The retirement ‘sweet spot’: Can less super mean more income?

September 12, 2026 — 3:00am

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The average Australian approaching retirement today has a decent chunk of money in super, but let’s face it, it’s probably not the $1 million balance we so often hear about.

Around the age of 65 – the average that people retire – average super balances sit at about $466,000 for men and $407,000 for women. The median retirement balance is closer to $219,000 at 65 to 69 today.

That means the average Australian is not grappling with a wealth problem; they’re grappling with how to make retirement work without much access to advice or help from the system. There’s a wonderful lesson hidden in our retirement system for exactly these people that most are unaware of: super and the age pension are designed to work together.

The question to ask is: “What income could my super and the age pension produce together?”

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Average super balances, when combined with the age pension, can produce a surprisingly decent retirement income. There’s even a point at which someone with less super and savings can have more annual income to live on than someone with considerably more in super.

I call it the sweet spot – a point where your super and savings and the age pension work particularly well together to produce retirement income.

The age pension increases again on September 20, along with changes to the deeming rate used on the income test. Other caps moved with indexation on July 1, which means the numbers have shifted, and so has the sweet spot.

So I’ve crunched the new numbers to show you where the sweet spot sits now – and there are some good takeaways in it.

The sweet spot for a single home owner

Let’s start with a single home owner with $368,000 in assets, $338,000 in super and savings and $30,000 in home........

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