Forget Standardised Tables Telling You How Much Money YOU Need for Retirement
Glenn Malkiewicz
🏆 2024 Financial Adviser of the Year - Spark Financial Group | Helping professionals aged 45+ reach FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE | Complete the 30 second scorecard below to find out how much money you need ↙️
A key aspect to a successful retirement is ensuring you have enough money for retirement. Makes sense, right?
No doubt you have spent time on Google searching how much money you need, and you have probably seen tables telling you how much money is enough for retirement. They are everywhere and most financial planners treat them like gospel.
The problem with these tables is that they are not personalised to what YOU want in retirement.
For example, according to the ASFA Retirement Standard, as a couple, to have a ‘comfortable’ lifestyle in retirement you need around $645,000.
Digging a little deeper, a ‘comfortable’ lifestyle includes:
- Having fast reliable internet.
- Regular leisure activities.
- Professional haircuts.
- Occasional take-away coffees.
- Confidence to use air-conditioning.
- Annual domestic trips and the odd overseas trip.
Seriously, who comes up with this stuff?? Is this your idea of a great retirement.
Just recently, I had a client who had no plans to travel and likely cuts his hair twice a year. Instead, he wanted to move to the Sunshine Coast, buy a new yacht and continue his passion of sailing.
That was his ‘comfortable’ retirement and we have helped him achieve that. The money he needed to fund that was far different to what ASFA said he needed.
In my 14 years in the profession of helping 100s of people plan for and achieve their ideal retirement, I’ve learnt that everyone’s fears, wants and dreams are different.
Not once have any of my clients fallen into the categories outlined in these retirement tables that are located on the internet and on the desks of financial planners.
One reason you speak with a financial planner is to help understand how much money you need for retirement.
Unfortunately, most financial planners are lazy. They’re not willing to invest their time and energy to understand what you really want, or even help you achieve it. They revert to these tables because it’s easy for them to do so and it sounds convincing to you.
Many people are let down by the process.
You don’t want to be one of them.