Taking an interest in your Superannuation

Here is a question that caught me by surprise a couple of days ago: Do you know the exact figure of the return you or your manager earned on your superannuation last year?

In many cases our superanniation is one of the most significant assets we own, ranking up there with our house, but we often don’t pro-actively manage this asset.

Often these funds are “almost invisible” because we rarely have to pay them by cheque and we sometimes have the mindset that we can’t do anything with them until we retire and that is a long way off, that we will worry about them in detail closer  to that time.

The law of compounding interest is SHOUTING at us otherwise. The more you make on your funds now, the more those profits in turn work for you over and over again in the future to compound and earn greater profits.

I am not giving financial advice in this note but I do invite you to look at your fund and investigate the options including management costs and the spread of assets that your fund has.

Consider the total range of investments available including those outside the usual range that super funds typically hold such as cash, equities, managed funds. What about real estate or physical precious metals (The bullion type – not the paper type that say you have the right to the metal).

Also check how the funds manager earns their fees – why would they extensively research and work with investment modes that do not provide them a commission?

A logical place to start is to get a copy of the report on your funds performance over the last 12 months and then discuss this with your professional advisors.

Don’t forget to do the same with the super fund of your spouse.