She's On The Money - It’s Time to Get SUPER Excited!

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Today we're dropping this bonus episode in to get you engaged with what is possibly one of the BIGGEST investments of your life, superannuation. But so often we don’t frame it this way. It’s pushed to the back of our mind, or feels confusing and complicated to so many of us. So join Victoria and our special guest Anne Fuchs is the EGM for Advice, Guidance and Education, at Australian Retirement Trust for the 6 simple steps you can take to get on top of your super.  Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial

freedom. Now, my friends, you guys know I am very wildly passionate about superannuation, so I thought that today I would invite someone who shares my passion for superannuation on the show. Today, we have Anne Fuchs joining us, who is the EGM for Advice, Guidance and Education at the Australian Retirement Trust. Anne, welcome to She's on the Money. Oh, goodness gracious. That is a mouthful. And Fuchs, for those listeners who want to learn a bit of German, Fuchs means fox. So, Victoria, I want you to call me Foxy Lady anytime you love what I'm saying. I will. I did before off-air. The only other German word I know is squirrel, which is like einherchen or something.

Yeah, einherchen. Today, we are going to be chatting about arguably one of my favorite topics. Superannuation is one of the biggest investments you will have in your life. And so many of us just don't pay attention to it. How many of us are actually able to say, oh, I save or invest 12% of my income. You can't because you don't, but you do inside superannuation. And I get really worked up about this because it is your money and your choice and you should care about it. And Anne, I guess that's why you're here today. Can you imagine, like, you know, the average 40-year-old's got $90,000 in their super. Now, if that was $90,000 sitting in their bank account or like a share account-

They'd be bragging about it in the pub. checking it all the time. They'd be bragging. And yet here we are, 25% of Australians haven't even checked how much money's in there in the last 12 months. And it blows my mind. And the amount of people that are in the same situation that I used to be in, which I share openly because I think it's really important. You're reformed. I'm reformed. Before I was a financial advisor, now retired financial advisor, I had like six super accounts and I just kept collecting them like they were Pokemon or something. And every new job I was like oh super forms don't worry just set me up put me in whatever I don't care

balanced yeah whatever you say that's all good but then here we are shopping around for cheap deals online to buy this and that you know a good deal for our favorite mascara and yet we're just collecting all these super accounts and paying all these fees mindlessly and at the same time that I was not caring about my superannuation I was like on the phone to my phone provider being like oh can you give me like a five dollar a month discount like oh it's really important then superannuation, which was literally my future. I wasn't caring about. Yeah. The concept of compounding interest. And I think that's the thing, right? It's a monster of an investment. It's a huge opportunity and putting like all these like little gremlins that

you can pile together, have one big happy gremlin that's going to fund holidays and restaurants. And I like the idea of that though. A happy gremlin. A happy little gremlin that you can feed and top up and who can look after you and love you when you're hopefully not old and decrepit and you're old and fabulous. I love it. I've got a question for you. But before we get there, I'm just going to let you guys know that after the break, we're going to be talking about the six simple steps that you're able to take to get on top of your super. So I feel like this episode is all about taking action. Like we're not just here to talk about what superannuation is because I've done episodes on

that. We'll put a few in the show notes to make sure that you've got all the education at your fingertips that you deserve. But we're just talking about how you can get on top of it today, what that looks like. Before that, Anne, what do we know about how Australians feel about superannuation overall? Victoria, we have a monster problem with 70% of Australians believe they're not confident they're going to have enough money to retire. And you think about, I don't know about your grandpa, but people, they finish work, they might have lived a couple of years. He wouldn't have thought about superannuation, not even one time. You didn't have to rely on the pension that long. You just died.

In addition to that, superannuation wasn't something that was enforced properly until 1992. And because of that, it means if I talk to my parents about superannuation, whilst it is incredibly important to them, it's not been a part of their entire working career in the same way it has been for us. This is profoundly impactful. Like most Australians died poor. Unless you came from money, you didn't have any money. Where superannuation actually is this huge wealth vehicle that's kind of democratised. Having comfort and money in retirement, it's three decades. The average person, if you're retiring with, let's call it half a million dollars, which is the comfortable amount, and a lot of us are, that's extraordinary.

