Retirement Gap Analysis and Planning
Sitting comfortably? Good. Let’s change that.
How certain are you that you are on track for a comfortable retirement?
If you are certain (and right, of course): Congratulations!
You are one of a very small number of Australians.
The bottom line is that the vast majority of us won’t have anywhere near enough.
Even worse, most of us aren’t even aware that we are slow-walking towards a retirement that is substantially less comfortable then we are currently enjoying.
Everybody has their own idea of what a comfortable retirement means.
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) defines a comfortable lifestyle in retirement for a couple as an annual income of $60,264 and $42,764 for singles.
This is not lavish by any means and it assumes that you have paid off your mortgage and other debts, have no dependent children and are paying little or no tax.
Many readers will look at this figure and feel that it is lower than their ideal retirement income.
Therefore, it should come as an uncomfortable statistic but more than 92% of Australians retire on less than $42,764 of annual income.
The government pension makes up about $33k of this for couples and $22k for singles with the balance coming from savings, private super and other investments.
Why do so many of us end up in this position?
There is no doubt that many people in the community simply have poor access to opportunity. Others face unexpected misfortune or reversals in their position.
For most of us though, the reality is that it comes down to poor planning and not understanding the rules of the game – that is, most of us are working on faulty, out-dated assumptions.
Do you know how comfortable your retirement is on track to be?
If not, then perhaps it is time to find out.
Mortgage Choice Ashgrove has developed a set of powerful tools to help you get the fact and to make sensible changes to make a meaningful difference to your future.
Call me on 0414 408 535 to find out more.