Why are so many retirees still spending like it’s 1991?

July 25, 2026 — 5:01am

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Picture someone 10 years into retirement, too afraid to draw down beyond the government minimum drawdown. Their super is well above the national average, and they own their own home.

They could be comfortable, but instead, they’re living like it’s 1991, back in the recession we had to have. They’re skipping the trip to see their grandkids overseas, patching up a car that could have been replaced years ago, and turning the heating down a notch every winter to protect a super balance they will almost certainly never spend.

That’s not a rare story. It’s happening in kitchens and living rooms all over Australia. And here’s the hard part: 33 years ago, Australia launched one of the most successful financial experiments in the world – we forced every Australian to save for retirement.

Most people don’t realise that it worked magnificently – giving everyone who has worked a bucket of savings to deploy when they retire. But we never explained that to the people living it.

In fact, the enormous success of superannuation has created a new retirement problem we don’t discuss enough – people don’t know how to manage their money so they can confidently spend.

Most people in Australia don’t think of themselves as someone who has saved for retirement. You’ve saved almost accidentally. It came out of your pay before you ever saw it, went into an account you probably didn’t check for years at a time, and it grew while you got on with living your life – just like the experiment was meant to work, but better.

We’re a nation of brilliant savers, and terrible spenders, and it’s really not our fault.

You didn’t get a financial plan, or understand what you were invested in. You just didn’t touch it, and it turns out that for most average Australians that will be enough.

Except that now, most Australians are sitting on a reasonable-sized bucket of money, and very few are........

© The Sydney Morning Herald