And why wouldn't we engage with that? A quarter haven't even logged in, which is just crazy. And 30% of women, which is 10% less than men, are just feeling completely sad and despondent about their financial situation. Yeah, and I feel like that is really upsetting for someone like me who knows the power of wealth creation and how it's actually not about the big bucks. The idea of a million dollars seems astronomical. If we just sit here and go, how would we get a million dollars? We go, well, that's actually really unreasonable, Victoria. However, I know that if we were able to get people when they were younger, the younger you are, the more time you have for compounding, because we know based on the rule of 72,

that money on average is going to double every seven to 10 years. So the $10 that you have today could be worth $20. And while that is not that exciting, because what can you buy in this economy with $20? I can't pay for my groceries with that. I could probably take you out for a coffee, but we are not getting cake. Don't order a cake because we can't afford that. But when it comes to superannuation, all the small things over our career really build up. And you know, this is where I think we have to recognize that the reality of super is it is linked to what you get paid, right? Yes. And so we know that women are retiring with half, in some instances, half the balance of men. There is this risk of women really like homelessness at the end of

working life. Really scary, right? Now, the reality is if you don't advocate for yourself around your take-home pay, guess what? When you retire, that can bite you on the bum because men are much better at advocating for themselves around what they're worth in terms of their pay. Just in general. Just in general. And they don't actually go, look at the position description. They go, I can do 5% of that. Yeah, I'll put in for the promotion.

That's why they're retiring with more money. I feel like they've got a really good sense of what we call in our team, DeLulu, because they think they can do it even if they don't have the credentials to do it. Oh, to have the confidence. Now, sisters, like let's, oh, to have the confidence of. We're just going to borrow the confidence of a mediocre middle-aged white man. And then we're just going to do that. Exactly.

because the thing is when we don't do that, that means we retire less because superannuation is linked to your take-home pay. I mean, there are bigger things around job professions that are not recognised. The fitter and turner has the same level of TAFE qualification as an early educator. There's a societal structural thing around remuneration that we're not going to solve in this podcast. Unfortunately. Unfortunately. But just remember that is that every time you kind of settle for a bit less in terms of what you're getting paid or an opportunity at work, it actually does matter. You're going to finish work at the end of your life and you're probably going to live another 20, 30 years. To add to that, we are in the middle of a cost of living

crisis. Money is overwhelming. I know that budgeting to pay for groceries, to pay for energy, heating is insane at the moment. I feel like we're all really stressed about cash. Superannuation is something that you can address here and now. It's not going to cost you a dollar to address it. you're not going to have to shell out anything to get that sorted. And getting that sorted is going to play into your mental and financial well-being. You're going to feel so much more financially secure going, you know what? I know that my budget is really strict right now. I know that we're living paycheck to paycheck. I know everything's really challenging, but I also know I'm doing the best thing for future me. And I think that once we give ourselves a little bit

of a light at the end of the tunnel, you go, it's really tough right now, but I've addressed the super side of things. So retirement's not going to look like today. And I think that that is really empowering, especially when so many of us are trying to get on top of our financial health and we're like, I don't want to ask my work for a pay rise because maybe we got one recently and it wasn't enough or we've asked and they have said no, or we just don't have the confidence. This is something that you can do that's really non-confrontational. It's totally to your point around action. I always, whenever I hear the word action, I can hear the war cry from grade six action, action. And so it is actually something you can

do that has no barriers attached to it. And we are going to cover the steps you need to do that. I'm jumping ahead because I'm really excited about it. But I do think there is something around the time of year that it is. At the moment, there's some really profound, big picture things happening in the world of personal finances that I think your listeners should use as a chance to reset. If you think about the stage three tax cuts coming out, superannuation guarantee, your super's going up to 11.5%. There are some energy rebates that I know state governments and federal governments are paying. So I think it's a really good time to go, all right, what are all these big picture

things around stage three tax cuts, the superannuation going up? Because I will say to your subscribers that if you're getting paid as a package rather than your base salary plus super, you might be in a position where your take-home pay is going backwards. Yeah, we've talked about this on the podcast. I am wildly passionate about making sure that people know that might be a thing. And maybe having a little bit of a chat today here and now with your employer and going, what does that look like? Well, you just do base salary plus super rather than a package. You're shortchanging yourself. And I think it's such a small change that it makes sense for your employer to accept it as well because it's very reasonable. It's not,

