Ask the Professional: The market is rife with doom and gloom – there’s no higher time to wage sacrifice

Query 1

• Ought to I wage sacrifice to my tremendous whereas the market is performing poorly?

Sure, it is best to.

Almost everybody has heard of the saying ‘purchase low, promote excessive’ and intuitively it is smart. Why wouldn’t you wish to purchase when shares fall in worth and are successfully ‘on sale’?

It’s as a result of when markets are having a nasty patch there may be numerous negativity round and this then feeds on itself and extra individuals are promoting somewhat than shopping for, additional pushing costs down ever extra.

Issues brings me to one in every of Warren Buffett’s well-known quotes: “Be fearful when others are grasping, and grasping when others are fearful.”

Once more, this is smart, however it may be laborious to do if you find yourself seeing additional market falls and within the information it’s all doom and gloom.

Wage sacrificing frequently, no matter what markets are doing, lets you benefit from dollar-cost averaging.

Greenback-cost averaging includes investing a set amount of cash at common intervals.

By investing this manner you aren’t making an attempt to time the market, as that is close to inconceivable to do. Reasonably, you’re investing a set greenback quantity no matter funding market traits.

And that is precisely what is occurring along with your employer SG contributions.

Let’s have a look at an instance. Say you wage sacrifice $100 per pay right into a ‘balanced’ fund.

Within the first couple of months the unit worth drops from $20 to $10, however after six months it has recovered again to its unique $20 worth:

As you possibly can see, the common worth paid per unit is just $15.65. You now have 38.4 items that are valued at $768 (38.4 x $20) that could be a revenue of $168 ($768-$600).

Superannuation and dollar-cost averaging go effectively collectively as tremendous is a long-term funding. So don’t fear about short-term market actions and follow your long-term targets and funding targets.

Query 2

• My spouse (70) and I (68) are each on the age pension. We’ve solely $230k in tremendous and personal our townhouse and all different belongings with no money owed. We appear to be coping and dwelling a standard life. Am I being optimistic? I see you coping with individuals anxious about not having sufficient tremendous but they appear to have far more than us. I’ve all the time discovered if we run out we might all the time borrow towards the townhouse. Ought to we be anxious and evaluation our state of affairs?

It’s good to be optimistic. If you’re coping and have sufficient funds to dwell the kind of life you need, then your optimism appears effectively positioned.

You might be appropriate in that many individuals do fear about operating out of cash, and what occurs is they’re then too scared to spend an excessive amount of cash and find yourself dying with massive quantities of tremendous nonetheless sitting of their accounts.

This isn’t a superb use of their cash, until that they had a particular aim of leaving these funds as an inheritance.

Some {couples} are glad to dwell on an quantity simply above the age pension, of say about $45,000 a 12 months. Others wish to dwell on what ASFA considers a ‘snug’ retirement of about $70,000 a 12 months.

And, after all, some will desire a greater revenue nonetheless.

In case your present revenue is assembly your way of life necessities with out depleting your tremendous too quick, that’s nice.

And keep in mind as you become older you are inclined to go on holidays much less and spend much less on leisure. Whereas you will have some extra medical bills, total, your bills usually go down.

As you’ve got stated, an possibility for dwelling house owners is to make use of some fairness of their dwelling to supply them with extra revenue if required. This may be finished via Centrelink’s dwelling fairness entry scheme.

Query 3

• Can a superannuation fund be held in joint names? Or can a fund in a single identify have the identify of a partner added in order that it continues after the loss of life of 1 companion?

No. Tremendous can solely ever be held in a single particular person’s identify.

In case your partner dies, and you’re the beneficiary, the tremendous fund might provide the possibility of commencing or persevering with a superannuation revenue stream (account-based pension) with the proceeds. Or the funds can merely be cashed out.

Nevertheless, the funds can’t be left within the accumulation section of tremendous after loss of life.

Craig Sankey is a licensed monetary adviser and head of Technical Providers & Recommendation Enablement at Business Fund Providers

Disclaimer: The responses supplied are common in nature, and whereas they’re prompted by the questions requested, they’ve been ready with out considering all of your targets, monetary state of affairs or wants.

Earlier than counting on any of the data, please be certain that you think about the appropriateness of the data on your targets, monetary state of affairs or wants. To the extent that it’s permitted by regulation, no accountability for errors or omissions is accepted by IFS and its representatives.

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