Feature: The two things that will shape your retirement more than money

From Bec’s Desk: Very interesting weeks

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: The silent deadline that could make or break your retirement

Prime Time: The hidden ways you’re being nudged to spend with Chris Kohler

The two things that will shape your retirement more than money

There’s a question I get asked a lot, in various forms….

“Am I on track financially?”

It’s fair, and it matters a lot to retirement planning. But after years of working with people navigating this transition, I’ve come to believe there are two things that matter just as much as your super balance and almost nobody talks about them.

Curiosity and courage.

And, not in a motivational-poster way. In a very practical, neurological, life-outcome kind of way.

What happens to curiosity in midlife

For most of us, the years between 45 and 65 are full of work, family, ageing parents, financial pressure. And somewhere in the middle of all that busyness, curiosity quietly goes into hibernation. We stop asking “what if?” and default to the routines of life, not because we’re lazy, but because routine is efficient when life is demanding.

The problem is that retirement is precisely when curiosity becomes most important. Because retirement, at its core, isn’t a financial event, it’s an identity event. And navigating it well requires genuine openness to who you might become next. If you arrive at that transition without having exercised your curiosity, the blank page can feel terrifying and well… blank… rather than exciting.

But the science says we can get past this. And here’s how. When you become genuinely curious about something, your brain releases dopamine, a real reward hit that motivates you to keep exploring, which is why curiosity tends to build its own momentum. But it goes deeper than that. Curiosity also engages the hippocampus, the part of your brain responsible for memory and learning, which means you don’t just feel more motivated when you’re curious, you actually retain and apply what you learn better.

This matters enormously for anyone approaching retirement, because this is a period of significant learning: new financial decisions, new routines, a new relationship with time and your identity. The more curious you stay, the better equipped your brain is to process all of it. And because of neuroplasticity – or the brain’s ability to rewire itself – staying curious is also one of the best things you can do for your long-term cognitive health.

And then there’s courage

Curiosity is what opens the door. Courage is what gets you through it. Truly!

Most people misunderstand what courage actually is. It’s not the absence of fear, it’s acting in spite of it. Every time you consider doing something outside your comfort zone, the brain’s amygdala fires up a threat signal. That’s just your nervous system doing its job - like it did in caveman days when you were under threat. Courage happens when your prefrontal cortex takes the wheel anyway, weighs the actual risk, and moves forward.

Here’s the part I find genuinely encouraging: every time you act with courage – even in a small way – you’re rewiring your brain to be less reactive to that fear signal next time. You practise it, and it really does become easier.

Why does this matter? I hear you asking. The years just before retirement bring a cascade of genuinely difficult decisions: when to stop working, whether to downsize, how to align your timeline with your partner’s, what you actually want this chapter to look like. These aren’t purely financial questions. Stop and look at them! They’re all questions about identity, risk, and change. The people I see navigate them well tend to be curious about what’s possible and have enough courage to sit with uncertainty while they figure it out.

Here’s how to get started

If you’re feeling less curious and less courageous than you’d like to be, you don’t need a dramatic overhaul.

For curiosity, start with some small questions rather than grand intentions. Follow something that mildly interests you and see where it leads. Talk to people who think differently to you. Read outside your usual lane.

For courage, start with small risks and practise visualising the upside rather than fixating on what could go wrong. And be kind to yourself when it’s hard because courage means trying, not being perfect.

Retirement planning done well isn’t just about the money. It really is about having the curiosity to imagine what’s possible, and the courage to pursue it. And you’re never too old for that!

Where has your curiosity been hiding lately? Hit reply and let me know.

The Epic Retirement course and/or book walks you through exactly this process building your own retirement picture step by step, so you can move from worry to excitement about your retirement.

Get your copy of my books here: How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

Or explore the course here: Epicretirement.net/upcoming-courses

I’ve been to the other ends of the country this week - Adelaide and Perth. Both quickly, on the North platform Adviser roadshow. A fascinating room full of Advisers in each location, learning how to improve and expand their advice offerings for people over 50 (or 47.5 as I teach). I love playing my role in talking about what people approaching retirement want, need and can be doing better with the Advice industry - many of whom are focussed on retirement.

Alongside this, we’re in course preparation mode. The Epic Retirement Course is on its last weekend of promotion before Earlybird pricing (25% off) closes. It’s the biggest course ever with hundreds and hundreds of people registered. So if you’ve been on the sidelines thinking ‘I’m not sure’ - don’t delay. The price jumps from $374 to $499 next week - and I want you all to enjoy the discount.

What do you get?

1. 6 weeks of structured, well-organised education designed to walk you through the big lessons everyone needs to navigate as they approach and make decisions about retirement. (100 lessons, structured into 15 modules)

2. A 170 page print and digital workbook, mailed to you

3. A signed copy of the new edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement

4. 6 Live Q&A Events, held on Monday evenings each week with some of Australia’s most respected retirement experts

5. Challenges and quizzes to bring the program to life.

It’s a great way to really learn about all the choices you have, and to shape your plans for the future, without pressure. So - want to learn more, here’s the website. Head to www.epicretirement.net/upcoming-courses to learn more, download a brochure and book your place.

Now, the week ahead is an interesting one. I'm heading to Cairns to speak at the Financial Counselling Australia National Conference — presenting on how people who don't have a lot of money can still build an Epic Retirement. It's had me thinking deeply about what that actually looks like in practice: understanding what government support is available, yes, but more importantly, shifting the focus from money to constructing a life that genuinely brings joy. And it turns out curiosity — the very thing we've been talking about today — becomes even more important when resources are limited. Maybe that's next week's topic. Watch this space.

Anyway - have a lovely Sunday, and for Queenslanders enjoy your long weekend! I know I will.

Cheers - Bec Xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

The silent deadline that could make or break your retirement

I turned 50 at the start of this year, and it’s been the trigger I needed to get serious about my own retirement plan.

As the author of two bestselling books on retirement, I know exactly what to do. But there’s something very different about actually sitting down and doing it yourself, with your partner beside you, setting real goals for your super and other assets, working out how much you can both contribute and how quickly, and running the numbers on what compound investing actually does over a 10- to 15-year runway.

Goals not just to grow your money, but to one day use it. It’s made something that I teach every day feel genuinely more exciting. Because what we’re working towards isn’t just a goal number.

It’s a number that we understand, and that allows us to have choice: the choice to work after 60 because we want to, not because we have to, if life pans out according to plan.

As I’ve stepped through it, something has become obvious to me. The choices available to us right now, in our early to mid-fifties, are remarkable. But a lot of them won’t be there at 65. Some will be weaker. Some will be entirely gone. And that’s the main reason to take your super and savings seriously now, rather than later.

Let’s look at how we can make a big difference:

This article continues. It was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 2nd May 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

It’s time for this month’s Prime Time Book Club episode, and this one might just change the way you look at your everyday spending.

Our April Book of the Month was How They Get You by Chris Kohler - a brilliant, slightly unsettling look at all the ways modern life quietly nudges us to spend more money. From subscriptions to loyalty programs, food delivery and even the way we pay.

These are all things we use every day… but rarely stop to question.

And what’s fascinating is, many of these systems didn’t always work the way they do now. They’ve evolved quickly, and often in ways that benefit businesses far more than consumers.

I’m joined by Chris himself to discuss how it all works; how companies get into our habits, our decisions, and ultimately… our wallets - and what you can do about it.

It’s one of those episodes where you’ll find yourself thinking, “I do that… I never realised why.”

You can find a copy of ‘How They Get You’ at all good book retailers & online here.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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• LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Feature: The retirement date you pick vs the one life picks for you

From Bec’s Desk: On the road again!

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: $1 million used to be the retirement dream. Now, it might not be enough

Prime Time: Could you stop working tomorrow… and still get paid?

But first, an ad for our upcoming course…

Last chance to secure an Earlybird ticket!

Our next program kicks off on 14 May, and our Earlybird deal (25% off) is now open—but places are limited. Hundreds of people have already booked and this is on track to be the biggest Epic Retirement Course yet!

This is a six-week retirement education program designed to build your confidence and help you make sense of the many decisions ahead.

Learn more about the course here ➡️

The retirement date you pick vs the one life picks for you

Most people have a number in their head. Maybe it’s 62. Maybe 65. Maybe “when the mortgage is paid off” or “when the kids are sorted.” It’s the date you’ve been quietly working toward – the finish line you’ve drawn in pencil on the wall of your mind.

But here’s a stat that tends to stop people in their tracks: only 31% of Australians retire by choice. The rest are pushed, by redundancy, by health, by a partner’s illness, or by a workplace that quietly makes it clear their time is up.

That means roughly two in three people don’t get to retire on their own terms. Life picks the date for them. This isn’t meant to be alarming information. It’s meant to be useful.

The gap between planned and actual

There’s often a significant gap between when people expect to retire and when they actually do. And that gap almost always runs in one direction – earlier than planned. An unexpected redundancy at 58. A health scare at 61. A parent who needs care, a partner who can’t wait, a job that disappears in a restructure.

When retirement arrives ahead of schedule, people who have a plan adapt. People who were counting on “a few more years” to get ready can find themselves scrambling.

What you can control

You can’t always control when you leave work. But you can control how prepared you are when it happens. A few things worth thinking about now:

Know your numbers today, not later. What would your retirement actually look like if it started next year? Run that scenario: super balance, likely pension eligibility, expenses. Even a rough picture is better than none.

Don’t put all your preparation into the final years. It’s tempting to think “I’ll sort the finances when I’m closer.” But if those final years get cut short, you want the groundwork already done.

Think about your non-financial readiness too. Identity, purpose, routine, social connection – these things really do take time to figure out. People who’ve thought about what they’re retiring to, not just from, tend to land better when the transition comes unexpectedly.

Consider a gradual exit. Moving to part-time or consulting before you fully retire gives you a trial run and keeps income flowing longer, which buys flexibility.

The silver lining

Here’s what I’ve seen again and again: people who are nudged into retirement earlier than planned often adjust faster than they expected. The fear of it is usually worse than the reality. Especially when the basics are in place.

The goal isn’t to panic about what you can’t control. It’s to make sure that whenever that date arrives – whether chosen or not —–you’re not starting from scratch.

Plan like it could happen sooner than you think. Hope it doesn’t. Either way, you’ll be ready.

The Epic Retirement course and/or book walks you through exactly this process building your own retirement picture step by step, so you can move from worry to excitement about your retirement.

Get your copy of my books here: How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

Or explore the course here: Epicretirement.net/upcoming-courses

I’ve been on the road all week keynoting the AMP North Adviser Roadshow through its biggest cities in Sydney and Melbourne. It’s so much fun! The adrenaline is addictive. The energy is fabulous. I love it when people queue up to get a copy of the book after too. I’m talking to Advisers about how important it is help people have not just an Epic Retirement, but a Prime time too, and how that Prime Time can be structured, into a setup phase, a lifestyling phase, and a part-timing phase. Lots of nodding heads and agreement from them! Which is terrific. Next week I’m off to do it all again in Adelaide and Perth.

In other things, this week our podcast was awesome - I hope you’ve had a listen. It was two people - Xavier O’Halloran from Super Consumers Australia and Kate Rolfe from Aware Super - talking about layering your super and the age pension.

And we’ve seen the How to Have an Epic Retirement Course hit awesome new heights. This is going to be the biggest course ever. I’m holding Earlybird 25% off open for a couple more days. Don’t delay though - I have to close it very soon to place the final book orders and get them in the mail.

On the side of all my Epic Retirement work, I’ve been loving every minute of working with my daughter, Paris, on An Epic Start - helping her learn how to budget, save, and invest. We’ve each been making little videos for Instagram and Tiktok to help adult kids and their parents learn the ‘new stuff’ we all need to know (us and them) so our kids can have an epic start. So much of investing, home buying and starting out has changed since we did it. Come and follow the channel (I’m super impressed at the videos Paris is making - making it real for all the younger gen).

More here:

• Instagram.com/an.epic.start

• Tiktok.com/@an.epic.start

And if you have adult kids starting out - tell them about it please. We want to help!

Now, on with the Sunday - make it Epic!

Cheers Bec

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

$1 million used to be the retirement dream. Now, it might not be enough

For years, $1 million has been the number people carry around in their heads as the amount you need to have a good retirement. Get to that and you’ve done well in life. You’ll be comfortable, and you won’t need to worry.

Piffle.

What I’m seeing now is that more people are getting close to that figure, or even reaching it, and instead of feeling secure, they feel uncertain. They’re not stressed, and they’re not struggling, but they’re certainly not as confident as they expected to be that they have enough.

And the reason is pretty simple. The number hasn’t kept up with how retirement actually works any more.

A million dollars in super still puts you in a strong position. But when you translate it into income, it starts to look very different from the old idea of being “set for life”.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 25th April 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

We spend our working lives earning an income. But at some point, the game changes completely.

The paycheck stops. And suddenly we’re not earning an income from full time work anymore, instead, we need to learn how to manage a more passive set of income streams. Super, the Age Pension, maybe a bit of work, some investments on the side. And for each layer, there’s different sources, different rules, and different timing. All of it needs to work together to replace the one simple income most people had before.

And that’s where most people get caught out. It’s not because they haven’t saved enough. It’s simply because nobody ever taught them how to actually run this thing called retirement.

This week on Prime Time, I sit down with Xavier O’Halloran from Super Consumers Australia and Kate Rolfe, Head of Retirement Strategy at Aware Super. We get into the real mechanics of layering a retirement income; what the sources are, how they shift across different phases of retirement, and how to build a picture that actually works for your life.

In this episode we also discussed the Super Consumers Australia’s Retirement Savings Targets. You can find them here.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: Nearly half of Australians heading into retirement are worried they’ll run out of money. Are you one of them?

From Bec’s Desk: Extra seats

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Worried you’ll lose your job before retiring? Try these six steps

Prime Time: Are you proactive about the risk of losing your job with Jannine Fraser?

But first, an ad for our upcoming course…

Booked your place on the next Epic Retirement Flagship Course yet?

Our next program kicks off on 14 May, and our Earlybird deal (25% off) is now open—but places are limited. Hundreds of people have already booked and this is on track to be the biggest Epic Retirement Course yet!

This is a six-week retirement education program designed to build your confidence and help you make sense of the many decisions ahead.

Learn more about the course here ➡️

Nearly half of Australians heading into retirement are worried they’ll run out of money. Are you one of them?

A new study released this week by Australia’s corporate regulator, ASIC, found that nearly half of Australians aged 50–66 are worried about running out of money in retirement. Almost a third say they feel behind in their preparations. And only 18% have a clear retirement plan.

Those are striking numbers. But here’s the one that really caught my attention:

Only 26% of pre-retirees demonstrate a strong understanding of retirement finances, yet 41% say they feel confident they can manage.

Read that again. More people feel confident than actually are. And far more people feel worried than have actually done the maths.

What this tells me isn’t that Australians are bad at money. It’s that most people are operating on a vague sense of where they stand – and vague is almost always worse than the actual reality.

The problem with “I think I’m okay”

Retirement anxiety thrives in the gap between what you feel and what you know to be true. When you don’t have a clear picture of your numbers, your brain fills in the blanks (usually with the worst version of events).

The fix lies in building your own clear picture. And it doesn’t need to be complicated.

Here’s where to start.

Step 1: Know your number – what will retirement actually cost you?

Before you worry about whether you have enough, you need to work out enough for what.

Most people skip this step. They focus on the balance in their super account without ever defining the lifestyle it needs to fund. Start with a budget in today’s money. What does a good life look like for you each year? What are your non-negotiables – the trips, the weekends away, the dinners out, the golf, the grandkids?

The ASFA Retirement Standard gives you a useful benchmark: a comfortable lifestyle for a single retiree currently costs around $55,000 a year, and for a couple around $77,500. If your vision of retirement is more active or ambitious than that – and for many in the Epic community, it is, then your number will be higher.

Map that out honestly. That’s your target income.

Step 2: Know what you’ve got

This sounds obvious, but most people have a rough idea rather than a real picture. Take stock of:

• Your super balance (and what it’s invested in)

• Any other investments or savings outside super

• Whether you’re likely to qualify for a full or part Age Pension

• Any income you expect to generate – part-time work, rent, a business

Don’t forget: for most Australians, super plus a part Age Pension will form the backbone of retirement income. You don’t need to fund everything yourself from super alone. The Age Pension can be juicy in the amount of support it offers.

Step 3: Bridge the gap – or confirm there isn’t one

Once you have your target income budget and a picture of what you’ve got, you can actually do the maths. This is where a lot of people get a pleasant surprise: the gap is smaller than they feared, or maybe doesn’t exist at all.

If there is a gap, you’ve still got time to do something about it – whether that’s contributing more to super, adjusting your retirement timing, or rethinking what a great retirement actually costs.

The point is: you can’t fix a problem you haven’t defined and understood. And you can’t feel genuinely confident without actually running the numbers.

The real issue

The research found that 58% of pre-retirees want to learn more about superannuation and retirement. That’s not a lack of interest. It’s a lack of clear, practical guidance that speaks to their actual situation.

If you’ve been in that “I think I’m okay... probably” camp, this is your nudge. Not to panic – but to look. Because for most people who actually do the work, the picture is better than they expected. (Trust me - I see it all the time in my course)

And if it isn’t? Better to know now, when there’s still time to act.

The Epic Retirement course and/or book walks you through exactly this process building your own retirement picture step by step, so you can move from worry to excitement about your retirement.

Get your copy of my books here: How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

Or explore the course here: Epicretirement.net/upcoming-courses

30 degrees in Brisbane, 13 degrees in Adelaide and 5 degrees in Hobart. That was my week of weather. Next week I’ll get to see what Sydney and Melbourne weather is like, on the road again with AMP North, keynoting at their Adviser roadshow. I’m talking about the future of retirement as I travel around. It’s super-fun because I’m sharing what everyday people (YOU!) want!

This week I’ve been working on reels, and podcasts while on the road and I really need your help. I’m hoping a few of you might want to tell your story of finding your sense of purpose and trying new things on a short 3-4 ish minute audio clip. Just script out your message, record it on your phone and send it to me via messenger on FB or email by replying to this email. We want to include your stories (and your real voices) on the podcast - and think of how much fun this will be if we can get you doing it.

And in other news, my new project with my daughter, Paris is well underway designed to teach parents and kids how they can start from nothing, save, invest and build their own journey onto the housing ladder. You can find An.Epic.Start as a new handle on Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook. That’s stage one (come along and have a look - I’m very proud of the work Paris has been doing here - and her friends and our growing younger community appears to be enjoying int). Then there’s going to be a book too! It’s filling every spare crack in my brain - which is fun. I enjoy research.

And lastly, the How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course kicking off in May is definitely going to be our biggest yet! Hundreds of people have registered. I’m extending the Earlybird 25% off deal through this weekend because it’s already hit its limited number of seats. Remember, you can come along as a couple and do it together. You can also ask your employer to pay for it if you want!

Now, the sun is out, it’s Sunday morning, so go enjoy the peace and tranquility.

Until next week — make it epic.

Cheers, Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Worried you’ll lose your job before retiring? Try these six steps

There’s a worry appearing in the minds of fifty- and sixty-somethings in Australia right now. People who’ve had long, successful careers are lying awake wondering whether their number is coming up before they’re ready.

Whether AI, a restructure, or a shifting market will cut their runway short before they’ve hit their super goal, cleared their mortgage, or got themselves thoroughly prepared.

