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This is the question most Australians eventually get around to asking — usually somewhere between their late forties and a mild existential crisis. The good news is that there's a reasonably clear framework for answering it. The less good news is that the answer is almost certainly higher than the figure currently sitting in your super statement.
Understanding why — and what to do about it — is what this guide is for. The ASFA benchmark: a useful starting point, not a final answer The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) publishes a Retirement Standard each quarter that estimates what Australians actually need to fund different retirement lifestyles. The figures for 2024–25 look like this: For a comfortable retirement, ASFA estimates couples need approximately $690,000 in superannuation savings, with annual spending of around $72,000. For singles, the figure is approximately $595,000, with annual spending of around $51,000. A comfortable retirement, in ASFA's definition, covers private health insurance, a reasonable car, domestic and some overseas travel, good food, and leisure activities. It's not extravagant. It's a decent standard of living without constant financial anxiety. A modest retirement sits considerably lower — around $100,000 in savings for both singles and couples — but that scenario relies heavily on the age pension to fund most of the annual spend. It's a liveable outcome, but a constrained one. These benchmarks are a sensible place to start. They're based on real spending data, updated regularly for inflation, and widely used by financial planners across Australia. The problem is treating them as the number, rather than a reference point that needs to be adjusted for your actual life. Why "comfortable" in Sydney costs more than the national average suggests ASFA's figures are national averages. They don't fully account for the cost of living in Sydney, which is meaningfully higher than the national median — particularly for housing, healthcare, and transport. If you're renting in retirement, the ASFA comfortable retirement figure becomes substantially insufficient. The standard assumes home ownership, meaning accommodation costs are relatively low beyond rates and maintenance. A renter in Sydney's inner suburbs spending $600 to $700 per week on housing is drawing down on capital at a rate that most retirement portfolios can't sustain comfortably for thirty years. This is one of the more underappreciated risks in retirement planning for Australians who don't own property. The age pension's rent assistance supplement helps, but it's not close to covering market rents in Sydney. If your retirement plan includes renting, your savings target needs to reflect that reality explicitly. Working backwards from what you actually want Rather than accepting a benchmark figure, a more useful exercise is to start with what you want retirement to look like and work backwards from there. Take an honest estimate of your annual expenses in retirement. Don't use current expenses as a proxy — housing costs often drop for homeowners, work-related spending disappears, and children are (usually) financially independent. But healthcare tends to increase, leisure spending often rises in the early years of retirement when you're still active, and any travel aspirations need to be costed. Once you have an annual figure, the calculation is fairly straightforward. The age pension (currently around $28,500 annually for singles and approximately $43,000 for couples who qualify for the full rate) offsets some of that spending. The remaining gap needs to come from your super and any other investments. If you're planning to retire at 65, and you have a reasonable life expectancy — the ABS currently estimates average life expectancy at around 85 for women and 81 for men — you're potentially funding 20 to 25 years of retirement income. That's a long time. It's long enough for inflation to erode purchasing power significantly, for healthcare costs to escalate, and for investment returns to go through multiple cycles. The 4% annual drawdown rule is sometimes cited as a general guide — meaning a retiree can sustainably draw 4% of their portfolio per year without depleting it over a 25-30 year horizon. On a $690,000 portfolio, that's around $27,600 per year from super alone. Combined with the age pension for those who qualify, the numbers work. For those who don't qualify — either because of assets or income — the portfolio needs to work harder. The gap between where most Australians are and where they need to be APRA's data on superannuation balances tells an uncomfortable story. The median super balance for Australians aged 55 to 64 — the decade immediately before retirement — sits well below the ASFA comfortable retirement benchmarks for both men and women. The gap is particularly pronounced for women, reflecting lower average incomes, more career interruptions, and historically lower super contribution rates. This matters because the fifties are the final window for meaningful catch-up. After that, there's limited time for compounding to do its work, and the only lever left is the balance you retire with. The carry-forward concessional contribution rules — which allow Australians with super balances below $500,000 to use unused contribution cap amounts from the previous five years — exist precisely to address this. If you're in your fifties and your balance is behind where it should be, this is one of the most tax-effective mechanisms available. If you haven't reviewed your retirement trajectory with a professional, Retirement Planning Sydney is where Davlin Wealth Management does exactly this work — building a clear picture of where you are, what the gap looks like, and what strategies will close it most effectively for your specific circumstances. The factors that change your number No single figure works for everyone, and several variables shift your personal target significantly. Home ownership is the biggest one. Owning your home outright at retirement removes a major expense from the annual budget and also affects your age pension assets test calculation — the family home is exempt from the assets test, which means homeowners can hold more in super and investments while still accessing a full or part pension. Your health matters more than most people build into their projections. Australians who retire in good health and remain active often spend more in the first decade of retirement than in later years. Healthcare and aged care costs tend to rise significantly from the mid-seventies onward. Building a buffer for potential aged care needs — whether that's in-home support or residential care — is something that gets overlooked in retirement planning conversations far too often. Whether you're retiring as part of a couple changes the picture in both directions. Two people share fixed costs more efficiently than one, which is why the ASFA couple figure isn't simply double the single figure. But losing a partner mid-retirement also has significant financial consequences if income streams — including super pensions — aren't structured to account for it. Lifestyle expectations are the most personal variable of all. A retirement spent largely in Australia, in a paid-off home, with modest travel, is a fundamentally different financial proposition to one that involves extended overseas travel, private school fees for grandchildren, or significant gifts to adult children. Neither is wrong — but the target needs to match the plan. A number isn't a plan Knowing your retirement savings target is the beginning, not the end. The more useful question is whether your current contributions, investment strategy, and super fund are structured to reach that target — and what adjustments will close the gap if they're not. That's not a question most people can answer confidently without modelling it properly. The variables are too interconnected — super balance, contributions, investment returns, the age pension means test, potential property equity, and the timeline itself all interact in ways that make back-of-envelope estimates unreliable. Start by knowing your number. Then make sure you have a plan that actually reaches it.
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When should you start retirement planning? A guide for Australians in their 30s, 40s and 50s30/7/2026 The honest answer is that the best time to start was ten years ago, and the second best time is now — but that framing, while technically true, misses something important. Because retirement planning doesn't look the same at 34 as it does at 48 or 56. The priorities are different, the strategies are different, and the urgency is very different.
