This is what my wife and I are doing... We are with Super Help at Allawah NSW (website is www.superhelp.com.au) and set up is $450. This is reasonable, and they give sound instructions. I am really into DD so I had my own investment strategy written prior to even signing up with them, and so their example was not as good as mine (but was fine). I send it in for first audit ($450) a four weeks ago and was told it takes 6 weeks. I really followed their instructions to make it easy for them as I want to pass with flying colours. Plus, as we are "all in" in precious metals it was easy to prepare. While I know the risks to this strategy, I am a firm believer and we want to see how it goes in the next few years. The great thing about SMSF is that you MANAGE IT YOURSELF. I am not a believer in getting others to do it. I enjoy taking care of it, and I also like having the 9% employer contributions in my trustee account each month. I see it. I can invest it. I am in control. Awesome. I have about $6K in cash to cover tax and also to make sure that I don't need to sell to cover any costs. I won't be investing anymore money in the next few months, as I want to build up the cash some more. I took out insurance that I feel is necessary, but as with all investments I will revisit them regularly and also assess all data that is available as things change. I had no idea it took 8 weeks to get the SMSF ready, and then 4 weeks to get the money from my fund. In that time I saw silver go up and up and up and up. When I finally got the cash, it crashed. Fortunately I didn't buy at the top, but on the way down, but what I thought was the bottom was half way down the slope. That is life. That was our choice. I am not overly concerned as I know that silver is all about long term. I would recommend SuperHelp, but if you want personal service, don't get a SMSF. The point is you do 95% of it yourself, and so I am happy with the brief emails from them, as I don't expect much for $450. Just happy to get them to do a professional audit. Hope this helps. ShinyStuff.
Well I met dlaalueren at the SMSF trustees interest group last night in Glen Waverley, Victoria who I met chatting on this board and pointed him to the group. This group charges $3 per meeting which covers the cost of the hire of the hall and your self serve instant coffee. I have been a member of this group for just over a year. They have been going for about 7 years and have about 600 members and the average attendance is about a hundred. This group has nothing to sell they are all SMSF trustees of their own funds and their knowledge on how to run your fund as cheaply as possible is terrific. They often bring in a wide variety of speakers from governement, private SMSF consultants, accountants, lawywers, financial planners etc, etc. The guest speakers are often shocked about how knowledgeble the group is and the detaile questions asked. The group are there to help you. Every meeting starts and ends with a disclaimer that they give no advice just personal opinion and that you must do your own due diligence. Last night was all internal member speakers and started with a one hour presentation of what to watch out for when running your own fund. They highlighted the fact that many of the SMSF free setup crowds are owned now by banks, insurance companies and the like who put you into bank accounts and other services that have secret trailing fees. The other issue is often your financial data is crunched off shore in India or other low wage countries and how secure is that information. The second hour was a detailed continuation on how to value companies via return on equity and how to pick appart annual company reports and data, plus determining when two companies are merging a method to determine is it better to sell and buy back in after the share price falls. Of course there is also time set aside to look at all the dirty dealings that retail, Industry funds and labour governments get up to and the lobbying to try and make it more difficult for people to set up SMSF's and be master of your own destiny. Kind Regards non recourse
Well said nonrecourse. To affirm the meeting was great. I found it very informative and the people were extremely welcoming. I recommend all to check it out.
I'm with e-superfund and have bought silver coins through my SMSF. E-superfund "recommend" you buy from a large bullion dealer like the Perth Mint but they also point out that you dont "have" to. So thanks for the advice e-superfund but Perth Mint can stick it and I buy from whoever I like - just remember to get a receipt. There's also some other paperwork, like you are meant to do a memo stating why you are buying bullion so you do a trustee memo like "buying bullion for capital appreciation and a hedge against inflation" and thats about it. e-superfund is probably the best and cheapest SMSF provider I have found for relatively simple investments. If you going to be going into warrants, options and dabbling on the Mumbai stock market I would think you'd have to look at a more "hands on" SMSF provider. But if you are just investing in some cash, a few shares and some metals, then e-superfund I have found to be VERY cost effective at less than $1,000 a year all up in fees (theirs and ATO fees).
The explosion in SMSF's coupled with the poor returns in shares will have the greedy fund managers pressuring governments to force people out of SMSF's and into retail/industry funds. But as it stands, once you hit 60 you can clean your super fund out anyway and leave the super system entirely if you choose. But I bet the fund managers will be lobbying not only for SMSF's to be wound back but for withdrawal limits to be placed on people once they hit 60, again keeping money in the system for them to milk. E-Superfund make each new SMSF setup an ANZ V2 account which is essentially just a normal online bank account and when you sell shares or whatever, the money must be deposited into this ANZ account and then out to wherever you want. I have no doubt e-superfund get a fee (kickback) from ANZ but you dont have to leave any money in it. In fact my ANZ V2 account with my SMSF has an account balance of $5.00.