It’s not an unreasonable fear. According to the ABS, in 2024-25 only one in three Australians retired because they actually chose to, reaching retirement age or becoming eligible for their super on their own terms.

Everyone else was pushed out by health, redundancy, caring responsibilities or circumstances well beyond their control. And that was before AI genuinely entered the workforce equation.

And there’s one thing we’re not telling ourselves loudly enough: it won’t just be one type of worker who feels this next wave. It will be anyone doing work that can be replicated faster, cheaper and more accurately by technology, and that cuts across every level of an organisation.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 18th April 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

We spend so much time obsessing over our super, property and portfolios, but we often ignore our most valuable asset: our ability to earn.

Think about it… your career isn’t just a job - it’s an asset that needs constant reinvestment.

And yet, I see so many people with big, successful careers getting caught off guard by restructures, redundancies or shifts in the market, suddenly unemployed and underprepared for what comes next. So how do you protect your employability in midlife and beyond?

In this episode, I sit down with Jannine Fraser, who works right at the coalface helping people navigate career transitions when things go wrong. She’s the managing director of outplacement firm Directioneering, which means she’s the one helping people pick up the pieces and reshape what comes next.

This is an open honest conversation about what’s actually changing in the job market and what you can do now to stay relevant, ready and resilient.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: Scientists have proven that ageing doesn’t have to mean decline

From Bec’s Desk: A quiet week

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: How we invest our super is changing – and not necessarily for the better

Prime Time: The truth about financial advice with Paul Feeney

But first, an ad for our upcoming course…

Booked your place on the next Epic Retirement Flagship Course yet?

Our next program kicks off on 14 May, and our Earlybird deal (25% off) is now open—but places are limited.

This is a six-week retirement education program designed to build your confidence and help you make sense of the many decisions ahead.

Learn more about the course here ➡️

Scientists have proven that ageing doesn’t have to mean decline

I’m going to ask you to set aside everything you think you know about getting older for a minute. Because a study has just been published in the the journal Geriatrics, from Yale, one of the world’s most respected research institutions, that has basically torn up the standard story about ageing. And I think it deserves way more attention than it’s getting.

Here’s the headline finding: nearly half of the older adults in the study actually improved in brain function, physical capacity, or both, over a period of up to 12 years.

Not “saw their health decline more slowly” and not “held steady as they got older!” They IMPROVED!

Just soak in that for a second!

The stories of getting old we tell ourselves become our reality

We have been marinated, from childhood, from every insurance ad, from every well-meaning doctor’s appointment, in a single story about ageing. That it goes one way - downhill, in a gradual and inevitable way, universally.

And, that story has been shaping your biology all throughout your life. But now, you could choose a different story to shape yourself around. One that has scientific backing!

The Yale researchers, led by Dr Becca Levy, followed more than 11,000 people aged 65 and over for up to 12 years. When they averaged everyone’s results together, which is how most ageing studies work, they saw what you’d expect – Decline. Cognitive scores dropped and walking speed slowed.

But then they did something different. They looked at individual trajectories instead of group averages. And that’s where things got interesting.

Nearly 45% showed improvement in cognitive function, physical function, or both. Around 32% actually improved their brain scores. Around 28% were walking faster at the end of the study than they were at the start.

So what made the difference?

Here’s the part that will either make you nod and smile or make you a little uncomfortable.

The researchers tested whether what people believed about ageing – the assumptions they brought into the study – predicted what actually happened to their health over the following decade.

And it did! Significantly.

People who held more positive beliefs about ageing were measurably more likely to show improvements in both brain function and walking speed, even after you account for age, sex, education, chronic disease and depression.

Your beliefs about ageing appear to be a biological input into how your body responds. Not just a mood or attitude. Something that’s actually shaping what happens inside your body over time.

Dr Levy has a name for this: ‘stereotype embodiment theory’. The idea is that from a young age, we absorb messages about what ageing looks like from ads, media, culture, the casual way people talk about getting old. Eventually those messages stop being abstract and become deeply personal. They shift from describing other people to describing you. And at that point, they start showing up in the body.

Her earlier research linked negative age beliefs to poorer memory, slower walking speed, higher cardiovascular risk, and brain markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease. This new study adds the other side of that coin: positive age beliefs predict improvement.

I find this extraordinarily exciting.

Something important to think about

I want to flag something specific in this research that I think it’s the most important part. The researchers didn’t just look at people who were struggling and got better. They did a separate analysis on people who had normal cognitive and physical function at the start – people who were already doing fine.

Among that group? Around 28% still improved their brain function over time. Around 23% improved their walking speed.

This wasn’t recovery from illness. This was people who were already healthy getting better as they got older

The researchers call it “reserve capacity.” The idea that later life holds more potential for growth than our culture has been giving it credit for. I’ve been saying this for years, and honestly it’s kind of wonderful to see Yale prove it.

So, what do you actually believe about getting older?

I ask this genuinely because I want you to stop and think about it.

If you’ve absorbed the standard cultural story (decline is inevitable, the body just fades, the brain slips, the best years of your life are behind you), that story may be doing you real harm. Not just to your mood or your motivation. Potentially to your actual health trajectory.

The good news and I want to be clear this is genuinely good news is that the researchers say age-related beliefs are modifiable. You can change them. And because you can change them, there’s real scope for doing something about it.

That might look like this:

• Noticing the internal voice that says well, at my age... and asking whether it’s actually true

• Deliberately seeking out people who are thriving – not just surviving – in their 60s, 70s, 80s

• Pushing back when the cultural narrative around you defaults to telling you about your imminent decline

And let me be clear. None of this is about toxic positivity or pretending the challenges that come with getting older don’t exist. They do – ageing is real. But the research is telling us that the trajectory into later life is far less fixed than we’ve been led to believe – and that what we expect from life has a measurable effect on what we experience.

Maybe, if you already believe you’ll have an epic retirement, then you’re on the right path.

So here’s my challenge for you this week: Think about one story you’re telling yourself about ageing that might not actually be serving you? It might be time to rewrite it.

Source: Levy, B.R. & Slade, M.D. (2026). “Aging Redefined: Cognitive and Physical Improvement with Positive Age Beliefs.” Geriatrics, 11(2), 28.

Want to read more, I have two books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

I realise every day, whether I’m walking downstairs to my little home office or driving to the airport for a speaking gig, that I’m a very lucky person to love what I do so much.

This week was a full week at the desk. Articles, podcasts, newsletters, courses. No events, no travel, no distractions. I got a lot done, but it also means there’s not a huge amount to report from the road. Next week makes up for it though: Adelaide and Tassie, here I come.

On the content front, the government dropped an important consultation this week on how they plan to change the rules around financial advice – specifically around how people can pay for advice when they’re thinking about switching super funds. I wrote about it in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, so check that out if it’s relevant to your situation.

My podcast this week was a good one too. I sat down with Paul Feeney from Otivo to dig into the real challenges people face trying to get financial advice today – it’s a conversation a lot of you will relate to.

And if you haven’t caught my recent reels on social media, I’ve been doing a lot of short micro-lessons breaking down how to navigate retirement step by step. Worth a follow if you’re not already across them — link below.

• Facebook.com/becwilsonepic

• Instagram.com/epicretirement

Finally, it’s been a huge week of sales for the next 6-week course which kicks off on 14 May. The 25% Earlybird offer is available for the first 200 people to book but we’re already over 150 booked as I write this Friday afternoon! So don’t delay!

👉🏻 You can book your place here

👉🏻 Or learn more and download a brochure.

Now, have a lovely Sunday. The real, post-Easter year starts next week. I hope you’re ready!

Until next week — make it epic.

Cheers, Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

How we invest our super is changing – and not necessarily for the better

When it comes to managing your super, especially as you get closer to retirement, you really have two broad paths to choose from. I find it helps to think of them like two different ways of eating out.

The first is a well-run large scale mass-market restaurant with a carefully standardised menu. Think of your big industry or retail super fund as exactly that. In these, big professional investment teams do the cooking.

The menu has been curated tightly, the ingredients vetted for cost and importance, and the whole thing runs at scale for millions of members. Your job is to pick what suits you from what’s on the menu, using the waiter’s help.

For most Australians building their retirement savings over a working life, this is a genuinely good option. Reliable, cost-effective, and much more sophisticated than it used to be.

The second suits people with more complex needs. Think of it as hiring a professional chef who shops at a premium wholesale supermarket on your behalf and tailors your meal plan. The chef is your financial adviser, and the supermarket is an investment platform, one that ordinary consumers can’t just walk into.

But here’s what most people don’t realise: many of these chefs work inside what are effectively chain restaurants. The franchise has already decided which products they allow their chefs to use from the supermarket and which dishes are on the approved menu.

While we are debating how to stop people being exploited when they seek advice, we have paused the reforms that would have made it that advice easier to find.

Your chef personalises your experience within that framework, and they genuinely can do a great deal for you within it. But by the time your meal arrives, quite a few hands have shaped what was possible.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday11th April 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

One of the biggest challenges I see for people in Prime Time isn’t a lack of money. It’s a lack of clear, trustworthy guidance.

People know they’re making big decisions. They know the stakes are high. But full financial advice can feel expensive or intimidating. Free information often comes with hidden incentives. And online tools, including AI, can leave you feeling more overwhelmed, not less - or with more questions to answer.

So, this week on Prime Time, I chat to Paul Feeney, founder and CEO of Otivo and someone who has spent years inside the advice industry in a variety of roles. It’s a refreshingly honest take on where it works, where it falls short, and what everyday Australians can do about it. The reality is that quality personalised advice has historically been more accessible to people with significant assets, leaving many everyday Australians without affordable guidance at the very moment they need it most.

We dig into the real difference between information, guidance and advice, because these words get thrown around a lot and they don’t mean the same thing. Information educates, guidance helps, and regulated advice is personalised to your exact situation.

And he’s offered everyone listening an opportunity to try out Otivo. To set up a free Otivo account you can go to www.otivo.com and use the discount code ‘Otivo4EpicRetirementor’. This coupon is only valid until 30 June 2026.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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• LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Feature: The ages every pre-retiree should know

From Bec’s Desk: Read the feedback!

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Thinking about helping your adult kids?

Prime Time: Two shows: A guide to downsizing from your family home; and Kathy Lette on the power of ‘I don’t give a shit lit’

Booked your place on the next Epic Retirement Flagship Course yet?

Our next program kicks off on 14 May, and our Earlybird deal (25% off) is now open—but places are limited.

This is a six-week retirement education program designed to build your confidence and help you make sense of the many decisions ahead.

If you’re starting to think seriously about what comes next, this is the perfect way to get prepared.

Learn more about the course here ➡️

The ages every pre-retiree should know

One of the most searched questions around retirement is simple: when can I retire?

But the real answer isn’t one age. It’s a series of ages, and each one opens up a different set of options.

What I see all the time is people anchoring to one number. Usually 60, 65 or 67, as if that’s when everything suddenly changes and the finish line appears. But the people who navigate this well don’t wait for one moment. They understand how the system works across time and use it to shape their transition.

If you’re looking towards retirement, these are the ages that actually matter.

First, there’s 55. This is when the downsizer contribution becomes available. If you’ve owned your home for ten years and lived in it for some of this time as your PPOR, you can contribute up to $300,000 per person into super from the sale of that home without it counting towards your contribution caps. It’s a powerful option if you’re thinking about moving to a lifestyle property or freeing up capital.

Then, at 60, the doors to super really start to open.

This is the age where you can access your super if you retire from a role and meet a condition of release, even if you later return to work. If you choose to keep working, you can also consider a transition to retirement income stream (TTR), which allows you to draw between 4% and 10% of your super balance each year.

From age 60, payments from super become tax-free. With a TTR, those payments are tax-free, although the earnings in the fund are still taxed until you fully retire and move into retirement phase.

Some people use a TTR to reduce their hours and ease out of full-time work while maintaining an income. For many, this is the first time work starts to feel more like a choice than a necessity.

Age 60 is also where the tax system begins to work in your favour. Once you’ve met a condition of release and moved your super into retirement phase, the income your super earns and any capital gains become tax-free. Withdrawals are also tax-free.

That’s a big shift. It opens up the ability to combine part-time work with tax-free income from super, and to make lump sum withdrawals when needed. For many people, this is the point where they can start reshaping how they work and live.

At 65, things become simpler again. Turning 65 is itself a condition of release, which means you can access your super regardless of whether you’re working. The focus shifts from eligibility to strategy, and how you structure your income and investments becomes the priority.

Then there’s age 67, which is when most people become eligible for the Age Pension.

This is the age everyone knows, but it’s often given more weight than it deserves. The Age Pension is an important safety net, but it’s not the whole plan. For those with lower balances, the focus is on how the Age Pension and super work together. For others, it plays more of a supporting role.

And then there’s age 75, which tends to fly under the radar.

At 75, a number of contribution opportunities come to an end. You generally can’t make non-concessional contributions anymore, and the bring-forward rule is no longer available. Most voluntary contributions, other than employer contributions, effectively stop at this point, with contributions only allowed up to 28 days after the end of the month you turn 75. One of the few contributions still available beyond this is the downsizer contribution.

This matters because the years leading up to 75 can be some of the most valuable for shaping your financial position. It’s often the window where people consider strategies like recontribution to reduce the taxable component of their super and improve outcomes for their beneficiaries. Miss that window, and you lose flexibility.

When you step back and look at all of this, the idea of a single retirement age doesn’t really hold up.

Retirement isn’t a switch you flick at 60 or 65. It’s a transition that unfolds over a number of years. The real opportunity is in how you use that time — easing back rather than stopping suddenly, starting to draw on your super while you’re still working, and making deliberate decisions about how you want your time and energy to be spent.

The people who get the most out of this stage aren’t waiting for a date. They’re using these ages as guideposts and adjusting along the way.

Want to read more, I have two books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

Happy Easter! I hope the bunny has delivered a few eggs to your house this morning.

Hard to believe it’s April, isn’t it? And fuel prices are the biggest conversation of the week (and possibly for many months in the future). Gulp. I almost don’t want to admit I’m a Tesla owner at times like this. My car, a bottom-of-the-range Model 3, is no ego-wagon. It’s seven years old, white, and has cost me a grand total of $400 in servicing over its lifetime, and one set of tyres. So it’s quietly holding up its end of a bargain I didn’t know I was making. How’s yours going?

Anyway, onto more serious things. This week was deliciously short. I keynoted two Adviser events for AMP North, one in Brisbane and one on the Gold Coast, which were both fantastic.

It also marked week 6, the final week of our Autumn How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course. We held our last live session with Fiona Dalton on how to get the most out of travel, which is always a crowd favourite.

And in the HESTA Exclusive Epic Retirement Course, we wrapped up with Tania Phillips from CareAbout, who walked us through how to plan for care and how the system actually works. Such an important topic, and one most people don’t feel confident about until they’ve had it explained properly.

I genuinely love running these courses and being part of the live sessions. And I’m thrilled to say that the first round of finishers seem to be enjoying them just as much as I do. Here’s some fresh feedback that came in this week:

“I would consider this an essential course for everyone. I would recommend reading Prime Time and Epic Retirement, and unlike me at 62 years old and retired to do so earlier in life to be ready. Great coverage of lots of topics relevant to all of us. Thank you for the books and the course.”

“Feeling in a better place to handle everything now. Thank you”

“Terrific program. We loved the content and Bec’s delivery style is just so engaging. Highly recommend the course, and likewise Bec’s wonderful books “How to have and Epic Retirement” and “Prime Time”, and her podcast “Prime Time”.”

And one from the HESTA course too:

“This course has been very helpful. It has put the planning for retirement in to a structure I can follow and given me hope for an Epic Retirement. I was very anxious about my low super balance and nil savings, being divorced and having to do it all on my own. But now it feels doable. I can still do some of the travel overseas I have always dreamed of. Thanks for this opportunity to participate in this great course. Highly recommended to everyone over 50 years old.”

100% of people who finished so far said they’d recommend the course to their friends too! Honestly, what a buzz.

The next 6-week course kicks off on 14 May. It’s just opened for enrolments, and the 25% Earlybird offer is available for the first 200 people to book. We’re booking fast.

👉🏻 You can book your place here

👉🏻 Or learn more and download a brochure.

Now, that’s enough of the heavy stuff - it’s time for some chocolate.

Hope the bunny delivered, and that you’re having a lovely, family-or-friend-filled Easter. And there’s plenty of chocolate around you today.

Until next week — make it epic.

Cheers, Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Why a large super balance can actually reduce your retirement income

Young Australians are being locked out of the housing market, and if you’re a parent or grandparent watching it happen, it’s genuinely painful.

Home ownership for people in their 20s and 30s has been falling for years. Your children are buying later than you did, borrowing more than you ever considered, or giving up on the idea altogether, scared off by the size of the mortgage they’d have to sign on for. And, it doesn’t look like the system is going to fix this for them any time soon.

I’ve been having this conversation with my 22-year-old daughter. When you actually sit down and do the sums with them, what it costs to save a deposit in one of our capital cities, on a starting salary, with the life expenses that come with being young, it feels scary.

It’s not impossible. But it takes real discipline, real commitment, and increasingly, it depends on whether family support is sitting behind them to catch them if the economy gets tough or they lose their job.

The money exists in our economy to help. In fact, trillions of dollars will move between generations over the coming decades, from Australians in their late 80s and 90s to their children, who’ll be in their late 50s and 60s by then. By the time that inheritance lands, for many it will be too late to change very much.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 4th April 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

A guide to downsizing from your family home

Downsizing the family home is one of those decisions that sits in the background for years…until suddenly, it’s right in front of you.

This week on Prime Time, I sit down with regular guest Mike Chesworth to talk about the good, the bad and the reality of downsizing after more than 30 years in the same home.

Big house. Kids grown. Life shifting. And like so many people in this stage of life, the question becomes… is it time?

In this episode, Mike shares what actually goes into making that decision, from figuring out your “why”, to navigating timing, finances, bridging loans, strata, inspections and the chaos of moving just before Christmas. Along the way, he reflects on what it means to future-proof life in your 60s, let go of the weight of a big home, and create a lifestyle that offers more freedom, flexibility, and ease.

Mike offers hard-won insights into choosing the right property, getting clear on your priorities, managing costs, and treating a move like a project rather than a challenge.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

• LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

• LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

BOOK CLUB: The power of ‘I don’t give a sh*t lit!’ with Kathy Lette

It’s month two of the Prime Time Book Club, and this one is an absolute hoot.

This month we’re diving into The Sisterhood Rules by the one and only Kathy Lette - and yes, she’s back on the show with us for a proper book club sit-down… and the kind of girl talk we don’t have nearly enough of.

If you’ve ever read chick lit, chances are Kathy has been part of your life. From Puberty Blues to now, she’s been soundtracking the different stages of womanhood, and this latest book is firmly for us in midlife.

I’ve just finished it and I loved it. It’s sharp, funny, rebellious… and underneath all of that, it’s about something much deeper: what happens when women of a certain age stop playing by the rules and start leaning into the power of the sisterhood.

In this episode, we talk about everything from falling out with the women closest to you, to ageing, sex, reinvention… and why midlife might just be the moment you stop caring what anyone else thinks and start having a lot more fun.

You can find a copy of ‘The Sisterhood Rules’ at all good book retailers & online here.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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• LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Feature: Your first year of retirement: the biggest challenge might not be your money

From Bec’s Desk: I want your feedback on something

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: ‘This mess is eating our super’: Why retirees are starting to get nervous

Prime Time: How AI will become part of the everyday lives of Prime Timers: with one of Australia’s leading futurists

Our next Epic Retirement Flagship Course is now on sale: Earlybird 25% off won’t last

We’ve launched the Winter Edition of the How to Have an Epic Retirement 6-Week Flagship Course this week. It kicks off on the 14th May.