What stays consistent is this: most Australians start thinking seriously about retirement roughly ten years too late, and the cost of that delay is measured not in missed returns on a single investment, but in the quiet, compounding cost of money that was never given time to grow. This guide is for people who want to understand where they actually stand — not a general overview, but something specific to where you are right now. In your 30s: the decade that matters more than you think Retirement feels abstract in your thirties. You might be managing a mortgage, raising young children, navigating the early stages of a career, or simply trying to keep cash flow stable month to month. Sitting down to think about what life looks like at 65 is not exactly a priority. But this is precisely why the thirties are worth paying attention to. Time in the market is the single most powerful variable in long-term wealth building, and the compounding that happens between 32 and 42 cannot be replicated later. A $10,000 contribution to your superannuation at age 30 — left alone, growing at 7% annually — becomes roughly $76,000 by the time you're 65. The same $10,000 contributed at 50 becomes around $19,000. Same money. Same return. Thirty-five years of difference. Most people in their thirties are contributing the employer minimum of 12% and nothing else. That's a reasonable start, but for anyone with Sydney's cost of living and a retirement target that funds genuine comfort — travel, private health, some leisure — it's unlikely to be enough on its own. Even modest additional contributions in this decade, sustained consistently, reshape the retirement picture significantly. Three things worth addressing in your thirties: Superannuation fund and investment option. The default investment option inside many funds is conservative relative to what a 32-year-old actually needs. With thirty-plus years until retirement, growth assets — shares, infrastructure, property trusts — are appropriate, and the volatility along the way is time you have to recover from. Insurance inside super. Group life and income protection cover bundled with most super funds is worth reviewing. The default coverage is often inadequate for someone with a mortgage and dependants. It's also one of the cheaper ways to access meaningful coverage. High-interest debt. Personal loans and credit card balances sitting alongside a super account is a contradiction. The interest rate on that debt is almost certainly higher than any investment return you're chasing. Retiring that debt first is, mathematically, the better investment. In your 40s: the reality check you probably need The forties change the conversation. Retirement is no longer an abstraction — it's fifteen to twenty years away, and that's close enough to plan for properly. Career income is typically at or near its peak, which means this is also the decade when tax-effective strategies make the most tangible difference. If you haven't looked at your superannuation balance in a while, now is the time. ASFA's Retirement Standard estimates a comfortable retirement for a couple requires approximately $690,000 in today's dollars, with annual drawdown needs of around $72,000. For singles, the figure sits at roughly $595,000. Whether your current super balance, combined with projected contributions over the next twenty years, reaches that target is something worth actually calculating — not estimating. Salary sacrifice is the strategy most underused by people in this age bracket. Concessional contributions to super — which include employer contributions plus any additional salary sacrifice — are taxed at 15% rather than your marginal income tax rate, which for many Australians in their peak earning years sits at 37% or 45%. The gap between those figures is real, material tax savings that redirect money into your retirement rather than to the ATO. For those who've missed contributions in previous years, the carry-forward rule allows you to use unused concessional contribution cap amounts from the past five years — provided your super balance is below $500,000. This is a meaningful catch-up mechanism for people who took time out of the workforce or simply didn't prioritise contributions earlier. If you're based in Sydney and haven't reviewed your retirement strategy with a professional, Retirement Planning Sydney is where Davlin Wealth Management works with clients in exactly this position — people in their late thirties and forties who are earning well but haven't yet structured their finances around where they want to end up. Investment outside of super is also worth building in your forties. Property, managed funds, and direct shares each have different tax treatment and liquidity profiles, and the right mix depends on your income, timeline, and appetite for risk. The goal isn't to pick a winner — it's to have a portfolio that isn't entirely dependent on superannuation, which has its own access restrictions until preservation age. In your 50s: when planning becomes genuinely urgent A decade or less from retirement, the nature of financial planning shifts from accumulation to transition. The decisions made in this decade have the most direct and immediate impact on what retirement actually looks like. Transition to retirement (TTR) strategies become available from age 60 for most Australians. A TTR arrangement allows you to draw a pension from your super while still working, which can be structured alongside salary sacrifice contributions to reduce tax and accelerate super growth simultaneously. Whether this approach suits you depends on your income level, super balance, and how close you are to winding back work — but it's a strategy worth modelling properly, because the tax savings in the right circumstances are significant. The transfer balance cap — currently $1.9 million — limits how much super can be moved into a tax-free pension phase. If your balance is approaching that figure, the sequencing of contributions and drawdown matters in ways it simply doesn't for most people in earlier decades. Age pension eligibility is another factor that enters the planning process here. The full age pension requires meeting both an assets test and an income test, and how your assets are structured — inside or outside super, in your name or your partner's — affects your entitlement significantly. Many Australians in their fifties assume they'll either get the full pension or nothing, when in reality a part pension is available to a much broader group and can make a meaningful difference to retirement income. Downsizer contributions allow Australians aged 55 or over to contribute up to $300,000 each (or $600,000 per couple) from the proceeds of selling a principal residence into superannuation, outside of the usual contribution caps. For Sydney homeowners who may be considering downsizing in their late fifties or sixties, this can be a significant opportunity to boost retirement savings without triggering the standard concessional or non-concessional limits. The question underneath all of this Regardless of which decade you're in, the most useful question isn't "how much do I need?" It's "does my current plan actually get me there?" Those are different questions, and most people can answer the first in theory without being able to answer the second with any confidence. That's where structured advice genuinely earns its place — not by picking better investments, but by building a plan specific to your income, your super balance, your liabilities, and your goals, and then updating it as things change. Retirement planning done in your forties is more effective than retirement planning done in your fifties. Done in your thirties, it's more effective still. Start with where you are. That's always the right place.
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Most financial mistakes don't look like mistakes at the time. They look like reasonable decisions made with limited information — a super fund left on default because switching felt complicated, a will that's been "almost done" for three years, a credit card balance that's manageable but never quite disappears. The damage is quiet, cumulative, and usually only visible in hindsight.
Working with Australians across different income levels and life stages, the same patterns keep showing up. Not because people are careless with money, but because nobody actually teaches this stuff, and the consequences of getting it wrong take years to surface. Letting superannuation run on autopilot This one is worth starting with because it affects almost everyone, and the numbers behind it are genuinely alarming when you do the maths. The current employer super guarantee rate is 12%. For most people with Sydney living costs, that alone will not fund a comfortable retirement. The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia estimates that a couple needs around $690,000 in savings to retire comfortably, with annual spending of roughly $72,000. Whether you're on track for that is a question most Australians can't answer — not because they don't care, but because they've never actually checked. The problem compounds when you factor in the fund itself. Default investment options inside industry and retail funds vary significantly in long-term performance. Add to that the issue of multiple super accounts from different employers, each quietly charging fees, and the cost of inattention becomes very real. Salary sacrifice contributions are one of the most tax-effective tools available to working Australians. The concessional contributions cap sits at $30,000 per year for 2024–25. Very few people use it fully. Some people don't know it exists. Trying to build wealth while carrying expensive debt There's a logic that sounds reasonable on the surface: invest your surplus income and let the returns work for you over time. The problem is that this logic falls apart when you're paying 18% interest on a credit card balance while chasing 8–9% investment returns. You can't outrun that gap. Personal loans, buy-now-pay-later debt, and credit card balances are often treated as background noise — manageable, not urgent. But the interest compounds against you the same way investment returns compound in your favour. Paying off a 19% credit card is the equivalent of earning a guaranteed 19% return on that money. No investment strategy reliably delivers that. The nuance worth acknowledging is that not all debt is equal. Mortgage debt at current rates is a different equation entirely — especially when offset accounts, tax deductibility on investment properties, and investment opportunity costs are factored in. Whether to focus extra repayments on a home loan or redirect surplus income into a portfolio is a decision that depends on individual circumstances, not a blanket rule. Underinsuring and hoping for the best Australians are, broadly speaking, significantly underinsured — particularly when it comes to income protection and life insurance held outside of superannuation. The assumption tends to be that whatever cover sits inside super is probably enough, or that the public health system will cover a gap if something goes wrong. Neither assumption holds up when you run the numbers on what a serious illness, injury, or death actually costs a household financially. Income protection insurance can replace up to 70% of your pre-disability income for an agreed benefit period if you're unable to work. For anyone with a mortgage, dependants, or both, the absence of that cover creates a vulnerability that savings alone usually can't bridge. The right coverage amount depends on your income, existing liabilities, and what's already inside your super — which is exactly why the default insurance that comes with most super accounts shouldn't just be accepted without review. Estate planning left on the to-do list Most people know they should have a will. Far fewer people have one that's current, correctly structured, and actually reflects how they want their assets distributed. The rest either don't have one at all or have one drafted a decade ago that no longer reflects their circumstances. What surprises many people is that superannuation doesn't automatically form part of your estate. It passes according to your binding death benefit nomination — a separate document that needs to be lodged with your fund and renewed every three years in most cases. If that nomination is lapsed or missing, the trustee has discretion over where the money goes. That's rarely what people intend. Powers of attorney, testamentary trusts for families with young children or complex assets, and the structure of business ownership all feed into estate planning too. It's not a set-and-forget exercise. Major life events — marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, the death of a beneficiary — should each trigger a review. Waiting until a crisis to get advice This is perhaps the most expensive mistake of all, and it's also the most understandable. Seeking financial advice feels like something you do when things are going wrong, or when you've accumulated enough wealth that it feels worthwhile. Neither framing is right. Financial advice is most valuable when it shapes decisions before they're made — before the investment property is purchased, before the career change, before the redundancy payout is spent. The cost of advice is real, but it's almost always smaller than the cost of a poorly timed decision made without it. If you're in Sydney and want to take a more structured approach, Financial Planning Sydney is where Davlin Wealth Management starts that conversation. David Linco works with professionals, families, and business owners across Greater Sydney — covering everything from super strategy and insurance to property investment, estate planning, and retirement income — to build financial plans that are specific to real circumstances, not generic templates. The mistakes listed here are common. They're also avoidable, usually with less effort than people expect.
