Most FIRE calculators either ignore superannuation or treat it like a footnote. This one models your real Super Guarantee contributions, contribution caps, the 15% contributions and earnings tax, preservation age, and an honest Age Pension estimate — alongside the cash and investments you actually control day to day.
Everything recalculates live. Figures are in today's dollars.
Super is locked until 60 (and usually until you retire) — the Age Pension doesn't start until 67. Your real "quit date" runs on your liquid portfolio.
Grows through Super Guarantee + any salary sacrifice, net of the 15% contributions tax and an assumed 15% earnings tax drag inside super.
Cash and non-super investments — this is what has to fund your life between "financial independence" and age 60.
Employers must pay 12% of ordinary time earnings into super for 2025–26 — the final legislated step, with no further scheduled rises. This applies up to a maximum contribution base of roughly $250,000/year in eligible earnings. Combined SG plus any salary sacrifice counts toward the $30,000/year concessional contributions cap (rising to $32,500 from 1 July 2026) — we don't hard-stop contributions at the cap in this simplified model, so check your own position if you're near it.
Concessional contributions (SG and salary sacrifice) are taxed at 15% on the way in. Investment earnings inside super are taxed at up to 15% in the accumulation phase (effectively lower — around 10% — on long-term capital gains thanks to the one-third CGT discount). We apply a flat 15% drag to the nominal investment return as a simplification of this.
Preservation age is 60 for everyone born after mid-1964 — the earliest you can generally access super once you've met a condition of release such as retiring. The Age Pension is separate and means-tested, available from age 67. We estimate your Age Pension using the assets test only (single, homeowner): full pension ($31,223/year) up to $321,500 in assessable assets, tapering by roughly 7.8% of every dollar above that, reaching zero around $720,000. We do not model the income test, deeming rates in detail, or couple rates — Centrelink applies whichever test (assets or income) gives the lower payment, so treat this as an optimistic estimate.
Unlike credit card debt, HECS/HELP charges no real interest — it's indexed each year to whichever is lower of CPI or the Wage Price Index (around 3.2% recently), and is repaid automatically through the tax system once your income passes $67,000/year (2025–26), at roughly 15% of the amount above that threshold. Because there's no punishing interest rate, most people working toward financial independence are better off investing spare cash than aggressively over-paying HECS. We show your balance and estimated compulsory repayment for context, not as something to race to pay off.
The Transfer Balance Cap ($2.1 million from July 2026) on tax-free retirement-phase pensions, Division 293 tax for high earners, Transition to Retirement strategies, the Age Pension income test and deeming rates, couple rates, and non-homeowner asset thresholds. Your liquid portfolio is shown as a single deterministic growth line here for simplicity — it does not run the full Monte Carlo range-of-outcomes simulation our main calculator uses.
Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au) and Services Australia published rates for 2025–26 and 2026–27, cross-checked against SuperGuide, Canstar, and CFS coverage of the same figures. Educational estimates only — verify your own position at ato.gov.au and servicesaustralia.gov.au before making decisions.