Tired, divorced and broke - the bleak reality for some older Australians

Retirement has a funny way of exposing every financial decision you've ever made.

The mortgage you kept refinancing. The super contributions you promised you'd make. The lifestyle that crept up every time you got a pay rise.

For decades, you can get away with it while another paycheque keeps arriving. Then one day, it doesn't.

Having come from a poor country where opportunities like those many of us enjoy in Australia were once the stuff of dreams to me, I've seen too many people take them for granted.

Jobs disappear. Divorce happens. Health problems emerge. Children need bailouts. And sometimes people simply make terrible financial decisions.

Retirement isn't just about accumulating money. It's about learning to be wise with it and building a financial fortress strong enough to survive what you didn't plan for.

As we launch the Livewire Retirement Series 2026, here are three cautionary tales I've seen unfold behind the leafy streets and expensive homes of Australian suburbia.

#1. He bought a Sydney home in 2000. Now the bank is taking it

Take one of my former neighbours, Arnie, who bought his Baulkham Hills, NSW, home around 2000, when houses in the area could be purchased for $250,000–$300,000. Those same detached homes have since sold for more than $2 million. On paper, Arnie is sitting on a decent fortune - and downsizing would appear to offer an obvious way to unlock it.

Except Arnie made one crucial mistake: he never really paid off the mortgage.

As the house appreciated, he repeatedly tapped home equity to fund consumption.

Then the problems piled up: unemployment later in life, a wife on disability, a disastrous decision to invest his super and savings back in his home country in the Middle East (and... it's gone), and an unemployed daughter who burdened her father with the vet bills for her three ageing mutts.

“Vish, I lost the house. The bank is taking it," Arnie told me on a bleak day a few months ago.

Furious that he mismanaged the household finances, his wife left him.

Now separated, Arnie has become a forced seller at what could hardly be a worse time - in one of the toughest Australian property markets for sellers in recent memory.

In my old suburb, homes that were listing for $2–$2.2 million at the peak are suddenly being priced at $1.5–$1.6 million. That’s potentially $400,000–$700,000 of paper wealth incinerated within months - a crushing double blow when your retirement plan depends on unlocking equity to escape the clutches of debt.

Close to 70, Arnie faces the bleak prospect of finding somewhere to rent alone and returning to work at a stage of life when the body is slowing down.

#2. Three properties, two decades - and retirement as renters

Then there's Vinoth, one of my dad's former colleagues.

Vinoth - who, ironically, is an accountant - thought he knew better than my common-sense father, a law enforcement officer with an engineering background.

After roughly two decades, his apartments had lost value while the debt remained, pushing his loan-to-value ratios higher. Much of the family's income, meanwhile, had gone towards their children's schooling, house deposits and weddings.

Then his wife wanted a divorce.

Today, both are renters relying heavily on the Age Pension, and Vinoth is contemplating returning to India because he doesn't believe he can afford the retirement he'd imagined.

#3. Earning $400,000 a year - with almost nothing to show for it

Perhaps the story people my age should pay closest attention to is happening right now.

Several of my beloved Sydney friends earn household incomes north of $400,000 a year. You'd assume they'd own nice homes, vast share portfolios and have fat super balances.

In some cases: nope. Nada. No property. Not a single share outside super. Not even $10,000 for a rainy day.

Some don't even know their bank balances and only recently logged into their super for the first time.

It's a laissez-faire approach to the future built around two familiar refrains: “money comes in, money goes out” and “I could die tomorrow.” The trouble is, tomorrow has a habit of arriving!

And only now, in their late 30s and 40s, are some contemplating $1 million-plus mortgages, starting families and panicking about their sub-par super balances - all at the same time.

Anxious about taking on a mortgage now and potentially carrying it into retirement, some are contemplating renting indefinitely while building substantial investment portfolios instead. But alas, to my despair, their “contemplations” have yet to translate into action.

These are personal stories, but Vanguard's How Australia Retires 2026 research suggests the problem is becoming increasingly widespread, giving rise to the moniker “Generation Mortgage”.

The traditional Australian assumption that the mortgage disappears before the paycheque is increasingly vanishing.

Almost half of Gen Z Australians surveyed expect to retire with a mortgage, alongside 37% of Millennials and 23% of Gen X, while 16% of Australians expect to be renting in retirement.

“Higher housing costs, bigger debts and cost-of-living pressures are changing what retirement looks like, and what it will take to fund it,” says Daniel Shrimski, Vanguard Managing Director, Asia Pacific.

Perhaps more concerning, despite having unprecedented access to financial information, 45% of working-age Australians still have no retirement plan at all.

Education

How will you pay off your mortgage before you retire? Vanguard’s advice for Australians

View

Why we're launching the Livewire Retirement Series

These experiences are why retirement is deeply personal to me. I've seen first-hand what can happen when people reach their later years without the financial foundations to support them.

That's why, at Livewire, my colleagues, our contributors and I want to contribute to the national conversation by sharing stories like these and bringing together some of Australia's best investment minds to help you build, protect and invest your wealth for retirement.

But first: I need your help.

Whether you're in your 20s, 40s, 60s or already retired, please take our inaugural Livewire Retirement Series Survey by clicking the link below and tell us what the ideal retirement looks like to you, how much you think you'll need, where you plan to invest, and what worries you most.

➡️ HAVE YOUR SAY: TAKE THE RETIREMENT SERIES SURVEY

It'll take around five minutes, and by completing it, you'll go in the draw to win 1 of 3 × $250 gift cards or 1 of 10 Livewire hats, and most importantly, it will help us shape the conversation and understand how to create insights around your needs.

Then stay tuned over the next two weeks as leading fundies and advisers tackle everything from building wealth and getting more from your super to generating retirement income and making your portfolio last.

It's going to make for some awesome reading and viewing.

Editor's note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those featured in this article.