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 Most people write a financial plan once. Usually after a big life event — a new job, a baby, a house purchase. Then it sits in a drawer (or a forgotten folder) until the next crisis hits.
That's not a plan. That's a snapshot. Life doesn't stay still, and neither should your finances. The way you manage money at 27 looks nothing like how it should look at 47 or 67. A financial plan worth having isn't static — it's a living document that shifts as your priorities, income, responsibilities, and risk appetite change over time. Here's how to actually build one that holds up across the long arc of life. Your 20s: build habits before you build wealth The most important thing you can do in your twenties isn't pick the right shares as tt's build the right habits. Income is often lower, expenses feel unavoidable, and superannuation balances look laughably small. But this decade is when compounding starts. Start contributing even modest amounts to your super beyond the 12% employer guarantee. Set up an emergency fund — three to six months of living expenses sitting in a high-interest savings account. Not invested. Not accessible through a card that tempts you. Just there. Debt matters here too. HECS/HELP repayments kick in automatically, which most people understand. Personal loans and buy-now-pay-later arrangements are where twenty-somethings often quietly accumulate a drag on their financial progress. The goal in your twenties isn't to get rich. It's to get organised. Your 30s: complexity arrives fast The thirties tend to bring multiple financial pressures at once. Career growth, a mortgage, possibly a partner's finances to consider, kids arriving, and childcare costs that genuinely shock most people. This is when a proper financial plan stops being a nice idea and starts being necessary. A few things that deserve attention during this decade. First, revisit your insurance coverage. Life insurance and income protection aren't just for people with health problems — they're for anyone whose income would be missed. If someone depends on your salary, the question isn't whether you need coverage, but how much. Second, get your mortgage structure right. Offset accounts, redraw facilities, interest-only versus principal-and-interest — these decisions have compounding effects over a 30-year loan. Third, start thinking seriously about investment outside of super. Property, managed funds, and direct shares each carry different risk profiles, tax treatments, and liquidity. What suits you depends on your cash flow situation and timeline. Your thirties are also when financial advice moves from general to personal. Cookie-cutter strategies stop fitting. Your 40s: the accumulation decade Household income usually peaks somewhere in the forties. Kids may still be expensive (high school, sport, university looming), but earning capacity is generally at its highest. This is the decade to do serious accumulation work. Maximise concessional super contributions where you can — the tax advantages become more meaningful as income rises. If you're not utilising the $30,000 annual concessional cap (as of the 2024–25 financial year), you may be leaving tax benefits on the table. Review whether salary sacrifice makes sense given your marginal tax rate. This is also the decade to stress-test your plan. What happens if interest rates rise further? What happens if one partner stops working? What if you change careers? A good plan has modelled a few scenarios, not just the optimistic one. Your 50s: the pre-retirement pivot At this point, the finish line is visible. It may still be 10 to 15 years away, but it shapes every decision now. The super balance conversation becomes much more concrete. According to ASFA's Retirement Standard, a comfortable retirement for an Australian couple requires approximately $690,000 in savings (as of recent estimates) to fund a lifestyle that covers private health, leisure, and reasonable travel. That number is a useful benchmark — not a ceiling, not a target that fits everyone, but something to measure yourself against. Superannuation transition-to-retirement (TTR) strategies become relevant in your late fifties. So does thinking through when to take age pension eligibility into account, how to structure drawdown from super, and whether your estate planning documents — will, power of attorney, beneficiary nominations on super — are current. Because they often aren't. Your 60s and beyond: income, not accumulation Retirement isn't an endpoint. It's a new financial phase that can last 25 to 30 years. The question shifts from "how do I grow wealth" to "how do I make it last." Sequencing risk — the danger of market downturns early in retirement eroding a portfolio before it can recover — is a real concern that gets little airtime until it bites someone. Asset allocation needs to shift, but not so aggressively that inflation quietly eats purchasing power over two decades. Estate planning matters more here than at any other stage. Clear beneficiary nominations, a current will, consideration of testamentary trusts where relevant — these aren't morbid topics. They're practical ones. What makes a plan actually adaptive A financial plan adapts when it's reviewed regularly, not just when something goes wrong. Once a year at minimum. After major life events — marriage, divorce, inheritance, illness, job change — as a matter of course. It also adapts when it's built around your life, not a generic template. The right asset allocation, insurance structure, super strategy, and debt management approach for you depends on your age, income, family situation, goals, and risk tolerance. All of which change. If your current plan hasn't been reviewed in more than a year, or if you've never had one built properly from scratch, Financial Planning Sydney is where Davlin Wealth Management starts that conversation. David Linco and the team work with professionals, families, and business owners across Greater Sydney to build strategies that hold up not just today but across the decades ahead. A plan that doesn't adapt isn't a plan. It's a document.
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Inflation has a way of doing its damage quietly. Unlike a market crash, which is visible and alarming, inflation works in the background — slowly reducing what your money can buy, narrowing the gap between your savings and your retirement needs, and making targets you set five years ago less meaningful than they used to be.
