The retirement you want begins with one simple question: How much will I need? From understanding the lifestyle you want, knowing how to build practical saving habits and reviewing your plan as life changes, Milford Wealth Management Adviser Liam Robertson shares with Ryan Bridge the top tips for turning retirement uncertainty into clear, confident action.

Click here to download the MP3 file or listen to the podcast on your favourite platform:

Bridge talks Business: 21 July 2026
Episode Transcript

Ryan Bridge
Kia ora and welcome to episode 85 of Bridge talks Business with Milford. This week KiwiSaver is hot on the political agenda, probably higher up the list than at any point since its creation almost two decades ago now. But is there a difference between how much we’re told to save and how much we’ll actually need? Should we be waiting for politicians to tell us what percent of our income we should be tucking away or do the math for ourselves? This week, Milford’s Liam Robertson answers these questions. First, here’s your top five business bits from the past seven days.

    1. US inflation came in weaker than expected, a welcome relief for markets. Core goods, softer and importantly, core services, weaker. There are some one-offs in this weakness that may reverse but the improvement in terms of items like rent is quite encouraging.
    2. After PPI, that’s producer prices, backed up that consumer number, markets have cut their chances of a Fed rate hike to interest rates this year. That’s in the US.
    3. The US dollar weakened slightly as a result of these, of course, interest rates affect the value of the currency. This was tempered by Iran kicking off again and the risk that that brings.
    4. Andy Burnham in the UK, confirmed as the Prime Minister, announcing his cabinet. John Healey, the Chancellor, a surprise for markets. We now await further communication on likely policies. Although he has confirmed he’ll pretty much stick to existing fiscal rules.
    5. This week we get a flurry of data out of the UK, speaking of, including labour market inflation data. And here, quarter two inflation will have markets paying close attention.

 

Alright, it is time for our feature interview this week. We are talking to Liam Robertson, Wealth Management Adviser with Milford. 3%, 4%, 5%, 12%. Depending on who you talk to, you’re gonna get a whole bunch of different answers about how much you need to save for your retirement. So this week, I thought we would sit down with Liam amongst all the political noise, try and figure out some answers for ourselves. Just a reminder, this segment is informational only and should not be considered financial advice. Liam, welcome back.

Liam Robertson
Thanks for having me, mate. Good to see you.

Ryan Bridge
Good to see you too. Election coming. All the politicians are out there on the hustings telling us what we should save, how much we should save. Are you listening to them?

Liam Robertson
Look, yes. I mean, it’s really encouraging that this year seems like it’s shaping up to be the KiwiSaver election. We’ve seen National come out advocating that they want to make KiwiSaver compulsory, enrolment from birth, bringing back, I guess, a throwback to the Kickstart contribution. We used to get $1,000 – they’re talking about $1,500, which would be great. And they’re talking about moving contributions to 6% from the employer and 6% from the employee.

New Zealand First, they’ve gone a step further. They also think it should be compulsory. And they’re talking about moving to 10% from the employer and 10% from the employee. So look, that’s great. We think that the more saved, the better, both personally and for New Zealand as a nation. We have a lot less per capita saved than our Australian friends across the ditch. And their superannuation savings are at a size now where they can fund really great infrastructure projects and things like that. And I think we’d all like to see similar things happen here in the future.

But I think it can be a little bit risky sort of leaning too much into what the political parties are saying or thinking we should do, because let’s not forget, we’ve been set at 3% for the best part of 15, 20 years in KiwiSaver. And a lot of us thought maybe 3% from us and 3% from the employer would be enough. And we’re now sort of thinking it’s not. So I think looking forward, you don’t want to put too much trust in what the political parties are saying is enough for retirement. You really want to know what your own numbers are.


Ryan Bridge
Well, this is the point, right? Look, at a macro level – and this is an apolitical podcast – most parties are kind of singing from the same song sheet now, almost, on KiwiSaver, aren’t they? Moving in the same direction. But at a macro level, it makes sense for them to talk about this percent or that percent. But actually, for you and I, it could be a completely different number, depending on a whole bunch of stuff, right?

Liam Robertson
Yeah, look, I think if you retire mortgage-free and you live a fairly modest lifestyle, then you’re going to need a lot less than someone who’s planning frequent international travel, maybe someone that’s planning to want to help their kids or grandkids financially, these sorts of things.

Ryan Bridge
Restaurants, cinema, concerts. I mean, my list goes on and on.

Liam Robertson
It’s a look into your lifestyle, obviously. Everyone’s different, life is not black and white. And so, look, one thing is true, the more you have, the more options you have. But rather than just blindly trusting a set contribution level and hoping it works out, I think you’re best to do a bit of groundwork and figure out what you should be striving to personally.

Ryan Bridge
How do you do that? How do you figure out what your percent should be?

