0:06

Hello and welcome to It All ends up the podcast where

0:08

we chat about money, how to get it, how to spend

0:10

it and how to invest it. I'm money editor Dom Powell .

0:13

And I'm senior economics writer Jess

0:15

Irvine. And this week, we're diving

0:17

into the somewhat vexed topic

0:19

of private health insurance. What

0:21

is it? Who needs it and what type

0:23

of coverage do you need?

0:25

Yeah, we're also going to talk about our sort of top tips to

0:27

save on on health insurance. If you do

0:30

decide that it's something for you and if you

0:32

have room for it in your budget.

0:33

So we did discuss in a previous

0:36

episode that you currently do not

0:38

have private health insurance.

0:40

Why I don't. And

0:42

I feel like this is sort of like a you know, once

0:45

you get to a certain stage of adulthood, it's like when you

0:47

should why don't you have private health insurance? How strange

0:49

of you sort of thing that.

0:50

It's sort of a rite of passage. Congratulations,

0:52

You're an adult. You have to worry about this stuff.

0:54

You have to pay like however many thousands

0:56

of dollars a year of not that much, but, you know, to

0:59

have private health insurance. No, I don't

1:01

have private health insurance. I have just been relying

1:03

on Medicare for my whole life.

1:06

And as of yet, I haven't found

1:08

a spot where I've actually needed it.

1:10

We did discuss, as you do, progress

1:12

throughout adulthood and you accumulate some pay

1:14

rises, you will push yourself into

1:16

income brackets where you

1:18

get slugged with an extra surcharge if

1:20

you don't have the cover. So I've got

1:23

cover. I've gone through a period of

1:25

sort of phasing right back what I used

1:27

to have. I used to sort of think, oh, private health insurance,

1:29

good, responsible people do that. I

1:31

better have the top level of cover because you know what? I want to

1:33

get sick. And so, like I had top

1:35

level cover, but I've been gradually

1:37

just scaling it back to now. I just have

1:39

a really basic policy. It only costs

1:42

me about 80 bucks a month. It's

1:44

it's just shy of $1,000 a year

1:46

that I pay. And it's basically a

1:48

straight out tax dodge for me. I

1:50

just do it so I don't have to pay the extra levy.

1:53

As for what benefit I would actually get

1:55

from my policy, I don't know. And

1:57

to be honest, I'm a little bit annoyed that I have to get

1:59

it because otherwise I will get tax slugged.

2:02

But yeah, it is something for people

2:05

to have to think about as you become an adult.

2:07

Yeah, and I like to say in my defense, I'm not completely

2:09

negligent about my health. I have things like I have ambulance

2:12

cover, like, you know, so I don't have to pay the

2:14

exorbitant fee. I do have a need to get an ambulance.

2:16

So that's interesting because I do not have ambulance

2:18

cover.

2:18

I'm just not included in your you know, it's.

2:20

Not it's not included in the time that

2:22

I have. So I'm just taking it that big risk

2:25

that if I do have to use an ambulance,

2:27

I'm just going to have to pay the out-of-pocket cost, which

2:30

can vary across states.

2:31

So who's to say whose approach is

2:33

better.

2:34

Whose to say.

2:35

Could possibly.

2:36

We are.

2:36

But yeah, that's true.

2:37

That's the whole point of this podcast.

2:40

You're going to tell people what to do. But

2:42

yeah, so just starting with some basics

2:44

of like what is private health insurance?

2:46

Obviously it's insurance and you pay

2:49

premiums to the insurer if

2:51

you want to access private

2:53

health care. So that can be either in

2:55

separate private hospitals or it

2:57

can be the care delivered by like a private

3:00

specialist which can actually be delivered in

3:02

public hospitals. And you can, you know, get

3:04

private wings or private rooms in public

3:07

hospitals because you don't want as many people

3:09

in there. So it's basically, if you choose

3:11

that, you're not going to access the

3:14

sort of basic Medicare, universal

3:16

health care that's available for everyone. So

3:19

why do you think, as you're thinking through potentially

3:21

taking out a policy, what might be the benefits

3:23

of private health insurance?

3:25

Well, yeah. I mean, this is the thing and I've thought about this

3:27

for a long time. I've just been like, well, I get all

3:29

the health care I need on the public system. Why

3:31

would I pay for more? But I think there's

3:34

definitely been situations where I have had

3:36

something that's gone wrong and I've gone to the hospital

3:38

and said, you know, to the doctor and said, I

3:40

need this to happen. And I go, Right, well, if you had private health insurance,

3:43

we'd get this done next week. But

3:45

because you don't, you're going to have to go on the waiting list.

