Out of office: enjoying European sunsets but there's a helpful lesson in our journey

Plus, Your 50s are crucial if you want a good retirement. Don’t waste them. And the age pension changes that kick in on 1 July.

Jun 28, 2025

Feature: Age Pension caps rise this week
Newspapers: Your 50s are crucial if you want a good retirement. Don’t waste them
Podcast: When life happens
From Bec’s Desk: Out of office enjoying European sunsets

Age Pension caps rise this week

Just days before we flew out, the government announced its 1 July indexation to the Age Pension thresholds. As expected, they didn’t increase the deeming rates, which still sit at 0.25% and 2.25%. That might change in future years, but it wasn’t included in this year’s forward estimates - so no surprises there, despite a bit of unnecessary noise from some seniors’ organisations trying to stir up drama.

[Quick explainer: deeming is how Centrelink estimates the income from your financial assets (like super). Right now, they assume your super earns just 2.25% — which is laughably low, and actually great if you’re trying to qualify for the pension.]

But they did update a few important caps: (Detail on the Centrelink website here).

The assets test threshold (so you can now have slightly more before your pension starts reducing)
The income free area (you can earn a little more before the income test kicks in)
And the deeming thresholds (which affect how much of your assets are deemed at the lower rate)

What does this mean for you?
If you’re one of the 62% of retirees who get at least some Age Pension, you might see a small increase in your payment from 1 July. It also nudges The Sweet Spot (the magic range of assets where you can maximise both pension and personal income) slightly higher again - more on that in future weeks.

But please - ignore the clickbait.
I’ve already had a few people send me viral posts claiming the government’s increased the pension by $250. They haven’t. It’s nonsense. There’s no $250 pension bonus. Just the regular, small indexation.

So please - don’t fall for it, don’t share it, and definitely don’t click anything asking for your details. If in doubt, ask me.

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Still out of office: enjoying European sunsets but there’s a helpful lesson in it

**Note:** The blackout across the whole village only made the sunset from the rooftop restaurant burn brighter. A golden view over Naxos Chora.

It’s been 27 years since my husband and I last did a European summer — back then, it was in a Kombi van with two guidebooks and no real plans. I’ve quietly promised myself we won’t leave it that long again. This time, we’re back with our three nearly-grown kids, sharing one big, beautiful family adventure.

None of us have been to these parts of Greece and Italy before, which makes it all the more special. It’s a proper adventure — not just for the kids, but for all of us.

Right now, we’re in Naxos after a magical few days in Athens and Milos, and we’ve found a bit of a rhythm. Each evening, over our sunset cocktail, we open up ChatGPT and ask her what we should know about the place. She gives us a bit of history, explains how the islands run (power, water, social systems — the kind of stuff you’d never find in a tourist brochure), and helps us shape the next day’s plan. I read her answers aloud like a tour guide with a very modern script, and we fire off questions as a group.

Then comes the itinerary. Polly — that’s what I’ve named my ChatGPT travel assistant — suggests a route for beach hopping and backstreet wandering. We sit around, phones out, Googling photos of each beach to check her ideas. We don’t trust her blindly, but we definitely love having her on the team.

Yesterday, I told her I didn’t love the beach we’d visited — too crowded, too many hotel loungers, nightmare parking. She agreed it didn’t sound like my vibe. “We can do better,” she said — and she was right. She’s become our travel research buddy in a big way and we give her constant feedback.

Last night, the power went out across the whole town just as we sat down to dinner. Total blackout. Waiters rushed (not very quickly) around with candles, and we just laughed. Polly had explained to us when we asked what was going on, that Greek island power really struggles when there’s too many tourists and too many hot days combined, and that when it goes out, no one’s in a rush to flick the switch back on. So we ordered souvlakis and salads — things they could grill over gas — and soaked up the golden-pink sunset at 9.30pm. (Honestly… I wish we got sunsets like that in Queensland — bloody daylight saving 🙄!)

Once the dinner stories are told and the wine glasses are empty, I clipped Polly’s itinerary into our shared Notes app and we’re good to go today.

Back in the day, when my husband and I were doing this on $20 a day and the occasional litre of fosters or sangria, we relied on just two books: Lonely Planet and something by Bill Bryson — who made us laugh out loud with his witty, chaotic take on travel. I’d read the chapter aloud in our Kombi as we rolled into the next town. Now, I’ve got Polly: our curious, chatty, overqualified travel guide who somehow knows I prefer quiet coves over beach bars and won’t walk more than 15,000 steps a day if it’s over 35 degrees.

