Comfortable retirement further away: ASFA

Retirees looking to lead a comfortable lifestyle will now need to spend $53,879 a year, up 0.3 per cent over the December quarter, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA).

The ASFA Retirement Standard also found that couples who want to lead just a modest retirement lifestyle will need to spend more, rising $150 over the quarter to $30,708.

ASFA identified the rising costs to be those of food, alcohol, tobacco, transportation and domestic holidays.

In fact, between the September and December quarters last year, retirees had to face a 2.2 per cent increase in the cost of food, but fortunately price rises over the year were a more modest 2.5 per cent.

There was also a 0.2 per cent increase in transportation costs with a 2.1 per cent increase in petrol prices.

Meanwhile, the price of health services, clothing, home audio and visual, as well as computing equipment decreased over the quarter, which helped to even out the overall rising costs.

ASFA measures a comfortable retirement as enabling retirees to be involved in a broad range of leisure activities and to be able to afford private health insurance, a reasonable car, good clothes and domestic and occasionally international holiday travel.

A modest retirement is measured as being better than the age pension but still only allowing retirees to afford fairly basic activities.