Saving for your retirement
With current life expectancies and medical advances we can now look forward to a longer retirement. This means we can expect to spend around half of our working lives in retirement. Superannuation is an excellent vehicle for accumulating wealth and is one of the most tax-effective ways to save for you retirement. It is important to make the right choices about your retirement savings, including selecting a fund that suits your investment horizon and, more importantly, contributing enough money to super to achieve the lifestyle you seek in retirement.With super choice, most Australians can now choose their own superannuation fund. Choosing an investment strategy that suits and risk profile and making contributions above the minimum employer contributions are two of the most powerful ways to build your retirement nest egg.
Why Vanguard's® Personal Superannuation Plan?
We believe it pays to take a long-term view, especially when it comes to your potential standard of living in retirement. Low costs, tax-effectiveness and diversification make indexing a natural fit for most long-term strategies like super.Low fees, a choice of investment options and easy switching facilities make Vanguard's Personal Superannuation Plan a flexible super plan you can use throughout your life. You can contribute directly or through your employer, make spouse contributions or use the plan to build your retirement savings if self-employed. Create your own investment mix using Vanguard's sector investment options or choose a LifeStrategy® diversified option and leave the asset allocation to the experts. Plus, we take all the headaches out of changing super funds with our complimentary rollover service. The minimum initial contribution is $20,000.
Once you've retired you can invest your super benefit into the Vanguard® Personal Pension Plan for a flexible retirement income stream.
| LifeStrategy® diversified options | Investment profile |
| Conservative | Diversified portfolio favouring lower risk income assets. Includes 30% growth assets |
| Balanced | A balanced mix (50:50) of growth and income assets |
| Growth | Diversified portfolio with a bias towards growth assets (70%) |
| High Growth | Growth oriented portfolio with a small allocation to income assets (10%) |
| Sector investment options | |
| Australian Shares | Invests in around 300 Australian companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange |
| International Shares | Invests in around 1,700 shares listed on the exchanges of 22 of the world's major economies |
| International Shares (Hedged) | Invests in around 1,700 shares listed on the exchanges of 22 of the world's major economies. The fund is fully hedged into the Australian dollar, removing the impact of currency movements. |
| Property Securities | Invests in around 30 listed property securities across the retail, office, industrial, tourism and infrastructure sectors |
| Australian Fixed Interest | A diversified portfolio of around 300 fixed interest securities. Issuers include Commonwealth Government, state government, semi-government authorities and corporations. |
| Cash Plus | Mix of Australian cash and high quality, higher yielding debt securities |
Choosing your investment options
Your investment timeframe and attitude to risk are two of the most important factors when choosing your investment strategy . Risk is measured by the potential fluctuations in value of your investments. While higher risk investments are likely to grow higher over the longer term they are likely to fluctuate more widely and more often over shorter time periods.
Potential risk and return
When it comes to investing, usually the higher the potential return the greater the level of risk you will need to undertake. Risk is measured by the potential fluctuations in value of your investments. While higher risk investments are likely to grow higher over the longer term they are likely to fluctuate more widely and more often over shorter time periods. This is why your investment timeframe and attitude to risk is important when choosing your investment strategy.
One way to reduce your risk level is to diversify your portfolio across a variety of asset classes and securities. Because index funds usually invest in all or most of the securities in the index, they are more diversified and a lower risk investment strategy than many actively managed funds.
Risk/return profile
At Vanguard, we believe it's just as important to understand the risks and costs of investing, as it is to know about the rewards.
Our risk/return profiler illustrates the expected risk level and potential return for each of the Vanguard® Personal Super Plan investment options based on historical data. Usually, the higher the potential return the greater the level of risk you will need to undertake.
It's important to remember that past performance is no guarantee of future performance and return profile of each fund may vary from year to year.
LifeStrategy® diversified options
Sector investment options