After Australia's inflation rate peaked at around 7.8% in late 2022 — the highest in three decades — the topic moved from financial planning conversations into everyday life. Groceries, energy bills, insurance premiums, rent. People felt it. What many didn't consider is what that period did, quietly, to the longer-term assumptions inside their financial plans. This is worth understanding in some detail, because the response to inflation isn't the same for everyone. It depends on where you are in life, what you own, what you owe, and how your investments are structured. The real cost of "safe" cash savings When the RBA lifted the cash rate to 4.35% in late 2023, high-interest savings accounts started offering returns that actually looked reasonable on paper — some above 5% for introductory periods. Many Australians moved money into cash and called it a day. The problem is what inflation does to that calculation. If you're earning 4.5% on a savings account and inflation is running at 3.5%, your real return — the actual increase in purchasing power — is roughly 1%. Not nothing, but a long way from the headline figure on your bank statement. Over time, this matters enormously. A dollar that buys a certain amount today, subjected to 3% annual inflation over 24 years, will buy roughly half as much. That's not a distant theoretical concern — that's a working Australian who plans to retire in their mid-fifties and needs their money to last into their eighties. Cash has a role in every financial plan. It's essential for emergency funds and short-term needs. But treating it as a growth asset is where people get into trouble, and inflation is the reason why. What it does to your retirement number Most people who've thought seriously about retirement have a number in mind — a savings target they're working toward. The difficulty is that inflation means the target itself is moving. The ASFA Retirement Standard is updated each year to reflect cost-of-living changes. What it cost a couple to live comfortably in retirement five years ago is materially different from what it costs today. If your financial plan set a target of, say, $600,000 a decade ago and you've been working toward that number without revisiting it, you may be aiming at a goal that's quietly become insufficient. This is one of the more practical arguments for reviewing a financial plan regularly rather than setting it once and assuming it remains accurate. The underlying goal — a comfortable retirement — doesn't change. But the dollar figure that funds it does, every year, in line with what things actually cost. How different assets respond to inflation Not all investments behave the same way when prices rise, and understanding the distinction matters when you're thinking about how your portfolio is positioned. Shares and equities have historically been among the more reliable inflation hedges over long time horizons. Companies that have pricing power — the ability to pass cost increases on to customers — tend to maintain their real value reasonably well. That's not a guarantee, and in the short term, equity markets can fall sharply in high-inflation environments as interest rates rise. But over a decade or more, diversified share portfolios have tended to outpace inflation in most developed economies. Property is often cited as an inflation hedge, and in Australia's context, that reputation is largely earned — particularly in cities like Sydney where underlying supply constraints have kept values elevated over long periods. Property values and rental income both tend to move with inflation over time. The complication is that property is illiquid, concentrated in a single asset, and involves significant transaction costs. It's a meaningful part of many Australians' wealth, but treating it as the only inflation hedge in a portfolio is a structural risk. Bonds and fixed income are where inflation does the most obvious damage. A bond that pays a fixed 4% coupon becomes a poor investment in a 6% inflation environment — the real return goes negative. This is precisely what happened to many conservative investment portfolios in 2022 and 2023 as central banks lifted rates aggressively. The people who felt it most were those closest to retirement who had shifted heavily toward "safer" fixed-income assets. Superannuation investment options are worth revisiting through this lens too. The default "balanced" option inside many funds carries meaningful fixed-income exposure, which served members poorly during that inflationary period. Whether your current super investment option still fits your timeline and risk tolerance is a question worth actually answering. The one group inflation actually helps Homeowners with mortgage debt. This is counterintuitive for many people, but worth understanding. When inflation is high, the real value of a fixed debt falls. A mortgage of $600,000 borrowed in 2020 is still nominally $600,000, but if wages and asset values have risen significantly with inflation, the debt has become easier to carry relative to income and net worth. That's why periods of sustained inflation tend to benefit borrowers and penalise lenders — which is precisely why the RBA raises interest rates to fight it. This doesn't mean carrying more debt is a smart inflation strategy. But it does mean that homeowners sitting on significant mortgage debt shouldn't assume inflation is uniformly bad for their position. The picture is more nuanced than that. What to actually do about it Inflation is not a reason to panic or restructure everything at once. It is a reason to ask whether your financial plan still reflects what you need it to do. A few questions worth working through honestly: Is your retirement savings target current, or is it based on figures that haven't been revisited in years? Does your investment portfolio have enough growth assets to outpace inflation over your remaining working life? Is your super fund's investment option still appropriate, or has inertia left you in something that no longer fits your stage of life? These are the kinds of questions that a good financial plan answers on an ongoing basis, not just at the moment it's written. If you're based in Sydney and want to review how your current plan holds up against an inflationary environment, Financial Planning Sydney is where Davlin Wealth Management starts that work. The team helps clients across Greater Sydney examine the real-dollar impact of inflation on their retirement projections, investment positioning, and superannuation strategy — and adjust accordingly. Inflation doesn't announce itself dramatically. That's what makes it worth taking seriously before it becomes a problem you can see.
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Walk into any backyard barbecue in Sydney's Northern Beaches or Inner West on a Sunday afternoon, and sooner or later the conversation turns to property. Someone's place just got valued at $1.8 million. Someone else is lamenting they didn't buy in Manly fifteen years ago. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a story, and almost nobody is talking about what happens when they actually stop working.
That silence is a problem. Rich on Paper, Broke in Practice Sydney homeowners are sitting on extraordinary wealth — and a lot of them know it. Watch prices climb long enough and you start to feel invincible. The suburb you bought into is up 60%, the neighbour sold above reserve, and every dinner party reinforces the idea that property in this city only ever goes one way. But here's the thing nobody says out loud: your home can't pay for your retirement. Not directly. Not automatically. You can't swipe your title deed at the supermarket. The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia publishes a Retirement Standard every quarter that most working Australians have never read. The March 2026 figures are worth sitting with. A single person needs $55,923 every year to maintain what ASFA calls a "comfortable" lifestyle in retirement — not luxurious, comfortable. A couple needs $78,566. To generate that income through superannuation, a single person needs roughly $630,000 saved by age 67, and a couple needs $730,000. Go around a Sydney dinner table and quietly ask everyone what their super balance looks like. The silence will be deafening. Because for many homeowners in this city, the money that should have been building up inside super was instead going into mortgage repayments, renovations, council rates, and the endless cost of maintaining a Sydney property. The Real Cost of Owning in Sydney That Nobody Calculates Everyone counts what they've made on their home. Very few people honestly tally what owning it has cost them — not just in cash, but in opportunity. Think about the last decade. Interest rates climbed off their historic lows and mortgage repayments on a $1 million Sydney home swelled by hundreds of dollars a month. That money had to come from somewhere. For most households it came from discretionary spending first, then savings, then the extra super contributions that were always