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Retirement Budget Calculator (Budget Builder)

Build your retirement budget in minutes - income and spending side by side, benchmarked against Massey University's No Frills and Choices lifestyles research
Updated 18 August 2026
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Summary
  • Working out whether your retirement income covers your retirement life comes down to two honest lists: everything coming in and everything going out. Most people have never put the two side by side.
  • Our Budget Builder does exactly that - in the frequencies you actually know your numbers in - then tells you where you stand, per year and per week, against what real retired New Zealanders spend.
  • Important: This tool is a guide only and does not constitute financial advice.

How to use the calculator
  1. Select your household and location, then carefully consider each income and spending line.
  2. Every line has its own frequency - what you spend at the supermarket every week, rates bills per year, one-off travel expenses.
  3. Enter what you know - the tool does the converting. Your numbers are saved privately on your own device - MoneyHub does not collect any data.
  4. You can click Copy My Budget, which puts the whole picture on your clipboard to share with ​

Important: Count Every Income Line
  • The most common budgeting mistake is forgetting an income source.
  • Beyond NZ Super, work through each line deliberately: other pensions (government, military, UK or Australian), term deposit and savings interest, dividends and fund distributions, part-time work or consulting, and other income such as rent after costs or board.
  • Most retirees have more lines than they think - and every one changes the results above.
Retirement Budget Builder
Step 1 - Your household
Step 2 - Your income
Now work through each line - most people have more income sources than they think. Enter after-tax amounts, in whatever frequency you know them.
Step 3 - Your spending
Enter what you actually spend - each line has its own frequency, so use whatever you know: groceries per week, rates per year.
Total spending
$0a year
Total income
$0a year
Add your income and spending to see where you stand.
This opens your email app with everything pre-filled, ready to send. MoneyHub never sees or stores your address.
Your numbers and email stay on this device only.
NZ Super figures are the 1 April 2026 rates, after tax at M, updated each April. Lifestyle benchmarks are from Massey University's Retirement Expenditure Guidelines (2025 report) and are broad averages of what retired households actually spend, not costed budgets of what a lifestyle requires - the single-person figures in particular run low. This tool is a guide only and does not constitute financial advice.

What Your Result Means

You'll get one of two verdicts:
  • Covered means your income exceeds your spending - the surplus is your headroom for one-offs and extras.
  • A shortfall shows exactly what your savings and investments need to produce, per year and per week - a number to plan around, not panic about.
  • You'll also see how your spending compares with Massey University's Retirement Expenditure Guidelines (2025 edition) for your household type and location - the best data New Zealand has on what retired households actually spend - which is not the same thing as what retirement costs. Please be aware of this limitation. 

Know This:
  1. Massey's figures are averages of what retired households actually spent, drawn from Stats NZ's Household Economic Survey and inflated to June 2025.
  2. "Choices" is simply the average spend of the 61st–80th income percentile, not a costed budget of what comfort requires.
  3. Retirees spend what they have, so the averages run lean, and the survey's two-week diary under-captures lumpy costs like house maintenance, car replacement, health insurance and bigger holidays.
  4. We suggest you treat the benchmarks as bearings, not targets.
  5. If you're single: Massey's single-person figures run notably low - the couple "Choices" budget is more than double the single one, which economies of scale can't explain. The single-household sample skews older, with spending already wound down. Treat the single benchmarks as a floor, and build your budget bottom-up above them.