You're somewhere around 55. You've saved less than you'd like, and the calendar's tighter than it used to be. A decade is what you have. The question is what a disciplined decade can realistically produce.
The numbers, in ballpark.
If you save R10,000 a month for ten years, into a balanced fund earning 9% a year before fees, you end the decade with about R1.9 million. R15,000 a month over ten years gets you to roughly R2.9 million. R20,000 a month gets you to roughly R3.8 million.
Those are approximate numbers. Real numbers depend on fees, tax treatment, market conditions and your specific asset mix. But the shape is reliable: saving hard for a decade builds a meaningful base.
Stacked on what you already have.
Whatever you've already saved continues compounding through the decade. If you start with R1 million already invested and add R10,000 a month for ten years, you end up with around R4.2 million total. The foundation plus the catch-up adds up.
Working the extra lever.
The cleanest way to create R10-15,000 a month of new saving isn't to cut spending dramatically. It's usually a combination: max your RA contribution for the tax deduction (which typically returns 30-40% of what you put in, in tax relief), max your TFSA, and redirect any raises or bonuses to the same pot before they become part of your lifestyle.
Three things that help more than you'd think.
- Delaying retirement by two years. Those last two years are usually peak-earning, and the capital gets two more years of compounding.
- Downsizing the house, if you'd be happy to. The freed capital, invested conservatively, often produces more retirement income than the bigger house was ever going to produce.
- Part-time work in early retirement. Working a few days a week for the first five years of "retirement" dramatically reduces how hard your savings have to work.
Ten years is enough for a real plan. Not enough to make up for thirty missing years, but enough to change the shape of what comes next.