• It’s a 6-week online program, that you can complete in your own time. (new content drips each week)

• There’s 6 live Q&As with some of the country’s leading experts in retirement

• A 170 page workbook professionally printed and mailed

• A signed copy of How to Have an Epic Retirement - the book

• The Excel budgeting tool

• And a whole heap of helpful quizzes

You can download a detailed brochure here to see what’s in store. And book your place. The first 200 people to book get our 25% off Earlybird Discount.

Find out more

Your first year of retirement: the biggest challenge might not be your money

Most people spend more time planning their retirement finances than they spend thinking about who they’ll actually be when they get there. That’s a problem, and it tends to show up about six months in.

Here’s the question I want you to sit with this week: if someone asked you to describe yourself at a dinner party the week after you retire, what would you say? For most of us, the answer has been the same for twenty or thirty years. You lead with what you do. Your job title, your industry, your company. It’s shorthand for competence, status and purpose all at once. And then one day, it’s just gone.

This isn’t a small thing. Research on retirement consistently shows that identity loss, not financial stress, is the most common cause of what people describe as a difficult first year. The people who struggle most aren’t usually the ones who ran out of money. They’re the ones who ran out of answer to the question: what do I do with myself now?

The good news is that this is entirely workable, but only if you start thinking about it before you get there, not after.

So here are three questions worth sitting with this week:

What do you do that has nothing to do with work? Not what you’d like to do in retirement, but what you actually do now, outside of your job. If the honest answer is not much, that’s important information. Retirement doesn’t conjure purpose out of thin air. It just removes the structure that was filling the space.

Who are you to the people who matter most to you? Your partner, your kids, your close friends. How do they describe you? What role do you play that has nothing to do with your career? That version of you is the foundation you’re building on.

What would you do on a Tuesday at 11am if you had no obligations and no agenda? Not a holiday Tuesday. A regular one. If you can’t answer that with something specific and genuine, it’s worth spending more time on that question than on your superannuation projections this week.

Retirement is long. For most people reading this, it’s twenty to thirty years. The financial plan gets you there. The identity work is what makes it worth arriving.

Start that work now. It’s more important than you think.

Bec Xx

I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

This week was a big one.

We launched the next How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course, and the response has been fantastic. Truly fantastic. I have a strong feeling this will be our biggest course yet.

You can download a brochure here

Or book your place (the first 200 places get our Earlybird price which is 25% off rightnow)

There’s also been a lot of course updates happening behind the scenes. With new Age Pension caps, updated super contribution limits, and changes to deeming rates, I’ve been busy recording fresh content to make sure everything is up to date.

Make sure you listen to the podcast this week – it’s an absolute ripper. I’ve got one of Australia’s leading futurists on the show, Dr Catherine Ball, and she completely blew my mind. We talked about the kind of world Prime Timers and Epic Retirees are stepping into as AI starts to roll into everyday life and she did a lot of predicting the future - and WOW!

On top of that, I hit the road, starting in Canberra for the first of five weeks on the AMP North Adviser Roadshow as one of their keynote speakers. I’m talking about the future of retirement – a topic very close to my heart, and one I never get tired of exploring. Next week I’ll be hitting the Gold Coast and Brisbane events.

—

And finally, I’d love your thoughts on something.

I’ve started considering a new book concept with my daughter, Paris. It’s a real journey as she starts from scratch as a 22-year-old trying to get ahead. She’s learning to budget, understand super, building her savings, investing for the first time, riding bumpy markets, with the goal of working towards getting into the property market so that one day she might be able to afford a home of her own.

It’s tough out there.

And we’re very aware this is going to be a multi-step process — potentially starting with an affordable investment property before she’s in a position to buy a home to live in. (We’re at the ‘exploring her options and setting goals’ stage).

In fact, it’s a big financial literacy journey, and we’re only just at the beginning. She says her friends are interested in learning alongside her. So, I’m contemplating working with her to share the good lessons we learn, so others have a resource. (She’s also planning to start a TikTok channel so people her age can follow along, which I love.)

She’s at the centre of the story, and I’m more of a guide, helping her ask the right questions and, when we don’t know the answers or how to work it out, going out and finding them together by speaking to experts.

We’re learning a lot already… and honestly, it’s not an easy road. Working through the process with her has given me a whole new perspective on just how tough it is for young people trying to get into the property market without support.

While I’m very aware that I don’t want to shift my focus from midlife and retirement to young people. But, I do think we can create something quite useful here – a simple, practical resource that actually helps. And if you’re part of the industry, with your own kids this age and ‘get’ the problem - I’d genuinely love your input.

I’m really curious… is this something you’re navigating with your adult kids too? Or are yours already past this stage?

Now - thanks for humouring me. I’m going to be on the journey with my daughter anyway - so curious whether the lessons we learn can help others. If you have thoughts - drop me an email. Just hit reply!

Now - let’s get back to that epic retirement of yours - have an Epic Sunday and an amazing week. Don’t forget to book your course spot.

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

‘This mess is eating our super’: Why retirees are starting to get nervous

Four weeks on since the war in Iran started, and the financial pressure on retirees is real, and it’s coming from multiple directions at once.

I put the question out to the Epic Retirement community this week: how are you really faring? The responses came flooding in, and what struck me wasn’t panic. It was a level of pragmatism, tinged with genuine worry.

The big pain points for retirees and pre-retirees are different to the rest of the population, particularly if they were planning to stop work soon. If you’re still accumulating super, a market downturn is painful but recoverable.

If you’ve stopped working and are drawing down to fund your living expenses, selling assets while prices are depressed permanently impairs your balance in a way you can’t easily undo. Your income doesn’t rise with inflation. You can’t work extra hours to compensate for the money you’re spending at the fuel pump.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 7th February 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

How AI will become part of the everyday lives of Prime Timers

Today on the show, I’ve got a real treat for you.

I’m talking to one of the world’s leading thinkers on the future of technology, robotics and artificial intelligence - and what that future might actually look like for us.

Dr Catherine Ball is a global expert in AI, robotics and emerging technologies. She’s worked across fields like drones, digital twins and automation, and has spent years advising governments, universities and industry on how these technologies are reshaping our world.

If you’re in mid-life or heading for retirement right now, the reality is that we’re going to see extraordinary technological change over the next 10, 20 and 30 years: AI. Robotics. Smart homes. Personalised healthcare. Maybe even robotic carers.

So what will that actually mean for us?

This is a fascinating conversation. And what I love about Catherine’s perspective is that she’s not just talking about technology for technology’s sake. She’s thinking deeply about how it changes how we live, how we age, and how we stay independent in the second half of life.

You can find out more about Catherine’s research here, and learn more about her latest book, ‘The Future of Sleep’ here.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: What I’d actually do this weekend if I was 55 or 65 and the world felt a bit wobbly

From Bec’s Desk: Finishing early

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Why a large super balance can actually reduce your retirement income

Prime Time: Why FIBRE is your missing ingredient to longevity

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What I’d actually do this weekend if I was 55 or 65 and the world felt a bit wobbly

What a week. Oil hit $113 a barrel. The war in the Gulf is now in its fourth week and showing no signs of easing. Petrol prices are climbing and our grocery bills are going up again. The RBA raised rates which sounds scary until you realise it’s because nobody really knows what comes next and inflation matters here.

And if you’re in your 50s or 60s, things are feeling a little uncomfortable. You might not be panicking, necessarily, you just might have that low-level hum of worry sitting in your gut. The feeling that things you worked hard to build feel a little less certain than they did a month ago.

So let me talk to you like a friend this weekend. Because there are a few things worth doing and none of them are all that complicated.

First, take a breath and step back from the noise

Turn off the finance news for the weekend. Not because what’s happening doesn’t matter – it certainly does – but because none of the decisions you need to make right now will be improved by watching oil price tickers, hearing about the horrible fuel price or watching market updates scroll past.

The Gulf disruption, the inflation creep, the cost of living squeeze – these are all real. But they’re largely outside your control. What you can control is whether you respond thoughtfully or react out of fear. And that always starts with slowing down and really thinking things through.

Next, remind yourself what your actual timeline is

Here’s the question I’d ask you to sit with: “when do you actually need to draw on your investments for income?”

Not when you want to stop working. “When you’ll need the money to live on.

For a lot of people between 55 and 65, the honest answer is still five, eight, even ten or more years away. Markets have recovered from oil shocks before in 1973, 1990, 2008. They’ve come back from worse than this quite quickly. And, frankly, the Australian market isn’t really all that far from it’s highs right now. But acknowledging that, time is what gives your investments room to breathe.

If you’re already in drawdown, the question shifts a little bit, but the core of it is the same: do you have enough money in a more stable type of investment or is your superfund drawing from the lower risk part of your portfolio to avoid being forced into selling growth investments or shares while they’re low?

Check whether you have a buffer and be honest about it

This is the one I keep coming back to with people in this season of life.

Do you have two or three years of living expenses in something stable — a high-interest savings account, term deposits, cash or lower risk investments? Not in the sharemarket. Somewhere it just sits, keeping up with inflation ideally, but at the ready.

Because if you do, you can ride this out. You’re not forced to sell when the market is down. You have ‘choices’. That buffer isn’t dead money. It’s the thing that lets you stay calm while everyone else is pulling at their hair.

WHAT IF YOU DON’T HAVE A BUFFER RIGHT NOW

If you don’t have a buffer right now. I want to be straight with you here, because glossing over this doesn’t help anyone.

If you don’t have much set aside outside of super or your investments, this week probably felt harder than it needed to. And that’s worth acknowledging that, not as a reason to panic, but as useful information.

The question to sit with this weekend isn’t “how do I fix everything at once.” It’s simpler than that: what’s one thing I could do in the next 90 days to start building a little more breathing room?

Maybe it’s redirecting $200 a month into a savings account you don’t touch. Maybe it’s looking hard at where money is leaking out right now in your cash flow. Maybe it’s a conversation with a financial adviser or the advice team in your superfund, not to overhaul everything, just to get a clearer picture of where you actually stand. (And bear in mind when the market is down all of these people are booked ahead).

You can’t build a buffer overnight. But you can make a decision this weekend to start. That matters a lot more than people realise.

Have an honest look at your spending right now

With petrol up, groceries creeping higher and energy costs rising, your day-to-day spending has probably gone up without you even noticing. This isn’t about cutting back dramatically but it is about knowing where you stand.

Grab a coffee and spend half an hour with your last few months of bank statements. Just three questions:

• What am I actually spending each month right now?

• Has that crept up in the last three months?

• Is there anywhere I can claw back a bit of breathing room?

You’re not looking for perfection. You’re just looking for a clearer picture of your spending than you had on Friday.

Finally, think about what this stage of life is really asking of you

There’s a shift that happens for a lot of people somewhere in their 50s. It really does stop being about building alone, and starts being about protecting your assets as well – so at some point you can enjoy the life you want, make the choices you want to be able to, and feel the ense of ssecurity that lets you sleep at night.

In that context, another week of volatile markets and geopolitical noise shouldn’t be a crisis. It should be a prompt. A reminder to check in on whether your setup actually gives you flexibility and the ability to make good choices rather than being forced into bad ones.

That’s what this weekend is for. Calmly reassessing where you are, and taking control of where you want to be.

The war in the Gulf is certainly looking serious. The oil price is really high and the cost of living pressure that might come from this could be even more difficult. And none of us like looking at the price of petrol or the rise in interest rates coming through, especially if you’re already feeling stretched.

But the people who come through these periods best aren’t the ones who predicted it all or moved everything to cash in February (because they never know when to get back in). They’re the ones who had a plan they trusted, a buffer they could lean on, and the discipline not to let the noise and fear make their decisions for them.

If you’ve got the buffer then great, sit tight and trust the plan.

If you don’t, this is your weekend to decide to start building one. That decision, made over a coffee on a Saturday morning, is worth using your weekend’s spare time on.

You’ve got this. And I’ll be here with you through it all.

Bec x

Want to read more, I have two books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

This week I’m headed off for a local weekend away… and it’s a big one.

It’s my last ever school mums’ weekend. My youngest is in Year 12 this year, so this feels like a bit of a rite of passage for me too. I’m wrapping things up early on Friday (much earlier than I’d usually send this newsletter!) and heading to the Gold Coast for what looks like a rainy weekend of wining, dining, meditation, yoga… and celebrating with a group of women I’ve shared years of life with.

I have to admit, I’m feeling a little unsettled about what life looks like when these structures fall away. If you’re ahead of me on this path, I’d really love your advice.

On the work front, it’s been a big week.

The poddy this week was on Fibre, and for a gal that’s eating protein like it’s the only ingredient left on this earth, I found this important and timely. The role fibre plays in our health is important in so many ways - and Joanna really brought that to life. Hve a listen.

This week, we recorded the UK course in my studio. Still can’t quite believe I’m saying that. We’ll be running the Australian and UK programs side by side, just on opposite time zones. It feels like a real “pinch me” moment.

We’ve also locked in all the speakers and details for the next How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course here in Australia. The Winter edition kicks off on 14 May, and we’ll be launching the earlybird offer next week. If you want first access, you can register your interest.

Inside the Autumn edition of Epic Retirement Course this week, we had a brilliant live Q&A with David Lane, Senior Financial Adviser and State Manager at Ord Minnett. He’s deep in platforms, SMSFs, equities and investing, so we threw some proper curveballs at him. The questions from this community are always next level.

Next week, we’re diving into purpose. One of my favourite topics.

And in the week ahead, I’m off to Canberra to speak at the North 26 Adviser Roadshow on the Future of Retirement – the first of nine events around the country. I’ll be talking about what everyday people actually want and need from advice today, and how retirement has fundamentally changed.

Until next week — make it epic.

Cheers,
Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Why a large super balance can actually reduce your retirement income

People with low to medium super balances often feel like they’re on the outer when it comes to retirement. They look at people with $1 million or more in super and assume those are the people who get to enjoy the ‘epic’ version of retirement, while everyone else just scrapes by.

But that is not how the Australian retirement system actually works.

One of the quirks of the system is that there is a sweet spot where super and the age pension combine very efficiently. In some cases, someone with a moderate level of savings can end up with almost the same income, or even more income, than someone with much higher savings, simply because they still qualify for a far more meaningful slice of the pension.

That sweet spot has shifted again from March 20 because the age pension goes up. And we are not only seeing the standard indexation of the caps, we are also seeing our second rise to the deeming rate in a year.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 21st March 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

Why FIBRE is your missing ingredient to longevity

Today I want to talk about something that doesn’t get a lot of airtime, but is becoming increasingly important for your health in the second half of life…

Fibre.

For years it’s been overshadowed by protein trends, low-carb diets and the obsession with calories. But new science is revealing that fibre may be one of the most powerful ingredients for long-term health, influencing everything from gut health and weight to brain function, heart health and even our mood.

So, this week on Prime Time, I’m joined by PhD-qualified nutrition scientist, dietitian, food futurist and one of Australia’s most trusted health experts, Dr. Joanna McMillan, author of The Fibre Factor. You can find Dr. Joanna’s book at all good retailers and online here.

We unpack why many of us are living in what she calls a “fibre famine”, what fibre actually does inside the body, and how simple changes to what you eat can have surprisingly powerful effects on your long-term health.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: The retirement plan nobody talks about: when your adult kids still need help

From Bec’s Desk: Changing plans on a hairpin

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Worried falling markets might ruin your retirement? Here’s what to do

Prime Time: Two shows - ‘How to Salvage your Travel Plans’ and ‘War and sharemarket volatility: what pre-retirees need to know with Diana Mousina’

Ad - Before we start — a big thanks to our newsletter sponsor this week, Viking

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The retirement plan nobody talks about: when your adult kids still need help

For a long time retirement planning assumed a neat sequence. You raised your kids. They became financially independent. Then you focused on your own retirement. But that’s not how life is playing out for many families anymore.

More parents in their 50s and 60s are still helping their adult children launch into the world. Sometimes it’s housing they’re providing for. Sometimes it’s education. Sometimes it’s simply helping them through a tough patch.

And now there’s another factor quietly changing the picture… AI.

Entire industries are evolving as technology changes how work gets done and none of us can predict which career paths will have longevity. Careers are becoming less linear, which can mean retraining, pivots, or periods of uncertainty.

And often, parents end up becoming part of the safety net, something I suspect will only increase in the years ahead.

This doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong - it’s just a reflection of how much the world has and is changing. But it does mean retirement planning needs to acknowledge a lot more reality.

If you’re in your Prime Time or approaching retirement, it’s worth asking yourself a few honest questions.

How much support might you realistically provide your children over the next decade?Would you help with a housing deposit?
Would you encourage them to move back home temporarily if things became difficult?
Would you help them retrain if their industry changed?

These are not purely emotional decisions. They are financial ones too. And the key is not to ignore it.

When parents quietly fund deposits, cover rent for a while, or help with big expenses without thinking about the long-term impact, it can gradually erode their own financial security. On the other hand, when families talk about these things openly, it’s much easier to set sensible boundaries and establish criteria for the support.

You might decide that helping with a deposit is something you want to do, but it comes from a specific pool of money and requires a certain committment from the child to pay it back.

Or you might decide that your home is always open if someone needs a temporary place to land - but it’s not a permanent arrangement.

Or that you’re happy to help with education or retraining - particularly in a world where AI may reshape our kids’ careers several times across a lifetime.

This is where the conversation about retirement planning becomes much bigger than numbers on a super statement.

Because retirement doesn’t happen in isolation from the hard bits. It happens within families. And increasingly, the financial lives of different generations are intertwined for much longer.

Three helpful takeaways I think are worth doing

1. Decide in advance what help you are willing to give.
Think about the types of support you are comfortable providing over the next decade – a temporary place to live, help with retraining, or assistance with a housing deposit. When you’ve thought about this ahead of time, decisions are much easier when situations arise. (Even if sometimes you’ll no doubt flex).

2. Set a financial boundary around that support.
If you plan to help, decide where the money will come from and what rules you intend to sit with it. It might be a specific savings pool or a limit on how much you’re prepared to contribute, or a requirement for significant committment to repayments, working or study. This protects your own retirement and family ethos while still allowing you to be generous.

3. Talk about it openly as a family.
Many of the problems I see come from assumptions on both sides. A simple conversation about expectations, independence and support can make a huge difference. Clear expectations create healthier financial relationships between generations and a respect for the money and support on offer.

Leave a comment

Want to read more, I have two books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

The markets bouncing around always creates a feeling of chaos. And this week has been as I expected - a little unnerving for those facing retirement and a good time to step up and provide useful education. So we did, bumping our existing schedule for the podcast and recording two really timely shows. First we got Diana Mousina, the Deputy Chief Economist from AMP on the show for a sensible conversation about how to handle the risks that lie ahead of us.

Then, in the same week we got travel expert, Fiona Dalton on the show to explain how to navigate travelling internationally right now. A great listen whether you have trips booked and are worried, or you wonder whether to book trips at the moment.

Our courses are in full swing, with Week 4 kicking off on the two programs currently running: the HESTA Exclusive Epic Retirement Program and the Epic Retirement Flagship Course for Autumn 2026. They really are so much fun, and the feedback from people doing the course is fabulous.

We kick off the UK edition’s course filming this week. That should keep me busy.

