The ASFA Retirement Standard for the September 2011 quarter has just been released and reveals that “in general, a couple looking to achieve a comfortable retirement needs to spend $55,316 a year, while those seeking a ‘modest’ retirement lifestyle need to spend $31,767 a year.”
One of the most useful elements of this quarter’s update is the release of an online quick estimator of your retirement lifestyle cost.
To estimate how much you need to save in order to make work optional (“retire”) on your terms you need to define your retirement lifestyle target. If you have no idea of how much to set for your retirement lifestyle target then use the quick estimator to get a feeling of what current retirees are spending. I recommend you shoot for the “comfortable” lifestyle target.