hey, can I have a massive pay rise? It's, hey, this is going to be implemented legally. You have to pay it. Can we just do it in a way that benefits me long term so that I'm not put behind? because right now you're putting me behind during a cost of living crisis. Yeah, I think that's right. I think taking action, looking at what the stage three tax cuts can mean for you. We do talk about cost of living crisis, but thinking about, well, the subscription services that we're all kind of, you know, sometimes you don't even, you lose track of what you've been. Where's the unnecessary spending in all of this? Looking at stage three tax cuts, overlaying SG, and then trying to work out a plan around how you're

to maximize today and also be fabulous and comfortable tomorrow. Exactly. Now in this team, I don't know how much you know about She's On The Money, but I like to refer to myself as stats girl. I want to know, are there some clear stats on how women in particular are putting themselves behind? Because I think sometimes when we talk about super, we go more of us are retiring and facing homelessness. Yes. More of us are putting ourselves behind. Yes. Are there some stats that go, no, actually, X, Y, and Z, we have to make change. Well, we know the stat around the gender pay gap, but it's just stuck in that 13% to 19% gap. We know that only 28% of us feel financially confident compared to, I think it's the high 30s. Isn't that rude? 28% of us. It's not shocking.

This is the whole point. I know. Well, I still find it shocking because I'm in the very privileged position of going, this information exists and it's free. This information is being put out there. how do I basically force it down people's throats so they go well only 30% of women are putting their hand up and saying I need some help and I feel like that's why she's on the money exists way back in a past life when I was a financial advisor and she's on the money didn't exist I used to do these lunch and learns called she's on the money because I used to do lunch and learns to big corporates where I'd sit down with people and go all right this is what super is you know HR would get me involved, have a chat to them about their super, this is for employee engagement.

And the thing that I noticed in those sessions was women would not ask questions. They would not put their hands up. You're scared of looking silly. Exactly. How are we supposed to know if we have never been taught? And this is why it's so amazing what you're doing, seriously. I know Korean exists. I've never been there. I don't know how to speak Korean. I don't think it's embarrassing if I put my hand up and be like, I know that you know Korean, but I don't. I don't think that's embarrassing. But why do we then think it's embarrassing when we start to talk about finance? Yeah. And again, we were just talking before about kids and whatever,

and I've got 18, 14 and 16, boy, girl, girl. The girls don't talk enough about the money and their super, where I listen to the boys when they sit around 18 having their hard solos, tough guys, talking about their Bitcoin investments and their shares. And I'm like, You don't even know what you're talking about. No, but there is something culturally in that, which is why the people who are listening to this are one step ahead. And they, you as listeners need to be then evangelical and tell people in your world, 70% of you are doing nothing and doing nothing will be a self-fulfilling prophecy of poverty and retirement. To me, doing nothing is a choice. So you've got a choice to

make action or you've got a choice to make no action. And by making no action, that is a choice in itself and I don't think that that's one you want to be making you know when members call us when the ones that finally go they'll have a life event whether it's a divorce something will happen and then they go oh my god I have to call the super fund now it's either embarrassment shame fear and actually when they get told things aren't as bad or there's ways to stop the relief and you think why were you walking around with this because we're scared I know because it's overwhelming because it doesn't feel nice and honestly like we're trying really hard to make superannuation seem really sexy but if you're not in the industry not that sexy so it's not a

priority think of the things that are invested but once you're invested well you know you invest in trains and data centers and shares and gas pipes and airports not helping honestly like that's not making it sexier you know what makes it sexier telling me that i'm gonna have financial freedom In the future, I'm going to have a level of financial freedom that I afforded for myself. And this is where you'll bang on, Victoria, because even if you're feeling really trapped financially today, there is something that you can do to make sure you don't feel that way tomorrow. And it's just like picking up the phone and talking to your super fund and being one of the 30% growing to 40% and so on. So there's not this big gap at retirement.

And I've said it before on the podcast, I am the biggest advocate of getting people to call their super funds because it actually doesn't cost you anything. And the people at your super fund are so engaged. They are so educated. They have been trained to answer every single question. And if you need basic advice that exists there for you too, you can call them. And you know what? They expect you to not know because most people don't. So you can call and be like, hey, I have a member number. I can share with you my name, but that's about it. Can you actually talk me through? What I even hold? How much do I have? What does this look like? Where am I going? Can you help? And they will be like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you called. Sit down. Have you got 10

minutes? They will give you all the time in the world to put you in the best possible position because that's what they do every day. Yeah. And I have to say, there is a thing of working in superannuation where there's a sense of service and purpose. There is a higher order social kind of good. The people that work at like Australian Retirement Trust, you're not doing it to become rich and famous that you come in because you believe in. You care. Even though it's finances, there is a sense of social purpose and care to what we all do. So I couldn't endorse enough what you just said in terms of it. Call them. And even if it's not a conclusive conversation and you're like, oh, I really, I feel quite overwhelmed with this conversation. Can you

