How much do I need to retire at 60? How much do I need to retire early?

There is no single answer for every person as it depends on the retirement you want including your lifestyle expenses, and many other objectives including whether you want to allow for contingencies such as aged care and estate planning. We will undertake this calculation on a customised basis for you after understanding your personal circumstances and your objectives and goals.

As a rule of thumb, as at 1 July 2025, people can comfortably retire from the age of 67 years old, on about $720,000 as a couple and $610,000 for a single person assuming that their home is owned debt free. For couples we would need to understand the age gap between the two spouses. For each year earlier than 67 years old, the couple would need $42,000 and the single person $32,000.

Many of our clients want to build wealth, as part of their retirement planning, to provide them with options to retire early and be financially independent. Whether you are working in a corporation, a government agency or a business owner, the nature of business conditions, industry and organisational change, and technology disruption means that financial independence and resilience is more important than ever in retirement planning. 

Focusing on FIRE strategies, meaning financial independence and retire early, provides our clients with the option to retire at 60 or early. This may be driven by a desire to not spend your whole healthy life working and then to retire into ill-health. Working for a period and then having the financial independence to retire at 60, and enjoy your wealth in your 60’s and beyond. It may also be driven by an acceptance that decisions as to when you retire are not entirely within your control, and therefore planning for retirement provides optionality and choice, but also resilience.

At Setch, we have the ability to provide you customised advice in answering the question how much do I need to retire at 60 so contact Setch today for an obligation free appointment.

Super Retirement Calculator

We have a super retirement calculator that takes your personal circumstances including your home ownership situation and relationship status, and goals and objectives, and provides scenarios and projections to answer based on different assumptions, how much I need to retire at 60? How much do I need to retire early? We will also be able to help you with retirement planning strategies, including implementation to achieve this goal. 

Contact Setch today to start developing your FIRE strategy.

As we assist our clients to build or accumulate wealth, we help them to be increasingly financially independent with investments generating passive income streams to give them options. Let’s work together to use the benefit of compounding returns to achieve your objectives and give you those options. 

These options allow our clients to travel or retire early, whether it be at 60 or another age, but also means that in the event of a redundancy or change in circumstances in their business or working life, they have the ability to weather the situation.

Retirement Planning Australia

The Australian retirement age is now 67 years old, being the date at which the aged pension can be received from Centrelink, so retiring at 60 years is considered an early retirement. However, the statistics show that more than half the working population in Australia will actually retire before they reach 60 years old. This occurs whether they can afford to retire or not, and is being driven or imposed by decisions of others rather than choice. It is really a key element to the issue of Retirement Planning Australia. 

FIRE strategies allow our clients to have a positive mindset in which they recognise from an early stage of being our client that they may work at different employers over time and it is important to build financial independence and resilience. Our objective is to be a constant in their financial affairs guiding wise decision making to weather all manner of life events and building wealth

How to retire early?

The ability to retire at 60 is very achievable but requires discipline and financial guidance. How an individual is able to retire at 60 will depend greatly on their personal circumstances. The median life expectancy in Australia is approximately 86 years for women and 83 years for men. However, median life expectancy tends to grow slowly over time and median means that half the cohort will live beyond life expectancy.

Accordingly, in order to retire early at 60 years old requires a consideration of a long retirement, which might be as much as 25 years for the average person but even longer for those fortunate to have good health. In Australia, we are lucky to have an excellent health system that allows people to have long and fulfilling lives. 

However, it is important in considering early retirement or retiring at 60, that planning for retirement is going to impact a large part of your life and having the right retirement planning strategies is going to be important. 

The ability to retire at 60 usually involves home ownership that is paid off quickly and we have strategies to assist, and accumulating wealth over time that will be resilient to inflation and the ups and downs of the market, to develop passive income streams. We have strategies to assist including retirement planning strategies, which will vary from person to person but involve superannuation, investment and property investment. 

Importantly, we help our clients with prudent debt management that frankly turns the dial on the ability of a person to retire early. The key is taking action to take control of your finances and contacting Setch for an obligation free appointment.

The Reality of Early Retirement

Most Australians will rely on the aged pension either partly or wholly for a period of their retirement, but generally only become entitled to the aged pension at 67 years old. We understand the Centrelink system and how aged pension entitlement is determined and the level of aged pension payments. Factors such as homeownership, relationship status and asset level impact the calculation. 

We can develop retirement planning strategies for average Australians that include retiring at 60 or early retirement, and this involves a mixture of their own superannuation and eventually supplemented by the aged pension. As a person’s level of wealth increases, the ability to comfortably retire at 60 or retire early becomes easier but average Australians can do it as well with our help.

Contact Setch today to answer the question, how much do I need to retire at 60?