This month has really been the journey of the missing Super.
As I was preparing for this months net worth update.
I began happily peering over our asset column on the spreadsheet I maintain which lists all Mr. and Mrs. Firebug’s assets worth, less their debt (if they have any attached).
The Super column for Mrs Firebug seem way too low. I had not noticed this before but I was certain that it should have been higher.
Well, it turns out that Mrs FB had multiple Super accounts that needed to be rolled over from previous jobs!
She had around $17K of Super from previous jobs.
For anyone that doesn’t understand what this means. Let me explain it really quickly.
It’s possible to have Super in multiple funds. This usually happens because you jump from job to job and each job’s payroll automatically put you in their default Super fund. Over time you may have changed jobs a bit and that will most likely mean that you have Super in multiple accounts. This is bad because you’re paying fees and sometimes insurances (life insurance for example) multiple times when you could just have all your money in one account and pay it once. When you consolidate your Super funds into one it is referred to as rolling your Super over.
The process to rollover your Super is so incredibly simple that I urge you to do it just in case. All you have to do is ring or email your current Super company and ask if they can investigate lost Super on your behalf…That’s it!
It took 2 weeks and she received a letter from her Super company with three other Super accounts that were being rolled over.
Could not have been easier.
So easy in fact that she suggested I should give my Super company a ring to see if I had any floating around out there.
“Sweety! Plez. I run a personal finance blog. You don’t think I had this covered off years ago? This is something only n00bs do. I’ll do it for shits and giggles but they ain’t ganna find anything I guarantee you”
**Fast forward 2 weeks**
Turns out that I had around $3K out there from a job I’d completely forgotten about when I was 16
Moral of the story.
Contact your Super fund and have them chase up any missing Super for you. It takes 1 minute to do…do it now…right now.
The other little bump that was out of the ordinary this month was an insurance claim I had put in for loss of rent on one of my properties. I won’t go into the back story but in a nut-shell, I had been paying the interest repayments on one of the properties for about 3 months. The three months back pay came into my account once my claim was approved. It was around $4.5K which bumped this month up a bit.
I might do a post about the whole fiasco another time. It was just another reminder that having a big cash buffer is essential when investing in real estate.
Net Worth Update
About $20K from super that was missing was the huge bump this month.
I also had an insurance claim payment go through (about $4.5K). Good month of saving ($6K) and ETF’s went up.
Overall an excellent month and my biggest ever monthly increase.
Oh, and I finally hit $300K! Whooohoooo!!!!
Properties
No change in any of the properties for this month.
*DISCLAIMER*
Various data sources (RP data, Domain.com etc.) are used in combination of what similar surrounding properties were sold for to calculate an estimate. This is an official Commonwealth bank estimate and one which they use to approve loans.
ETFs
ETFs went up slightly. I believe that dividend payments are around the corner too. Looking forward to those 🙂 (hover over to see $$$ figures)
Networth
Congrats AF!!!!
So hilarious your super story. If I didn’t know I moved to Australia 3 years ago (one employer) I would definitely be calling my super fund as I type this, dreaming to find a few orphan $K.
Your story also illustrates the importance of reviewing your finances periodically. It will help you find these “black holes”. Yesterday I was running my monthly balance review when I found out that I accidentally paid EnergyAustralia TWICE on my latest bill.
Anyway, keep up with the FI work! I would love to hear your story rega the rent fiasco. I’m about to buy my first IP and I’m freaking out.
Saludos!
Congrats AF!!!!
So hilarious your super story. If I didn’t know I moved to Australia 3 years ago (one employer) I would definitely be calling my super fund as I type this, dreaming to find a few orphan $K.
Your story also illustrates the importance of reviewing your finances periodically. It will help you find these “black holes”. Yesterday I was running my monthly balance review when I found out that I accidentally paid EnergyAustralia TWICE on my latest bill. Not sure how it happened but without a periodical balance check, you will miss money, no doubt!
Anyway, keep up with the FI work! I would love to hear your story rega the rent fiasco. I’m about to buy my first IP and I’m freaking out.
Saludos!
Couldn’t agree more. Checking your finances regularly is essential.
It’s quite a long story about the claim. I will do a post about it once it’s all over. Stay tuned
Hi
There is billions sitting in lost super, so a lovely find if any of it is yours.
I am interested in your insurance claim for loss of rent. Why was the property vacant that you can claim on it, if you don’t mind my asking?
It was not vacant. It’s a long story. It’s still not finished yet so when it’s done I will write a post.
The joys or RE investing. Sometimes ya gotta love a plain old boring ETF haha
Does your Net Worth Graph not update until Jan 2018? You’re at over $300K Net Worth but the graphs not showing it.
I sorta have only been doing that graph every 6 months. It gets too squashed otherwise with the dates at the bottom.
The table lists the current net worth with monthly updates
Any reason why your Net Worth graph doesn’t go up to your actual Net Worth amount? Is it waiting until Jan 2018?
The first $300k is the hardest… from there it’s like a video game set to ‘Easy’ and using cheat mode till FI. Congrats!
Every time my IP’s go up it feels like cheat mode already haha. Not so much when they dip though.
Finally starting to feel like a decent chunk of wealth. Can’t wait until we hit $400K
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Nice work! What kind of insurance do you have that covers vacancy? Or was there a big scary story behind the vacancy that meant insurance got involved?
I have the standard home and landlord insurance combo that all RE investors should have. There is a story behind it, it wasn’t a vacancy per se.
I will do a post once it’s all cleared up 🙂
Great job on the missing super and hitting 300K!
Look forward to following your journey 🙂
Thanks 🙂
Hey! I am from Melbourne as well. Very cool blog to read, I”ll come back often. 🙂
Thank you 🙂
Cheers
I did this recently too and even though I kinda knew I had another super account, I didn’t realise how much was in there. An extra 3k for me too. Not a bad increase for something I already worked for.
Yeah, it’s a nice surprise that’s for sure. Unbelieve how much lost Super that’s going around.
It really is, does it still accumulate earnings while is it dormant?
It does. But the fees also chew away at them too.
Really appreciate the detail you go in to!Keep it up
No worries. Will do 🙂