[malbs]

Here in Australia, the commonwealth bank provided a guideline on how much super you needed to retire on to main various life styles, and what struck me as scary was how much you needed at retirement age 65, to survive for 20 years, if you wanted such first world pleasures as running a dishwasher, going out to dinner once a week, and so on. 800k was not anywhere near the amount needed.

I'm not calling this guy out, but you would be living a minimalist lifestyle in order to make 800k last you 40 years..

If you had it all in a 6% long-term savings account, you're barely making 50k pa before tax, for two people to live on. Sure, you have no mortgage, but you still have all the other costs of life involved. They'd be able to do it, but they certainly wouldn't be living the high life.

[malbs]

Oh and yeah, you could go for high risk/return investments, but your investments could get wiped out, and the taxes you paid go to paying bonuses to banking execs requiring bailouts.