Stop right now
Ever get that niggling feeling that you really should be doing something about your super but you haven’t the faintest where to start?
Making the decision to get your super in order is a bit like getting to the gym early on a Saturday morning. You might dread getting up, but will feel much better for having done it afterwards.
If you avoid these three, very common, mistakes when it comes to your super you’ll feel a little sense of relief, while knowing where your retirement money is and what it is doing for you.
1. Not knowing where you super is
Firstly, if you don’t know where your super is you have savings you don’t know exist.
Your employer pays money into your super account. If you had a bank account (with money in it) you didn’t know about you’d jump for joy right? Just because you can’t access your super until retirement doesn’t mean it isn’t your money.
Take a moment to find your super, write the name of your fund down, the password to your account and while you are at it, the balance. Come back to it the next year - maybe open the annual statement it sends you for once - and see what it’s done.
2. Having more than one super account
You may have got stuck at step number 1 - and I know why.
You have more than one account, right? You’re not alone. The tax office says that nearly half of all Australians that have super have more than one fund housing their retirement savings. And there really is no reason for most people to have more than one account.
Having your super savings spread across lots of funds means you are paying multiple sets of administration costs, insurance premiums and fees for the fund to manage the cash you have in there. All of these are expenses and are minused from the value of your funds.
What can you do about this? Roll all your funds into the one - at brightday we do this for you - and you won’t be giving up your hard earned retirement savings in multiple sets of fees.
3. Taking stock
Have you ever stopped to think about what your super is actually invested in?
Unless you ticked a box saying otherwise, your super is most likely invested in a balanced investment option - which means having half of your savings in growth investments like shares and property and half in defensive ones, like bonds.
While a balanced option will still grow your money, according to your age you might be missing out on a lot of growth by not being invested in a growth investment option. It can be the difference between having an ok retirement and having a great one.
There are tools online, like brightday’s Portfolio Planner which let you plug in some details about yourself to help determine what sort of investments are appropriate for you to be in - just to make sure your super fund is doing the best it can for your personal situation and your retirement goals.
