{"id":500063,"date":"2026-06-28T20:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T20:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500063\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T20:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T20:43:12","slug":"retirement-is-not-guaranteed-why-sydney-couple-decided-to-take-a-mortgage-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500063\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Retirement is not guaranteed\u2019: Why Sydney couple decided to take a \u2018mortgage break\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The average Australian retires<\/a> just shy of turning 60, if they are lucky to live long enough.<\/p>\n

When Meg Bishop\u2019s father died from melanoma ten years ago, he was still working. He never lived to see his hard-earned retirement.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Meg and Wayne Bishop took a “mortgage break” and went on a 12-month trip around Australia.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Confronted by mortality, Meg and her husband Wayne, aged in their 40s and early 50s, carefully orchestrated a plan to live like retirees by taking a \u201cmortgage break\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt got to the point where we thought life was just too short,\u201d Meg told nine.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know what\u2019s around the corner or what\u2019s going to happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou only get one shot at life and retirement is definitely not guaranteed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sydney couple worked full-time and owned their own home.<\/p>\n

They had paid down the mortgage significantly and decided they were in the financial position to take a sabbatical for a 12-month stint on the road.<\/p>\n

After putting their house up for lease, Meg and Wayne purchased a camper trailer and set off for a lap around Australia.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe rent covered the mortgage, plus our council rates, and anything else,\u201d Meg explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe house basically covered itself. And then we used the redraw account to fund our travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They originally planned to stick to a $50,000 budget but spent around $90,000.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Meg and Wayne lived luxuriously on their retirement reconnaissance: they didn\u2019t need to work and simply enjoyed the spoils of living on the road.<\/p>\n

They had put aside $50,000 for a year\u2019s worth of fuel, groceries and experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent about double that,\u201d Meg laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a holiday the whole time, we didn\u2019t work at all, we did everything that we wanted to do, like the whale shark dives, the helicopter rides, all that sort of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over their year-long trip, the Bishops drove 36,000 kilometres and collected experiences that many Australians save for their twilight years.<\/p>\n

It was difficult to return to their normal lives and the \u201cdaily grind\u201d. <\/p>\n

But it incited a decision to supercharge their retirement plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to gear up to go again, the plan for now is to keep working, pump some more money into super, and when we\u2019re in a comfortable spot, we\u2019ll hit the road again,\u201d Meg explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we can then afford to take the pay cut and do different types of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a pre-retirement retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal is to reach this Xanadu of \u201cpre-retirement\u201d in the next five years.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The couple aim to test out “pre-retirement” within the next five years.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

The Bishops are bucking a sombre trend, as millions of others eye a very different \u2013 and less than ideal – retirement<\/a> than they originally planned.<\/p>\n

Research from AustralianSuper found that 66 per cent of Australians expect they will need to keep working in \u201csome capacity\u201d after retiring.<\/p>\n

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, the number of employed Australians aged 65 and over has surged by almost 70 per cent over the last 10 years to over 730,000 people.<\/p>\n

Meg and Wayne didn\u2019t want to go down this path.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want enough to have a really enjoyable, free, comfortable and interesting life,\u201d Meg added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been quite lucky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if there is an opportunity, and you can take that break without putting yourself at too much of a disadvantage, then absolutely go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The average Australian retires just shy of turning 60, if they are lucky to live long enough. When…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":["post-500063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}