What I wish I’d known about super

Superannuation is a bit like cholesterol – and not just because both have long names. By the time you need to know about it, you wish you’d known more, earlier. It’s not hard to put super on the backburner. Most of us are too busy in the present to worry about something that is strictly for the future.

But you don’t have to become an expert to make the most of your retirement savings. Here’s what you need to know, as opposed to all the technical stuff you don’t want to know.

1 SUPER IS ALL ABOUT COMPOUND INTEREST

And compound interest is wealth-creation magic. Financial planner Laura Menschik, of WLM Financial Services, says saving consistently over many years is a powerful strategy for building wealth, as compounding means you earn interest on your previous interest – much like a snowball grows in size rolling downhill. If you start