends entirely on how you want to spend your days, your lifestyle standards, your health, and how you want to share your wealth. The ASFA Retirement Standard suggests couples need $690,000 and singles need $595,000 in super by age 67 for a “comfortable” retirement. But these are national averages based on modest assumptions. If you’re in Sydney or your definition of comfortable extends beyond one overseas trip every seven years, your number will likely be higher. The real benchmark is Your Great Life vision, not a national average. |
You’ve probably asked yourself this question more times than you can count: Do we have enough?
Enough for total peace of mind. Enough to take the holidays, help the kids, maintain your lifestyle and never have to worry about money again.
Why “How Much Is Enough?” Is the Wrong First Question
Most people start their retirement planning by asking how much they need. It sounds logical, but it’s backwards.
The better question is: What does your ideal retirement actually look like?
Until you answer that, any number is just a guess.
A couple who wants to spend six months a year caravanning around Australia needs a very different retirement fund than a couple who wants annual business-class trips to Europe. Someone who plans to keep working part-time until 70 needs less saved than someone who wants to stop at 60 and never look at a spreadsheet again.
Your Great Life in retirement isn’t a number. It’s a lifestyle. The number comes after you define what that lifestyle looks like.
Picture Your Great Life in Retirement First, Then Calculate
Before you can know if you have enough, you need to answer some fundamental questions:
If work were optional tomorrow, what would you choose?
Would you stop completely? Drop to three days a week? Take on passion projects? Consult occasionally?
How do you want to fill your time?
Golf every week? Babysitting grandkids? Travelling? Volunteering? Learning something new?
What kind of travel do you envision?
Caravanning around Australia costs differently from annual overseas holidays. Cruises are different from camping. Business class is different from economy.
Where do you want to live?
Staying put? Downsizing? Moving coastal? Each option has vastly different financial implications.
Once you’ve visualised your ideal retirement, you can work backwards to figure out how much money you need to fund it. This is what we call the Great Life Framework, defining what matters to you first, then designing the financial plan to make it possible.
The ASFA Retirement Standard: A Starting Point
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) publishes a Retirement Standard that provides a useful benchmark. It’s updated quarterly and reflects the real spending patterns of Australian retirees.
As of September 2025, here’s what ASFA says homeowners aged 65 and over need annually:
| Lifestyle | Couples | Singles |
| Comfortable | $76,505 p/a | $54,240 p/a |
| Modest | $50,866 p/a | $35,199 p/a |
To achieve a comfortable retirement, ASFA estimates you need these lump sums in super by age 67:
| Lifestyle | Couples | Singles |
| Comfortable | $690,000 | $595,000 |
| Modest | $100,000 | $100,000 |
These figures assume you own your home outright and will receive a partial Age Pension.
What Does “Comfortable” Actually Mean?
A comfortable retirement under ASFA’s definition includes top-level private health insurance, a reasonable car, regular leisure activities, occasional restaurant meals, confidence to run the air conditioning without worry, and one domestic holiday plus an overseas trip every seven years.
A modest retirement covers the basics: basic health insurance, a cheaper car, limited dining out, and one Australian trip a year. It’s better than the Age Pension alone, but there’s not much room for extras.
Your “Comfortable” is What’s Important
The ASFA figures provide a helpful guide, but they’re national averages based on relatively modest assumptions. A domestic holiday and one overseas trip every seven years. A “reasonable” car. Occasional dining out.
If you’re living in Sydney, your baseline costs are already higher. And if your version of comfortable includes regular travel, helping the kids, or simply not having to think twice before booking a restaurant, you’ll need more.
The real question isn’t whether you hit the ASFA benchmark. It’s whether your numbers support the retirement you’re actually picturing.
The Three Big Retirement Risks
Retirement today looks nothing like it did a generation ago. No gold watch, no slowing down, no quiet years in the rocking chair. Today’s retirees are travelling, helping with grandkids, staying active, and expecting decades of good living. That’s the opportunity. But it comes with three risks worth understanding: longevity risk, sequencing risk, and inflation risk.
Longevity Risk: The Danger of Living Too Long
A 65-year-old man today can expect to live to 85. A woman to nearly 88. And those are averages. Half will live longer.
If you retire at 65 and live to 90, your money needs to last 25 years. Retire at 60 and live to 95? That’s 35 years without a regular pay cheque.
Sequencing Risk: The Timing Problem
A 20% market drop in your first year of retirement hits far harder than the same drop in year 15. Why? You’re now selling assets to live on, not adding to them. You lock in losses with less time to recover.
The years immediately before and after retirement are the most vulnerable.
Inflation Risk: The Purchasing Power Problem
A loaf of bread cost around $2 in 2000. Today it’s pushing $4.50.
The ASFA figures clearly show this pressure. The cost of a comfortable retirement hit record highs in September 2025, with food, energy, and healthcare climbing fastest. Your retirement income needs to keep pace with rising costs, not just cover today’s expenses.
Bridging the Gap: Retirement Planning Strategies
If your current trajectory doesn’t quite reach your retirement goals, you’ve got options. The earlier you act, the more powerful these strategies become.
Talk to us today about strategies that are relevant to you, such as:
- Maximising your super contributions
- Downsizing your home in retirement
- Reviewing your existing superannuation investment mix
- Structure your assets tax effectively
- Don’t overlook your debt strategy
Why Starting Early Matters More Than You Think
If you’re five years from retirement, you might think you’ve missed the boat on meaningful planning. Not true.
Five years is enough time to maximise super contributions across multiple financial years. It’s enough time to restructure investments and debt. It’s enough time to sell a business in a tax-effective way. It’s enough time to structure assets to meet age pension eligibility requirements, if relevant.
If you’re 10 years out? Even better. The runway is longer, the compounding is more powerful, and the options are broader.
The clients who enjoy the most confident retirements aren’t necessarily those who earned the most. They’re the ones who planned earliest and coordinated their financial planning, tax strategy, super contributions, and lending decisions as one integrated plan.
When Your Financial World Makes Sense
The question “Do we have enough to retire?” rarely has a simple answer. It depends on what “enough” means for your life, how long you’ll live, what the markets do, and how inflation behaves.
What you can control is the planning. You can define your ideal retirement. You can stress-test your numbers against different scenarios. You can structure your assets and contributions to maximise what you keep. You can position yourself to adapt as circumstances change.
At Navigate Advisory, we help individuals, families and business owners model their retirement scenarios across our financial planning, accounting, and lending teams. We look at your super strategy, tax position, debt structure, and investments together, because they all affect each other.
When your whole financial world makes sense, you gain the confidence to answer “do we have enough?” with clarity rather than anxiety. And that’s when you can start saying ‘yes’ to the retirement you’ve actually been working towards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Book an introductory chat at navigateadvisory.com.au/contact
Navigate Advisory has offices in Balmain, Brighton-Le-Sands and Hurlstone Park.
Any advice provided in this article is general advice only and does not take into account the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular person. It does not represent legal, tax, or personal advice and should not be relied on as such. You should obtain financial advice relevant to your circumstances before making any decisions.