going to happen "once things settle down a bit." Things didn't settle down. Meanwhile, the super balance that should have been compounding through a person's peak earning years was starved of contributions. The tax-effective salary sacrificing that financial advisers recommend? Most Sydney mortgage holders couldn't afford it. Their cash flow was already spoken for. This is the trap that doesn't show up in any headline about Sydney's property boom. The equity is real. The wealth is real. But it's concentrated, illiquid, and completely useless for paying bills on a Tuesday in retirement unless you have a plan for unlocking it. Investment Properties Are Not a Magic Fix Either A lot of Sydneysiders have turned to a second property as their retirement strategy. Buy now, collect rent, sell later and live off the proceeds. It sounds clean. In practice it rarely is. Sydney rental yields have historically lagged behind property values — meaning the rent coming in often doesn't cover the costs going out, especially in the early years. Loan repayments, property management fees, maintenance, insurance, land tax, and the occasional burst pipe at 11pm on a Friday — it adds up quickly. Negative gearing helps at tax time, but negative gearing means you're still losing money month to month and betting on capital growth to make it worthwhile at the end. And when the end comes — when you're ready to sell and fund retirement with the proceeds — you're dealing with capital gains tax, market timing, and the possibility that Sydney's market doesn't cooperate exactly when you need it to. That's a lot of variables to stake your retirement on. None of this means property investment is a bad idea. It means it needs to be part of a strategy, not the whole strategy. Why Complexity Keeps Growing The rules around superannuation have changed multiple times over the past decade. Contribution caps, tax treatment on withdrawals, pension phase rules — these aren't simple. Layer on top of that the complexity of property ownership, estate planning, aged care costs that most people refuse to think about, and the ever-present question of how long your money actually needs to last — and you've got a retirement planning puzzle that's genuinely harder than it used to be. Sydney's property boom didn't create all of these problems. But it made people feel secure enough to stop asking the hard questions. When your home is worth $1.6 million, it's very easy to assume things will work out. Sometimes they do. Sometimes people get to 62 and realise they have equity in a house and almost nothing else, and the life they imagined in retirement is going to look very different from what they pictured. The Kind of Advice That Actually Helps David Linco has been working in Sydney's financial landscape for over 25 years. As the founder of Davlin Wealth Management — a family-owned firm based in Manly — he's an accountant, mortgage broker, and financial planner rolled into one. That combination isn't accidental. It reflects the reality that for Sydney clients, you simply cannot look at property, super, cash flow, and retirement in separate boxes. They're all connected. Pull on one thread and you affect everything else. Davlin's approach is evidence-based and deliberately integrated — strategy first, products second. Whether it's superannuation advice, SMSF setup, property investment structuring, mortgage broking, or estate planning, the work is designed to fit together into a single coherent picture of what retirement actually looks like for each client. The firm holds 80+ five-star reviews across Google and Adviser Ratings, and serves clients across Sydney — from Bondi and Chatswood to the Northern Beaches — as well as virtually via Zoom for those who prefer it. Retirement planning, as Davlin frames it, is about confronting genuine uncertainty and building a plan that holds up across different scenarios — not just the optimistic ones. The Most Expensive Thing You Can Do Is Nothing Sydney's property market will keep doing what Sydney's property market does. Prices will fluctuate, interest rates will shift, super rules will change again. None of that is in your control. What is in your control is sitting down with someone who understands all of it — the property side, the super side, the tax side — and working out whether you're actually on track or just feeling like you are because your house is worth a lot of money. Those are two very different things. Davlin Wealth Management offers a free 15-minute initial consultation. It costs nothing to find out where you actually stand. Call 02 8445 9999, email [email protected] , or visit www.davlin.biz to book a time. General information only — not personal financial advice. Speak with a licensed financial adviser about your own situation.
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 Owning one or more investment properties can certainly be quite lucrative, but it also usually entails quite a bit more work than previously anticipated. As many property investors surely know, earning “passive income” is at best a myth and in all likelihood you’re investing not just your money but also your time and energy into keeping your properties compliant, attractive to tenants, and keeping up with taxes.
While maintenance and repair costs are safe to assume as given for any property owner, taxes, depreciation, and structuring are likewise essential to consider, and good accounting can not only help you keep up with necessary tax obligations but also make a significant difference in the amount owed and your real yields from your properties. Here are a few reasons why you really should consider retaining an accountant for your investment property/properties: You Might Be Missing Out on Tax Deductions, and Paying Dearly for It Owners of rental properties can and should be taking the maximum advantage of any tax deductions available, and several of these are listed on the ATO website for your consideration. You needn’t be a chartered accountant to get a general sense of the deductions available, and indeed the ATO does provide several articles in fairly plain English about what you can claim (and importantly, how to claim them). Nevertheless, a good accountant can help you maximise your deductions and potentially save you a significant amount on your overall tax burden. Getting it Wrong Can Cost You More Time and Money Your income taxes may be relatively straightforward, but adding investment properties into the mix will always add some complexity. That means more time and effort as well as risks of making errors or omissions - hopefully accidental and not intentional. Audits from the ATO, missed deductions, or poorly planned tax structuring can all contribute to added headaches, higher tax burdens than you deserve to pay, and more time spent redoing things. Audits can always happen, even with an accountant, but the chances are lower and you’ll have much more peace of mind. Does it Make Sense to DIY Your Investment Property Accounting? The short answer is that yes, DIY accounting for your own investment property is a great skill to have and one you can put to use every time you must lodge taxes. You can learn how to calculate asset depreciation, deductions, and many other handy skills. Fundamentally, accounting is pretty simple and highly logical. That being said, it’s not something you should really dive into head first. For a single rental property, maybe try and familiarise yourself with the basics, but if you have multiple properties or you simply don’t want to risk getting anything wrong (which is quite likely to happen) then you really should leave this with an accountant. One important thing to also keep in mind is that you probably aren’t going to be browsing the ATO website every day, keeping up with changes to tax laws, government incentives, deductions, and so on. An accountant, on the other hand, should be up to date with all of this, which makes them well-equipped to get the job done properly and in compliance with the most recent ATO updates. Davlin Wealth Management Consult with us today at Davlin Wealth Management.
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Every working adult in Australia contributes towards their own retirement savings through Superannuation (or Super). While this scheme is compulsory, Australian labour force participants have great control over how and where to make their contributions. Does any of this matter? Yes, it matters an awful lot and can make quite a big difference in the quality of your retirement once you reach preservation age (retirement). Perhaps one of the biggest questions we get asked is “What is the difference between an industry and a retail super fund?” Usually, there’s an implication embedded in that question, as people want to know which is better. The quick and dirty answer is, well, it depends. Both industry and retail super funds have their advantages and disadvantages, and since you have quite a bit of control over your super, it’s worth exploring each in a little more detail:  What is an Industry Super Fund?
