The 7 steps to super nirvana

We know where you want to end up - with more money in your super. D’oh. But where do you begin? There’s a lot of stuff here on the new Savvy website.

Here are some suggestions on where to start your search for a better-performing fund, for lower fees, for better insurance, to calculate how much you’ll need or how early you can retire and to get unbiased advice - whether for yourself or your employees.

Is there no limit to what we can do at Savvy? (A rhetorical question. Please don’t answer. We really do know our limits.)

1. Consider all your options

You might have been in the same fund and the same investment option all your working life. It might be a Balanced option. There are good Balanced option products and there are dogs. There are also other investment options that might be better suited to you. Maybe someone has recommended a fund. In the Savvy Supermarket you can see what products the fund offers and how it is rated.

2. Find a better-performing super fund

Next stop in your search might be the Top Ten Performance chart. See which funds have shown an ability to perform above average over several years. You can filter the results by investment option type, so you’re comparing funds with similar products.

3. Reduce the fees you pay

Don’t make your decision based purely on performance. If several funds appeal, compare the fees they charge - Top Ten Fees. A 1% reduction in fees can add as much as $100,000 to a $300,000 super account over your working life.

4. Read what the experts say

Unless you work in the super industry, you’ll never know what the experts know. All of Savvy’s research is provided by SuperRatings, the leaders in superannuation analysis. We distil all of the SuperRatings research into neat summaries of a fund’s strengths and weaknesses. They’re fundamental to understanding why a fund rates highly or poorly - which is why they’re called Fundamentals. Silver members get access to about 20 Fundamentals, Gold members get all 450 or so.

5. Get unbiased advice

This is maybe the most valuable tool we offer. You can now get truly unbiased, independent advice on super. We’re not tied to any financial institution. We don’t play favourites. If a fund’s good enough to earn our Platinum, Gold or Silver rating, we’ll say so. Generally though, we’ll only recommend Platinum-rated funds.
We offer advice for individuals looking for reassurance or direction. We offer advice for employers trying to find the best funds for their staff. Become a Gold member to get Advice now. Email to arrange.

6. Download the PDS and roll over your super

Having decided on the fund and the investment option for you, the problem to date has been completing the last couple of steps - getting the Product Disclosure Statement and the rollover form needed to change funds. Now both of these are on the Savvy website. As a Gold member, you can download PDSes for every product and rollover forms for every fund listed.