After watching the performance of our personal superannuation and testing our investing know-how through an Investment Partnership with 10 other friends, Caroline and I are about to press the button on starting an SMSF - a Self Managed Superannuation Fund.

We think the benefits of making our own investment decisions will be enormous. For a start, the fees will be a LOT lower and that alone will make a huge difference to the final value of our super funds. Currently we pay a 4% entry fee and a 1.8% management fee. Based on our current funds, an SMSF will take about 1% to run with no entry fees and this will reduce as the fund grows as it is essentially fixed.

The ability to make sensible taxation decisions about dividends with franking credits and to really exploit the power of compounding capital gain will also prove to be a boon. As long as we make good investments of course. I’ll keep blogging with our progress and experiences so join in with your own if you feel like it.