let me go away and do some research? Great. Call them back later. You don't have to make big hitting decisions in your first phone call. There's some really good calculators online that you can have a play around with to work out, well, what age am I and what balance should I have? As I said, you know, the average 40 year old should probably have about 150,000, most only have about 90,000. So there's a gap there, but the point is don't put your head in the sand over the gap. These small steps, like you just spoke about with the lots of gremlins, everyone consolidating them, bringing them together, knowing what you're invested in, all these things. It's going to save you money, but it's also going to save you stress and anxiety because you know

that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We at She's on the Money are obsessed with the idea of money stories. In fact, my recent book that came out last month is called Money Stories because we all grow up with different beliefs, values, thoughts and behaviours around money. Cultural beliefs around how I'm married to a German. They're much more disciplined as opposed to my Irish kind of cultural ways where you have a good time. Yeah. So all these things factor into the decision making and reluctance to do something. A hundred percent. Let's go to a really quick break. I promised you guys at the start of this episode that we would give you six actionable steps to get on top of your superannuation. So if you stick around, we'll get through those right

after this. All right, guys, we are back and I want to have a chat with you. What are the impacts on your super if you have a child as a woman? Well, the good news is, is that parental leave is now superannuation is going to be paid on that. That's very sexy. I have to say we did advocate hard to the government over that. So we were thrilled. Thank you for that. Really appreciate it. We were thrilled to see that. So that's going to put the next generation of sisters in a better place. But there might be men listening to this. My husband was a stay-at-home dad, and I worked and he did-

My husband is currently the stay-at-home dad. Yeah. So it's whoever is, I guess, the carer, but most of the reality is most of it lands on us. And so there'll be a period of time where you're actually not getting paid, which means then you need to play catch up with super. Because of the compounding interest, that gap where contributions are not being paid creates a material problem. I think that there's a lot of strategies you can implement. We've spoken about it on the podcast before. You could plan forward and start contributing a tiny bit amount much earlier so that that gap is covered in advance, or you could start contributing after to make up that

gap. Or even, how do you feel about getting your partner to contribute to your super? Well, spouse contributions, it's another strategy. With superannuation going up to 11.5%, our concessional contributions are going up. And again, this is why I think getting advice is really important because there are tax benefits, whether you're putting in as part of your take-home pay or then after tax, whether it's your spouse is doing it. Again, just recognising that your take-home pay is going to probably materially change after 1 July. I think it's a chance to really look at could you afford, as you've just rightly pointed out, to put in a bit extra so that you're not left behind. But recognising, I just want to call out that paid

parental leave again with superannuation being paid on that. I also think it's important to remember that these things are also tax effective. So, if you're thinking, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can afford to make extra contributions to my super, like what if you bumped up your super 1% over the next 10 years, that's going to impact it significantly. But I think we need to go and do some maths, use some of those calculators because you are going to get in most circumstances, I can't broad brushly say this, but you are going to get some tax benefits from making that decision. And so it's not going to be the whole dollar take home amount that you are contributing towards that. It's actually going to be quite beneficial. So I think we need to

look into it. Even if you can't factor it into the budget right now, please go and just do the maths so that you understand what that might mean. Do you think the listeners know about the 15% tax rate? 100% because I am always on top of it. The best example I have is if you're on the standard marginal tax rate of 37.5% and we decide to use the number of $10,000. Inside your take-home pay, if we transferred it to you, it's worth $6,750. If you put that inside superannuation instead, it's now worth $8,500 because of that 15% tax rate that's applied. So I don't mean to be dramatic, but that's a 22% difference. And I mean, we all care about our returns in super. I feel like everybody, instead of looking at their fees, instead of looking at what's my super

return to me, the amount that is on your return doesn't include the tax benefits. So you might have had, let's say an 8% or a 9% return, but you're also making even more money because of that tax benefit that you probably swept under the rug. So immediately your money is worth 22% more inside superannuation. Does that mean we should throw all our money in there? Absolutely Absolutely not. But it's really important to take that into consideration. We're crunching the numbers and a coffee a day, if you're, again, I'm using 40, a number where things starting to kind of- That's when people usually start to take control of their finances because they might have,