An industry super fund is an investment fund that is run on a not-for-profit basis. The name itself historically came from the fact that these funds used to be available to workers in specific sectors and industries, e.g., healthcare, community services, construction, and hospitality. Quite some years ago, these funds were only available if you worked within one of these sorts of industries, but nowadays, just about any Australian can contribute, no matter their occupation. What has remained consistent through time, however, is that they’ve remained not-for-profit and return all investments to members upon retirement. Under this structure, there’s no profit sharing between shareholders or dividend payouts. Generally, industry supers have had low fees and great long-term performance. AustralianSuper and Australian Retirement Trust are two examples of longstanding industry super funds. AustralianSuper states that it’s not linked to a specific industry, but it’s technically an industry super. What is a Retail Super Fund? A retail super fund is structured on a for-profit basis. The name retail has nothing to do with a shop or cafe, but instead it’s used like with retail investing, e.g. in the stock market, as opposed to institutional trading. These super funds are usually operated by banks and financial institutions in Australia and are treated as a product they offer, which means that they typically have several investment options to choose from and more flexibility. You may even have access to financial advisors for your super, allowing even greater control over your investments. On the other hand, your investments do go to shareholders (only a portion), and fees tend to be higher. In terms of performance, there tends to be a lot more variability since investors have more control over their investments. Number of Investment Options: Differences Another important consideration when comparing super funds is the range of investment options on offer. This determines how much say you have in where your superannuation is actually invested. Industry super funds typically offer a limited menu of investment choices, often built around pre-mixed options like balanced, growth, conservative, or high-growth portfolios, along with a handful of single-asset-class options such as Australian shares, international shares, property, or cash. For most members, this curated selection is more than enough, and it removes the burden of having to actively manage your own portfolio but as the super balance grows does not offer much tailoring of strategies to manage risk. Retail super funds, on the other hand, generally offer a much wider investment menu. It’s not unusual for a retail fund to provide hundreds of options, including a broad range of managed funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and in some cases direct shares, term deposits, and listed property. This level of choice can be a significant advantage if you want to tailor your portfolio more precisely, or if you’re working with a financial adviser who wants flexibility to construct a specific investment strategy on your behalf. The right number of investment options really comes down to how engaged you want to be with your super and whether you have the time and knowledge. Typically this occurs as we head towards retirement with increasing balances but this should be reviewed regularly to ensure you are always managing risk, fees with investment options. Transparency of Reporting: Differences Knowing what’s happening with your super shouldn’t feel like reading between the lines of a complicated bank statement. Transparency of reporting, that is, how clearly your fund tells you about fees, performance, and where your money is invested, is one of the most underrated factors when comparing industry and retail super funds. Industry super funds have generally built a strong reputation for straightforward, member-focused reporting. The challenge, however, for many is the frequency of updating, and the majority of funds do not allow independent review of their results through third-party research firms like MorningStar and Lonsec. Retail super funds can also offer detailed, comprehensive reporting, sometimes more granular than what you’ll see from an industry fund, particularly if you’re using a wrap-style or platform product that lets you see individual holdings and transactions. Many available investment options open up their financials to third-party research firms, allowing for greater transparency in reporting. It’s also worth remembering that all APRA-regulated super funds in Australia are required to publish key information through Product Disclosure Statements (PDS) and annual member outcomes assessments, so a baseline level of transparency exists across both fund types. The real question is how easy your fund makes it to actually use that information. Before choosing or staying with a fund, it’s worth logging into the member portal, reviewing a sample statement, and asking yourself whether you can clearly see what you’re paying, what you’re earning, what you’re invested in and lastly if you;re taking the word of the fund itself or able to check through third party. What’s Better for You: Industry or Retail Super Fund? Many Australian workers have a “set and forget” attitude towards their super. While it’s better that they’re making contributions (or their employers are on their behalf) than not at all, it’s always wise to regularly check in on your super and to shop around to ask yourself “Can I be Doing Better”? Industry funds are quite straightforward and tend to offer two great advantages: low fees and high performance in the long term. Retail funds offer far more flexibility, which is ideal if you plan to adjust your contributions over the years and get more involved with growing your super balance. The best solution, therefore, largely depends on what you intend to get from your super and your financial situation. All of this can be discussed in finer detail with a wealth management firm, which can offer you bespoke solutions that can give you a much more comfortable retirement. Davlin Wealth Management Discuss your super with us at Davlin Wealth Management.
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Investing is truly dynamic, and generally speaking, investment patterns tend to vary depending on how close you may be to retirement. One of the biggest questions we see being asked is, "How much money do I need to save for retirement?” And while it would be nice to give a simple figure to go off, the truth of the matter is it really depends, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. A big factor that you must individually consider when saving for retirement is how tolerant or averse you are to risk in your portfolio. The word “risk” itself often carries negative connotations, but what does it really mean in investing, and how does it factor into retirement plans?  What Does Risk Tolerance Mean?
Boiled down to the fundamentals, risk is at the very heart of finance and investing. With no risk, there would be no stock market or purpose for investment. Risk tolerance simply refers to how you feel personally about investment risks, or put otherwise, how much you’re willing to risk taking losses. We naturally want to see our investment portfolio increase, not decrease. A little risk often means little potential gains but smaller potential losses. Big risk means potentially huge gains at the expense of potentially losing it all. If you’re highly risk-tolerant, it means you’re willing to invest in instruments that often have high yields, but you’ve accepted that it could also mean losing it all or a significant amount. If you’re risk-averse, it means you’re happier with lower yields and not too willing to lose very much. What Shapes Your Risk Level? As one approaches retirement age, and ideally long before that, tolerance/aversion to risk remain some of the most important considerations. If you’re in your 20s or 30s, you have a much longer time horizon before retirement. That means there’s more time to see your assets grow, even if incrementally. Compound interest is incredibly powerful, as Einstein famously stated! As you approach retirement age, say in your 50s and 60s, that window closes, and you no longer benefit from time in the market (if you’ve neglected meaningful investing until then). What this often means is that as you’re young, you can afford riskier investments since you still have many working years to make up for any losses. Those losses are simply unbearable if you’re older and can’t afford them. What Are the Most Common Risk Profiles? Investors are often categorised depending on their risk profile. This helps put together a robust portfolio that matches their tolerance/aversion to risk and that optimises potential yields within each category. Generally, we refer to conservative investors as those who prioritise preserving their capital, minimising volatility, and not taking too big a risk overall. Government bonds, “blue chip” stocks, and index funds are often considered quite safe and conservative. A growth risk profile tends to favour long-term growth with riskier stocks and other assets at the expense of having more volatility introduced and therefore a higher risk. A balanced profile naturally incorporates some of both of these, “smoothing” out a little volatility but still having a little risk and thus higher potential gains. What’s the Best Risk Profile for You? Everyone has different goals when it comes to retirement, as well as different tolerances to risk. There’s no best solution for one group or another, but there are best solutions for your circumstances. A risk profile can help you figure out how willing you are to make certain investments, and it can be a lot less stressful than throwing your hard-earned money into the market and hoping for the best. To find out what the best investment portfolio is for your retirement, it’s best to consult with a professional wealth management firm such as Davlin. Davlin Wealth Management Save for retirement and more with Davlin Wealth Management in Sydney.
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The insurance industry in Australia is seeing unprecedented challenges in 2026, mostly led by severe weather events, inflation, construction costs, and the cost of labour. Insurers, who must always carefully evaluate risk and account for forecasted and sometimes unforeseen events, certainly have a lot to consider when it comes to providing clients with robust insurance policies. What is the most claimed insurance in Australia? Moreover, what types of insurance are important to consider for an overall insurance strategy and your investment goals? What is the Most Claimed Insurance in Australia? The truth is that it isn’t 100% certain which insurance type or category is the most widely held nationwide, but we can draw several inferences from the Insurance Council of Australia’s 2025 snapshot on the industry. By sheer coverage, the most widely held insurance policies are those that are mandatory or near-universal. According to the 2025 industry snapshot, tens of millions of motor-related insurance policies are in force nationwide. To legally register a vehicle, owners must hold Compulsory Third Party (CTP) motor insurance (known as a “Green Slip” in NSW). As a result, motor insurance is likely the most common form of insurance held in Australia, simply out of necessity. Routine Claims: Policies to Consider Depending on your age and life circumstances, several insurance policies may be appealing to you for added peace of mind. Home and home contents insurance are certainly worth considering if you live in a flood or bushfire-prone area, especially since severe weather is highlighted as a key risk in the 2025 snapshot. Health insurance can be smart for long-term healthcare in private clinics, especially with increasing wait times in parts of the public system. Big Impacts: Policies to Consider There are also several insurance policies that are intended for unanticipated major life events. These include life insurance, total permanent disability, critical illness or trauma, income protection, and child cover. The payouts for many of these tend to be significantly larger than, say, a claim to replace your windscreen on your car, but they are specifically for critical or life-changing events, which can often completely disrupt your plans.  Is Insurance Necessary for Your Financial Planning?