3:47

And that could be anywhere up to six months

3:49

to a year. So,

3:51

you know, that is obviously one of the major benefits of

3:54

having private health insurance. You sort of skip all the waiting

3:56

lists. You don't have to, you know, wait around

3:58

for the public system to have time to fit

4:00

you in. You just get to go

4:02

into the private system, which

4:04

is much quicker because you paying for it.

4:06

I guess we should just note for everyone to know, it's not

4:08

like America where, you know, you go to hospital

4:11

for emergency, say, you know, if you break your leg,

4:13

please do go to the E.R. departments

4:15

and you will be you will be treated. And that's

4:17

an advantage of being in Australia. I mean,

4:19

another reason why people might not just use that

4:21

system, though, is the government has been

4:23

for several decades now forcing

4:25

us with carrots and sticks in

4:27

policy to take out private health

4:29

insurance to take pressure off the public

4:32

system. So it was the late 1990s

4:35

to take you back there. John Howard was

4:37

in power.

4:38

I was I was about three years old.

4:40

Okay.

4:42

I was I was born in 81. So,

4:44

you know, I do remember this happening

4:46

that, you know, there was public policy changes

4:49

to push people into taking out private

4:51

health insurance. There's the private health

4:53

insurance rebate, which is sort of the carrot

4:55

that there's a bit of a discount off your premiums,

4:58

which depends on your income level, but also this

5:00

stick of the Medicare levy. Surcharge.

5:04

So slugging people with extra tax and

5:06

particularly higher income earners, if they didn't

5:08

take out the policies, you know, sort of

5:10

had varying degrees of success.

5:12

It's a it's about just less than half

5:14

of Australians have private cover. So

5:17

more than half Australians still relying on

5:19

the public system in its entirety.

5:21

And we've we've had a lot of problems with private

5:24

health insurance. Premiums are spiralling

5:26

higher, you know, because if you don't get

5:29

that mass of people in the system, if younger

5:31

people are opting out, that increases

5:33

the premiums for whoever remains

5:35

in. So we've had this what's been called a death spiral

5:38

in premiums. So, you know, it's a tricky

5:41

thing to navigate and it can be quite

5:43

expensive these days to take out the

5:45

private health insurance coverage.

5:47

And one thing this is this is me just

5:49

sort of expressing my disbelief is that private

5:52

health doesn't cover like GP visits. Right.

5:55

If you're going to a non bulk bulk billed clinic

5:57

and you pay your man and you get your Medicare rebate back,

6:00

I was always under the impression that that

6:02

private health covered the the the cost

6:04

that the Medicare rebate didn't cover. But no,

6:07

it there's nothing that's just that's just

6:09

nothing. Right. Like I had no idea.

6:11

Yeah. And I've sort of had several situations

6:13

in my life where I've got out the private health insurance card

6:15

and go like, I swipe this baby. This is

6:18

going to be cheaper. And it's just like, oh, no, that's not part

6:20

of your coverage. And it depends what you have coverage

6:22

for, and that can depend on your policy.

6:25

So, Dom, I want to talk

6:27

you through whether you need private health insurance.

6:29

But I guess more broadly, who needs

6:31

private health insurance?

6:33

Well, I think it's I think from a tax point of view,

6:35

especially anybody on sort of higher incomes

6:37

is probably the number one like from

6:39

purely saving money. So you don't have to pay the Medicare levy

6:41

surcharge if you're earning over

6:44

the typical threshold is 90 K, But, you

6:46

know, it sort of gets more and more

6:48

as you earn more and more. So if you're in that hundred

6:50

K plus sort of bracket, I would say that that

6:52

definitely starts to become something

6:55

that you should consider. But obviously outside

6:57

of that, entirely outside of that, anyone

6:59

with any sort of specific medical

7:01

conditions that require private health,

7:04

things like regular surgeries or

7:06

any sort of chronic illness or anything like that, often

7:09

private health is almost a necessity for

7:11

people to have those sort of conditions. So that

7:13

would be another sort of, you know, major

7:16

bucket of of people who would need private

7:18

health.

