Super happiness

I monitor my super regularly. It's gone up signficiantly since I put some focus on it (Thanks @wombat777 and @trinity168).

I just saw it went up 5k today. Maybe it is the employer contributions and my own contributions.... well, I do like to see my super going up.

 

Gets even better @Gockie

Our super is still going up each year, and that’s after drawing down a tax free, close-to-six-figure, income.
Marg

 

Which super? FSS, CFSS?

 

ING living super. I think since the change they made last year the extra charges are about an extra $100/month, note this is on a roughly quarter mill balance though.

 

I think my dad's is like that. He worked his whole career at Telecom/Telstra though so he had something like a defined benefit scheme from the government, if that makes sense. He retired on his 55th birthday because he did the maths on his super and figured there was no point in working longer...

 

Hi @Gockie, do you choose what shares to invest in Super? Can you choose ETFs and LICs in there? I am thinking switching my super from AMP flexible lifetime. Thanks!

 

Yep! You have choice of shares in ING Living Super so I have a mix of LICs and direct shares.

 

I don't count on ever getting my super. It's 30 years away, so who knows what legislation will change beteeen now and then... Hopefully I'll get to access my super before I die!

 

Yes it's a gamble. I doubt I will die before 65, never smoked, drink <1 glass a week, normal range BMI, I solve challenges all the time (good for brain health), physically active, people in my family seem to have long lives.... but s#it can happen.

Otherwise it will go to your family!

 

Thanks Gockie. What's the yearly fees for ING living? Thanks!

 

@Gockie can you share how you setup etc please. Is it similar to setting up a smsf via an accountant

 

Living Super

Check them out here.
They were about the cheapest for a psedo-SMSF until changes a year or so ago.

 

Simple as any standard super. ING Living Super offers growth and balanced investment options along with the flexibility to control your investments around a range of LICs, ETFs and asx200 (or is it asx300?) stocks.

 

Okay... we have a SMSF in place, the current investments will likely finish in 1-2 years. How do we move that SMSF to ING super/ equivalent.

 

I have no idea about finishing up the SMSF, but rolling money from other normal super funds into ING Living Super was extremely easy.

 

An uneducated/unqualified opinion here, but I'm guessing that when people worry about accessing their super, they're talking about a couple of things.

A major concern is that the government will change the rules making it difficult to access super. Overall I don't think this is a significant risk. Any government that tries this is going to have a hell of a time getting re-elected. The worst they could do is introduce taxes for super funds similar to taxation of companies or individuals. That's certainly not ideal, but not really that different to investing outside of super.

Probably the more relevant concern is that the super fund will be mismanaged or drained by the generations before. This is probably a more legit concern. We've seen plenty of cases of super funds being poorly managed whilst the manager take large fees. There's also a lot of baby-boomers that are using their super before I get the opportunity to access it.

The obvious solution to this is to take control of your own super. There is a lot to consider, fees to pay, etc. Still you've got direct control of what your SMSF does or does not invest in. You can pay others to help ensure the fund is compliant and operating legally and that's usually done at a flat rate. At the end of the day, the control is in your hands.

 

From my own calculations the admin charges are 0.6% pa, charged monthly (so 0.05% pm). YMMV

All good. I think the overheads/compliance requirements of SMSFs though will turn people off it.

 

That's a serious concern for a lot of people, but it can easily be delegated for a fee. That does contribute to the overall cost of maintaining the fund, which in turn suggests minimum amounts need to be invested and certain returns need to be achieved.

If you're going down this path however, you need to take responsibility and control of it (don't leave it to the other fund members, I've learned that the hard way, several times over). Compliance, accounting, auditing, are all things you should get the professionals to do, but you still need to know what's going on and what your obligations are.

 

Doubt we''all be able to access it at 65. Maybe 70 if we're lucky

 

I don't find that to be the situation. I have a Corporate trustee which can have up to 4 members (it will be 6 in the near future).

I've just added a fourth member to my trustee (all immediate family) and we split less than $2,000 in admin/compliance fees between us a year - including fees to ASIC. We also pay no management fees on funds invested, only fees for performance.

So not only is it cheap, we have much more flexibility to invest than a retail or industry super fund which is mainly limited to shares in the ASX200 due to their sheer size with billions of dollars to manage.