Recent news reports about 4.6 million Australians were alarming for retirees. The news was that more than one quarter of us are ‘too poor to retire’. We tracked down the research which led to these widespread TV and press reports. It came from comparison website, Finder and was based on a survey of 1063 people. The results also showed that:
23% of respondents think they won’t have enough money in super to ‘get by’ once they retire
27% report that they don’t know how much super they have
22% believe they will be ‘okay’ but will need to reduce spending and
only 17% believe their super will be enough to live off.
At first glance one could easily be rattled by these dire warnings. Nearly five million people is far too many to be ‘too poor to retire’. But if we unpack this research and reported conclusions, it’s rather facile. The sample size was just over 1000 people. Extrapolating from this number across the entire population is a bit of a stretch.
So how do you respond to these types of headlines? Do they get you down? Do you ignore them? Or could they be treated as useful triggers to think about your own situation and how you are placed to live a fun and purposeful retirement? Rather than being discouraged, we think that they present a great opportunity to review your own retirement health.