7:19

Yeah, In terms of the tax dodge, if you're over

7:21

90,000, it is for singles and

7:23

over $180,000 of

7:25

income for families, you're going to get hit

7:27

with that Medicare levy surcharge and it does

7:29

scale up as well. So just

7:31

taking the case of a single

7:34

if the Medicare levy surcharge kicks

7:36

in at a rate of 1%

7:39

of your income, if you're between 90,000

7:41

and 105,000, it's 1.25%

7:44

for everyone earning between 105

7:47

and 140,000, and

7:49

it tops out at 1.5% for everyone

7:51

earning $140,000

7:54

and above. So if you do the numbers on that, say you're

7:56

on 120 grand, you're going to

7:58

get hit with the 1.25%

8:00

rate. And it's not like taxes, income

8:03

taxes where you only get charged the higher amount

8:05

on that marginal income above the certain threshold

8:07

that's on your whole income. So you

8:09

would actually be paying about 1500

8:12

dollars if you're on that 120 K

8:14

income. So it starts to get a pretty

8:17

hefty whack you're going to get, and particularly

8:19

if you can get a policy like my policy

8:21

is less than $1,000. You know, if

8:23

I was on 120, I'd be saving

8:25

myself $500 from, you

8:27

know, I've had to pay for the thousand

8:30

dollar premiums, but then I've avoided

8:32

the $1,500 in taxes.

8:35

See, I did the maths in terms of, you

8:37

know, the, the amount that I would save

8:40

theoretically in term. But, you know,

8:42

if I did start a very, very basic

8:44

private health cover and it was

8:46

really, really negligible, I think it was like

8:49

maybe a maybe $100 or maybe

8:51

a couple of hundred dollars for the whole year. And

8:53

in the end I was like, No, I'm not

8:55

going to do it.

8:56

Do you know what? That's legit, because

8:58

maybe you might just decide instead of paying

9:01

$1,000 for an insurance policy, I don't

9:03

really think I'm going to use. Maybe I'll just chip

9:05

in the $1,000 to federal government

9:07

coffers and that can pay for some nice stuff,

9:09

you know?

9:10

Exactly. I like to view it as an altruistic

9:12

sort of, you know, giving back to the

9:14

good of of the world. I'm paying

9:16

my taxes. I just think, like

9:19

especially cause that basic level of private health

9:21

cover, the one that is sort of the tax dodge in

9:23

a sense. It doesn't cover things like dental

9:25

often and all that sort of stuff, which is the

9:28

sort of stuff that I would actually use in a year.

9:30

And I was sitting there and thinking like, you know, how many times, you know,

9:32

as I'm going to cover my GP visits is not going to cover my dental,

9:34

it's not going to cover, you know,

9:36

I don't have glasses or anything like that, so I don't need any

9:38

of that sort of stuff. So I was like, Well, I'm done. I don't

9:40

think I'm going to get a huge benefit out of this, but obviously

9:43

each to your own.

9:44

Yeah, and you might just want to keep checking in with

9:46

that as your income goes up as you

9:49

get older because it does reach a point,

9:51

you know, if you are scaling into the higher

9:53

100 thousands of dollars where

9:55

there is, that gap does start to really open

9:57

up. And that is essentially why

9:59

I have it as as the tax dodge.

10:02

Yeah. So that. Side. If people are

10:04

looking at taking out private health insurance policies

10:07

or indeed if you already have one. We

10:09

thought we would give you five handy tips for ways

10:11

to save, because I love a little listicle

10:13

of ways to Save.

10:14

We love lists. Lists are great. So

10:17

number one, which is we've mentioned a couple of times, is

10:19

just going for the absolute basic level

10:21

hospital cover. Like you can look on

10:23

the websites for various private health providers

10:25

and they will sort of often advertise

10:28

these these basic ones. Or you can just get on the phone

10:30

and just call them up and literally just say to them, Hey,

10:33

I just want to I just want to avoid paying the levy. What

10:35

can you give me? What's the absolute most barebones package

10:37

you can give me? And this will mean

10:39

you don't get any extras like

10:42

as we mentioned earlier, like dental and

10:44

optical, which you call optical.

10:46

Optical. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:49

Those sort of things. Those are the sort of stuff that

10:51

people typically talk about when they talk about extras, like, you

10:53

know, chiropractor's and all that sort

10:55

of stuff. You won't get that. You'll just get the sort of

10:57

the basic hospital cover. And

10:59

that just means that you'll avoid the surcharge. So that's

11:02

that's what you should be looking for. If your entire

11:04

purpose of having health insurance is just to stop paying

11:06

extra tax.