and this is very dramatic, but they might have gone through a big life event. That's where we're starting to talk about inheritances because our parents, unfortunately, don't live forever. It's when we're starting to see a lot more divorce happening. It's when we're starting to see the kids go off to school and you have an existential crisis because you're like, wait, what am I doing with my career? In terms of career opportunities. There's just so many questions at that age. A coffee a day of 40 can work out to $60,000 income in retirement extra. Exactly. And even if we were just doing like a couple of like roundups, like what if you set up a direct debit of just five bucks? Most people would know about those roundup type services where you can

choose to put it in your superannuation. But you can just do it via a direct debit. You don't need a specific service to set up a direct debit to your superannuation fund, which I always find really funny. You probably are not in this circumstance at all because you fully comprehend the environment. But I think people think that getting money into super is really complex, but it's not. It's BPAY. It's the same as transferring money to your friend that you owe for a coffee. I just think people think superannuation, as I said, the fact that a quarter of Australians haven't even checked their balance in the last year. We're doing ourselves a disservice. Says Houston, we've got a problem. So I would just say there's

overwhelmingly a problem there. I love that. Let's get into those simple steps that we promised people though. We know that on the 1st of July this year, superannuation is increasing to 11.5%. Very, very attractive. We're going up again the year after, which means that we are putting ourselves in the best possible position. It's automatic, but I think that to put ourselves in the best position for an entire lifetime, we really need to be taking more action than just going, great, I'm so glad I'm being paid more super. Because even though we are heading towards a higher superannuation rate, because we started at nine and a half percent and the government realized that is just not enough. That hadn't changed in years. And we're now implementing

a step-by-step process to get us up to where they think is fair. But your lifestyle might not be in line with that. You might go, but Bea, I need more than that. We need to take action. What are some really simple steps that we can take right now to get familiar with super and put ourselves in the best possible position? Download your super fund app and put it on your phone. Log in, check your balance. So many people don't even know that their super funds have apps. It's literally at your fingertips. And then investigate what that's going to translate to as a retirement income. I do have to admit, I don't have my super fund app on my phone. so I feel like these steps might be for me. I'm on top of my super. Please don't get me wrong.

I do occasionally log in online. I've got to be a bit honest here as well. It's not always front of mind, but I know from a hygiene level, it's doing what it needs to do. I'm invested properly. New financial year, checking your stage three tax cuts, what they mean, doing all of your budgeting, download your app at the same time, check your balance, and then actually going into your super fund website to see how much money you need in retirement, to see if there's a gap. And what does that look like? So when we say, and I feel like this is one of those things that- 560,000 is the number. 560. And why is it 560? 560 is the number where you can have a holiday,

you can replace a car if it breaks down, you've got emergency money, you can buy the family presents. That's kind of the number. I love having a number because I feel like so many of us are like, what does that mean? How much do I need in retirement? 560, you're saying that's what we're all working towards. That's a really comfortable retirement where you're not worrying about money. And we all know that at some point, if you're rich, you're rich, it kind of doesn't make you happier. So 560 is when you don't have to worry about money. I love that idea. But if we wanted to work backwards, I've spoken a number of times on the podcast. Again, we'll put a few in the show notes so that you guys have all the tools and resources. I always like to work backwards and

go, well, how much am I earning right now? Once I don't have a mortgage to pay, once I'm not covering all of these school fees, once I'm a little bit leaner, which we hopefully will be in retirement, what does that look like? What kind of income am I going for? And if that 560 amount, which we all should be working towards, isn't enough, we can then go, all right, well, we need to top up a little bit more. We need to change a bit because you've got complete control. But I think as women, we love having a little goal. We love clarity. Setting yourself a goal and recognizing again, depending on what your salary has been, is likely to be, it might be too hard to hit the 560, but again, all is not lost because if you download the app, see how much you've got,

actually understand what the gap is, if there is a gap, then go, right, well, what can I do to fix the gap? Thirdly, I need to look at what I'm invested in. Now, obviously the growthier the investment option, the greater the return, but also the greater the volatility, which is why you need a greater amount of time. So you need to actually understand and consciously make sure you understand what you're invested in and is that a lever you can pull to bridge the gap you then need to look at taking cover so what i mean is if you don't have insurance that can make you poor at retirement too because you could have a life event and then you need to call on your super to bail you out of it which means you have nothing at the end of your working life yeah we don't work

