There is no reason why the official retirement age (currently 62) should be the “right” age for everyone to retire on. All of us have different ideas about retirement, and different standards of living. If you can get by on less, you may be able to retire.

Here we look at two different standards of living and how much you need to get to them at the age of 45:

Working out how much money you need

Let’s start by working out how much money you’ll need per day. We’ll assume a 3% annual rate of inflation and assume you are now 21 years old. How much will you need in your retirement fund to stop working at 45?

Let’s look at two variants:

1. A spartan lifestyle with few luxuries
2. A typical middle-income lifestyle

A caveat: As everyone has different needs and responsibilities, the best that we can give you is ...