{"id":158774,"date":"2025-09-21T12:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T12:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/158774\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T12:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T12:25:13","slug":"retirement-costs-rise-1400-a-year-for-couples-and-900-for-singles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/158774\/","title":{"rendered":"Retirement costs rise $1,400 a year for couples and $900 for singles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A comfortable retirement<\/a> became more expensive over the past year as high prices continued to eat into household budgets. <\/p>\n

It now costs $1,400 more per year for couples, and $900 more per year for singles, to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. <\/p>\n

These estimates come from the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA).<\/p>\n

ASFA created Australia’s Retirement Standard<\/a> in 2004. It has since become the definitive guide to budgeting in retirement. <\/p>\n

The Retirement Standard is updated every quarter to reflect inflation. <\/p>\n

ASFA has just released its June quarter estimates of how much it costs to maintain a comfortable retirement in Australia. <\/p>\n

In today’s dollars, a comfortable lifestyle post-work now costs $75,319 per annum for couples who own their own homes. <\/p>\n

That’s $1,444 more per year than the March quarter estimate. <\/p>\n

For single homeowners, a comfortable lifestyle now costs $53,289, up $906 over the past year. <\/p>\n

A modest retirement lifestyle now costs $49,992 per year for couple homeowners, up $1,808 in 12 months. <\/p>\n

For single homeowners, a modest retirement now costs $34,522 per annum, up $1,136 from the March quarter figure. <\/p>\n

For renters, retirement costs rose even more. <\/p>\n

A modest lifestyle for renters now costs $66,269 annually for couples, up $2,010; and $49,044 for singles, up $2,381. <\/p>\n

Retirement costs increased more for renters because strongly rising weekly rents must be factored into their budgets. <\/p>\n

You can find out what ASFA means by a ‘comfortable’ and ‘modest’ retirement here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What has contributed most to the jump in retirement costs? <\/p>\n

ASFA CEO Mary Delahunty said: <\/p>\n

We continue to see steep cost-of-living increases for retirees. <\/p>\n

Beyond digital costs, we’re seeing heightened price pressures on some essential goods and services. <\/p>\n

This quarter brought above-inflation increases in private health insurance, electricity, and fresh food.<\/p>\n

In the June quarter, the cost of private health insurance jumped 3.7%, the largest quarterly increase since 2018. <\/p>\n

Electricity prices rose 8.1% and fruit and vegetables lifted 4.3%. <\/p>\n

These increases were somewhat offset by a 3.4% reduction in petrol prices due to lower global oil prices.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What about superannuation? <\/p>\n

Delahunty said superannuation<\/a> savings now mattered more than ever to ensure a dignified retirement. <\/p>\n

ASFA says couples need $690,000 in superannuation<\/a> and singles need $595,000 by age 67 to fund a comfortable lifestyle.<\/p>\n

Both couples and singles only need $100,000 in super to fund a modest retirement.<\/p>\n

Pension boost today will help cover costs <\/p>\n

To help cover rising costs in retirement, the age pension is indexed twice per year to keep pace with inflation. <\/p>\n

The pension is getting a boost today<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Singles pensioners will receive an extra $29.70\u00a0per fortnight, and couples will receive an extra $22.40 per person, per fortnight. <\/p>\n

These adjustments will take the full age pension up to $1,178.70 per fortnight for singles and $1,777 combined for couples. <\/p>\n

On an annual basis, that works out to be $30,646 per annum for singles and $46,202 per annum for couples. <\/p>\n

View ASFA’s full budget breakdown of retirement costs here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A comfortable retirement became more expensive over the past year as high prices continued to eat into household…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,6166,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-158774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-editors-choice","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}