this hard to end up with nothing and it's funny you say insurance i was having this conversation on the last episode i recorded because i was saying to beck who is a very big part of our show that if you are traveling and you can't afford travel insurance, you shouldn't be going. And I feel the same way about life. Like you prioritize your car insurance, but you don't prioritize insurance on your literal life, on your ability to generate an income. But you'll insure an asset that, let's be honest, and if my car broke down tomorrow and I could not replace it because I didn't have insurance, well, I've got an income and I'll save up for a new car. but if my income breaks down because I can't go to work I can't get a new car like it doesn't go

both ways so we need to protect the thing that protects us because I at the end of the day if you said V you have to get rid of every single insurance you have I love a bit of insurance like ex-financial advisor you best believe I have every personal insurance under the sun because I unfortunately have seen the worst of the worst of the world when it comes to people experiencing trauma, people going through events that could have been covered. So I just go, to me, having been through what I've been through, I'm going to have really high levels of all these insurances. But if you said you have to get rid of every single one, Vee, I'd just keep my personal insurance. Yeah, totally. Like my car insurance can go, the insurance that I was bribed into

getting for my iPhone in the bin. I can definitely keep the personal insurance that makes sure that my income is going to be protected in retirement. That's right. I mean, and also too, I mean, just so many of us get cancer and live. It's like, you know, cancer is not a death sentence as it used to be, but you actually might not work for a year. Again, that impacts you super. It impacts your financial and mental wellbeing as well. You're already going through a trash time. Why make it even harder for yourself? But insurance is again, so all of these circumstances are so personal. So as you're going through these steps, downloading the app, looking at what your balance is, understanding what you're invested in, and then looking at

your insurance. It is a very much a Goldilocks scenario with insurance because it could be too hot, too much, not enough based on your circumstances, who needs you, what debt you've got. Because sometimes super insurance is best outside of super rather than inside of super. If you've got some pre-existing conditions, these things all really matter because it can erode your super balance as well. So insurance is really important, but it also can detract from the final outcome of what you retire with if you're not actually paying attention. I love that as someone who works in super, you're like, not all of them should be held by us. Like we should actually have this conversation. No, my personal insurance is not inside super. I can

tell you that much for free. Well, I wasn't going to mention that. If we listen to all my other podcasts, half of my insurances are inside super, half of them are outside super because it makes the most sense. And that's where you need to call my mate Phil at Sky Insurance and set those up. You know what Phil does immediately? He's like, let me look at your super. Let's see what's in there because if there is insurance inside there, that's like gold. Because if it's pre-existing and you guys are probably not going to want me to say this, but we're all about putting our community in the best possible position. It actually doesn't have a lot of exclusions on it. Whereas you might have gone through a life event and that's what triggered you to go and look into insurance in

the first place. And that life event means that we can't cover you for that particular area of insurance anymore. But if it was already default in super, you might be covered. So don't cancel your insurances without getting advice. Yes, you definitely need it. That is the final step. When I was getting advice, consolidating my accounts, and even though I'm heading up advice for one of Australia's biggest funds, insurance is a really niche area. I'm not an expert in insurance. So I went to my insurance advisor and I've got a dodgy thyroid, Graves disease, and I wanted that underwritten. And it was going to be too dear inside super. So I went and got a retail policy outside of super. And once a year, I just do a lump sum rollout to fund the

insurance premium outside of super. So it's cost-effective from a cashflow point of view for me. So there are all these really good things that you can do, but it's so specific to the individual and your health circumstances, your cashflow. If you don't pay attention, it's eroding your balance. 100%. And lastly is getting advice, which you can do through picking up the phone. You mentioned it before and all the simple stuff. This type of thing is super fun, can help you with. If it gets a bit more complicated, you've maybe got some shares, some managed funds. You don't know whether to use your super to put a deposit on a home. That's when your professional advice is

really important. And you can call and have a chat and be like, hey, I've heard of the first home super saver scheme. What does that look like? How would I contribute to that? Is that going to impact my future wealth? The answer is no, because you're going to make additional contributions so that we're never putting future us in a worse off position. However, you can put yourself in the best possible position just by calling them and it's free. Just taking action. I think lots of us go, oh, it's going to be really complicated. It's going to be really hard. It's not, I promise. I've done some maths and this wasn't recent. This is old maths. So I'm just going to spit it out again for the 50th time on the podcast. When I had all of those super funds I mentioned at the

