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Home > Financial Autonomy > Get Retirement Ready: Should You Pay Off the Mortgage or Boost Your Super?
Podcast: Financial Autonomy
Episode:

Get Retirement Ready: Should You Pay Off the Mortgage or Boost Your Super?
Category: Education
Duration: 00:10:17
Publish Date: 2026-05-06 00:00:00
Description:

The most expensive retirement mistakes often happen 10 years before you actually retire. You still have time to make meaningful changes, but every choice starts to carry more weight.

So, where should you put your money to put yourself in the best position for retirement? Into your mortgage, so you can retire debt free? Into super, so you can take advantage of the tax benefits? Into investments outside super, so you still have flexibility if work ends earlier than planned?

In the first episode of this three-part retirement planning series, Paul breaks down what to focus on when retirement is around a decade away. He covers the decisions that can have the biggest impact on your final position, including how much you want to spend, whether your home still makes sense, why getting too conservative too early can be expensive, and how to review insurance before it quietly eats into your retirement savings.

Inside this episode:

• The mortgage versus super decision, and why the answer is rarely one size fits all • Why getting too conservative too early could cost you hundreds of thousands • How to work out what kind of retirement you are actually trying to fund • Why being debt free before retirement is usually the goal • How to balance super's tax benefits with access and flexibility • The insurance costs that may be quietly dragging on your super • What to focus on now so you are not scrambling later

WANT TO KNOW IF YOU'RE RETIREMENT READY?| Book an appointment with Paul here. WANT TO STAY ACROSS WHAT'S MOVING THE MARKETS?: Subscribe to GainingCHOICE, our weekly email unpacking the key headlines and what to pay attention to.

GOT A FINANCE QUESTION FOR PAUL?: Send it to paul@financialautonomy.com.au, and it could be featured in his Ask an Expert column each Sunday in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

General advice disclaimer

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