Originally Posted by Unregistered

For many couples, the golden period can be from 55 to 65, depending on when your children become financially independent of you, when your big loans are paid off. Those who married and have children late would have a later golden period, like a colleague of mine who got married at 43, had his kids only at 45. Now at 57, his children are still in primary school. Still a long way to go. He does not see himself retired before 65.

What is this golden period? It is a period of your working life where you find your income peaking while your financial commitments such as housing loans, children's education needs and living expenses have been fulfilled or are tapering off.

Most couples, ourselves included, would have entered into this golden period at 55. Our housing loans are paid off, no car loans, children either completing uni studies or have started working.

So what does this mean to us financially? This is the time for us to save up like mad, to prepare for a comfortable retirement. With the current retirement age set at 62, we still have another 6 years (we are now 56) to do this. In each of the last 6 years, we we able to save over $300k a year. If this trend holds, in another 6 years, we would be able to grow our networth by another $2m at least. Currently our passive income of $120k pa helps to cover a big part of our yearly expenses of around $150k plus/minus $20k.