Are you preparing for retirement?
Monday September 29, 2008
Holding a superannuation fund and working is not all it takes to prepare for retirement. While your employer will add an amount equal to 9% of your earnings to your superannuation fund, there are few individuals for whom this alone will provide a comfortable retirement. How a superannuation fund works is that it should earn you a steady increase in the amount of funds invested in it, but the amount earned depends on the types of superannuation funds you have used as well as economic conditions and when you have added money to it. The earlier money is added to a superannuation fund, the more time that money has to work to make you more. While there is a risk that that money could be lost as well, superannuation funds are designed to generally be stable enough that even when they lose money they will not usually lose very much, and losses are often balanced out eventually by years of larger growth.
Adding extra money to your superannuation fund can be essential to ensuring you have a comfortable retirement, but it is not the end of funding your retirement. Owning a home can be a vital part of retirement investments, for as long as you have already repaid the mortgage, the costs of your retirement accommodation can be reduced to paying rates and any other applicable fees. As more and more people are unwilling to move into retirement homes once they are older, owning a home of some kind can be helpful in avoiding the need to move into inexpensive community accommodation.
Please click on our ESUPERFUND sponsor banner if you are interested in finding out how ESUPERFUND can start you out with a self managed superannuation fund, or feel free to browse our site if you would like to read more about using a superannuation fund.
