What can you do improve your Superannuation?
Superannuation has been a big topic for many Australians purely for the fact that most families feel that it won’t be enough to see them through twenty years of retirement. Even though super is a large issue for households, it’s often not a topic brought up over coffee nor do you invite your close friends over for a few drinks and a chat about your super position on a Friday night.
As retirement looms closer on the horizon, our minds tend to focus on what we’re going to rely on to provide quality of life in our later years and what we can do to influence the retirement wealth we will hold. While superannuation isn’t the most exciting subject, knowing what you can do to improve your position is an important part of preparing.
Shouldn’t my Super take care of itself?
While ideally true, your superannuation fund will be managed by a company, it’s critical to understand what level of control you have and what you could expect to receive when you do come to your fund’s preservation age.
For fairly standard funds you may only be able to choose between low risk, medium risk and high risk choices as to how your funds are invested for you.
While the above option does have the potential to perform well for you, an uncomfortable truth is that in this circumstance, you’ll have to rely on others to ensure that your retirement is a smooth one where you are not faced with considerable sacrifices.
What if I want to be “Hands on” with my Superannuation?
If you’re the type of person who prefers to have direct control over their Superannuation and more importantly where your funds are invested a Self-Managed super fund, commonly called SMSF, may be the solution for you. This option allows you to control exactly where your superannuation is invested.
As you can imagine a SMSF is not the correct solution for everyone as you’re actively investing your retirement funds and what may seem like a simple error could lead to massive issues in your later years. It’s for this very reason that many people who choose to self-manage their super have a financial advisor or Superannuation company that specializes in SMSF’s provide them with guidance to ensure the best results.
Consider what is most important to you
The only consistent factor is that no matter how healthy we are; we will all need to retire at some point in our lives. That being said our individual retirement needs will differ from person to person as will our financial commitments.
If you’re unsure as to what may be the best solution to your superannuation position and you’d like to investigate what your choices are the Zenon Group on the Gold Coast provides a cost free assessment that allows working Australians to discover their true superannuation and retirement position and provides guidance for folks that wish to improve their circumstances.
