4 ways to easily save for your retirement in your 30s and not even notice

Add an extra percent to your super fund * – Your employer is likely paying the bare minimum into your superannuation fund. That’s 9.5% at the moment. You could easily do yourself a favour and throw in 1% yourself. It will make very little difference to your after tax pay, but your future self will thank you for it. If you earn $50,000 per year and decide to salary sacrifice a measly 1% your after tax income will go from $797.54 pw to $791.02 pw. That is a total difference of $6.52…. That’s it. If you did that for the next 30 years, your super fund would have somewhere around $20,000 that it didn’t have before. In retirement that will make a difference, but $6.52 a week will not make a difference now. See, I’m already making it easy for you.

All you have to do is contact your payroll department. They will likely have a form you complete to salary sacrifice. Pop it in at 1%, sign it, and you are done. As your salary rises your contributions will rise too.

Change your investment option within your super fund – Most super funds have a default account that is usually called a ‘balanced’ account or something similar. Basically this fund is a middle of the road. It aims to outperform, but not wildly. In most circumstances it is keeping pace with what the market is doing. The vast majority of people are in this account, usually because they have never once looked at their super fund. If you are in your 30’s, you have a fair few working years left in you, and you can’t actually get access to your super money until you are 60 anyway. Consider changing your investment to a more ‘growth’ style investment. Whilst you should really do a full review, if there is ‘growth’ in the title of the investment option, it will point you in the right direction. Typically you should be looking for the option within the fund that aims for a 6% to 8% return each year.

Rollover the niggling funds – If you have a few sitting around, roll them into the one and save the excess fees. They will slowly eat away at your retirement over time so the quicker you get it sorted the better it will be, not to mention ticking something off your to-do list that has probably been there for way too long. In fact, as one of our promos for 2015 (the year to get your self sorted), we will even roll over your super funds for you. We are nice that way! 🙂

(Just as a quick disclaimer, before you rollover your funds, do a review and make sure you aren’t losing any great benefits. Not every super fund is created equal so don’t blindly rollover before you know what you are losing or what you are gaining) 

Send some of your pay rise to super – Pay rises = winning! If you get a pay rise, definitely enjoy the jump in salary, but consider sending a small portion into your super fund. You will still get more money in your pocket, but so will your super, and if you do it before you get used to having it, it will make it easy to implement from the get go.

So there you have it, easy peasy right? You can probably sort all of that out in 10 minutes if you wanted. 10 mins, that’s all it is going to take, and you will have started saving more for your retirement. Like I said, if you want a hand rolling over all of your super funds, give me a call, I’ll do it for free!

Happy saving!

This post is from our resident Financial Planner Cara Brett. Check out her details on the About us page.

Posted in: Cara Brett and Superannuation. 

* Please note this does not take into account your personal circumstances and should not be taken as advice. Before making any investment decisions we recommend you seek advice.