Everyone dreams about the life they will have once they no longer have to do the daily 9 to 5. But can you have the lifestyle you would like in those years?

Due to increased life expectancy, a lot of us will spend more than a quarter of our life retired. So, you might need more money for your retirement than you think.

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) have created a Retirement standard which benchmarks the annual budget needed by Australians to fund their post-work years.

The figures are different depending on if you are a single or a couple and whether you want a modest or comfortable lifestyle. A modest lifestyle will give you a slightly better standard of living than the age pension, but still only afford you basic activities and necessities. A comfortable lifestyle will enable older, reasonably healthy retirees to have a broad range of activities and be able to afford new household goods, private health insurance, a reasonable car, good clothes, and holidays.

For a modest lifestyle, a couple will require $40,829 per year and a single person will need $28,254. To have a comfortable lifestyle a couple will need $62,828 per year and a single person will need $44,412. This is also assuming that the retiree owns their own home and is reasonably healthy.

What does that really mean though? For a comfortable lifestyle, a single person will need $545,000 in retirement savings and couples need $640,000.

It can be difficult to guess if you are on track to have enough superannuation, but the ASFA website provides a Retirement Tracker calculator that can help you work it out.