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There are many opinions about what is a reasonable and achievable level of retirement income. Essentially, this is an area where individual circumstances and expectations play a big part.

One guide that provides a useful reference is the Westpac/Australian Superannuation Funds Association (ASFA) Retirement Living Standard. This standard sets out weekly budgets for ‘modest’ and ‘comfortable’ standards of living for singles and couples in retirement.

The Westpac-ASFA standard define modest and comfortable lifestyles as being:

A modest lifestyle in retirement – a better lifestyle than that provided by the Age Pension, but limited to fairly basic activities.

A more comfortable lifestyle in retirement – enabling an older, healthy retiree to be involved in a broad range of leisure and recreational activities and to have a good standard of living through the purchase of such things as household goods, private health insurance, a reasonable car, good clothes, a range of electronic equipment, and domestic and occasionally international holiday travel.

Our view is that people should aim to achieve retirement income from a variety of sources, which is equivalent to their after-tax income before retirement.