Insurers can be very knowledgeable, poring over statistics and fine details, observing trends and regulatory changes, and refining policies for their clients. A qualified and responsible insurer will carefully weigh the cost of client premiums versus risk, as best they can, but even when done well, it does not necessarily mean that you need one policy or another - that is often a personal matter which you must consider yourself. That being said, being underinsured can introduce a great amount of risk and interrupt your retirement or life plans, perhaps dramatically so. Make sure that you choose policies that reflect your life circumstances and risk, and work with a financial planning specialist and insurer that takes your specific circumstances into account. Davlin Wealth Management Contact us today at Davlin Wealth Management.
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Money is something that almost always feels like it’s much easier to spend than to earn, but of course there are ways to minimise our spending and maximise our earnings. One of the most powerful forces in the universe is said to be compound interest, and it’s a great way to make your money work for you rather than having to toil for that money. How can you make your money work better for you, and what are some simple investing strategies that can help you meet savings and/or investment goals? The Time Value of Money A $20 note was worth $20 in the past, and it will be worth $20 in the future, at face value. What is the real value of that $20 now and in the future? Well, another old saying is that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. It’s better to have that money now than to have a little more in the future. The money can be put to good use right now, whereas the “two birds in the bush” aren’t yours and can’t be put to good use. Money will be worth less in the future, perhaps not at face value but in real terms. Inflation is a perfect example that many of us feel in recent years. That $20 note doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. Go back to the 1950s, for example, and that $20 could buy you an awful lot. In finance, the time value of money reflects how money’s value erodes over time. The present value of money (say $20) can be put to good use now, such as in an investment savings account or in stocks, bonds, or other instruments. Because the future value of that same amount of money is lower (in real terms), there has to be an incentive to save. Doing so always comes with some risk, however, so that risk gets baked into interest, which can accrue over time. In other words, money promised to you in the future should always be worth more than that same amount of money today. By how much is where we get interest from, and it varies from asset to asset and instrument to instrument. How Can You Make Your Money Work for You? With this rudimentary explanation of the present, future, and time value of money and interest out of the way, you can probably imagine that making your money work for you will involve maximising your returns in the future. What does this mean, exactly? Should you look for the absolute highest interest returns? High interest means high potential returns, yes, but it also means high risk, and you could see your investments vanish. On the other hand, low-interest instruments (like many government bonds) won’t make you rich overnight, but they are almost always much less risky. In the case of bonds, they are backed by the solvency of the Australian Government (or whichever foreign government bond you purchase, e.g. American T-bills), so they tend to be much safer. Likewise, “blue chip” stocks and index funds tend to be quite safe. You’re investing in either a reputable and established corporation (blue chips), or you’re buying into a diversified “bundle” of stocks (index funds).  Taste for Risk and Finding What’s Right for You
High-risk investments tend to be attractive for younger investors who can bear the potential of losing in a downturn because they have many good working years left to recover and try again. Low-risk investments tend to be better for older individuals approaching or at retirement, because they simply cannot afford to take such a loss. These are all quite general, and making your money work for you always requires careful consideration of your risk appetite. Diversifying your investments and maximising your potential yields whilst minimising risk is ultimately a personal question. A reputable wealth management firm can assist you with these and help you achieve a realistic plan for your personal finances. Davlin Wealth Management Schedule a consultation with us at Davlin Wealth Management.
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What types of investment strategies are you planning or pursuing? Preferably, you’ve diversified your portfolio with some stocks, bonds, ETFs, or real estate. The nature of these investments varies, and so too do their risk profiles.
It’s often said that with no risk, there’s no reward, and that can apply to investing. If there’s hypothetically no risk, there wouldn’t be any reason to reap the rewards of interest or the asset accruing in value. If an investment is too risky, it can be highly rewarding or potentially catastrophic. A well-rounded asset allocation strategy should fit your needs and circumstances, leaning more towards “safe” investments (defensive) or “risky” investments (aggressive), or a curated blend of both. In this article, we’ll explore the difference between defensive and aggressive asset allocation and how you can find out which is best for your needs. What is Defensive Asset Allocation? Defensive asset allocation is a strategy in which asset protection takes precedence, with modest growth being a secondary but still important consideration. It prioritises safety and minimising risk over the potential of large rewards, so it seeks to minimise potential losses in the event of a market downturn, for example. This means that many traditional financial instruments are appealing for defensive asset allocation. Generally, this includes things like government bonds, stocks in well-established companies, a diversified portfolio, and holding more liquid assets on hand. Defensive asset allocation is appealing for retirees and those approaching retirement age, mostly because it hedges the potential losses that they could face in their later years of life. It’s well-suited for more risk-averse people, meaning they don’t want to take big risks with their hard-earned wealth. What is Aggressive Asset Allocation? Conversely, aggressive asset allocation is a strategy that emphasises rewards over safety, so it’s generally more “risky” and naturally more suitable for individuals who are not afraid to take bigger (but still calculated) risks with their investments. Some of the more popular financial instruments for those with an aggressive asset allocation include individual stocks in up-and-coming companies, options trading, margin trading, or leveraged trades that could greatly amplify the potential rewards from a particular stock. Generally, these sorts of strategies tend to be better-suited for younger individuals with many working years ahead. This allows them to absorb the potential downsides while still reaping the potential upsides of riskier investments. Which Investment Types are Best for Your Retirement? When it comes to choosing which type of asset allocation - aggressive or defensive – it isn’t always a binary choice. In most cases, your optimal investment portfolio will have a healthy mix of both so that you can see real, meaningful gains without overexposing yourself to too much risk. For retirement in particular, good financial planning is always a strong recommendation. You’ll ideally want to understand your own risk tolerance, estimate the potential for volatility, and set realistic time horizons for savings. All of these things can be challenging, which is why it’s a great idea to consult with a qualified wealth management firm near you to better gauge the ideal asset allocation for your investments and with your needs and preferences in consideration. Davlin Wealth Management Get in touch with Davlin Wealth Management for financial planning and much more
