The Beginning of Empowerment.

In the quest for personal independence, I finally sat down and looked at all my Superannuation paperwork. Which in actuality is envelopes stuffed with reports and balance sheets and reams of paper that would equal at least half a tree’s worth of waste. I'm not sure about you, but Superannuation is all about retirement, which is so far off in the future that I really don't think about it. I would have to sit down and mentally figure out when I would be eligible to retire…. 2030. I will be eligible to retire in 2030, and that’s so far away I don't think many people my age are thinking seriously about it at all. All this thought about retirement, superannuation and the future makes me feel as if it would be easier to put my hands over my ears and sing “La La La” off key and pretend that its not real.

But today I opened the many envelopes from the superannuation fund companies that have cluttered my desk with thoughts of ‘someday soon’, pulled out the balance sheets and really looked at the figures. I looked at the fees the management funds deducted from my account. I looked at the average growth of each fund and the returns on the money they had invested on my behalf. To my horror, I saw that one fund was so out of date with my identifying information that it had me with my former husband’s surname, that is, the husband I had before Game Boy. A name that I haven’t used since mid 2000. A quick phone call and now I know what I need to do to fix that minor oversight.

Sadly for me there isn’t a whole lot of money in the accounts that I do own. That’s the downside of being a casual teacher and having worked in a foreign country, not having a regular pay cheque to put towards my super. I also inwardly fume at the advice that the so called lawyer who handled my divorce from Pondscum told me, to forget about fighting for the superannuation from him, that it wouldn't be worth the fight. Nevertheless, I do have several small amounts that when rolled over into one account gain me around $1300. Over the course of one year, given the figures from the past year of 16% growth, that $1300 will grow to $1500. In ten years, that figure would be around $5700, and that isn’t so bad for money that I'm not allowed to touch under Australia law until I retire. That doesn’t factor in that in a few years when Sweetpea will be at school and I can return to the workforce and start really adding money to the mix.

One of my resolutions for the coming year was to start working towards true independence for myself. Today I took a step, albeit a small one, towards being responsible for my money: it feels empowering.