start of the episode, I did some retrospective maths to work out how much I would have saved over the course of my lifetime if I just kept those. 70 grand. I want an additional 70 grand in my super and you know what I've got? An additional 70 grand in my, exactly. But I've got that in my super now over the long term because I actually took action and I looked at my super and I rolled them together into the right fund. We are showing our age a little bit. I have, even though I'm much older than you, but another good thing the government has done is what's called stapling. If you're listening to this and you've only ever had one job, this probably isn't going to apply to you. Must be nice, I've had a million. Because the new law is really that your

super fund is kind of stapled to you. You've got this little monster stapled onto your back that's called super that follows you around everywhere. It's like a little backpack. Yeah, a little backpack that you can feed it up with contributions before or after tax and make sure it's all loved up. So I think that's something to remember. So when you're changing jobs, if you aren't paying attention, your next employer is just going to go with whatever you've got now. Probably a last thing, just side note, make sure you're with a super fund that is performing. Just a shout out to our investment team, number one for growth over 10 years. That's pretty sexy. That's very nice. The head of investment strategy, who's an actuary with a personality. That's rare. I hope

you're paying them well so they stay. Well, it's profit for member. So you don't go and work in industry super to get rich, let's put it that way. No, you definitely don't. Sense of service. Well, sense of service. But I think that's important as well, because for so many of us, our ethics and our morals start to come into play when we're talking about how we invest, right and so many of us think that that just means the product we invest in so like what is my portfolio made up of but it's also important to think about the people that are managing that portfolio and I think that's a really good point that you bring up because if that is really important to you what does that actually look like how do I pick a team that I think are on the same

page as me and then we can pick investments together that make the most sense for my future Yeah, trust and integrity with something. It's almost like a fiduciary because this is money that we're investing for like 50 years on your behalf. When you're downloading the app and you're doing all of those steps of seeing how much you've got in terms of your balance, is it going to be enough? What are you invested in? How much insurance cover have you got? Could you do a bit more? Getting some financial advice, starting with your super fund, just making a conscious decision about, you know, is my fund, are they providing me the services that I need? And is their investment performance competitive and looking over the three, five, 10 years, that's

also, again, things, steps you can take today. It doesn't cost anything to do that level of research. And my favorite resource is actually a resource that the government came out with in September 2022. And that's the MySuper tool. And I think that that's really sexy. And the reason I like it is because there are lots of other comparison websites that exist, right? Like we all know me a cat. And he's really cute. But at the end of the day, lots of super funds are paying to appear in their searches on those websites. And while that is completely fair, that's how those websites work. I think a lot of us didn't understand that for a long time. Whereas this super comparison tool that has been brought out by the government, you guys write really well.

Don't worry. Don't worry. You know that. I know that. Using that is comparing apples with apples. We're not looking at sponsored posts. We're not looking at people who are paying to be on there. That tool shows us the top performing funds. It shows us the low performing funds. Should we be basing our decision on performance though? Absolutely not. We should be basing it on what works with our values, our morals, what we're working towards. But it's a really good base tool that for me is non-biased. Like we're not going to your company's website only. We're going to that going, okay, cool. Hygiene check. They're rating pretty well. And now I want to do a deep dive into individual companies that might suit me. Going back to that stat, only 28% of

women feel financially confident. Well, the only way that's going to improve is if people start doing those things that you've just suggested then, doing a bit of reading about that, self-education. And if you're listening to this, you're already kind of signed up to the principles of self-betterment. I'm biased, but I think you're pretty smart. Yeah, but I think the homework you've got is to pass on these steps to your family and friends and help them download the app do it together sit down with a coffee check your balances together have a little date have a little super date you deserve a wine yeah while doing your super yeah yeah I think you do yeah it'd be good actually to have a little club where you can hold yourselves to account and share go

for it and if you don't have any friends that want to do that the she's on the money community exists so we'll do that yes I love that for us and I have adored this chat I feel like you and I are definitely on the same page but what if we want to learn more about you what if we maybe want to check out your fund where do we learn we just go well you go on to the art.com.au website unfortunately that is all we have time for today if you want to check out Anne and you want to check out art I am going to put all of the links in the show notes so you don't have to do any other work except for checking your own super balance do it do it see you guys next time thank you bye the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your

individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision if you do choose to buy a financial product read the pds tmd and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs victoria divine and she's on the money are authorized representatives of money sherpa pty ltd abn 321-649-27708 afsl 451-289 Thank you.