Super Fund fees have been in the news lately and I don’t know if you know, but Super Funds charge us $30 billion in fees every year. This has to stop! “Why not take some of that $30 billion and give it back to ourselves, to help us in our retirement? Why do we give the Super Funds all these fees and charges?”

Below are three tips to help you reduce your Super Funds fees.

The first tip is, consolidate your Super Funds. I know it seems obvious, but you know what, I sit with a lot of clients who have multiple Super Funds and they haven’t consolidated their super as yet. If you have multiple Super Funds, the first thing that I highly recommend you to do, to reduce the fees, is to consolidate them all into one. Having multiple Super Funds, and if you’re not contributing to them, your account balance is being eaten up with all these fees. You know what? You worked hard for your money and super is your money, so why, why do you want to give all of those fees and charges to your Super Funds? So make sure you consolidate your Super Funds into one fund.

My second tip is to look at your current super and see what your super is charging you. Super Funds charge what we call direct fees and indirect fees. So the direct fees would be, your accounts keeping fees and admin fees, items that you’ll be able to see on your statements. Indirect fees are fees that you don’t usually see on your statements such as investment costs fees. So it’s extremely important to find out what your current Super Fund is charging you. You’ll be able to do this by looking at your statements or looking at the product disclosure statement or just calling up your super and asking them. They’ll be able to go through your current Super Fund and let you know exactly what your fees and charges are.

The third tip, once you know what your fees and charges are on your superfund, compare your super with what’s in the market. By comparing your super, you’ll be able to see whether your fund is more expensive or not. If it is more expensive, it may mean that it has a lot of bells and whistles that you may not need. If you are after a simple Super Fund, that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, then try and look for a fund that is simple and easy. Saving 1% pa in fees or a few hundred dollars per year, over a 20 or a 30-year timeframe, equates to $10,000s+ more money back into your account to help fund your retirement. Just remember to compare apples with apples. That’s very, very important when you are comparing your current Super Fund to what’s on the market.

So the three tips, that I have for you today in terms of looking at consolidating or reducing your fees, are:

1. Consolidating all your super funds – very, very important.
2. Finding out what your current Super Fund is charging you.
3. Compare your current Super Fund to what’s in the market by going online or speaking to a professional.

Here at Better Financial Tomorrow, we have a system in place, that will help you to determine what your super fund fees are, but more importantly, is to find the right Super Fund for you because every Super Fund is different and the right one will depend on what your circumstances are. You may need a Super Fund that has a little bit more features and benefits or you may need a Super Fund that’s very, very basic and simple. I highly recommend you speak to someone with regards to choosing the right Super Fund.

So, lets put some of the $30 billion, in fees and charges, back into our own pockets to help us fund our retirement.