The ASFA Retirement Standard
Since 2004 The ASFA Retirement Standard has served as Australia’s trusted retirement savings companion and reflects evolving community expectations and spending habits to maintain health, vitality, and connection in retirement.
The ASFA Retirement Standard benchmarks the minimum annual cost of a comfortable or modest standard of living in retirement for singles and couples aged around 67, is reviewed regularly and updated quarterly in line with inflation.
ASFA also creates annual retirement budgets for Australians aged around 85. These have less expenditure on leisure activities and transport and more on healthcare-related items.
Comfortable retirement lifestyle for retirees
The comfortable retirement standard allows retirees to maintain a good standard of living in their post work years. It accounts for daily essentials, such as groceries, transport and home repairs, as well as private health insurance, a range of exercise and leisure activities and the occasional restaurant meal. Importantly it enables retirees to remain connected to family and friends virtually – through technology, and in person with an annual domestic trip and an international trip once every seven years.
Source: Infographic reproduced from The ASFA Retirement Standard
The modest retirement standard budgets for a retirement lifestyle that is slightly above the Age Pension and allows retirees to afford basic health insurance and infrequent exercise, leisure and social activities with family and friends.
Both budgets assume that the retirees own their own home outright and are relatively healthy.
Budgets for various households and living standards for those aged around 67
Budgets for various households and living standards for those aged around 85
The figures in each case assume that the retiree(s) own their own home and relate to expenditure by the household. This can be greater than household income after income tax where there is a drawdown on capital over the period of retirement.
GENERAL ADVICE WARNING
The advice contained within this document does not consider any person’s particular objectives, needs or financial situation. Before making a decision regarding the acquisition or disposal of a Financial Product, persons should assess whether the advice is appropriate to their objectives, needs or financial situation. Persons may wish to make their assessment themselves or seek the help of an adviser. No responsibility is taken for persons acting on the information within this document. Persons doing so, do so at their own risk. Before acquiring a financial product, a person should obtain a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) relating to that product and consider the contents of the PDS before making a decision about whether to acquire the product.