The empty nest, and the big sum.
The kids have moved out, the mortgage is small or gone, and the questions have flipped from “how do we save?” to “when can we stop — and will it last?” This is the segment doing the hardest sum on the map: turning a super balance into an income that outlives you.
Everything about this stage is a pivot from building to spending. Two years of “retire earlier than planned” (63.8 vs 65.6) plus longer lives means the balance has to stretch further than most people assume — and downsizing the family home is the lever many reach for.
The earning picture
Income here is a tale of two households sharing a label: those still working full-time in peak-earning, low-cost years, and those already drawn down to super plus the Age Pension. The bands below cover all couple families without children (the Census doesn’t age-split them), so the working and the retired are pooled; the useful question isn’t “what’s the median?” but “how long does our balance last at the income we want?”
Everything is a pivot from building to spending. The mortgage is usually shrinking, the kids’ costs are gone, and the surplus is the largest it’s ever been — for a short window before work stops. That window is the one to model hard.
People retire about two years sooner than they plan, and the preservation age is now 60 for everyone, so super is reachable. Downsizing is the biggest single lever — and since 2023 the door opens at 55, not 60.
Where the money goes
With housing costs low or gone, the budget shifts toward health, insurance and discretionary spending — and health costs climb with age.
The planning task is matching a rising-then-steady spending profile to a finite balance. That is why the drawdown and downsizer tools below, not aspiration tools, are the right entry point — they model how long the money lasts and whether topping it up from the house helps.
From saving to spending
The whole segment turns on one pivot: the money stops coming in and starts going out. Two facts make it land early — people retire about two years sooner than they plan, and the preservation age is now 60 for everyone, so super is reachable.
Downsizing is the biggest single lever, and since 2023 the door opens at 55, not 60. The tools below model both sides: how long the balance lasts, and whether topping it up from the house helps.