Nicole’s super boosters: 7 ways to swell your super fund in a single financial year

With the clock ticking until you happily clock off for good, you don’t want to let any of this bonus retirement wealth go to waste.

By Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon

If you’re a few years out from retirement (or even a few years into), there are ways to easily and cheaply boost your super in each of those years.

Indeed, there are – legitimately – free extra contributions available.

And, with the clock ticking until you happily clock off, you don’t want to let any of this bonus retirement wealth go to waste.

Here are 7 strategies to swell your super – at the last vital minute.

Let’s start with that free money…

Super hack 1: Claim the government co-contribution

You must still be earning in some capacity to get this one but if those earnings are under $60,400, you’re quite literally in the money.

Under a scheme called the super co-contribution, $500 free is available to eligible Australians every 12 months. And that eligibility resets each 1 July.

To qualify, you have to contribute $1000 after tax into your super fund throughout the year. But think about it: that’s only $19.25 a week – which might even be about an equal amount to what you’re getting extra in your pay each week thanks to the recent stage 3 tax cuts.

In fact, for someone squarely in the ballpark of this opportunity, on $50,000 a year, the tax cut adds $18 a week. 

You get the full $500 annual government super top-up on income up to $45,401, phasing down and running out at that $60,400 mentioned above.

Provided you have paid in the requisite $1000, the bonus $500 will simply land in your super fund after the end of the financial year.

Super hack 2: Help your spouse

Now, this one does not technically give you free super – it’s about your partner instead and it is a little costly up front – but it could make a lot of difference to your loved one and to your family’s ultimate finances. 

What’s more, it nets you a guaranteed $540 tax offset. Which you could make count doubly by paying into your super.

The spouse super contribution is designed to help equalise the super balances of couples where one person may have a far more paltry balance (hello child-raising females). To help balance things out, the higher earning spouse can pay into the super of a low-earning one. 

To get the maximum offset available, the contribution needs to be $3,000 after tax and the partner whose super you’re topping up needs to be on income less than $37,000; you still receive some offset up to $40,000 income, though. 

For this one, your spouse does not need to be working.

And it could make a massive difference to both of your super balances.

Super hack 3: Run a ruler over your fund

I’m going to break this right down to dollar amounts to show just how crucial it is.

Let’s say you have $500,000 in super today – what difference does it make if you earn 6% or 9%?

The difference is $30,839 added a year at 6% or $46,903 at 9% (with compounding assumed to be monthly). Over five years, that becomes a difference of $108,416 more… or less.

And that’s ignoring any contributions in that time.

The past financial year, SuperRatings estimates the median Balanced fund (that means the middle fund in the ranking of those with 60 to 76 percent invested in shares) made its members 8.8 percent.

That’s good, especially after market volatility persisted in the first part of last financial year; they have made a strong turn around since November 2023.

But don’t just look at performance over one year – your fund manager needs to have made the grade in all sorts of different conditions. Over three years the median returned 4.7 percent, over 5 the number was 6.2 percent and over 10, 7 percent.

Did yours measure up? If not, you can now easily switch funds – and compare your fund’s performance – at the ATO’s YourSuper.  

Super hack 4: Check your fees and insurance

The sensible assumptions on ASIC’s excellent super calculator at moneysmart.gov.au are a good benchmark to judge your own fund against.

These are a $74 annual administration fee and an 0.85 per cent investment cost, the last one being a percentage of your fund.  

There may well be default insurance costs on top of this, even if you add nothing extra. Just remember that while insurance in super might be cheaper (because it is issued on a group, rather than individual, basis), the premiums still erode your super stash. 

Note that the historic investment returns mentioned last point are net of fees.

Super hack 5: Get what’s yours 

The ‘superannuation guarantee’ – what your boss must pay on your behalf – went up from 11 percent to 11.5 percent as the clock struck midnight on last financial year on 30 June.

Make sure you’re enjoying the extra… unless it is stipulated in your contract that it’s at the expense of your pay (some ‘total employment cost’ or ‘total package value’ contracts actually allow a reduction! As in, if your super goes up, your salary goes down). 

Know, too, that the silly rule requiring you to earn $450 a month from an employer before you trigger super payments was removed two financial years ago (on 1 July, 2022). 

And your boss must remit your super quarterly (in 2 years’ time, this will change to at the same time as each pay to crack down on super-avoidance)  or you can report them.

You can do this on the ATO’s website.

This financial year’s payment due dates – similar every financial year – are 28 July, 28 October, 28 January, and 28 April.

Super hack 6: Use super to slash your tax

A powerful thing called an intent to claim form lets you turn an after-tax contribution to super into a before-tax one.

And if you sold some shares or property and made a capital gain, this can dramatically slash your tax on that gain.

In the first place, these have to be from your own pocket and, of course, after tax.

There are also limits on how much you can contribute a year – $30,000 from 1 July, but you can also mop-up unused contributions from the past five years.

All you do is use the form to claim a deduction for them.

Super hack 7: Claim your lost super 

Aussies have $16 billion in lost and unclaimed super, which is $2.1 billion more since just 2021.

Lost super is where your fund hasn’t been able to contact you for 12 months or you haven’t made a contribution for the past 5 years. (There were 320,000 such accounts in June 2023.)

It’s all sitting there for you to claim… but if you have any lost super that has subsequently been designated as unclaimed, you want to do so urgently: this is held by the ATO and no longer invested in markets or earning you any money. 

Thankfully, all you need to do is go to your ATO profile through MyGov or do a super health check, and you can shift lost or unclaimed accounts into your existing fund.

You can also call the ATO’s lost super line on 13 28 65.

And in more good news, since 2021, your super fund has been ‘stapled’ to your tax file number – if you move jobs, it moves with you, removing the risk of losing it in the future… and preventing you from collecting multiple funds.

This has been a big issue in the past – multiple funds mean multiple fees. If you hold some duplicates, again, you’ll be able to see these and can also consolidate them into one via MyGov.

All or even any of the above could add thousands to your retirement kitty in this tax year alone – and make for a far sweeter retirement.  

Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon is the author of How to Get Mortgage-Free Like Me, available at www.nicolessmartmoney.com. Follow Nicole on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

^{Advice given in this article is general in nature and does not take into account your personal circumstances. It is not intended to influence readers' decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.}

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