Sunday 21 July 2013

What's in it for you?

Would you like a more comfortable retirement?  One of the more controllable aspects of how we save for retirement is how expensive our superannuation fund is.  A 1% or 2% annual fee doesn't seem like much but for the average person it will mean tens of thousands of dollars lost in retirement compared to a 0.5% or even lower fee.

If you were buying a house or a car you'd be willing to try to find the best deal you can.  Not so many people do that with their super but it's a much bigger "purchase" than a car, maybe even bigger than a house.  I'm of the view that Low Cost and, particularly, Index funds give us the best deal.

Google tells us there's a lot of information out there on Asset Allocation and Low Cost/Index Funds.  However much of that is US-centric or focuses on index funds outside of superannuation or in self-managed superannuation funds.

Sure, I'll talk about the general philosophy of investing in index funds and link to others who have already put the case for them so well.  But what's not so well advertised is that there are many (and increasing) low cost index fund options available in the Australian superannuation marketplace without needing the complexity or cost of a self-managed fund.

Later this week I'll start writing about what's available, to paraphrase John Bogle, bringing some common sense on superannuation funds.

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