Liam Robertson
It’s about thinking about the sort of lifestyle you want. So do you want to maintain your current lifestyle? Would you accept a slight reduction in that lifestyle? Or do you want to scale up when you retire? You know, what kind of property do you want to live in? Do you want to live close to your grandchildren? Or are you happy to downsize and move away to free up cash? Are you happy traveling domestically? Or do you want to go further afield? What sort of hobbies and things are you wanting to keep up, maintain? And then wrapping a dollar figure around that, once you know what sort of income you think you’ll need, you can work backwards.

Ryan Bridge
A lot of people now work well into their 70s, even older than that, how do you figure out how long you might work for? Or is that more of a choice that you try and make?

Liam Robertson
Well, look, I think you could start with the goal of being work optional at 65, or who knows, that age might increase in time as well. I guess that’s another political question, but no one knows how long they’re going to be able to work or will have to work. But look, a lot of people love working and they choose to continue working. I think that would be a good position to aim for. Say look, I could down tools at 65 if I wanted to. However, if I choose to carry on working, that’s my choice, it’s not out of compulsion or need.

Ryan Bridge
You can pull the lever if you want to, kind of situation. How do you know when you’re, like, I can sit down and I’ve done this, sat down and done numbers on what I think I will need and by when, but at what point do you need to go and get some proper advice?

Liam Robertson
I think when you’re asking yourself that question, you know, I mean, if anything, just to sense check the numbers that you’ve come up with. And I mean, it’s great you’ve done your own numbers and a lot of people won’t have, and they can start with the Massey Retirement Expenditure Guidelines. That’s a report that Massey releases every year. And they point out what they think it will cost the average couple to live what they call a choices lifestyle in a metropolitan or rural area.

And what they’ve found at the moment is if you want to live choices, so that’s cinema, bottle of wine in the trolley, the odd holiday, a choices lifestyle in somewhere like Auckland or Wellington is going to cost you an extra $900 per week on top of New Zealand Super. You need to figure out, am I on track to bridge that? Or do I need to be? Maybe the lifestyle Massey’s saying I need is not what I’m aiming for? So it’s just really, really personal.

To give you an example, we could have a 30-year-old earning the median income at the moment. That’s about $1,400 a week. And they might be contributing 4% to their KiwiSaver in addition to 4% from their employer, which is where we’re heading with current legislation. Now, if they’re invested in a Balanced Fund, which is the default level, that’s where you go if you don’t make an active choice, then when you retire, you’re going to have a pay cut of about $360 a week. That’s the difference between NZ Super, your KiwiSaver and what you’re currently bringing home.

If you change to something like an Aggressive Fund, and look, it’s not advice, but I encourage people to go and get advice, it’s free. If you change to an Aggressive Fund and you increased your contributions to 10%, you’d actually be on track for a pay rise of $140 a week. Now, I don’t know if you need a pay rise. Again, that comes down to your own numbers, but these are the sorts of levers you can pull to change your picture. And the sooner you do it, the more options you’ll have.

Ryan Bridge
Wow. So, that’s giving me something to think about. I mean, I guess depending on how close you are to actually retiring will depend on your risk appetite, all that kind of stuff too, right?

Liam Robertson
Yeah, the sooner you start, the easier it is to make a change. But I don’t want people who are listening to this that are close to retirement thinking it’s too late for them. The best time to invest was yesterday, but the next best time is today. You can always make a change, and a change is better than no change.

Ryan Bridge
What is the first practical step I should take? So, I’ve got my number figured out, kind of have a rough plan. What’s the next practical thing to do?

Liam Robertson
If you’ve got the plan, then you need to put it in action. So, if you’ve figured out that to hit your number, you need to increase your contributions, then you want to get that done. Automate it so that it’s done automatically for you. You don’t have to consciously make that decision every time you get paid, that you’re going to squirrel away a bit more money. You want that sort of taken off of your mental load.

And then, don’t forget to review that and check back in-  every year is good, because life changes. I’ve got young children, well, one young child at the moment, another on the way. Daycare is pretty expensive, but when kids move on to school, that often frees up money in the household budget that could be invested. And there’s lots and lots of different things that happen in each of our lives where your financial position changes. So, an annual review can capture that and let you adjust on the fly.

Ryan Bridge
Liam, fascinating to talk to you. Interesting numbers too. See you next time. Thank you.

Liam Robertson
Cheers, mate.

Ryan Bridge
That was Liam Robertson, Wealth Management Adviser with Milford talking to us about planning for your future amongst all the political noise at the moment. Just a reminder, you can like, follow and subscribe wherever you like to listen to this podcast. Until next week, don’t forget to invest in yourselves.

Missed previous episode? Don’t worry! Click here to catch up now.