I also spoke at a terrific online event with Brighter Super’s members during the week, for International Womens Day. Hundreds and hundreds of their members came along for a session dedicated to the needs of women of all ages thinking about their retirements.

Don’t forget, if you want to make sure you’re getting my useful titbits throughout the week you can sign up for my Australian Facebook Channel: click here. It means only Aussie content will reach you.

See you in there.

Until next week - make it epic! Cheers Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

The retirement question most Australians never ask – but should

We’re back in the stockmarket washing machine. For many investors that’s just part of the ride. Markets go up, markets go down, and over time they tend to recover.

But for people approaching retirement who might never have thought of themselves as investors, a market shock just before they leap, or early in retirement, can also become a personal financial shock. Especially if they haven’t thought through how they will fund their short and medium-term spending before markets tumble.

And then they reach that moment, maybe 10 or 12 days into a war, an economic crisis or a market meltdown, when it suddenly looks like this might not be a short-lived wobble.

So they start asking the big questions: Should they sell and sit on the sidelines? Should they move everything to more conservative investments? If I don’t already have a financial adviser, who do I ask? Friends? The internet? The call centre at my super fund?

It’s a tough reality for many this week. So let’s step back and talk sensibly about what’s actually going on, and what your options are.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 14th March 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

How to salvage your travel plans

The conflict in the Middle East has disrupted airspace across one of the world’s biggest travel hubs, leaving many Australians wondering whether they should cancel their upcoming trips.

In this urgent episode, I speak with travel expert Fiona Dalton to unpack what’s actually happening with global travel right now, who is affected, and what travellers should do before making any big decisions.

Fiona explains why the disruption is largely centred around Middle Eastern transit hubs such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, what options travellers have if their flights are impacted, and why cancelling too early could actually leave you worse off financially.

The key message: stay calm, stay connected to your airline, and don’t rush into cancelling your trip but make sure you understand your options.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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War and sharemarket volatility: what pre-retirees need to know

Markets have been on a rollercoaster this week. Oil prices have surged and dropped, the S&P has swung sharply, and headlines out of the Middle East are making investors nervous.

If you’re approaching retirement or already there, seeing your super balance fall hard in a single day then bounce around all week can feel deeply unsettling .

So what’s really going on? And how worried should you be?

In this episode of Prime Time, I speak with Diana Mousina, Deputy Chief Economist at AMP, to unpack the current market volatility, the impact of rising oil prices, and what geopolitical shocks typically mean for long-term investors and people approaching retirement now.

Diana explains why markets often react sharply to global conflicts in the short term but tend to recover over time.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: The five financial decisions that matter most in the last 10 years before retirement

From Bec’s Desk: The new criteria for the Tick has launched

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: The retirement question most Australians never ask – but should

Prime Time: Two shows - ‘Choosing the right superfund in 2026: the criteria are changing’ and ‘The cost of retirement just went up; Here’s what you need to know’

Ad - Before we start — a big thanks to our newsletter sponsor this week, Viking

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The five financial decisions that matter most in the last 10 years before retirement

For most people, the really powerful decisions about retirement chiefly happen in the final decade before retirement.

Your 50s and early 60s are a surprisingly influential window of time. Earnings are often at their peak, mortgages are starting to shrink or disappear, children are becoming financially independent, and for the first time many people finally have the ability to direct serious money toward their future.

It’s also the moment when the horizon becomes real. Retirement is no longer some abstract idea that sits decades away. It’s visible. You can start to feel it approaching and that changes the kinds of decisions people start making.

Over the years I’ve found that there are five financial decisions that tend to shape retirement more than anything else in this period. See if you can add any that are looming for you.

1. What to do about the family home and the mortgage.

Many people arrive in their 50s still carrying some level of housing debt. That’s not unusual anymore. What matters is how deliberately you deal with it. Some people aggressively pay it down before retirement. Others plan to downsize later using some of their super and clear it that way. Either approach can work, but it needs to be intentional.

2. How much to boost superannuation contributions in the final stretch.

The super system is incredibly powerful in this period because of the tax concessions available both when you contribute money at 15% tax and when you’re in the retirement phase and it is tax free. Salary sacrifice, concessional contributions and catch-up rules can make a really meaningful difference to retirement income if they’re used strategically during these years.

3. How much investment risk do you want to be taking?

This is where many people make mistakes. As retirement gets closer, the instinct is often to pull back on investment risk dramatically. But retirement itself can last 25 or 30 years. Your money still needs to grow. The challenge is finding the right balance between protecting capital and maintaining long-term growth.

4. Contemplating whether to gradually transition out of full-time work.

More and more people are discovering that retirement doesn’t have to be a sudden stop. Part-time work, consulting, seasonal work or portfolio careers can dramatically ease the financial and psychological transition into retirement. And you can take a gentler approach to your retirement journey. You might even decide to try it for a bit with a sabbatical before you commit.

5. Considering how your retirement income will actually work.

This is the point where many people realise that retirement income doesn’t come from just one source. It often involves a combination of super drawdowns, investment income, possible Age Pension eligibility, and sometimes part-time work along the way.

When people start thinking about these decisions early enough, something interesting happens. Retirement stops feeling like a scary cliff edge you plan to jump off. Instead it becomes something you gradually shape over time with a little more confidence.

And that’s really the goal. Not simply reaching retirement, but arriving there with options, choices and things you’re excited about.

Are these the five that are in front of you or can you see others?

Leave a comment

I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

From Bec’s Desk:

This week I’m going to be short and sweet.

I’ve had a quiet and very productive week. A quick trip to Sydney and back, and lots of course co-ordination and management with two programs currently in full flight.

Both of our current courses are now in week three: the HESTA Exclusive Epic Retirement Program and the Epic Retirement Flagship Course for Autumn 2026. Next week I head into filming for the UK edition of the course, so I’m deep in scripting and planning at the moment.

The other big focus of my week was launching the new criteria for the 2026 evaluation of the Epic Retirement Tick. We released a terrific podcast about it, and I wrote an article for the Sydney Morning Herald. There’s a new set of criteria you can download from the website if you’d like to look objectively at what your superfund is offering.

And, we released TWO podcasts because we had to - these two were both timely and important. Both are below.

I’ve also been playing around with one of the new features on Facebook. If you’re over there, you might have noticed I’ve launched two new Channels.

These are a bit like a behind-the-scenes feed where I can share quick ideas, short insights and the occasional thought that doesn’t quite warrant a full article or podcast.

One is focused on Australian epic retirement stuff that come up during the week. The other is for UK epic retirement stuff, as that audience has been growing quickly with the UK edition of the book and course.

The nice thing about these Channels is that they’re a direct way for me to share snippets, short videos and posts with geographically specific audiences, without relying on the Facebook algorithm to decide who sees them.

They’re informal, quick to read, and a way for me to share things in real time rather than waiting for the next newsletter. I’ll be sharing all my educational reels there too.

If you’d like to follow along, you can join them here:
Australian Channel: click here
UK Channel: click here

See you in there.

Until next week - make it epic!

Cheers
Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

The retirement question most Australians never ask – but should

For most of us, superannuation has been easy to ignore. Money goes in, investments tick along, the balance grows. You glance at it occasionally, think “looks okay,” and get on with life. But something shifts the moment retirement stops being something far in the distance.

Suddenly, you’re not asking “how much have I got?” You’re asking something much harder: “Will this actually be enough to live on, and for how long?”

That’s the moment many Australians discover an uncomfortable truth: the fund that helped them accumulate money over 30 years may not be well equipped to help them use that money.

Saving for retirement and living on that money are genuinely different problems. One is about growth and investing and keeping fees low. The other is about converting a lump sum into a reliable income that lasts for potentially for two or three decades while navigating market swings, the age pension, health costs, and the sheer unpredictability of a long life.

Most of us have never asked our super fund a simple but important question: are you actually ready to help me with retirement?

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 7th March 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

Choosing the right superfund in 2026: the criteria are changing

If you’ve ever looked at your super fund and thought, “Is this actually delivering for my retirement… or just delivering great ads?” – this episode is for you.

Today is a major update to the Epic Retirement Tick for 2026.

I’m joined by Ian Fryer, General Manager of Chant West, who works with me to develop the rigorous criteria and together with his team, assess the funds. And David Bell, Executive Director of the Conexus Institute – one of Australia’s leading independent retirement policy voices and think tanks.

We go deeper than just explaining what’s changed. We unpack why the criteria matter – and the impact the Tick is already having inside super funds.

If you want to see the criteria, we’ll make it available on the Epic Retirement Institute website at www.epicretirement.net/epictick.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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The cost of retirement just went up; Here’s what you need to know

For the first time in three years, ASFA has lifted the lump sum needed for a “comfortable” and a “modest” retirement. The headlines say Australians may now need $35k–$40k more in super than previously estimated for a comfortable retirement and $10-$20k more for a modest retirement.

So… what changed?

In this episode, I sit down with Mary Delahunty, CEO of ASFA, the creators of these benchmarks to unpack the new Retirement Standard, why the benchmark moved, and what it actually means for your future plans.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: Planning retirement when one partner is older than the other

From Bec’s Desk: Fun times

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: The retirement rule book just changed. Here’s what you need to know

Prime Time: Before you switch your super, listen to this

Planning retirement when one partner is older than the other

Five years, seven years or maybe even ten years. When you’re 35 and falling in love, an age gap barely registers. When you’re 58 and your partner is 51, or 65, it registers everywhere.

Because now you’re running two life-clocks into retirement. Two timelines heading toward the same financial targets, but not necessarily at the same speed.

Target one: preservation age, when super becomes accessible. Target two: Age Pension age.

Those two clocks don’t always tick together. So let’s start with the practical reality.

The older partner can access super earlier. Start an account-based pension earlier. Reach Age Pension age earlier. But Centrelink doesn’t see you as two separate people. It assesses you as a couple, whether that suits you or not. When the older partner hits pension age, the younger partner’s work income still counts in the income test. Your assets are assessed together. Everything is linked.

This is exactly why sequencing matters so much.

There’s a window most couples don’t know exists. While the younger partner is still under Age Pension age, their super in accumulation is generally exempt from the assets test for the couple. It’s not a loophole. It’s just an opportunity created by timing. And it can be a meaningful one.

For that period, one partner may qualify for some pension while the younger partner’s super sits outside the assets test. Drawdowns can be structured deliberately. But once the younger partner reaches pension age, their super comes into the assets test too and the window closes. This isn’t about sheltering assets forever. It’s about understanding the staging on two things:

1. The ability to access a little more Age Pension, if it’s available, and using it cleverly.

2. The ability to access superannuation when one partner turns 60 and retires, which might allow debt to be cleared or lifestyle choices to be made earlier for both.

But remember: you are not one age. You are two. Which means your retirement plan rarely fits a single date circled on a calendar. It usually needs to be phased.

Phase one: the older partner reduces or stops work.

Phase two: the younger partner transitions.

Phase three: you arrive at a shared lifestyle. That’s the financial shape of it.

Then there’s the human side.

When one partner retires and the other keeps working, you’re suddenly living in two different life stages under the same roof. One has freedom. One has Monday morning meetings. One wants midweek lunches; the other has deliverables due. I’ve seen couples navigate this beautifully. I’ve also watched resentment arrive quietly, without any announcement.

It’s rarely just about money. It’s about expectations. The retired partner might assume their travelling lifestyle begins immediately. The working partner might feel pressure to keep earning, or guilt, or low-level irritation they can’t quite name. Age gaps tend to amplify whatever communication gaps already exist, so if you know this is likely territory for you, get ahead of it - talk about it, explore how you’ll navigate these risks together.

And then there’s longevity risk. It’s often overlooked, and nearly always significant.

If one partner is considerably older, they may need care earlier. Their partner may become their carer earlier too. That shapes housing decisions, drawdown rates, whether you downsize sooner, and how much you prioritise liquidity. You’re effectively managing four clocks simultaneously: super access, pension eligibility, the end of work identity, and your health trajectories.

Mapped consciously, an age gap can actually create flexibility. But it brings its own complexity too.

The question isn’t just when do we retire?

It’s what does each stage look like for each of us? And how do we keep both people’s goals, dreams and hopes in the picture. That’s where the real planning starts.

Relate to this? Tell me what you’ve learned.

Leave a comment

I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

From Bec’s Desk: Fun times

This week has been a big one for changes to retirement numbers. I’m almost whiplashed by how many.

Late last week we had changes to the deeming rates, which will flow through with the Age Pension indexation on 20 March. Then this week, ASFA fundamentally changed their retirement benchmarks. This isn’t just a tweak. It changes the way the industry talks about what retirement actually costs, for the first time in three years.

And on Thursday, wages data triggered an increase to super contribution caps from 1 July:

Concessional caps will rise to $32,500. Non-concessional caps will rise to $130,000.

If you’re thinking about using the bring-forward rule, pause before you act. If you trigger it this financial year, you lock in today’s lower caps. Once the new caps roll through on 1 July, you can’t retrospectively access the higher numbers. That doesn’t mean don’t do it. It just means make a conscious decision about timing.

My Sydney Morning Herald article this weekend breaks down all the changes, and I have a podcast coming out Tuesday with Mary Delahunty, ASFA’s CEO, to help navigate what the new benchmarks actually mean. Keep an eye out.

Inside the Epic Retirement world, we’re into week two of our two flagship programs: the HESTA Exclusive Epic Retirement Course and the How to Have an Epic Retirement course. The chatter has been terrific. I genuinely love sitting down each day to answer questions as they come in. People are working through the videos, doing the exercises, having lightbulb moments. Both programs combine self-paced lessons and workbooks with live events. Flexible, but with the shared momentum of doing it with a peer group.

I’m incredibly grateful to HESTA for backing this for their members, and to everyone who has signed up and shown up.

On a completely different note, I’ve been home in Brisbane this week, and somehow managed to squeeze in a Viking Ocean cruise ship tour and a pickleball lesson alongside the podcasts, courses and gym sessions.

The cruise ship visit coincided with a podcast I released with the wonderful Kathy Lette, comedic author of Puberty Blues and her latest bestseller The Sisterhood Rules. As a travel writer she’s taken many Viking cruises, so she came in to share what the experience is really like, and the difference between river and ocean cruising.

Between the show and the ship tour, I picked up a few things regular cruisers probably already know. Every ocean cabin has a balcony. All food and non-alcoholic drinks are included, no surprise bills at the end. Wine, beer and cocktails are available through a drinks package at around $41 per person per day, and it’s not bottom-shelf. You can also bring your own wine onboard with no corkage, which sounds pretty perfect on a French river cruise. Free internet across the fleet, a Nordic spa open to all guests, a big modern gym, and ocean ships carry 998 passengers compared to around 190 on a river cruise. It feels spacious. There are more highlights over on my Facebook post if you want a closer look.

Then came pickleball. I did my introductory lesson on Saturday and I have to say, I can see why people get hooked. Easy to pick up, courts half the size of tennis, and once you’ve done your intro session you can jump on an app and find a game near you for around ten or twelve dollars. Apparently it’s addictive. I’ll report back.

A big week of retirement numbers, a cruise education and pickleball. That’s Prime Time for you. You never quite know what’s ahead.

Until next week - make it epic!

Cheers
Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

The retirement rule book just changed. Here’s what you need to know

If you’re over 50 and paying even passing attention to your financial future, the last couple of weeks have been unusually busy. Within just a fortnight, almost every key number in Australia’s retirement system has either changed or is about to.

The benchmarks for how much you need to retire. The rules around how much you can contribute to superannuation. The rates used to calculate your age pension. The caps on how much super can sit in the tax-free retirement phase.

That’s not normal. Usually, these things shuffle along quietly, one at a time. Currently, they’re moving all at once, and if you don’t know what’s changing, you could easily be missing some opportunities.

So today I’m going to walk you through it all and explain what each change means.

Retirement now costs more

Let’s start with the number people ask me about most: how much do you actually need to retire?

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, known as ASFA, has just updated its retirement benchmarks for the first time in three years. And the shift is significant.

For a comfortable retirement, one that covers a decent lifestyle, a reasonable car, private health insurance, and yes, a modest amount of travel, couples now need $730,000 in super at retirement, up from $690,000. For singles, that figure has risen to $630,000, up from $595,000.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 28th February 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

River and ocean cruising in your Prime Time with KATHY LETTE

There are some guests who don’t just talk about living boldly in the second half of life - they embody it.

This week on Prime Time, I’m joined by the brilliant Kathy Lette, bestselling author, feminist, travel writer and unapologetic Prime Timer, to talk about something I think more of us need to give ourselves permission to do:

travel differently after 50.

Not the frantic, kid-focused, schlepping suitcases across train platforms kind of travel.

But travel on your own terms. With curiosity and comfort. With a little bit of decadence, a lot of history, culture and adventure. And ideally… no kids and no casinos.

Kathy shares how her approach to travel has evolved from backpacking in her twenties to river cruising and archaeological voyages in her sixties, and why she believes this stage of life is when adventure matters most.

Her latest book is called The Sisterhood Rules, and it’s also our pick for March for the Prime Time Book Club.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: ‘Get some financial advice’ - why getting advice is just not that simple anymore

From Bec’s Desk: Heading home

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: The social media trap that could cost you your retirement savings

Prime Time: Before you switch your super, listen to this

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‘Get some financial advice’ - why getting advice is just not that simple anymore

“Get some financial advice.”

It is probably the most common line in Australian retirement commentary. Whenever markets move, super rules change, pension thresholds shift, or someone asks how they are meant to navigate the path from full-time work into retirement, the default response is to tell people in their 40s, 50s and 60s to go and get personal financial advice.

I have said it myself repeatedly over the past few years. It is not wrong. But I am beginning to think it is incomplete. A better version might be this: “learn how the system works first, and then look for the type of advice that suits your situation and goals”.

That distinction matters because advice is no longer a simple, uniform service.

When people walk into an advice firm seeking help to build or cross the bridge into retirement, they are often offered an ongoing arrangement where their super is moved onto a platform, invested in a model portfolio selected by the adviser or their firm, and reviewed each year for a percentage-based fee. That structure now sits at the centre of much of the professions ongoing service model. It provides continuity for clients and stable revenue for practices.

For some households, that is entirely appropriate.

But many Australians approaching retirement are not looking for someone to manage their money indefinitely. They are trying to answer very specific questions: Can I afford to retire? How much can I draw each year? How does the Age Pension fit in? What mistakes should I avoid in the early years?

Those are retirement design questions. They are not automatically investment management questions. And a lot of advisers don’t want to provide strategy without the ongoing relationship if they have such limited capacity to serve as they do today.

A significant number of ordinary superannuation holders are already in diversified, low-cost funds doing exactly what they were built to do. What they lack is clarity about the rules and confidence about the transition. In that context, handing over their super to a long-term investment management arrangement may not always be the most proportionate response.

The phrase “go and get advice” assumes that advice suited to these non investment centric questions is easy to access, simple to understand and consistent in what it delivers. It is none of those things. It is often expensive, shaped by regulation and influenced by how each firm earns its income. Yet we speak about it as though it were a single product sitting on a shelf, easy to find, navigate and buy.

When we tell people to just get advice, we skip an important step. Many approaching retirement do not yet know which problem they are trying to solve. Education gives them the ability to ask better questions and recognise whether what is being offered actually fits them and avoids them falling into the hands of unscrupulous operators (like we saw with Shield and First Guardian and with the lead generation issues flagged this week by the regulator).

Advice is important. What’s unhelpful is treating it as a one-size-fits-all solution every time something changes.

