Q&A

At 79, Carlos is “hanging up his boots” as a result of the lockdowns

Choose a low-cost, high-quality manager for your $1.6m

Q I wrote to you about three years ago, but I was never acknowledged in your Q&A column. I know that you must be overwhelmed with questions, but I am trying again.

I am 79 and my wife is 72. I have been working up to now, but with all the lockdowns in Victoria the company I work for is closing. During the years we have accumulated $800,000 each in MLC. For 22 years we each paid about $120 monthly to an MLC adviser for virtually no advice. Reluctantly, now is the time to hang up my boots. As I have no other income, I need to start drawing a pension. I am thinking of switching to an industry balanced pension fund (set and forget) seeing that I know nothing about the stockmarket.

The question is, which one? In Money’s 2019, 2020 and 2021 Best of the Best, AustralianSuper, Hostplus, Sunsuper and Cbus caught my attention. With your valued knowledge, if you were in my position, where would you invest? Our house is fully paid off and we have no other income. Would it be a good idea for each of us to go into two different funds so as not to have all our eggs in one basket.

I am