The best retirement advice you can give your friends

September 19, 2026 — 5:00am

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Have you ever been at a weekend barbecue listening to Robert in the corner tell you about how he really could retire now, at 54, and head off caravanning around the country. You nod politely, quietly shudder, look inward and wonder what you’re doing wrong.

Until five minutes ago, you thought you were doing reasonably well.

Now Robert might legitimately have his retirement sorted. Good on him if he does. But you haven’t seen his numbers, you don’t know what he’s planning to live on, and you have no idea how he reached that conclusion. You just heard the announcement and now, for some reason, you’re using it to judge your own progress.

That’s the trouble with barbecue advice: a useful conversation can quickly morph into one-upmanship. Who’s made the most, whose super fund is better, who can retire first. Meanwhile, the person wanting to ask a basic question decides they’d rather not advertise what they don’t know.

The bigger problem with giving weight to someone’s barbecue answer is it doesn’t help you work out your own. The Understanding Modern Australia Report, released this week, commissioned by life insurer TAL and produced by McCrindle, found that 33 per cent of respondents would be extremely or very likely to act on financial advice from family and 24 per cent from friends.

Paid, in-person advisers came in at 42 per cent, while AI platforms came in at 18 per cent. These are stated intentions – not what people actually did. But they do show the importance of a quality barbecue conversation about........

© The Age