Australian retirees increasingly report financial insecurity as a reason for returning to work or delaying retirement. The biggest financial mistakes retirees make are key drivers, including rising living costs, inadequate savings, unexpected expenses, misunderstanding of retirement entitlements, and unsound investment or spending decisions. (The Guardian)
Retiring early is an appealing idea: more time for travel, hobbies, family, and personal fulfilment. But there’s a price. More years off work mean more expenses, more risk, and greater demands on your savings, which raises the question: How long will my money last when I retire? In Australia, with rising life expectancy, increasing cost of living, and a changing superannuation and Age Pension environment, planning for early retirement requires careful, data-informed calculations.
This article explains the effect of extra years in retirement, what research shows about returning to work, and gives a straightforward method to calculate how much you’ll need if you choose to retire before traditional ages.
Thus “early retirement” might mean retiring at, say, age 55, or even earlier, depending on one's expectation and health, housing status, lifestyle etc.
