They're supposed to be the golden years – the reward for a lifetime of work and service. But retirement today is rapidly changing, and rather than living out their dreams, many seniors are struggling just to survive.
Around 40% of retired New Zealanders have to get by on the pension alone – a maximum of $496.37 a week for a single person living alone.
Unlike previous generations, many don't own their own homes. To balance the budget in a cost-of-living crisis, something inevitably has to give.
For 76-year-old Feleti, it's power.
"Sometimes I have to sit in the dark because of saving my expenses," he said.
For 69-year-old Dee, it's food.
"I survive mostly on two-minute noodles," she said. "The days of having veggies every week and that are gone."
Others struggle to pay for water.
"I don't flush my toilet," said 76-year-old Pat. "It saves about $10 or $12 a month."
These are the daily stories of sacrifice from just some of the seniors who spoke to Sunday. While many others suffer in silence, 66-year-old Natalie Lambert invited us into her home.
"If [I] don't say something now, I would regret it for the rest of my life," she said.
Lambert retired early due to a series of health problems. She has no investments, income or savings and has to survive on superannuation.
"How difficult is it to find a dollar to at least try and get a bottle of milk? Bloody hard," she said.
With the price of groceries increasing, she often gets by on one meal a day.
"When it's on that tough week where you've got your power and your water rates - which is all this week - and your rent all going out at the same time, you don't have two or three meals a day," she said.
Many others tell similar stories, some who've worked their entire lives.
70-year-old Marie Stanley became a single parent in the 1980s. She worked hard to support her children and retired with just $5000 in the bank.
"I found that the pension is not quite enough when things go wrong," Stanley said. "You can survive on it, but you can't live on it. And so that money disappeared."
Today, she counts every dollar. On the day Sunday visited her in east Auckland, she had $1.86 to last until the next pension day.
"I think that there are thousands of us out there who are going through this every single day," she said. "We're not all rich baby boomers.
"It's not just about child poverty - there's aged poverty as well."
Retirement commissioner Jane Wrightson said the concept of retirement has changed.
"New Zealand Super is predicated on either you owning your own home outright, meaning you've got quite low housing costs, or you have affordable public housing," Wrightson said.
Instead, 20% of pensioners don't own a home and have to rent.
"We've got the lowest home-ownership rates since 1953 at the moment," she said.
"By about 2048, there'll be about 600,000 pensioners renting.
"This problem is going to get worse before it gets better."
Watch the full story with Sunday's Conor Whitten above.
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