Karen Brennan, 52, currently lives in Newcastle, NSW, with her husband. She has two children, aged 25 and 21, and has spent many years planning for her future.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR SUPERANNUATION JOURNEY. When I was younger, super wasn’t compulsory, but I was quite lucky because my employer made voluntary contributions. In the early ’90s, after 15 years of work, I withdrew my super to buy a small business with my husband. For the next 10 years, we made contributions to keep our retirement fund on track. When we sold our business, much of the proceeds went into our respective super funds as non-concessional contributions. I went back to study and now work full-time.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE? My husband and I feel quite at ease about our retirement. We are a few years off paying our mortgage, our super balance is healthy and we’ll be even more comfortable once we sell our house. Any proceeds left over from downsizing will be invested in the property market to help our children. Our eldest daughter has moved out and our son recently graduated and started working full-time, so ideally, we’d like to help both of them.