Are you on track?
Your 50s are a reckoning. They’re usually the first decade when retirement stops being a distant idea and becomes a near-term reality. The hard question to ask now is: Do I have enough?
The ASFA Retirement Standard (December quarter 2025) sets the benchmark for a comfortable retirement at $730,000 for a couple and $630,000 for a single homeowner1, and that assumes you own your home outright and will receive a part Age Pension. A comfortable retirement now costs $77,375 per year for couples and $54,840 for singles2 with retirees bearing cost-of-living increases that consistently outpace general inflation.
If your current balance falls short of your target, don’t panic. Your 50s are genuinely your most powerful accumulation years, and you still have meaningful levers to pull.
Making the most of your super contributions: your final window
The tax advantages of super never disappear, but the time to let compounding work is running out. Now is the moment to use every dollar of available cap space:
- Salary sacrifice. Consider redirecting pre-tax income into super, to cut your taxable income and simultaneously growing your balance. The concessional contributions cap for 2025–26 is $30,000, including the Superannuation Guarantee, amount salary sacrificed to super or personal contributions where a tax deduction is being claimed.
- Carry-forward contributions. If your total super balance was below $500,000 at the start of the year, you can access unused concessional cap space from the previous five years, potentially making a much larger tax-deductible contribution in a single year.
- Downsizer contributions. If you’re selling the family home and meet the criteria, you can contribute up to $300,000 per person ($600,000 per couple) into super as a downsizer contribution, regardless of other caps. This is perhaps one of the most powerful catch-up tools available to pre-retirees.
- Transition to retirement (TTR). Once you reach preservation age (currently age 60), a TTR strategy lets you salary sacrifice more aggressively into super while drawing a tax-free income stream to maintain your take-home pay. Eliminating debt before you stop working
Carrying debt into retirement is one of the most corrosive risks to your financial security. Retirement income, whether from super or the Age Pension, is typically lower and less flexible than your working income.
Consider prioritising in this order:
- Non-deductible debt first. Credit cards and personal loans carry the highest interest rates with no tax offset. Eliminate these immediately.
- Aim to enter retirement debt-free on your home. Beyond the obvious cost saving, your home is usually excluded from the Age Pension assets test, making it one of the most valuable assets you can hold.
- Investment debt. Interest on investment loans is generally tax-deductible, making it a lower priority than personal debt, but still worth a repayment plan.
Don’t overlook the gap years
Your superannuation preservation age is 60, but Age Pension eligibility doesn’t begin until 67. That’s a potential seven-year gap where you’ll be entirely dependent on your own savings, which could include super, investments, and any part-time income. Many pre-retirees underestimate this stretch. Stress-testing your retirement plan against this gap is an essential exercise to do now, not at 59.
The decisions you make in the next decade will shape the retirement you get. There’s still time to make them count.
The information contained in this article is general information only. It is not intended to be a recommendation, offer, advice or invitation to purchase, sell or otherwise deal in securities or other investments. Before making any decision in respect to a financial product, you should seek advice from an appropriately qualified professional. We believe that the information contained in this document is accurate. However, we are not specifically licensed to provide tax or legal advice and any information that may relate to you should be confirmed with your tax or legal adviser.
1 https://www.superannuation.asn.au/media-release/asfa-retirement-standard-super-balances-needed-for-comfortable-retirement-reach-all-time-high/
2 https://www.superannuation.asn.au/media-release/asfa-retirement-standard-super-balances-needed-for-comfortable-retirement-reach-all-time-high/
