Income from super Reckoner

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SuperGuide’s Income from super Reckoner can help you quickly and simply understand the approximate super savings you need to fund your desired retirement income.

The figures used in the reckoner have been sourced from the MoneySmart Retirement Planner, a powerful tool that we highly recommend you try for yourself. SuperGuide’s reckoner is not intended to replace the calculator, but rather complement it by making it easier for to quickly compare different scenarios.

The reckoner allows you to filter for the following factors:

How much income in retirement you are aiming for
Whether you are single or a couple
Whether or not you are eligible to receive the Age Pension
Whether you anticipate a return on your super savings of 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, 6% or 7% per year (net of fees)
Whether you’d like your super to last 25 years, 30 years or 35 years.

The tool then shows you approximately how much super savings you would need for each scenario. For example, if you are a couple seeking an income of $80,000 per year, are not eligible for the Age Pension, are anticipating a return of 4% per year, and would like your super to last 30 years, then you would need approximately $3,550,000 (combined) in super.

The Income from super Reckoner is similar to our Super to income Reckoner but works the opposite way.

Note: We do not consider it realistic to achieve returns of 7% per year net of all fees, particularly over such a long time period, but we have added these as points for comparison after requests from readers.

Discover what return the top performing pension funds achieve.

For your reference the ASFA Retirement Standard for those aged around 65 are as follows:

ASFA Retirement Standard	Single	Couple
Modest lifestyle	$28,179	$40,739
Comfortable lifestyle	$44,224	$62,562

Source: ASFA (December 2020)

Disclaimer

This reckoner is only intended as a guide to present approximate scenarios and should not be relied on to provide definitive figures on what your retirement income is likely to be. We highly recommend you try the MoneySmart Retirement Planner for yourself, but remember that it is only a model and not a prediction.

To view a demonstration video of how to use the MoneySmart Retirement Planner, see SuperGuide article Video: How to use the MoneySmart Retirement Planner.

To use the reckoner just click on the filter buttons, then select the boxes that you would like to filter on and click OK. The corresponding results will appear below. Repeat for each filter you would like to apply to further narrow down the results.

	Relationship status	Annual income in retirement	Return on savings (% per year)	Eligible for Age Pension?	Years super lasts
wdt_ID	Relationship status	Annual income in retirement	Return on savings (% per year)	Eligible for Age Pension?	Years super lasts	Super balance needed
1	Single	$30,000	2%	No	25 years	1,000,000
2	Single	$30,000	2%	No	30 years	1,220,000
3	Single	$30,000	2%	No	35 years	1,420,000
4	Single	$30,000	2%	Yes	25 years	140,000
5	Single	$30,000	2%	Yes	30 years	160,000
6	Single	$30,000	2%	Yes	35 years	190,000
7	Single	$30,000	3%	No	25 years	890,000
8	Single	$30,000	3%	No	30 years	1,110,000
9	Single	$30,000	3%	No	35 years	1,250,000
10	Single	$30,000	3%	Yes	25 years	120,000

Assumptions

You own your own home and have personal assets of $25,000 or less. These calculations do not allow any investment assets outside super. Note that the amount of investment assets you have can greatly affect the amount of Age Pension you are eligible for.
Results are in today’s dollars. Inflation costs are a 2.5% rise per year in cost of living, plus a 1.5% additional rise per year in living standards.
You retire after you reach Age Pension age.
All returns are net of fees.
Calculations for couples assume both are same age and super balance is split evenly.
We recommend you also review the assumptions that MoneySmart list below their calculator.
Calculations were made April 2021.

Note: The MoneySmart calculator is limited to a super balance of $5 million per person. This means that for some income levels at low return rates we can only specify “$5m+” (for a Single person), or “$10m+” (for a Couple)