Think of advice as a choose-your-own-adventure exercise. The problem is that most Australians are handed the book without a guide to the chapters.

There are several very different types of advice, and they are rarely explained clearly. So let me give you the short-overview (there’s more in the new edition of epic).

There is general advice – information and education that helps you understand how super, tax and the Age Pension work, but does not take your personal circumstances into account.

There is intrafund or super fund advice – the limited advice many super funds provide to help members with contributions, investment options, insurance and basic retirement questions within that fund.

And then there is personal advice, which is where things become more complex.

Personal advice is often treated as a single category, but it isn’t. It can mean very different things. Some super funds now hold their own licences and provide personal advice directly to members. Others refer members to trusted external advice businesses that know their fund well.

Then there are other advice firms that don’t call themselves independent as much anymore, many of these are closely connected to investment management or do it inhouse. Their core service involves strategy first then setting up and managing portfolios for an ongoing percentage fee, so the advice process often results in assets being placed into that structure.

What is harder to find is advice that is purely strategic. The kind where an adviser reviews your whole household position, works through your retirement structure, and is entirely comfortable recommending that you stay in your existing super fund if that is the right outcome.

That can be more difficult to deliver when most of a firm’s ongoing income comes from managing assets. Not because advisers are acting improperly, but because businesses tend to organise themselves around how they are paid. (All businesses not just advisers).

There is also retirement strategy work — focused on timing, income planning, pension interaction and risk management — which does not automatically require your investments to be rebuilt. In fact, it might involve something far more practical: stepping back and asking whether you are in the right super fund for you, and if not, helping you navigate the superannuation market with clarity.

That means comparing funds properly. Understanding fee structures. Looking at long-term performance, insurance definitions, service models, product features, annuities and retirement functionality. It means evaluating whether a switch is justified and being equally comfortable concluding that it is not.

Strangely, that kind of fund-to-fund navigation – independent of moving assets into a proprietary investment structure and platform – is rare. I have yet to meet many advisers whose primary role is helping Australians assess and, where appropriate, switch within the superannuation system without simultaneously placing those assets into their own managed framework and chosen investments.

Yet for many people, that is exactly the help that might be required.

And then there are advisers whose core service is investment management. Even here, there are differences. Some build portfolios using direct shares, ETFs and bonds. Some implement pre-mapped model portfolios through managed accounts. Others design more customised portfolios. At the top end, some manage broader family wealth structures.

These are not interchangeable services.

Yet we use one phrase – “go and get advice” – as though they are.

If Australians are going to be encouraged to seek advice, they deserve a clearer map of what is actually on offer and how each type is paid for, so they can assess whether it is in fact what they need when they walk through the door. Firms, and advisers in turn, need a consistent and transparent language for explaining what they provide, properly disclosing their keeness for managed investing if that’s their model and any incentives they share because of that.

Without that shared understanding, it becomes difficult to tell whether the solution presented is genuinely solving your problem – or simply delivering the service model that firm is built around.

So if you’re thinking about advice, take the time to think about the kind of advice you are looking for. What problem is this advice designed to solve, and is that actually the problem you have right now? Then make sure you’re getting the right type of advice FOR YOU!

Maybe you agree? Maybe you disagree?

Leave me a comment here.

Leave a comment

I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

This week we kicked off two Epic Retirement programs.

HESTA launched their exclusive Epic Retirement Program for members, and we opened the doors to our flagship How to Have an Epic Retirement course. That means thousands of people are online this weekend working their way through week one. I find that deeply energising.

Both programs combine self-paced video lessons and workbooks with live events to follow. It’s a powerful mix – flexibility for people to learn in their own time, alongside the shared momentum of learning with others. I’m incredibly grateful to HESTA for offering this to their members. And to everyone on the Epic Course who come to learn.

I also spent half the week in Melbourne, and remarkably, didn’t see a drop of rain. I spoke at the Ensombl Retirement Exchange for financial advisers about how retirement is no longer one long, flat chapter of life, but a series of distinct phases, and how advice needs to evolve to support people through each of them - up to 3 phases of prime time and up to 4 or 5 phases of retirement. Imagine if we had support for saving, lifestyling, part-timing, retiring, spending years, purposeful years, ageing years, care and anything else that comes along. I can see some advisers who are really leaning into this - and I’m excited for their clients who’ll enjoy the result.

From there it was an online session with Aware Super couples, and then out to Lifestyle Communities in Deanside, a stunning village in greater Melbourne.

While on the road the super-switching issue I’ve covered in the papers this weekend reared its head - something I’m passionate about stopping. The ASIC Commissioner, Alan Kirkland is taking this very seriously and so we interrupted our podcasting schedule to get him in and on the air straight away. Have a listen.

I have to say, I love the movement of it all on these busy weeks. The conversations. The rooms full of people thinking seriously about the second half of life. And I love coming home just as much.

I’m writing this from the airport on Saturday afternoon, waiting to head back for a proper night’s sleep – tired, grateful, and very aware that this work is doing something important - or at least I hope it is.

Until next week - make it epic! (And listen to the poddy!)

Cheers
Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

The social media trap that could cost you your retirement savings

Late last year – as an experiment – I clicked on a Facebook ad about superannuation. It was bright, urgent and confident. It warned that every year I delayed reviewing my super could cost me seven figures in retirement, and that hundreds of dollars were slipping away daily without me knowing. All I had to do was enter my details to get the “four steps” to beat time. Within minutes, my phone rang.

A businessman explained he ran a referral service connecting people to what he called the best financial adviser for them. He’d previously been a director of one firm he particularly liked, and my first appointment would be free.

I was referred on. A young adviser called to pre-qualify me. His questions were simple: Was I over 45? Did I have an Australian regulated super fund? Yes and yes, so I “qualified” for a phone-based discovery meeting after which a Statement of Advice could follow. No fee information, no quote, nothing until later.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 7th February 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

Before you switch your super, listen to this!

This week ASIC announced it has launched a review into financial advice firms and other companies connected to online super switching ads. If you’ve been on Facebook lately, you’ll know the ones I mean.

These are the ads telling you you’re losing money every day you don’t switch your super, ads suggesting your fund isn’t performing and ads nudging you to “check” or “review” your super which quickly becomes a conversation about switching.

I’ve been watching this build for months or even years. So I deliberately clicked one (as an experiment) to see how it worked and I saw it all in action.

To talk about this review of super switching financial advice and lead generation openly, I asked ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland to come on the show this week, just as this review has been launched.

We talk about what they’re seeing, how these online funnels work, what to watch out for, where harm has already occurred, and what consumers should do before handing over details or agreeing to a switch.

This episode isn’t anti-advice. It’s pro-careful decision making. So, if you’ve been wondering whether you should respond to one of those ads in your feed, listen first.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: Don’t wait to be pushed

From Bec’s Desk: Starting new (hard) things

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: The six retirement fears keeping Australians up at night

Prime Time: How to STOP cognitive decline before it starts with Prof. Henry Brodaty 2026 Senior Australian of the Year

Ad - Before we start — a big thanks to our newsletter supporter this week, Lifestyle Communities

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Don’t wait to be pushed

Anyone watching the stockmarket’s ruptures around the role of AI and the role of people in the workforce might be doing a double think right now.

You’ve worked for 30 or 40 years. You’ve built your skills, your reputation, your income, your super and hopefully your investment returns. You’ve paid the mortgage, raised the kids, carried teams, carried families and carried the mental load required to make everything function. And you’ve familiarised yourself with retirement enough to know that you have ‘enough’.

And then when it’s finally time to step into your Prime Time on your own terms, when you begin the conversation about reducing your days, reshaping your role or stepping out of the front line, something rather odd happens.

You hedge it and you downplay it. You call it temporary and you reassure everyone you’re not disappearing.

Why do you do that?

For many, it’s because you’re not only adjusting your hours – you’re adjusting your identity.

For decades work has been the spine most people’s adult life. It structured your weeks, shaped your conversations and anchored your sense of competence. When someone asked what you did, you had a clear answer. And that identity located you in the world. So even moving from five days to three, from executive to adviser, from operator to mentor or manager to casual worker, can feel like stepping away from something much bigger than a pay cheque. And if you haven’t built an identity outside work in the run up, that shift can feel destabilising.

But here’s the part we need to stop and think through.

If you don’t choose your glide path, sometimes the market or your health chooses your cliff.

Layoffs in your late 50s or early 60s are not just financial events. They are psychological events. Research suggests it can take up to two years to fully recover from involuntary job loss at that stage of life. That’s two years of rebuilding your confidence. Two years of identity repair and healing. Two years of trying to re-enter a market that may quietly prefer someone younger, someone hungry to learn new technologies, or someone who isn’t going to tell the middle manager how we did it in the year 2000. Or two years of accepting retirement happened to you and healing.

That is a very different experience from choosing your timing.

In your Prime Time, I don’t recommend a cliff edge exit from your workplace unless you need one. I recommend taking a glide path. A slower shift out of full-time work is a smart strategy. It allows your super to keep compounding at the highest balances you’ve ever seen. It protects you from sequencing risk if markets wobble. It keeps cash flow steady while you test the shape of your next chapter. And it gives your identity time to evolve instead of having to crash and rebuild.

Culturally, we celebrate grinding on and we celebrate big, dramatic retirement style endings.

We don’t celebrate deliberate transitions enough. So when you decline the next promotion, reduce your days or decide you no longer want the intensity, you can feel the need to justify it or apologise for it.

But, you don’t need to.

You are not stepping back because you are less capable. You are stepping differently because you have built yourself the powerful ability to choose.

For most of us, our super didn’t accumulate by accident. Our investments didn’t magically appear in our accounts. They are the result of decades of work. Of showing up, contributing and making deliberate decisions, year after year. The same is true of your career. Your credibility didn’t just land there either. All of that effort, over time, creates flexibility. And flexibility is not something you hoard. It is something you use.

Used well, it gives you the option of a glide path.

In my view, it is far better to step sideways on your own terms and reshape your sense of self at a time of your choosing than to be pushed out unexpectedly and left questioning your value.

I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

Starting new (hard) things

I’m writing this on a wet Saturday morning, having done my first ‘parkrun’ ever today. I might be late to the party but I’m here, looking after my health, trying new things and getting out there. My run time was far from epic, and I earned a wicked blister, but I did it. #1 is done and that, to me is important. Because starting things that are just outside your comfort zone can be something we put off, but not me, not this year! Now, #2 and #3 will feel easier I’m sure.

This week just gone was one of those chatty weeks that somehow disappears in conversations and tasks. The highlights? Nina and I packing a record number of Welcome Packs for the upcoming Aussie How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course, and flying to Sydney to interview the fabulous Aussie Expat who now lives 9 months of her year in the UK - Kathy Lette for the Prime Time podcast. Her episode will land in your ears next week - keep a listen out. And be sure to listen to this week’s shows (there’s two actually) but the one with Dr Henry Brodaty is epic. And, again, I did some fun radio shows!

And lastly, we’ve just completed a full revision (and expansion) of the criteria for the Epic Retirement Tick ahead of the 2026 evaluation. We’ll be announcing the updated criteria in the coming weeks, giving funds plenty of time to improve ahead of the new evaluation which will be released in early October 2026. The Tick is designed as a practical assessment of funds you can use to see what your super fund is actually doing for you as you approach retirement — and to help you decide whether it’s enough. (And there’s some funds where it’s clearly NOT enough!) You can download the 2025/26 Epic Retirement Tick review of super funds here.

Next week is going to be big - so let’s dive in and tell you how you can get involved.

First of all, I’m doing brekky TV - Sunrise on 7 on Monday (tune in at about 7.20 AEDT), then we have two courses kicking off on Thursday 19th February:

1. The How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course. Our six-week signature program. We cover the money — how much is enough, income planning, sequencing risk, super strategy. We cover the transition — part-time glide paths, identity shift, confidence. And we cover the life design — health, purpose, happiness and travel and what your next stage actually looks like. If you haven’t got your seat on the program yet - you can use this link to apply a 15% off coupon at the checkout. It’s only for our newsletter readers!

2. The HESTA Exclusive Epic Retirement Flagship Course — also six weeks, but designed specifically for HESTA members and offered to them by HESTA at no extra cost. That’s the official wording. In plain English? If you’re a HESTA member, it’s included in what you already pay each year. So yes, it’s essentially a course you can access at no additional cost. And it’s EPIC! You can register your place here - it’s only for HESTA members though!

And, on top of this, I’m heading to Melbourne and have a couple of events I’ll be speaking at…

• I’ll be speaking in-person in Melbourne on Saturday 21st February, about ‘How to make your retirement EPIC’ at Lifestyle Communities Deanside. It’s a great way to see a community in real life too. It’s free but you need to RSVP to come along. More info here.

• And, also on the 19th February I’ll be speaking at the Aware Super online event ‘Planning for Retirement for Couples’! This is an information-packed event, and it’s online, for Aware Super members. More here.

I’m also speaking at a terrific Ensombl event to help advisers focussed on improving their retirement offerings - but it’s all sold out.

So, until next week - Make it Epic!

Cheers
Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

The six retirement fears keeping Australians up at night

I asked a simple question in my Epic Retirement Facebook club last week: What are you most afraid of as you head towards retirement? The responses came flooding in, and what struck me wasn’t the fear itself. It was how consistent the answers were.

“Running out of money.” “Dying at my desk”, “Changing a lifetime of saving to spending”, “Boredom, identity and loss of purpose”, “Centrelink and the government changing the rules on super”, “Being alone”.

These aren’t irrational anxieties. They’re sensible questions asked by people who don’t want to sleepwalk into a phase of life that deserves more care and attention than that.

Dismissing them as benign helps no one. What does help is turning these vague fears into something they can measure and manage. Fear thrives on ambiguity. Give it structure, numbers and a plan, and it tends to shrink to a far more workable size or even get out of the way.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 14th February 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

How to STOP cognitive decline before it starts

Is cognitive decline inevitable as we age, or is there actually something we can do about it?

That’s the question I wanted to explore in this week’s episode of Prime Time. Dementia and memory loss sit right at the top of the fear list for people over 50, and yet so much of what we hear is either alarmist or hopeless.

So I invited one of the world’s leading experts to the show.

I’m joined by Professor Henry Brodaty - 2026 Senior Australian of the Year, Professor of Ageing and Mental Health at UNSW Sydney, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing. Henry has spent decades researching dementia, cognitive decline and, most importantly, what actually helps protect our brains as we age.

We discuss what’s within our control, what really matters for brain health, and why it’s never too early to start looking after your mind.

You can find out more about Henry’s work here.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: “Should you stay in growth with your super at 59 or is it time to get defensive?”

From Bec’s Desk: Every week is different

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: There’s a $2.5b issue with our super, and it’s costing retirees

Prime Time: PART 1: The 6 things everyone fears about retirement and how to tackle those fears

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“Should you stay in growth with your super at 59 or is it time to get defensive?”

The market fell pretty hard on Friday in Australia. Bitcoin’s in ribbons, silver is slipping. The volatility is up. Crazy stuff is happening and when it does, the same question always turns up.

It hit my inbox almost immediately friday morning, from Robert. And lately, it’s coming up far more often.

Markets feel jumpy right now. The news cycle in 2026 is relentlessly messy. There’s talk of changes to CGT, a government that can’t seem to make the budget add up without fuelling inflation, and interest rate rises that are playing havoc with confidence. There’s even talk of AI obliterating the jobs market, changing the economy.

So, let me give you my take on the big question ‘should you stay in growth with your super at 59? Or is it time to get defensive?’

Stop for a minute and think about it… this isn’t new.

I could walk you back through the last 30 or 40 years and the moments that genuinely unsettled people as they were happening, watching super balances fall during the GFC, the dot-com boom and bust, the Asian financial crisis, seeing the world shut down overnight during COVID, the September 11 attacks, oil shocks and petrol price spikes, Afghanistan, the European debt crisis, Brexit, trade wars, sudden interest rate hikes, banks wobbling, property markets freezing, borders closing, flights grounded, shelves emptying, jobs disappearing, crazy tarriffs, Trump... It’s happened all our lives.

What does change is how it feels when you’re in your late 50s. Suddenly it can feel like you’re standing right at the edge of retirement, looking down, thinking:
“I really can’t afford to get this wrong now.”

So let’s slow this down and put it into plain English.

First, this decision isn’t really about your age.
It’s about when and how you’ll actually use your super.

If you’re almost 59 or 60 but you’re not planning to draw heavily on your super for another 5, 10, or even 15 years, then your time horizon is still long. And long time horizons are exactly what growth assets are built for. They’re bumpy in the short term, yes, but over time they’ve historically done a much better job of growing your money faster than inflation.

And here’s the part that we don’t talk about very much. You don’t spend all your money in retirement in the first five years. And for most, modern retirement is not a short phase anymore. Many Australians will spend 25 or 30 years drawing on their super. That means a big chunk of your money still needs to keep working for a very long time.

The bigger issue for most people isn’t growth versus balanced portfolios.
It’s how you react when markets wobble.

If market downturns make you anxious, or if you know you’re the kind of person who might switch out after a big market fall just to stop the discomfort, that’s a problem you need a plan to address. Not because growth is “bad”, but because panic-selling is how real damage gets done to your retirement plans. In that case, a slightly more balanced mix can be less about returns and more about helping you stay the course of keeping yourself in the market when things shake.

Another important question to ask yourself is whether you’ll need a lump of money soon.If you’re planning to use super in the next couple of years to pay off a mortgage, fund a renovation, or cover a big expense, that portion probably shouldn’t be riding market ups and downs. Many people forget that they don’t have to treat their entire balance the same way. Some money can be invested for long-term growth, while other money is kept more stable for near-term needs.

What worries me most is when people feel paralysed and sideline themselves. Then they sit in cash for years “waiting for things to settle down”. Or they make big switches purely because the economic mood feels over-inflated, or the volatility intolerably bad. The irony is that this kind of fear-driven decision-making often creates more risk, not less.

A more sensible approach is one that assumes the world will always be a bit messy. Because it is and always has been.

Think about the things you can to do hold some assets in growth…

So if you’re in your late 50s and feeling nervous as the world is stirring right now, the question isn’t “growth or defensive?” It’s how do you stay invested in growth without blowing yourself up when markets wobble?

Two simple ideas help here: buckets and guardrails.

Buckets are about matching your money to when you’ll need it.

You might think of your money in three rough buckets.

One bucket holds money you expect to use in the next few years. This is your sleep-at-night money. It’s there to cover near-term spending, surprises, or the early years of retirement. This bucket is usually more defensive.

The second bucket is for the middle years. Money you won’t touch for a while, but not decades away either. This is often where balanced options sit.

The third bucket is your long-term bucket. This money may not be touched for 10, 15, even 20 years. This is where growth assets belong. This bucket gives you protection against inflation and longevity risk.

Guardrails are what stop you from making emotional decisions at the worst possible time. Instead of reacting to headlines, you set some simple rules in advance. For example:

• If markets fall sharply, you don’t want to sell from the growth bucket

• You draw spending from the defensive bucket instead

• You only rebalance back into growth when things recover, not when you’re scared

Guardrails turn investing from something you react to into something you manage. But beware, they don’t eliminate risk. Nothing does. Instead the job of buckets and guardrails is to help you contain the risk.

And that’s very different from gambling on the market or pretending volatility won’t happen. It will. And the goal isn’t to predict the economy.
It’s to build a plan you can live with, stick to, and sleep well with.