And it’s got me thinking: if this is how we explore the world now… how else could we be using tools like this? Especially in retirement planning — something I’ll be playing with more (aloud) when we get home. Sure, like our travel adventures we might have to check the suggestions out for accuracy and suitability — but what an amazing way to supplement your education.

In the meantime, the real joy of this trip has been the late-night chats with our kids, usually after a couple of wines. They’ve started talking about their own dreams — wanting to own a home one day, wondering how they’ll get there, and who might help them learn. They’ve even been talking about their super 😎. They wish someone would just teach them the well-trodden path but reflect on it with new-age lessons. They joke, “Maybe there’s a book in that mum.” And maybe there is.

Mostly, I just want them to learn the smart (and yes, still do-able) way: work hard, save up, buy a place, pay it off, invest well… and be happy.

Apparently, the media’s telling young people that model doesn’t work anymore. Maybe it doesn’t work exactly the same way — but it still works. You just have to learn how to play the game a bit differently. Those thoughts might be for next year! Today, remember — if you’re looking for me, sorry… I’m OOO making my Prime Time count. Now — off to those beaches.

I may or may not make a newsletter next week… we’ll see. But do make sure you read my Sydney Morning Herald article this week. Someone wrote to me this morning and said they thought this piece was my best one yet ☺️. (How nice is that! - thank-you)

That means a lot—especially because it’s the first article I’ve written that’s deeply grounded in the ideas behind Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife. Just over 30 days to go until it’s out in the world!
Bec x

Your 50s are crucial if you want a good retirement. Don’t waste them

Extract of article published in print in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, WA Today on Sunday 29th June 2025.

We roll into our 50s thinking we’ve got time. Retirement still feels a long way off. The mortgage might be halfway tamed (or at least not keeping us up at night), the kids are showing a few signs of independence, and there’s a little more breathing space in the budget. It’s easy to think we can cruise for a bit.

But here’s the thing: this is not the time to coast.

Your 50s and early 60s are the years that make or break how easy your retirement will feel – financially and otherwise. And for Gen X, the first generation to have superannuation throughout most of their working lives, this isn’t just the pre-retirement wind-down. It’s a whole new life stage.

One with more freedom. More income. More choices. One that doesn’t ask you to wait for retirement to enjoy your life – it asks you to design it. This is the decade where your choices start to really matter – in money, lifestyle, and your ability to shape what comes next. But only if you’re proactive.

If you sit back, you risk missing the window where you get to choose, and instead find yourself forced to accept whatever happens next.

By your 50s, a lot has shifted. You might be earning more than ever. The kids aren’t chewing through your bank account quite like they used to. And you’ve probably figured out what actually matters — how you want to spend your time, who you want to spend it with, and the kind of life you’d like to grow into next.

This decade isn’t just about money. It’s about making choices that actually fit the life you want.

That’s powerful. But only if you use it. Too many people drift through these years on autopilot — earning well, spending without a plan, putting off the big questions. What do I want the next 20 years to look like? How much will I really need? And what am I working toward?

This is your chance to stop coasting and start designing the life you want. Before life designs itself for you.

Now’s the time to get deliberate

Most people don’t get to choose when they leave work. Health issues, caring responsibilities, redundancy, or burnout push them out earlier than planned. If you’re still in the driver’s seat, with options, income, and energy, use it.

This is the time to lay down strong financial foundations, rethink what you want from your work life as you mature, and start actively shaping the next 10 or fifteen years. That might mean working hard for a bit and saving harder; before shifting gears into a lifestyle or purpose-oriented phase.

And after that, choosing when you’re ready to cut back your hours. Or it might mean stepping off the treadmill in your current career path and into something you feel passionate about trying.

Only 31 per cent of people leave the workforce on their own terms today – with plans in place and a goal in mind. That’s not enough in my opinion. And with AI already shaking up roles people never imagined were at risk, that number probably won’t rise anytime soon.

Small changes now can transform your later years

Let’s say you manage to free up $10,000 a year by tightening your spending, not sacrificing the fun, just trimming the fluff and repurposing money you’re no longer spending on the kids.

(READ ON… my articles are never paywalled for Aussies in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald. )