The last five years of service decide the comfort of the next twenty-five. Run this checklist well before the farewell.
Retirement planning done in the final month is damage control. Done over the final five years, it is simply preparation. Here is the countdown we run with clients approaching superannuation.
Five to three years out
Estimate your post-retirement monthly expense honestly, including the items pay slips used to hide: rent or maintenance, healthcare, travel to family. Project your pension against it; the gap is what your corpus must generate. Clear or restructure any high-cost debt now, while income is at its peak. And confirm health insurance that will continue after service, because buying it at 60 is costly and sometimes impossible.
The final two years
Decide the deployment plan for your retirement proceeds before they arrive: how much to SCSS and fixed income for immediate payouts, how much to conservative funds for an SWP, how much stays liquid. Money that lands without a plan tends to get lent to relatives, parked in a plot, or pushed into whatever product is sold loudest that month.
Update every nomination, consolidate scattered folios and accounts, and walk your spouse through where everything is. Then retire the way you served: with the paperwork squared away and the plan already in motion.
Questions about your own plan?
A short conversation with a veteran-led team costs nothing and usually clarifies a lot.