I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

Every week is different in my world. This week it was a crazy week of … radio shows, TV recordings, and course preparations. I’ve been keeping up my health-kick this week - have you? Weights to the point of failure and protein counting is becoming more familiar and very regular.

My first flight to Sydney for the year took me into the Nine TV studios to record a TV segment with Homemade, on homecare services.

Back in Brissy, I also recorded a podcast for Prime Time with our newly awarded Senior Australian of the Year, Dr Henry Brodati all about the cause that got him there, cognitive health and Alzheimers prevention. Keep an ear out for that one - it was terrific and it’ll come out next week. He’s darned impressive.

There were a few wonderful ABC radio conversations too – ABC Sydney, ABC Overnights, and ABC Western Plains. And next week I’ll be on ABC Perth as well.

I love talking about retirement in a way that doesn’t create ugly fear, but instead normalises the choices people actually have today, and helps them understand how to use those choices well.

And the courses - are moving fast.

Our How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course Earlybird deal is now officially closed and I can say proudly this is again “OUR BIGGEST COHORT EVER!”. We’re packing the welcome packs on Monday. My downstairs is literally piled with boxes and boxes and boxes of workbooks and books. It’s going to be a big day of packing, but that makes it feel so much more personal doesn’t it to know me and my wonderful team still do it by hand!

If you haven’t got your seat on the program yet - you can use this link to apply a 15% off coupon at the checkout. It’s only for our newsletter readers!

The HESTA exclusive edition of the Epic Retirement program is booking right now (and the places are limited), for kickoff on the 19th Feb. It’s a fully-tailored program for HESTA members to learn how to have an epic retirement. And it’s EPIC! You can register your place here - it’s only for HESTA members though!

I’ve got some events coming up:

• In-person in Melbourne on Saturday 21st February, speaking about ‘How to make your retirement EPIC’ at Lifestyle Communities Deanside. It’s a great way to see a community in real life too. It’s free but you need to RSVP to come along. More info here.

• And, also on the 19th February I’ll be speaking at the Aware Super online event ‘Planning for Retirement for Couples’! This is an information-packed event, and it’s online, for Aware Super members. More here.

Last thing this week… I am on a drive to find more of the country’s future-retirees and help them. So if you know someone who might benefit from this newsletter, please send it on and suggest they subscribe for free. We’ll both be grateful I hope (me and them!)

Thanks for being here… making it epic. Have a lovely Sunday!

Cheers
Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

There’s a $2.5b issue with our super, and it’s costing retirees

There’s an enormous wave of people approaching retirement in Australia today. Many, particularly over the next decade as super matures, will have relatively small balances and limited financial confidence.

Instead of feeling prepared, they feel overwhelmed. They put off engaging with their super, delay important financial decisions, and quietly hope things will sort themselves out when work ends.

For many of these people, meaningful financial advice simply isn’t accessible. Advice is expensive, often geared towards larger balances and private asset management, and increasingly unreachable for those who need help the most.

Yet, these are precisely the people who need support to set themselves up for retirement, to understand how super, the age pension, tax-free retirement income and any ongoing work fit together to fund a liveable retirement, and to feel confident they’re not making costly mistakes along the way.

This is where Australia’s retirement system needs to change, and quickly.

If large numbers of people are overwhelmed, disengaged and unable to access advice, then simply waiting for them to make the “right” retirement decisions is no longer realistic.

Super funds need to be allowed, and expected, to play a more active role in helping members move from accumulation into retirement, so their superannuation generates tax-free returns, and is used to help them have a good life.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 7th February 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

PART 1: The 6 things everyone fears about retirement and how to tackle those fears

When I asked our Epic Retirement Club community what they feared most about retirement, the responses came flooding in.

“Running out of money.”

“Dying at my desk.”

“Losing my identity.”

“Not knowing how to spend my time.”

“Being alone.”

Does any of this sound familiar?

It struck me how consistent these concerns were. These aren’t irrational fears - they’re smart, thoughtful people trying not to mess up the second half of their lives.

So, this week on Prime Time, I’m doing something a little different. I’ve sat down with our program producer, Gen, to name the six fears that came up again and again. We unpack the first three in today’s episode: running out of money, running out of time and health, and loss of identity.

We talk through why these fears are so common and how each one could be managed - not eliminated - because we can’t just chase them away.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: Super caps on the rise from 1 July 2026. Here’s what’s changing and how the caps work

From Bec’s Desk: Upcoming events, courses, and follow along on my health movement!

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Wondering if you can retire yet? Try asking a different question

Prime Time: ‘Have I lived a successful life?’ The truth about life after 50

Super caps on the rise from 1 July 2026. Here’s what’s changing and how the caps work

The December CPI figures released this week confirm that Australia’s key superannuation balance caps will increase from 1 July 2026.

Both the Transfer Balance Cap (TBC) and the Total Super Balance (TSB) cap will rise from $2.0 million to $2.1 million. These caps are indexed to inflation, and the December CPI result has triggered the next $100,000 indexation step.

In addition, contribution caps are also likely to increase from the same date (but we won’t see that confirmed for a couple more weeks).

Concessional and non-concessional contribution caps are not indexed to CPI. They are indexed to Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings (AWOTE), an ABS measure of wage growth, with updated figures due on the 26th February. Based on current wage data, it is expected that from 1 July 2026:

• the concessional contribution cap will increase from $30,000 to $32,500

• the standard annual non-concessional contribution cap will increase from $120,000 to $130,000

• the three-year bring-forward cap will increase to $390,000

We’ll get final confirmation once the AWOTE figures are released in February 2026. I’ll keep an eye on it and let you know.

What the caps are designed to do

There’s a bit of super jargon in there, so here’s a quick explanation of what these caps actually are.

The Transfer Balance Cap (TBC) limits how much superannuation can be transferred into the retirement phase, where your investment earnings are tax free. It is a lifetime cap. Each time a retirement income stream is commenced, the amount transferred is counted against the individual’s personal transfer balance cap.

If you have more than the cap, that amount can remain in super but must stay in an accumulation account, where earnings are taxed at 15 per cent. The purpose of the TBC is to place a limit on the amount of capital that enjoys tax-free treatment in retirement.

The Total Super Balance (TSB) cap serves a different function. A person’s Total Super Balance is the combined value of all their super interests at 30 June each year. This balance is used to determine someone’s eligibility to:

• make non-concessional contributions

• use the three-year bring-forward rule

• access carry-forward concessional contributions

• apply certain other superannuation rules

Once a person’s TSB reaches the cap, each of these options are no longer available, but I need to point out that existing balances are not affected.

How the caps interact

The Transfer Balance Cap controls how much super can receive tax-free earnings in retirement.

The Total Super Balance cap controls who can continue to add money to super, and on what terms.

Indexation of these caps is done in recognition of inflation, wage growth and the fact that we are living longing and retiring for longer too. While many Australians will never approach these limits, the changes are important for people nearing retirement, managing large contributions later in life, receiving inheritances, or transitioning significant balances into retirement income streams.

All changes will apply from 1 July 2026.

One week back in the hot seat - literally, Brisbane has been like an oven this week. But I’m having fun. I’ve started the year with a health kick (haven’t we all). In fact I’ve read Michelle Bridges’ book as well as a few others cover-to-cover and started to live the lessons we discussed two weeks ago on the Prime Time podcast. Walking at least 10,000 steps a day, before the heat kicks in, lifting heavy weights to the point of failure, and eating my body weight in protein - loooots of protein. I could call it a weight loss diet but I’d rather not. Yes, I ate too much cheese and a little wine on my holiday in France for my 50th birthday, so there’s pounds to lose, but this diet is not a diet. It’s just a more consistent approach to being the person my 80-year-old self would be proud of. The changes to my body composition are what I hope to have do the heavy lifting, pardon the pun. Let’s see if I can keep the consistency up as I travel for work this year. I am telling myself I can.

The reason I’m telling you this is two-fold. I’m taking accountability, in public, for my health in midlife, so maybe it will inspire you to do it alongside me. But also, so you can hold me to it. I’ll report back and we’ll be getting a few health gurus on the show to inspire us this year. My goal is simple. 4 weights sessions a week - low reps and HEAVY, at least 10,000 steps a day 6 days a week. HIIT and Yoga or pilates whenever I can. I bought a treadmill (much to my dog’s horror) and it sits right outside my office/studio so I have no excuse. What’s your mix and intention… leave it in the comments. Let’s do this!

Leave a comment

Now, onto the other important stuff… events! I cant wait to get out and about again. My first events for the year are coming up fast.

I’ll be in-person in Melbourne on Saturday 21st February, speaking about ‘How to make your retirement EPIC’ at Lifestyle Communities Deanside. It’s a great way to see a community in real life too. It’s free but you need to RSVP to come along. More info here.

Then, I’ll also be speaking at the Retirement Xchange, an event for Financial Advisers who want to go deeper into retirement. It’s on the 19th February - and it’s sold out. More here.

And, also on the 19th February I’ll be speaking at the Aware Super online event ‘Planning for Retirement for Couples’! This is an information-packed event, and it’s online, for Aware Super members. More here.

And the courses… I truly love these!

The HESTA exclusive edition of the Epic Retirement program is booking now, for kickoff on the 19th Feb. It’s a fully-tailored program for HESTA members to learn how to have an epic retirement. And it’s EPIC! You can register your place here.

And the next public program of the How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course kicks off on the 19th February too. A six week program, and hundreds of people have already registered. In fact this could be our biggest consumer course ever. The earlybird 25% off deal has just days left. Learn more, download a brochure and book your place here. Welcome packs go out next week - so make sure you’re booked in ASAP.

And my last little ‘watch out for’ is this. We’re starting a book club for midlife and retirement on the Prime Time podcast. I’m going to tell you more about it next week. But if you aren’t a listener of the show yet - come on over and start listening in. We’re going to do lots of interesting stuff this year.

Thanks for being here… making it epic. Have a lovely Sunday!

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Wondering if you can retire yet? Try asking a different question

There’s a moment every January that’s oddly predictable for most of us. The kids go back to school if you have them. The diary refills with meetings, appointments and general chaos. Work cranks back up to full pace.

And somewhere between ironing work clothes, packing lunchboxes, fighting traffic and clearing the holiday backlog in your inbox, a quiet but persistent thought starts tapping you on the shoulder: how long do I really have to keep doing this?

For some people, the next step is to start running the numbers. How much super do I have? How much do I actually need? How far away can retirement be, really? For others, there’s no numbers moment at all. They resign themselves to the belief that it’s simply too many years to bother counting, and do nothing.

Whichever type of person you are, if this question is even crossing your mind, it’s worth paying attention.

Because no matter how much you have, or don’t have, or how hard you work, almost everyone can take early steps to get better control over their ability to choose how and when they retire, rather than simply waiting for a distant age or magic number to arrive. And there are some practical steps that can help.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday 1st Feb 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

Less than 3 weeks to go: Earlybird sale ends soon for The Epic Retirement Flagship Course

How to Have an Epic Retirement – Flagship Course

Earlybird 25% off deal is still running - but not for long

The next edition of the How to Have an Epic Retirement flagship course kicks off on 19 February 2026. Hundreds of people have already registered, which I’m genuinely thrilled about. It’s a practical, Australia-first program for people in their 50s and 60s who want to understand how retirement actually works, without the overwhelm. . We do the program together through a combination of online learning and live events, over 6 weeks (it’s a synchronous course), so you’re not left on your own trying to make sense of it all.

What we cover

• How Australia’s retirement systems really work

• Practical ways to get money into super

• How to turn super into income

• How to think about spending, tax and the Age Pension

• How to plan for health, purpose, and the long game of ageing well and ageing in place

What you won’t get - There’s no jargon, no scare tactics, no product sales or hidden agendas. Just clear, honest, factual retirement education, designed to help you make better choices in the years ahead and feel calmer, more confident, and better prepared to live retirement well.

Learn more about the course

‘Have I lived a successful life?’ The truth about life after 50

Today’s guest is someone who’s not just talking about midlife transformation - she’s living it.

Sue West is a leadership and transition coach who helps people navigate change in work and life, especially in the second half of life. But what I love most about Sue is her own story; how she’s built her coaching business Flourish After Fifty, and redefined what success, purpose and energy mean for her, at this stage of life.

In this episode, we talk about what happens when you stop chasing the version of success you were sold in your 30s and 40s… and start creating one that actually fits who you are now.

We talk about letting go, finding your voice, the emotional rollercoaster of transition and why the “messy middle” is where the real work begins. If you’ve ever asked yourself “what’s next for me?” and felt unsure how to answer… this one’s for you.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: The retirement question most people ask backwards

From Bec’s Desk: Back down under

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Thinking about retiring early? These six reasons could change your mind

Prime Time: What you need to know about the Division 296 Super Tax

Ad - Before we start — a big thanks to our newsletter sponsor this week, Viking

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The retirement question most people ask backwards

Here’s one question I hear all the time, all over the world, and it makes me slightly shudder. Because when people ask it, they’re usually looking for the wrong kind of answer.

“How much is enough to retire?”

Most people don’t realise that the answer they’re hoping for isn’t actually very helpful.

If I tell you that a single person needs around $595,000 in super, or a couple needs around $690,000, to have a ‘comfortable’ retirement, you still haven’t got much to work with. Because those numbers don’t tell you how your life will actually be funded, year by year.

The number you really need to work your way towards isn’t a super balance at all.

It’s this: what does your retirement income look like in layers, and which of those layers do you need to fund from your own savings, versus how much will come from other sources.

Once you look at it this way, retirement planning becomes far more practical.

You stop asking, “How big does my super need to be? Blindly hoping you’ll like the answer”, and instead you ask, “How much income do I need each year, and where is it going to be coming from?”

Most Australians will have a mix of income sources in retirement. The mistake is looking at each one in isolation, rather than seeing how they stack together.

For many people, some of that income will come from the Age Pension, either full or part. That’s income you don’t need to fund from your own savings. It reduces the amount your super has to provide each year.

Some income may come from work, at least for a period of time. Not full-time and not forever, but income that contributes to the total and again reduces the draw on your savings, allowing it to continue to compound more rapidly in your part-time years.

Some people will also have income coming from investments or assets held outside super. That might be regular income, or it might be money you draw on in certain years.

Only after you’ve accounted for those layers do you get to the final piece of the puzzle.

How much income still needs to come from your super.

That’s the number that matters.

Super isn’t there to fund your entire retirement income on its own. It’s there to fill the gap between what you want to spend each year and what’s coming in from other sources.

When you understand this, a lot of the anxiety falls away.

You’re no longer trying to hit a single magic balance.
You’re building an income picture, layer by layer that looks a bit like a lasagne.
And you can see clearly what each part of the system needs to do.

That’s why the question “How much is enough to retire?” is the wrong place to start.

The better place to start is much simpler.

What income do I want each year as a total amount to cover my living costs and lifestyle goals?
What income will I get from each source each year?
And what does my super need to cover?

Get that right, and retirement planning becomes a lot more grounded in reality, rather than hope.

I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.

They say the official start of the year for most Aussies is actually the day after the Australia Day long weekend. And by the time you’re reading this, I’ll have just landed back home from two weeks working in London, ready to get stuck in.

It was a fascinating trip.

In some ways, I think the UK is a little ahead of Australia in the retirement space. Our funds and legislation are still lagging when it comes to properly supporting people once they stop working. But in other ways, I actually like where Australia is heading.

Our system is slowly moving towards giving people more choice in retirement, and encouraging them to understand those choices, rather than funnelling everyone into a narrow set of standardised income products.

The UK, by contrast, seems to be heading down a more automated and authoritative path. Funds are being pushed to actively guide people into retirement, and by retirement I mean specific products designed to deliver an income. There’s a lot of structure, and a lot of direction and a massively reduced need for complex advice once it happens.

There’s good and bad in both approaches, and I learnt a lot from seeing the UK system up close.

But for me, it’s now full steam ahead on Aussie projects.

First up, the podcast. The numbers came in this week for Prime Time in December, and it hit #127 on the Australian Made Podcasts chart. That’s our highest ranking ever, and we’re sitting alongside some seriously impressive shows – comedians, true crime, sport and hard news. I’m really glad you’re enjoying it.

I’m back in the studio this week and can’t wait. If there are topics you’d like covered or questions you want tackled, just hit reply and email me.

Then there’s the flagship course.

We’ve officially sold through the first 200 places in the next How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course. I’ve opened up a small number of additional spots for any stragglers who want to move quickly, but don’t hang around. Now that I’m back, we’re getting ready to send out the welcome packs very soon. More on this below – scroll down.

And finally, our HESTA course. The HESTA Exclusive Edition of the How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course is now open for bookings via HESTA. You’ll need to be a HESTA member to be eligible, and places are limited. It kicks off on 19 February, and you can find more details via this link.

Right now though, I’ve got a plane to board and 24 hours of movies, snacks and the inside of my eyelids ahead. Sometimes it’s nice to do absolutely nothing.

See you back down under very soon.

Cheers
Bec xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Thinking about retiring early? These six reasons could change your mind

Someone wrote to me last week asking if they should retire at 52. “I have savings to bridge me through to 60 and enough super to fund my life after that,” he wrote.

My first reaction is to ignore the numbers. Instead, I want to ask what this person actually means by retire. Retirement means different things to different people. For some, it’s stopping work entirely.

For others, it’s leaving their first career behind, and starting to work with more flexibility, or for the pleasure and meaning of it. Once you’re clear on what you mean by retirement, the next step is to think seriously about the consequences and risks.

On the surface, this reader, Mark, sounds well-prepared. He has savings to bridge the gap to 60 and a healthy super balance. From a purely mechanical perspective, retiring at 52 may be possible, and it can sound rather sexy.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday 24th January 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

Begins soon: The Epic Retirement Flagship Course Feb 2026. Earlybird sale ends soon.

The How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course is now less than a month ‘til kickoff. The six week online course is done week-by-week and includes

• 8.5 hours of comprehensive retirement education, delivered by Bec Wilson

• 6 Live Q&A events, held on zoom in an interactive manner, allowing you and your classmates to ask questions as you learn, each week. (Yes, they’re all recorded)

• A 150 page printed workbook

• A signed copy of the new edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement, the book
  Online quizzes and challenges to help you grasp the lessons

• And more…

Hundreds of people have already booked for the next program, and we’ve added extra spots at the earlybird price of $374. (But we’ll be closing the deal off soon so we can send the welcome packs).

You can download a brochure packed with detail here.

What you need to know about the Division 296 Super Tax

This week on Prime Time, I’m joined by Drew Meredith, Director and financial adviser at Wattle Partners, and one of the clearest wealth thinkers in the country, to unpack the revised Division 296 super tax and what it means in real life.

There’s been a lot of confusion (and noise) since the changes were announced, but the dust is starting to settle and it’s time to understand what this new tax actually means, who it impacts, and how to think about your super if you’re edging close to those thresholds.

Drew and I break down how the new tax works, the differences between balances over $3 million and $10 million, the role of indexation, and what kinds of planning conversations are already starting, especially for people in SMSFs.

If you’ve seen this topic floating around and haven’t quite wrapped your head around it yet, this is a great place to start.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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• LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Feature: Learning to spend after a lifetime of saving

From Bec’s Desk: Hello from London!

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Women’s super gap isn’t just a data point. It’s a ticking time bomb

Prime Time: Retirement planning with the pension in mind

Learning to spend after a lifetime of saving

For forty years we’re taught to watch our balances rise. Bank accounts, super, pensions - they’re all meant to go up. That’s the scoreboard of doing life well. That’s how you know you’re being sensible, responsible, grown-up. Bigger pots of savings, bigger super balances, compound growth!