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For many Australians, one of the first things that comes to mind about retirement is how it’s going to be funded. Australia’s superannuation system is generally seen as quite robust and sufficient for the needs of many retirees - but not always. Poor planning and management of a super fund can make retirement much more challenging, but the good news is that there are many methods to optimise your super so that you can make the best plans for your retirement. Here are five quick tips on how to optimise superannuation contributions: 01.Consider Salary Sacrificing One of the fastest ways to ramp up your retirement nest egg through your super fund is to forego some of your earnings in exchange for additional benefits. Salary sacrificing is often overlooked because many of us prefer a bird in hand rather than two in the bush, as the old saying goes. Implementing salary sacrificing can benefit you in more ways than just bumping up your super fund - especially in the long term. Firstly, sacrificing your salary can knock you down to a lower marginal tax rate, or “bracket.” There is a 15% tax on concessional contributions, but the total tax is often significantly lower than what you would have been taxed at a higher marginal rate. Keep in mind that if your total income and concessional contributions exceed $250,000, you may be subject to additional taxes. 02. Consolidate Super Accounts Quite often, and especially over the drawn-out course of our working years, many of us may have multiple super accounts from various employers. Changing jobs is much more common nowadays than it was in the past, and we may overlook the fact that multiple super funds may be active in our names. Having multiple accounts could make it cumbersome to calculate and maximise your returns, subject you to additional fees and perhaps higher taxes. Consolidation can be done online through the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) or with the assistance of a professional wealth management firm. 03. Check Your Super Fund Regularly As with many investments, we often go through a phase of excitement in the beginning, constantly checking the listed price of a stock or ETF. It eventually wears off, and perhaps we don’t check it as often over the long term. A pleasant weekend might not feel like the best time to check the status of your super, but at some point, it’s a good habit to get into. A good annual review can keep you up to date with your fund’s progress, fees and taxes, and give you precious insight into steps you might want to take to meet certain goals. 04. Take Full Advantage of Government Tax Benefits and Offsets Here’s where things can get a little tricky, but knowing how to maximise tax benefits and offsets can make a significant difference in your retirement plans. There are many tax benefits and offsets that may apply to you, depending on a wide range of circumstances. The key is understanding concessional and non-concessional contributions, as well as what you may be eligible for. Moreover, there is an element of strategy, since structuring contributions in some ways may be more beneficial with regard to income taxes, for example. A qualified wealth management professional can optimise your super in the most efficient way for your goals. 05. Make Sure All Employer Contributions are Updated Perhaps you’ve been in the labour force for decades and can barely remember that job you held in your early 20s. Every little bit counts, and that’s why it’s important to make sure that employer contributions are up to date and accounted for. Fortunately, there are ways to look for lost super, re-evaluate your balance and contribution caps, but having all super funds accounted for is essential for optimising your retirement nest egg. Davlin Wealth Management For superannuation and financial planning advice, contact our trusted Sydney financial advisors at Davlin Wealth Management. Schedule a free 15 minute phone call to find out how we can help and to get clarity on your options. Fill out a contact form on our website or call us on (02) 8445 9999.
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It’s one of the most common questions that many of us may have at various points in life, especially as we get older and perhaps grow in a few more grey hairs and approach retirement age. How much should I save before retirement? If there’s ever been a bigger “it depends,” we’d love to hear it. There is no simple answer to this, but this blog may help you get a better idea of what your goals ought to be. How Comfortably Do You Want to Retire? Are you extremely frugal, only buying items on discount and keeping your discretionary spending to a minimum? Or are you more lavish and don’t mind spending extra on little luxuries from time to time? Consider this when accounting for your superannuation balance goals. The average superannuation balance needed at age 65 for a comfortable retirement is $690,000 for a couple and $595,000 for a single person, according to the latest figures from The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) on Australian Government’s Money Smart website. Are You Eligible for the Age Pension?
If you’re over 67 years of age and meet the eligibility criteria, you can apply for the Age Pension scheme. For individuals who lack sufficient income and have assets under a given threshold, the Age Pension and other schemes can supplement your retirement. This is mostly applicable to those who have not saved sufficiently in their superannuation and it’s seen as a safety net, but if you do have some savings you may still be eligible for some support. Generally, the more you have in assets and income, the less you receive. What’s Your Age? Unfortunately, most of us start thinking about retirement much later than we probably should. Starting early is ideal, but for many possible reasons, we might not be able to. For those who are young and have foresight, however, a comfortable retirement may be possible so long as you start early and accumulate your superannuation gradually throughout your working years. As a general rule of thumb, to live a comfortable retirement, shoot for the following milestones by age:
How to “Catch Up” if You’re Feeling Behind Don’t feel too guilty or be too hard on yourself if you haven’t got half a million stacked away in your super. Not all of us feel ready for retirement, financially, and of course, this can be worrying. You may be able to make changes to your lifestyle to save more. Consider things like sacrificing your salary and maximising after-tax contributions, consolidating your super accounts, and making changes to your accommodations, lifestyle, and discretionary spending and work out a realistic budget. This is best done with the assistance of a trustworthy wealth management firm such as Davlin Wealth Management. Davlin Wealth Management Save for retirement with professional consultations from Davlin Wealth Management.
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Australian residents and citizens can buy property, but what about overseas individuals and non-residents? In some countries, foreigners are flat-out prohibited from purchasing property whereas in many others, there are severe limitations on what type of property can be owned and for how long. In Australia, however, non-residents can purchase property albeit with some additional challenges and a few limitations to note. One of the biggest differences in buying property as a non-resident in Australia is that you must apply to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and pay them a fee, although there are a few others as well such as being limited to a newly built property or one in construction. This means that you cannot buy a home that has been previously lived in. If you don’t live in Australia or if you aren’t a resident, here are five quick tips to help you secure a mortgage for a property purchase: 01. Choose a Specialist Mortgage Broker Ordinary mortgage brokers in Australia operate on the (reasonable) assumption that you’re a resident or citizen, so instead of going to an ordinary mortgage broker you should see a qualified mortgage broker and obtain a consultation. Specialised mortgage brokers that offer mortgage assistance services for overseas and non-residents can take the additional criteria in mind, guide you through the process, and do everything within their power to assist you in a smooth and efficient property transfer until the keys are safely in your hands. What’s more important is that a good mortgage broker can act as Power of Attorney (act on your behalf) if you physically cannot be present in Australia in the weeks required to secure the loan. 02. Collect All Relevant Documents to Apply Naturally, you’ll need to prepare all sorts of documents to apply for a mortgage. Lenders don’t typically give out hundreds of thousands of dollars to strangers, after all! You’ll need to provide documentation such as your passport, driving license, and information related to your income. The lender may require other documentation and a good mortgage broker can help you by letting you know which documents to provide. 03. Select Your Lender Carefully A mortgage broker isn’t giving you the loan themselves, they’re just facilitating the process. Mortgage lenders across Australia vary and the terms of the mortgage, interest rates, and repayment periods can vary substantially from one lender to another. As with all major purchases in one’s lifetime, choose your mortgage lender carefully and take advantage of the expertise of your mortgage broker to narrow down your search.  04. Sort Out Currencies and Meet the Income Requirements
For most Australian citizens and tax paying residents, income tax returns and bank statements may suffice as proof of income to a mortgage lender. As an overseas applicant likely earning income in a different currency than AUD, there are additional risks that the lender is subjected to. Be prepared to have a plan in place for escrow to send over money for your deposit, as well as an additional buffer of cash for currency exchange fees, bank transfer fees, and so on. 05. Be Prepared to Make a Larger Deposit Than Anticipated As an overseas applicant for a mortgage, you’ll normally be expected to fork over around 20% to 30% as a deposit (or “down payment”) to qualify for a mortgage. Whereas lower deposits may be possible for some Australians, you will be expected to have at least this amount put towards the property from the get-go. Davlin Wealth Management Schedule a consultation with Davlin Wealth Management today. |