How much should you have saved by 30 in Australia?

You searched this because a number in your banking app made you feel behind, or a dinner conversation did. So here's the honest answer before any figures: there is no official amount you should have saved by 30 in Australia.

The ABS doesn't publish one, banks don't measure one, and the confident targets filling this search result are made up.

What does exist is a small set of verifiable numbers about people your age, each with caveats the content farms leave out. We'll give you the numbers and the caveats together.

Is there an official savings benchmark for age 30?

No. Australia has no official statistic for personal savings by age.

The closest real measures come from the ABS Survey of Income and Housing, which reports household net worth by the age of the household's reference person, and from the same survey's data on individual superannuation balances by age.

Neither measure tells you the money in your savings account at 30, and anything more specific than these is somebody's extrapolation.

That gap in the data matters in itself. Every precise-sounding target you've read was manufactured to rank for exactly the search you just made.

What does the ABS actually say about people your age?

The ABS's most recent Survey of Income and Housing (2019-20, released April 2022) put the median net worth of households with a reference person aged 25 to 34 at $175,700.

The mean for the same group was $353,800, roughly double the median, because a small number of wealthy households drags every average upward. Compare yourself against the median, because the mean describes someone else.

Two caveats apply before you measure yourself against that table. The first is that these are households rather than individuals, so a couple aged 29 with a mortgage and two incomes appears as one number, and so does a single renter.

The second is the date. The figures are from 2019-20, the most recent survey published, and asset prices have moved plenty since.

The table is the best verified comparison that exists, and it's still a blunt one. For a sharper exercise, calculate your own net worth properly and compare yourself against yourself, quarter by quarter.

How much super does the average person have at 30?

The same ABS survey reported that people aged 25 to 34 who held a super account had a median balance of $25,000 in 2019-20, with a mean of $38,200. A gap between men and women was already visible, with mean balances of $42,100 versus $34,500.

Compulsory contributions have risen since those figures were collected, which lifts balances for this age group over time. The story still holds its shape though.

At 30, super is usually your second asset, growing in the background while your attention is on rent. It counts toward your net worth even though you can't spend it, and we unpack that distinction in the net worth guide.

Why do the numbers online look so much bigger?

Three reasons, all of them mechanical. Writers quote means rather than medians because means are bigger and sound more authoritative.

Self-reported survey answers also skew upward, and they are the source for most "average savings by age" articles. People round their balances the way they round their height.

Then household figures get presented as personal ones, which silently doubles the bar.

None of that is a conspiracy. It's what happens when content needs a number and the honest answer is a range with footnotes. If a figure has no named source and date attached, treat it as decoration.

What matters more than the benchmark?

Your savings rate matters more, along with its direction. A 29-year-old saving $700 a month from a standing start puts away $42,000 in five years before a cent of returns.

Meanwhile a 29-year-old with $150,000 inherited and a spending problem is heading the other way, whatever today's snapshot says.

Balances describe the past. Your savings rate describes the future, and it's the only variable fully in your hands.

So stop comparing levels with other people and start comparing your own pace across months. Some months you'll be doing it tough, and a visible pace tells you whether that was a blip or a trend.

What if rent is crushing your savings rate?

Rent is a structural problem with structural fixes, and we've run the honest arithmetic in our Sydney reality check on the 50/30/20 rule.

A ratio that fits your actual rent beats a benchmark that fits nobody.

How do you track it without obsessing?

Automate the reading and ration the checking. Kleev builds your net worth from the bank statements you import plus the super, investments and debts you add once, so the monthly number assembles itself instead of living in a spreadsheet.

Set a savings goal and it projects the month you'll hit it from your real contribution pace rather than the pace you promised yourself in January. Watching that projected date pull closer is the version of this topic that feels good.

Check it monthly, act on the trend, and let the by-30 articles argue among themselves. Track your own pace in Kleev →

Common questions

How much money should I have saved by 30 in Australia?

There is no official benchmark, and any exact figure you read online is invented. The nearest real data is the ABS Survey of Income and Housing (2019-20): households with a reference person aged 25 to 34 had a median net worth of $175,700, and people aged 25 to 34 with a super account held a median balance of $25,000. Those are households and super, not personal savings accounts, which is exactly why no honest single number exists.

What is the median net worth of Australians under 35?

The ABS Survey of Income and Housing (2019-20, released April 2022) reported a median net worth of $175,700 for households whose reference person was aged 25 to 34, and $34,600 for those aged 15 to 24. The means are far higher ($353,800 and $83,800) because a small number of wealthy households pulls averages up, so the median is the fairer comparison.

How much super should I have at 30?

The ABS's 2019-20 figures put the median super balance for 25 to 34 year olds with an account at $25,000, with a mean of $38,200. Balances for this age group have been lifted since by years of higher compulsory contributions, so treat those figures as the most recent verified survey point rather than today's exact number.

Is it normal to have no savings at 30?

It's common, and the official data shows the spread is enormous. Half of Australian households under 35 sat below quite modest medians in the ABS's 2019-20 survey, and those figures include people carrying HECS debts and starting families. A low balance at 30 describes your starting point, not your trajectory; the savings rate you run from here matters far more than the level today.