Over many years, you learn to feel calmer when the numbers go up. You sleep better. You tell yourself you’re building security, protecting your future, being a good parent, a good partner, and a good adult.

Then you get to retirement.

And even the most capable, well-planned people feel a hefty jolt of discomfort as they have to start drawing down, and they watch the numbers start to go the other way. Some say it feels like a tightening in the chest. Others, a sense that something isn’t right. It feels like you’re doing something you were never meant to do.

You can know, intellectually, that your retirement plan works. You can have spreadsheets, projections, buffers and even a financial adviser telling you it’ll be ok. And still feel a flicker of guilt every time you draw money out. It’s as if you’re being careless. As if you’re letting your younger, harder-working self down by dipping into this pot to do things that go beyond spending on the basic cost of living.

But we have to remember, that’s what it’s been built for.

The guilt and discomfort people feel when spending in retirement is a widespread issue. And if it’s happening to you, you’re normal.

What’s actually going on here isn’t a money problem. It’s a conditioning problem.

For decades, your nervous system has been trained to associate not spending with safety. Saving became a form of control. Restraint was rewarded. Watching balances rise meant you were doing the right thing, protecting the future, being prudent.

So when retirement flips the system from accumulation to drawdown, your brain doesn’t calmly update the rules. It flags ‘danger, danger, danger’. It treats spending as a threat, even when it’s planned and affordable.

That’s why reassuring yourself doesn’t always work. More spreadsheets don’t fix it (but they’re important). Neither does being told, again, that “you’ll be fine”. Your brain isn’t confused about the maths. It’s reacting to a lifetime of habit.

There’s also a second layer to this. For most people, money has always flowed in one direction: work first, enjoyment later. Spending was delayed, justified, or rationed. In retirement, that sequence reverses. You’re being asked to enjoy first, without the psychological permission slip of having “earned it this month”.

That’s a big shift. And it’s why so many people hover in an uncomfortable middle ground. Retired on paper, but still living emotionally like they’re preparing for it.

So what actually helps?

First, you need to change how the money shows up in your life.
It’s not just about how much you have, but how you experience it. People almost always feel better spending “income” that has been designated as an income stream, than dipping into a lump sum. So, acknowledge this and consider setting up a regular transfer into a spending account that allows for both your cost of living and annual discretionary spending. This can be surprisingly powerful. It restores a sense of rhythm and legitimacy to what you can do. You’re not eroding an important savings pot every time you spend. You’re using money that’s been allocated for living life well.

Second, decide your spending rules in advance.
Most guilt doesn’t come from spending. It comes from impulse decision-making in the moment. If every purchase requires a judgement call about whether you’re being sensible, of course it feels uncomfortable to spend on joyous things. So, to get around this you can simply agree on a level of spending ahead of time, ideally when you’re calm and rational. Then let yourself spend within it without renegotiating every coffee, dinner, or plane ticket.

Third, recognise that some spending has a timing window.
Health, energy, mobility and curiosity are not evenly distributed across your retirement years. Some experiences are easier, richer, or only possible earlier on in life. And, if you delay all of your discretionary spending in the name of safety, you may end up protecting money you can’t fully use in the way you once imagined. Heck - you or your partner might even die, or lose mobility before you get to enjoy it if you’re not careful.

None of this is about being reckless. It’s about aligning your spending with the reality of this phase of life. Learning to spend after forty years of saving is not a moral failure or something to feel guilty about. It’s simply another transition. One most people were never prepared for.

But, if you can notice the feelings, understand your capacity to spend, and get ahead of the guilt, you can adapt.

This week’s challenge isn’t to spend more. It’s to stop reflexively telling yourself you can’t, and work out what you actually can afford.

There’s a long-held belief that the year in Australia doesn’t really begin until after Australia Day, so I’ve decided to take that quite literally.

I’m still in London, in the middle of meetings with UK pension funds and recording our very first UK edition of the Epic Retirement Flagship Course. At the same time, most Australians are in that familiar January in-between: one foot on the beach, one foot back at work, (and a fair few of you already well into retirement enjoying a lifetime of freedom).

Just five more days and I’ll be heading home. It’ll have been five and a half weeks living out of a suitcase - that’s nearly my limit.

My biggest piece of news this week is that we’ve officially welcomed Charlotte Gibson as our UK Lead of the Epic Retirement Institute.

Working across Australia and the UK in retirement education was always going to be complex, especially with me based in Australia. The systems are different, yet similar. The emotional context around money and ageing isn’t quite the same. And it’s a long way to go for a meeting too.

So finding the right person to help lead this work in the UK really mattered. And, I’ll admit, I quite love living in Australia. That matters to my Prime Time too. And I want to be present.

Charlotte is a retirement coach and a pensions actuary, which is a rare and powerful combination. She brings both technical depth and a very human approach to retirement, and I’m genuinely thrilled to be working with her as we build this next chapter.

This year already feels important for retirement.

Possibly the biggest year of retirements we’ve ever seen.

You could feel that energy in December. The Prime Time podcast absolutely took off during Epic Retirement Month, becoming our biggest month ever. It confirmed something I’ve sensed for a while: people want thoughtful, practical conversations about their Prime TIme and their retirement that don’t talk down to them or scare them.

This week on the show Justin Bott from Services Australia is back (one of your favourites!), talking openly about planning for retirement with the Age Pension in mind. It’s one of those topics that people need help with. Have a listen (details below).

Behind the scenes, hundreds of people have already registered for the 2026 edition of the Epic Retirement Flagship Course, which begins on 19 February. The earlybird pricing will come to a natural close once I’m back in Australia. More here.

On the same day, (19th Feb) the HESTA Epic Retirement Course also kicks off for HESTA members. You can find out more and register via HESTA if you’re one of their members! More here.

I’ve been sharing some of what I’m learning here in the UK on Facebook and Instagram. Just small snapshots. I’m very fortunate that really senior and very experienced leaders in retirement across the UK open their doors, come for a meal and spend time with me. It’s so amazing to be able to really know what the challenges are from both the business and the consumer frontier and I don’t take the opportunity to be part of the conversation for granted. Tastes here:

• Facebook: facebook.com/becwilsonepic

• Insta: instagram.com/epicretirement

And, while it’s not hugely relevant in Australia, I’m now the retirement columnist for The Times for the UK. You can check it out here (it’s paywalled).

Cheers - Bec Xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Women’s super gap isn’t just a data point. It’s a ticking time bomb

There’s new data out this week on retirement confidence in Australia, and it makes for uncomfortable reading. Only 41 per cent of women say they feel financially confident about retirement. For men, it’s 59 per cent. That gap – of nearly 20 per cent – should stop us in our tracks.

Dig a little deeper and the worry is everywhere. Nearly three-quarters of women are concerned about having enough super for retirement, compared with just over half of men. Seven in ten fear they won’t be able to afford the lifestyle they want later in life. More than half are already holding back on everyday spending because they’re worried about running out of money in retirement.

This isn’t a single data point or a momentary wobble in confidence. Women report higher levels of worry across every measure. It would be easy to describe this as anxiety and brush it off, but that would be a mistake.

These findings come from AMP’s Retirement Confidence Pulse, an important piece of research that tracks how Australians feel about their financial futures. As Melinda Howes, AMP’s Group Executive for Superannuation and Investments, put it: “We cannot accept a future where Australian women remain more worried than men about their financial futures.”

What the data really shows is not anxiety, but smart realism. Women are responding rationally to the reality of their financial lives, in a retirement system that has never fully accounted for the fact that women have more fractured working lives than men, even today.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday 17th January 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

The Epic Retirement Flagship Course for Feb 2026 is filling up quickly! Don’t miss 25% off earlybird sale.

How to Have an Epic Retirement – Flagship Course

Earlybird 25% off deal is still running - but not for long

The next edition of the How to Have an Epic Retirement flagship course kicks off on 19 February 2026. Hundreds of people have already registered, which I’m genuinely thrilled about. It’s a practical, Australia-first program for people in their 50s and 60s who want to understand how retirement actually works, without the overwhelm. . We do the program together through a combination of online learning and live events, over 6 weeks (it’s a synchronous course), so you’re not left on your own trying to make sense of it all.

What we cover

• How Australia’s retirement systems really work

• Practical ways to get money into super

• How to turn super into income

• How to think about spending, tax and the Age Pension

• How to plan for health, purpose, and the long game of ageing well and ageing in place

What you won’t get

• No jargon

• No scare tactics

• No product sales or hidden agendas

Just clear, honest, factual retirement education, designed to help you make better choices in the years ahead and feel calmer, more confident, and better prepared to live retirement well.

Learn more about the course

Retirement planning with the pension in mind

When we think about retirement planning, super often steals the spotlight. But for the majority of Australians, the age pension remains the backbone of their retirement income, and planning with it in mind can make a meaningful difference.

So, this week on Prime Time, I’ve invited Justin Bott, Community Information Officer from Services Australia, back on the show to help us unpack the role the pension really plays in building a sustainable retirement plan, and how you can get ahead of planning with it in mind.

From clever (and legal) asset strategies to common mistakes people make when applying and how things like offset accounts and family gifts might affect your eligibility, this episode is full of practical tips that can help you plan smarter and make more informed decisions.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: A community member’s reflection: “Am I ready to step off the ladder?”

From Bec’s Desk: Happy New Year and all the good times ahead

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: Six surprising habits only the happiest retirees get right

Prime Time: Your new year meno-fitness plan with Michelle Bridges

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A community member’s reflection: “Am I ready to step off the ladder?”

One of the things I love most about the Epic Retirement community is how honest people are willing to be about the real stuff. Not just the numbers or the strategies, but the feelings that sit underneath their decsion to retire.

This week, a community member shared something that stopped and made me want to share it. They’re approaching 58 and trying to make sense of what retirement actually means - not just financially, but emotionally. Today I want to share part of their reflection, because I suspect it will resonate with many of you.

They wrote:

From the moment we are born, life is about moving forward. Every day is about the next step. School years, exams, further study - there’s always something ahead, something to work towards.

That feeling only grows stronger once you start working and building a career. You give your time, your energy, often yourself, to climbing the ladder because that’s what you’re conditioned to do. Even when there are setbacks, the goal is still progress. Still forward.

Then one day, something shifts.

You wake up and the engine doesn’t feel the same. It’s not broken - just quieter. Slower. Maybe it’s starting to run out of fuel. And suddenly everything you’ve spent a lifetime working towards feels uncertain, even questioned.

What struck me most was how clearly they captured something I hear again and again: retirement isn’t scary because people haven’t planned for it. It’s scary because it asks you to stop doing the thing you’ve spent decades being rewarded for. And that’s something that becomes almost hard-wired into us.

They went on:

Deciding to retire - choosing to call it a day - is probably the biggest conscious decision a person makes. It’s frightening in ways that are hard to explain.

Can I really afford it?
What will I do with all that time?
And perhaps the hardest question of all, “Am I ready to no longer feel needed, relied upon, or wanted?”

That last question hit me hard. Because money questions are solvable - you can do the sums and negotiate your standard of living using factual information. Identity questions are messier and harder to work through - and they require introspection.

Their reflection ends not with a neat and tidy answer, but with a pause:

I think I’ll probably carry on until 60. Two more years to save, to top up my super, and to prepare myself mentally and emotionally. Two more years to get my head into the right place, so that one day I can walk into work, take a breath, and say, “I’m off,” knowing it’s truly the right time for me.

I wanted to share this because it captures something important about this phase of life. Retirement isn’t a switch you flick or a finish line you run over, and suddenly you’re in paradise.
It’s a phase of transition you arrive at and decide to pursue (or frankly someone else decides it’s time for you if you aren’t proactive). And sometimes the most sensible, self-aware decision isn’t rushing forward into an early retirement or clinging on for a late one at all. It’s simply giving yourself permission to sit with the question for a while and see how they feel - and what decisions feel right for you.

What other people are doing or thinking about for their own retirement can be completely irrelevant. This is your next best phase of life, and I want it to be something you enjoy - so it has to be about what you want.

If this reflection resonated with you, you’re certainly not alone. Many people in their late 50s and early 60s aren’t asking “Can I retire?” — they’re asking “Am I ready to stop climbing the ladder?” and '“What else could I do that would be more suited or more enjoyable'“.

And those questions deserve time, honesty, and a bit of self-compassion in my opinion.

If you feel like sharing, I’d love to know:

Leave a comment

This community is very good at holding those conversations close - share your thgoughts on the comments page.

Welcome back, and Happy New Year.

I’m back at work on Monday, but this time working from the UK as we formally launch the Epic Retirement Institute over here too, off the back of the UK edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement becoming an Amazon bestseller in week one. It’s pretty exciting to see what started as a small idea to help people better understand retirement and make more informed pre-retirement and retirement decisions now rolling out in the UK, where around five times more people retire each year than in Australia and New Zealand. (Don’t worry - I’ll always be living in Oz doing this at home first!)

I’ve just had three really good weeks off, and we closed the Epic Retirement Club for 12 days as well. I’ve loved the digital detox, the content-making detox, and spending a rapturous amount of time with my family.

We’ve been up in the hills of France on a proper adventure. Each year I try to take the family somewhere we haven’t been before, so we’re all discovering it together. It’s especially fun now the kids are almost adults and we’re basically travelling with our favourite drinking and dining buddies. And this year we had three generations, with my Dad joining us. I’m conscious that we’re very fortunate to be able to travel as three generations!

Looking ahead, we’ve got heaps in store for the year. But the first cab off the rank is the next intake of the How to Have an Epic Retirement six-week Flagship Course. This is the Autumn 2026 program and it kicks off on 19 February. You can register via the link here.

And if you’re a HESTA member, registrations are also open for their six-week program. It’s very similar, but customised specifically for HESTA members, and it also starts on 19 February. More info here (for HESTA members only).

In the week just gone I celebrated turning 50! Yep! That was a great reason for a fancy dinner out with my kids and my nearly 80-year old parents who have made the trek to France to celebrate with me. See my 50th birthday pics on Facebook and Instagram here:

• Facebook: facebook.com/becwilsonepic

• Insta: instagram.com/epicretirement

Plenty more to come, but as I’m still on holidays as I write this, I’ll keep it tight. Know someone who’se thinking about retiring? Tell them about the book, the podcast and the newsletter. Let’s make everyone’s retirement more epic!

And thank you for all your support!

Cheers - Bec Xx

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Six surprising habits only the happiest retirees get right

Ask anyone in their 50s or 60s how they picture their retirement, and you’ll usually get a vague image of “more freedom”, definitely “more travel”, and occasionally something about finally getting through the pile of books on the bedside table.

But when you dig deeper into how people actually experience this phase of life, a sharper set of truths emerges. Some people flourish in retirement, but others really struggle. And the gap between the two isn’t wealth, luck or timing. It’s something else entirely.

Let’s be honest: retirement is a double-layered challenge. Yes, it’s financially complex, but it’s also emotionally demanding. And today’s retirees are, in many ways, the test case generation.

We’re living longer, we’re retiring with more money, and our expectations of what life should look like in our 60s, 70s and beyond are far higher. That brings opportunity, but it also brings uncertainty.

This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday 11th January 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.

The Epic Retirement Flagship Course for Feb 2026 is filling up quickly! Don’t miss 25% off earlybird sale.

Not long to go now until the next 6 week edition of the How to Have an Epic Retirement flagship course. It kicks off on the 19th February and HUNDREDS of people have already booked I’m thrilled to say.

It’s a practical, Australia-first program designed for people in their 50s and 60s who want to understand how to navigate retirement (the easy way). And we all do the program together (we call it a synchronous program).

It covers the stuff that actually matters: how the systems of retirement really work, how to get money into super, then how to turn your super into income, how to think about spending, tax and the age pension, and how to plan for health, purpose and the long game of ageing in place.

There’s no jargon. No scare tactics. No sales pitch for products. Just pure, honest, factual retirement education designed to help you make better choices in the years ahead, and feel less fear as you live it well.

Find out more

Your new year meno-fitness plan with Michelle Bridges

As we start the new year, time is a time when so many of us want to reset our health, get stronger, feel clearer, lose weight, and maybe sleep a bit better. I want all of it. Do you? But here’s the thing that almost no one says out loud: if you’re a woman in your 40s, 50s, or early 60s, every part of your health is being shaped by perimenopause or menopause - even if you haven’t recognised the signs or don’t want to talk about it.

That’s why I wanted to start the year with someone who can speak honestly, practically and compassionately about what’s really going on in women’s bodies at this age, and how we can bring her wisdom into our health plans for 2026.

In this episode of Prime Time, I’m joined by someone I’ve long admired: Michelle Bridges - bestselling author, coach, and one of Australia’s most well-known and trusted health communicators. Michelle has coached thousands of women and has just released a new book, ‘The Perimenopause Method: The only menopause guide you’ll ever need’. It’s a brilliant, practical guide to understanding your changing body and working with it, not against it.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: There’s a better question to ask this year at Christmas than ‘when are you retiring’. Try this …

From Bec’s Desk: This is my last Epic Retirement newsletter for the year.

Prime Time: NEW DATA: How much do you need to save for retirement?

Ad - Before we start — a big thanks to our newsletter sponsor this week, Viking

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There’s a better question to ask this year at Christmas than ‘when are you retiring’. Try this …

Around Christmas tables, that big question comes up sooner or later. ‘When will you retire?’ It’s rarely asked out of pure curiosity and it can carry a bit of judgement, a bit of comparison, and usually some unspoken anxiety about money, age or timing. I’m not a fan really.

A more interesting question is simpler. ‘What are you looking forward to in January of 2026?’

The answers tell you a lot.

Some people answer this question easily. They talk about a trip, a project, a habit they’ve decided to keep going once the year resets. They don’t sound like they’re waiting for something to start - or worse, their working life to finish before they start. Life already has some shape to it and they’re on the move.

Others pause, then talk about their work. Deadlines, meetings, the comfort of routine returning. For many people, work isn’t just income. It’s structure, identity and a ready-made reason to get out of bed. That matters more to retirement decisions than we usually admit.

Then there are people who don’t really have an answer. January is just the resumption of obligations and running on the wheel of life. Or the driving forward of other people’s lives - their kids, their partner’s. You know what it’s like. Nothing bad, nothing good. Just forward motion.

That response is worth paying attention to. Retirement doesn’t create interests, energy or direction - truly. It tends to expose what’s already there. If time feels thin now, more of it later doesn’t automatically fix that.

This is why I think the lead-up to retirement matters more than the date itself. People who manage the shift well usually haven’t waited for a clean break to think about what they want to do. They’ve already built some things they want to keep doing and some fresh ideas for the year ahead. They’re not relying on grand passions or reinventions, just activities and rhythms that aren’t entirely dependent on work.

Christmas is useful in that sense. It disrupts your routine without committing you to anything. A few weeks of different days, different people, and a different pace can be good for you - and can help you see life a little differently. Some enjoy it. Some can’t wait for normal life to resume. Both reactions are information you can use when considering your year ahead and your retirement setup phase.

January doesn’t need to be filled with ambition. It just needs to include something you’ve chosen, rather than something that’s been handed to you or that would have happened anyway.

So if you’re tempted to ask someone when they’ll retire over Christmas, try the January question instead. And if you can’t answer it yourself, that’s a healthy signal that you might want to get curious and start looking for things to inspire you for the year a

head. And don’t worry - you’re not late for the party - yet! So work through how you want to use your time best in 2026, and think about what you’re looking forward to.

