You’re young, you don’t need to worry what your retirement will look like. That’s ‘Future Yous’ problem. Except … except there are things you can do now that will make a stratospheric difference to how much money you will have when you retire, because do you know what the maximum age pension is for retirement? $22, 805 a year for singles. That’s around $440 a week. Could you live off that?
We asked a 28-year-old to do exactly that. She’s not happy with us.
I very rarely think about my superannuation, every now and then I will check the balance and stare at it longingly, desperately wishing I could withdraw it to use for a house deposit. I think about getting old even less, at 28, retirement is literally the last thing on my mind. It wasn’t until I accepted the challenge to live on $440 a week that I even knew what pensioners were expected to live on. So, here’s how I went.
Weekly Expenses:
Rent – $233
Groceries -$100
Sunday
I spend $100 on groceries and six hours cooking so that I would have all meals ready for this week. I realise that your average pensioner can’t afford to spend $100 a week when taking into account regular expenses. However I wanted to buy fresh meat, fruit and vegetables.
My mum used to work in aged care and would often tell us that her clients she saw on home visits lived off tinned soup. I am beginning to understand why!
Total spend: $100
Top Comments
"A 22 year old student lived on the standard Centrelink student payment for 3-6 years (depending on their degree). Here's what happened."
They carefully allocated their (best case scenario) $260 a week to rent/utilities ($140), phone bill ($40 a month), saving in advance for yearly car rego and insurance ($140 a month) and petrol ($40 a month).
Or if they're studying in a large city they probably see their rent cost increase but be offset by not needing to run a car.
Leaving them $65 a week after they've paid bills to buy groceries, pay for any leisure activities, clothes, try and save something.
If the people who think millennials are lazy dregs on society who should work harder, save more and stop wasting money on luxuries applied the same logic to pensioners then pensioners "should have saved more and planned better so they had super instead of relying on Centrelink."
Living on any kind of Centrelink payment is tight with little or no room for luxuries. I think it's fair to say most people don't want to be in that position.
And while marvelling at the cost of living and amount of $ paid to a pensioner, How many of you ever think about "Hi, Mum, Dad, how can we help you live more comfortably now after you spent your lives raising us?"
Lots of other cultures do it, why not us 'Civilised
Aussies'?