Make it epic - and tell me your answers in the comments.

Leave a comment

This is my last Epic Retirement newsletter for the year. And I’m writing one that will go to both our UK and Aussie/Kiwi newsletter readers.

I’m about to head off on a family holiday and trying, with mixed success, to turn the volume down for a proper break. It’s been a big year. I wanted to write something thoughtful, but I’m tired, I haven’t packed, my flight’s in eight hours, and the to-do list is winning. My husband wants me to get off the computer.

So this is the fast, honest and probably blunt version.

A lot of what’s happened this year exists because this community kept nudging, questioning, sharing and saying “go on then”. That, plus some very good people who worked alongside me, has turned into a year I’m proud of.

Working backwards, we launched How to Have an Epic Retirement in the UK this week. It landed at number one on Amazon in Financial Retirement Planning and a few other categories. That matters less for the ranking and more because it shows the ideas about an Epic Retirement travel. The questions people are asking about retirement are remarkably similar, wherever they live. And we’ve got a few good answers.

My UK articles in The Times UK have also kicked off, and I’m now writing a fortnightly retirement column. That’s been a real thrill, and I’m keen for it to be driven by real reader questions and problems. If there’s something you want explored, send it through.

The Australian and New Zealand edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement dropped three weeks ago and went into reprint within two weeks. You bought more copies than my publisher expected, and that’s a very good problem to have.

This year, a lot of people went through the How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course. What’s made that satisfying isn’t the number, but how seriously people engaged with it. You didn’t skim it. You really used it. The feedback blows me away. Thanks for that.

We also launched the HESTA exclusive edition of the course, with the first 1,000 students completing the program. An amazing pilot that got such good feedback! More rounds are coming in February and mid-year 2026, so if you’re with HESTA, keep an eye on your inbox.

The Prime Time podcast finished the year ranked 169 on the Aussie Podcast Ranker. Not bad company when you’re sitting between footy shows, radio giants and comedians.

My columns in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age were read 2.2 million times online this year. That still surprises me, and it reinforces how hungry people are for practical, grown-up conversations about ageing, work and money.

And the Epic Retirement Club Facebook community has grown to 640,000 people. That’s a lot of lived experience in one place.

Finally, the Epic Retirement Tick in Australia has started shifting how some super funds are prioritising retirement. Meaningfully it’s making it easier to see who’s actually lifting their game. Thanks to Chant West for their hard work on this too.

All of that sits on a healthy truth: this work only matters if it helps people make better choices about midlife and retirement related issues and feel more confident about the second half of life.

Thank you for being part of it this year. I’ll be back after the break, hopefully rested, definitely curious, and with plenty more to talk about.

The podcast will continue right through the holidays though - there’s some great episodes in the can - make sure you get the Prime Time Podcast newsletter here.

I’m incredibly grateful for all your time, energy and interest. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. You can see some fun stuff I’m doing over the holidays with my family and to celebrate my 50th birthday with me on Facebook and Instagram.

• Facebook: facebook.com/becwilsonepic

• Insta: instagram.com/epicretirement

Cheers bigears! I’m off on holidays! Make yours epic and I’ll do my best too!

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Lastly - an important callout

The Epic Retirement Flagship Course for Feb 2026 is now 25% off. But only for the first 200 places.

The How to Have an Epic Retirement flagship course kicks off on the 19th February. It’s a practical, Australia-first program designed for people in their 50s and 60s who want to understand how to navigate retirement (the easy way). And we all do the program together (we call it a synchronous program).

It covers the stuff that actually matters: how the systems of retirement really work, how to get money into super, then how to turn your super into income, how to think about spending, tax and the age pension, and how to plan for health, purpose and the long game of ageing in place. There’s no jargon. No scare tactics. No sales pitch for products.

Find out more

Epic Retirement Varsity-Style T-shirts & Mugs

Retiring can very much feel like a milestone event, a bit like school seniors feel when they’re graduating from school. There’s loads of build up,

So, we’ve curated a range of fun varsity-style t-shirts and mugs you can buy for yourself or gift to someone. They’re print on demand and are available in most countries, print on demand. Pop over to shop.epicretirement.net to order yours! They make great gifts for retiring colleagues too. And there’s 2025 and 2026 editions now available!

NEW DATA: How much do you need to save for retirement?

On this episode, I’m joined by Xavier O’Halloran from Super Consumers Australia to talk about something that matters to every single Australian headed towards retirement: How much you actually need to maintain your lifestyle once you stop working?

Super Consumers Australia has released their updated 2026 Retirement Savings Targets for home owners, and they’re refreshingly grounded in real spending, not marketing or guesswork. These are independent figures, based on what retirees actually spend, and they give you a simple rule of thumb to check if you’re on track.

We break down how much a single homeowner might need versus a couple, how the Age Pension fits into the equation, and why renters face a very different retirement challenge, including brand-new data released just this week.

It’s a clear, calm, jargon-free conversation with no overwhelm, no scare tactics, just practical guidance to help you feel more clear and calm about your money and your future.

And if you’d like to dive deeper, you’ll find the full report from Super Consumers Australia here.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: The retirement mistakes no one warns you about

From Bec’s Desk: Week four of Epic Retirement Month

SMH/TheAge: Conversations to have about retirement over the Christmas season

Prime Time: Two shows: The Epic Retirement Tick: What’s changed and Introducing, the new edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement

Ad - Before we start — I want to advertise our next course - which we launched this week.

The Epic Retirement Flagship Course for Feb 2026 is now 25% off. But only for the first 200 places.

The How to Have an Epic Retirement flagship course kicks off on the 19th February. It’s a practical, Australia-first program designed for people in their 50s and 60s who want to understand how to navigate retirement (the easy way). And we all do the program together (we call it a synchronous program).

It covers the stuff that actually matters: how the systems of retirement really work, how to get money into super, then how to turn your super into income, how to think about spending, tax and the age pension, and how to plan for health, purpose and the long game of ageing in place. There’s no jargon. No scare tactics. No sales pitch for products.

Find out more

If you’re serious about shaping a retirement that feels good to live – not just one that looks fine on paper – this course will show you how.

The retirement mistakes no one warns you about

One of the biggest myths about retirement is that if you get the money right, everything else just falls into place.

It doesn’t. Sorry to be the bearer of that news!

After years of talking to retirees, pre-retirees, and people hovering nervously somewhere in between, I’ve come to realise that the biggest mistakes people make in retirement aren’t usually about super balances, market returns or whether they picked the perfect fund. They’re about their expectations and the timing of their retirement. And they often come from underestimating how much life actually changes when work falls away.

The first mistake I see is treating retirement as a purely financial problem. Yes, saving money, managing cashflow and reducing the tax you pay matters. But retirement isn’t really a spreadsheet exercise. It’s a complete reshaping of your lifestyle. When the plan focuses only on numbers, people are often blindsided by the emotional side. The days are suddenly unstructured. The sense of usefulness can wobble. Social contact drops away faster than expected. None of this shows up in a retirement calculator.

Another common mistake is stopping work too abruptly. Work gives us far more than income. It gives us a real sense of rhythm, identity, purpose and often, a ready-made community. When it disappears overnight, even people who’ve been dreaming of retirement for years can feel unsettled and lost. The retirees who seem to do best tend to taper their work. They work part-time, consult, volunteer, or build a portfolio of activities that eases the transition. Retirement doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Health is another really big one. Too many people treat their health as something they’ll “get serious about” once they retire and have more time. In reality, retirement is when health becomes the enabler of everything else. Travel, independence, social life, staying in your own home – frankly all of it depends on our physical and cognitive capacity. Strength, balance, mobility and prevention matter far more than people expect, and far earlier than they think.

Relationships also shift in retirement, and this catches many people off guard. Couples suddenly spend far more time together. Some love it while others find it surprisingly hard. Friendship circles often shrink once work drops away, and rebuilding them takes conscious effort. One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming that connecting with others will just happen. In retirement, it usually needs to be actively done.

Money mistakes still matter too, just not in the way people expect. Some retirees underspend badly, paralysed by the fear of running out, even when their numbers say they’re fine. Others spend freely and quite loosely early on without thinking through how long retirement might actually last. Their super gets treated as set-and-forget, tax isn’t well understood and it’s important, and income strategies aren’t revisited as life changes so people are either struggling unnecessarily, or living beyond their means for longer than they should be. Retirement planning doesn’t end the day you stop working. That’s when it really does begin.

And finally, many people leave the hard conversations about life too late. Ageing, care, housing, support, powers of attorney, wills and estate planning. These aren’t end-of-life issues these are middle of life issues. And they’re quality-of-life issues. Putting them off doesn’t make them go away, it just limits your choices or your family’s choices later.

If there’s one thing I’d love people to take away as they head into the holidays it’s this. Retirement isn’t something you “arrive at” (or run for). It’s something you actively shape over time. The people who do it best stay curious, stay flexible, and keep adjusting as life changes. That’s not a mistake-proof plan. But it’s a far better one.

Week three of Epic Retirement Month is now done and dusted. Just one more week to go. We wrap on the 20th and head off for a break. I hope you are heading off too! It’s been a really busy month. In fact I’m not sure I’ve ever squeezed so much into one month!

This week was monumental!

First, the huge news… My completely rewritten UK edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement had it's publishing day on Thursday, and shot straight to #1 on the Financial Retirement Planning category on Amazon when it hit bookstores. That’s exciting. It’s a huge category, and Amazon in the UK controls ~60% of book sales. It’s been nice seeing it pop up on feeds and in commentary from UK people too. The pensions industry and The Times in the UK have been wonderful.

This week I celebrated Epic Retirement Week with Hostplus on the Podcast - make sure you have a listen to the awesome show with Maurizio Lombardi (below!). He’s one of the leaders in superannuation financial advice, so he’s showing us the way.

And then I presented for hundreds and hundreds of members of Brighter Super at their special epic retirement online panel event.

The new Australia-New Zealand Edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement has now found it’s way out into the world, and it’s selling very well. You can order here.

It’s week 6 of our current cohort, the Summer Edition 25 of the How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course. The last week of the program! We’re talking housing, care and travel this week in our course materials and live Q&A.

And we’ve launched the next 6 week Flagship Course, which kicks off on the 19th Feb and it’s selling like hotcakes. You can learn more or book your place here.

If you haven’t grabbed the Epic Retirement Starter kit yet, this is the LAST WEEK it will be available for free download. The toolkit is designed to give you a simple, practical foundation for everything we’re covering. It’s free, it’s easy to read, and it’s on the website waiting for you.

There’s no Sunday column in The Sydney Morning Herald this week - it’s all finished for the year. Apparently it was read more than 2.2 million times in 2025. That’s pretty cool!

I’ve still got some interesting columns in The Times to come though if you’re a reader.

And don’t forget - I’ve really stepped up my game on Facebook and Instagram. Come along and learn with me.

• Facebook: facebook.com/becwilsonepic

• Insta: instagram.com/epicretirement

Have a lovely Sunday!

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

It’s hard to believe we’ve launched THREE books this year! If you are looking for Christmas ideas, you can order them on Amazon here:

• Prime Time https://amzn.to/4hE1kFq

• Epic Retirement Australia / New Zealand https://amzn.to/3WNLfDv

• Epic Retirement UK: https://amzn.to/4itAu35

Another TWO shows for you this week

First we’re talking goal setting for your epic retirement with Maurizio Lombardi, Executive Manager of Advice Strategy at Hostplus, then, we’re giving you a how-to guide for finding your purpose and your passions with author and modern ageing expert, Marcus Riley. More on this show with Marcus here.

How to set your goals for an epic retirement

If you’re just getting started planning for your epic retirement, or you’re just not sure where to start – you are absolutely not alone.

In this week’s episode of Prime Time, I’m talking about something many of us put off for too long: setting real, meaningful goals for the next chapter of life. It’s not about vision boards or fluffy dreams – it’s about creating real directions for our life. Because if we don’t set goals, we just get what would’ve happened anyway.

I kick off this episode by sharing some thoughts on why goal-setting in midlife matters so much and how to get started, even if you feel stuck.

Then I’m joined by Maurizio Lombardi, Executive Manager of Advice Strategy at Hostplus, to talk about how to turn those personal goals into financial action. He explains how to bridge the gap between your dreams and your dollars, the role the Age Pension may play, and how new digital tools like Hostplus’ SuperSmart platform can help you model your future and feel more confident about what’s possible.

It’s all part of Epic Retirement Month and if you’re ready to start getting clear, this is a great place to begin.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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Feature: Learning how to use the Epic Retirement Tick the way it was designed

From Bec’s Desk: Week three of Epic Retirement Month

SMH/TheAge: Conversations to have about retirement over the Christmas season

Prime Time: Two shows: The Epic Retirement Tick: What’s changed and Introducing, the new edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement

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Learning how to use the Epic Retirement Tick the way it was designed

Now that the dust has settled on the Epic Retirement Tick and the excitement has eased into real curiosity, I’ve noticed the same question popping up everywhere: How am I actually meant to use the Epic Retirement Tick to assess my fund?

It’s a great question. And now is the perfect time to answer it properly, because the Tick was never designed to be a trophy or a “best fund” award. It’s a retirement-quality service assessment — developed in partnership with leading superannuation research house, Chantwest — and it sits on top of a very clear framework that tells you whether a fund is genuinely set up to support you in retirement, not just during your working years.

When we launched the Tick back in early October, there was a wave of media coverage, a lot of healthy discussion, and, pleasingly, broad agreement that the criteria we’re using are the right ones. Almost everyone accepted that the industry needs to lift its game in the retirement phase.

In fact, many of the funds that didn’t receive the Tick reached out straight away and asked to be reviewed against the criteria again. Ian Fryer from Chantwest met with each of them, walked them through their assessment in detail, and, to their credit, every fund acknowledged the areas where they need to improve. We were hoping some would move quickly and close the gaps before our late-November review deadline for 2025 eligibility. A few came close — genuinely close — but not close enough for us to add them this year.

So today, just six funds receive the Epic Retirement Tick.

This tells us two things: first, the bar is appropriately high. And second, the industry still has a long way to go before most Australians can feel genuinely supported in the retirement phase.

Because this is the first time we’ve had a single benchmark for retirement-phase quality, I’ve put a short video lesson on the website explaining how the Tick works and how to use it. It comes straight from the Epic Retirement Course, and it walks you through the criteria in a very practical, no-nonsense way. If you’re curious about how to use it, go and watch that — it’s now unlocked and on the Epic Retirement Tick page.

Here’s the quick overview.

The Tick is built around six big areas: whether the fund has retirement-ready investment options, whether it offers strong income-stream products, the quality of its drawdown support, the usefulness and clarity of its education, the accessibility of advice, and the lived experience retirees have when they try to use the fund. These aren’t vague ideas. They’re 18 clear, assessed criteria that Chantwest scores against.

When a fund earns the Tick, it means it has met a genuinely high standard across all six areas. That’s the baseline.

So how do you use it? You use the Tick to understand the foundation of your fund’s retirement offering, and then use the underlying criteria as a lens to assess which of the criteria are important to you and whether you think your fund is keeping up enough. It doesn’t tell you to switch funds. It doesn’t tell you that a fund is “good” or “bad”. What it gives you is a structured way to check whether your fund is actually built for the 25–35-year phase of life where you’ll be drawing down your money and making the financial decisions that matter most.

Some people will look at the Tick and feel reassured. Others will find a few questions they want to take back to their fund. And that’s exactly the point. The aim here is to help you ask for clarity, not to drive panic. Super is a long term investment - you want to make considered choices.

If you want the full explanation, not just the headlines, but how the Tick fits into your actual retirement planning — the video lesson on the website is the best place to start. It’s short, practical, and it makes all of this feel a lot more manageable.

Week two of Epic Retirement Month is now behind us, and so is my last work trip for the year. Phew. It’s been genuinely lovely to spend most of the week tucked away in my home office making lessons, articles, and reels for Epic Retirement Month.

We kicked things off with our Week 3 session of the How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course, with the wonderful David Lane joining us for the live Q&A. Then it was off to Sydney early Tuesday morning to present to the Aware Super board about the Epic Retirement Tick. As I said, that was the final work trip for the year. It felt very good to land back home knowing I can go just a little bit slower as we head into the end of 2025.

But we’re not winding down just yet.

In the week ahead we launch the UK hardcover edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement (yes - in the UK!). I’ve completely rewritten the book and we have a top-tier UK publisher taking it to market! It lands on Thursday 11 December. EEEK

So then we will have released THREE books in 2025!

Next Tuesday is the Brighter Super Retirement Event, and more than 1,000 people have already registered. How exciting is that? If you’re a Brighter Super member and haven’t spotted it in your emails, go and have a look.

And before the year wraps up, we’ll be opening registrations for the next How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course, kicking off in February. If you want to pop your name down early as an expression of interest, you can do that here.

The HESTA Epic Retirement Course will also run again in February. If you’re a HESTA member, you can register your interest through their website — it’s exclusively for HESTA members.

If you haven’t grabbed the Epic Retirement Starter kit yet, this is a great moment. We’re now into Week Three of Epic Retirement Month, and the toolkit is designed to give you a simple, practical foundation for everything we’re covering. It’s free, it’s easy to read, and it’s on the website waiting for you.

And don’t forget - I’ve really stepped up my game on Facebook and Instagram. Come along and learn with me.

• Facebook: facebook.com/becwilsonepic

• Insta: instagram.com/epicretirement

Have a lovely Sunday!

Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker

Extract of of my weekly column in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, WA Today.

The big conversations about retirement that you need to have over Christmas

My final Sydney Morning Herald and The Age column for the year is out this weekend... And it’s some instructions for you - whether you’re ready to talk about retirement or not. (And I’m not publishing an extract this week - just click through and read it all! It’s not behind a paywall.)

Christmas and the weeks around it are one of the only times of year when life slows down enough to have the conversations that actually shape (and allow you to negotiate) your retirement vision for the future.

And I don’t mean the spreadsheets or the forms.
Or even the “how much do I need?” panic.
This is about real conversations.
About how you want to live.
How you want to work.
Where you want to be.
And who is bloody important to be near and prioritise

My latest column breaks down the exact conversations worth having over Christmas - in order - the ones that make the financial work so much easier later. From talking timing and lifestyle, to facing the realities of ageing parents, nearly-adult kids, your future work life, and yes… your home and your money.

If you want to start 2026 with a clearer head and a stronger sense of where you’re heading and what you need to do, this is the nudge you need. Have a read, have a chat, and let Christmas do what it does best: give you space to think about your life.

And thank you for a wonderful year of column-reading!

This article is published in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times and WA Today. It is free to read - you may have to sign up, but there’s no paywall on my articles.

This week, as part of Epic Retirement Month, we’ve dropped not one but two shows for you.

First up, we’re taking a fresh look at the Epic Retirement Tick ten weeks on and talking about how the industry reacted, what shifted and how you should evaluate your fund now that the dust has settled. More on this show below.

The second episode is a conversation with my publisher about the brand-new edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement, which hits stores this week. We dive into the updates, why they matter, and what’s new for readers. More on this show here

As part of Epic Retirement Month, I’ve invited Ian Fryer from Chant West back to the show to unpack how the industry reacted when we launched the tick; and then we walk through how to evaluate your super fund as you head toward retirement — using the same behind-the-scenes criteria that helped us build the Epic Retirement Tick in the first place.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:

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• LISTEN ON SPOTIFY