11:07

Yeah, that's me. I've literally rung up and had that

11:10

conversation with just I don't know how it makes

11:12

me seem as a person, but I'm just like, I just want to

11:14

avoid paying tax. Please give me your cheapest

11:16

hospital policy. And the hospital

11:18

policies go from basic to

11:20

bronze, silver and gold in

11:22

terms of what they cover you for. So

11:25

if you do choose to go up the scale, I

11:27

always say, you know, do have a read through what

11:29

is included. And if you're young, do you really

11:31

need the hip replacements and the cataract

11:33

coverage and, you know, the weight loss surgery

11:35

and, you know, who knows what will happen? But that's where

11:38

I got into a mess because they show you this

11:40

long list of things that could possibly go wrong

11:42

with you. And I go, Oh, my gosh, my health

11:44

anxiety is at an all time high. I better

11:46

have coverage for everything. Well, I.

11:48

Feel like that's that's how they get you right. Or it's like,

11:50

you know, all this could happen to you. Yeah, you could.

11:52

You could, you know, break your

11:54

toe or something like that. It's like, well, think

11:56

about.

11:57

That. Exactly. And so my number two

11:59

tip, if you are looking at what level

12:01

of coverage is appropriate for your hospital

12:03

policy, is to be aware of something called the

12:05

mental health waiver, because one

12:07

of the things that goes missing in some of the cheaper

12:10

policies is coverage for

12:12

psychiatric admissions. So if you

12:14

you know, maybe you've got some mental health issues in your

12:16

family or you worried that you would

12:18

develop them as you age and you

12:20

need to be admitted to hospital for a psychiatric

12:23

type assessment and admission, they

12:25

actually change the legislation so

12:27

that, you know, you can not have that in your

12:29

coverage and pay for a cheaper policy.

12:32

But every Australian is entitled to, once

12:34

in their life, use this waiver to

12:36

upgrade their existing coverage to

12:38

cover psychiatric admissions. If

12:40

you get to a state where that is necessary

12:43

for you now, you have to already have had.

12:45

You can't just sort of have had no policy

12:47

coverage. But if you've served the waiting periods

12:49

on your existing coverage, you can add

12:51

that on as an optional if you need to

12:53

use those services and if you want to have

12:55

coverage for those. So that's something to keep in mind

12:58

if you're sort of looking at that long list of things

13:00

and going, Oh, I need you know, I feel like I need

13:02

that everyone can have that if if

13:04

you do end up in that situation.

13:06

Yeah. And if you are looking at this long list of things

13:08

and sort of thinking, oh, maybe I'll have this

13:10

and maybe I'll have this, maybe I do need dental, maybe I

13:12

do need optical, maybe I do need a, you know,

13:15

a chiropractor to come and track my back every

13:17

four months or whatever. This is where

13:19

you should be reviewing your extras

13:22

coverage regularly. This is our third tip

13:24

every year. Look at what you did use

13:26

or didn't use during the year and think about

13:28

what you're going to keep and often

13:31

like it's also a matter of using them before they expire

13:33

too. Like often, these things will take over

13:35

on the 31st of December and you it'll

13:38

sort of refresh.

13:39

And some do tick over by

13:41

financial year and some by calendar year. You

13:43

check your one, but there should be an almighty

13:45

rush at the end of the year for you to go scurrying

13:47

around. If you have extra coverage.

13:49

You get.

13:49

To go to the dentist.

13:51

Glasses or you know, go do whatever.

13:53

And that is also why it's quite hard to get

13:55

an appointment with a lot of small allied health

13:58

professionals towards the end of the year because everyone's doing exactly

14:00

the same thing.

14:00

It's trying to max out the the extras

14:02

coverage, but just to know that, you know, the policies

14:05

come as hospitals or extras

14:07

cover or having them both together.

14:09

You don't need the extras cover to avoid

14:11

the Medicare levy surcharge. You only need an

14:13

eligible hospital cover. So just

14:15

to stress that the extras are completely

14:18

optional for you and they do try to upsell

14:20

you with all of that, really do

14:22

the sums to make sure you're going to get more back

14:24

in benefits than you were paying premiums

14:26

on an extras policy. So the fourth

14:29

tip and this is one of my favourite strategies

14:31

for saving on insurance, but that I'm a bit of a dare

14:33

devil is to choose a higher

14:35

excess. So your excess is

14:37

the amount that you agree to pay out of

14:39

pocket in the event of a claim.

14:42

So with private health insurance,

14:44

it's set by the government. They determine what

14:46

the maximum allowable excesses

14:48

are on policies. Which is like because

14:50

of my car insurance, I think my excess is set

14:52

to like a thousand or $2,000,

14:55

meaning that there's lots of claims that just wouldn't be

14:57

worth making because my out-of-pocket cost

14:59

of my excess is so large. So

15:01

the government set it at $750

15:04

as the excess for private health insurance for singles

15:07

and $1,500 for

15:09

couples. And that has increased in recent

15:11

years. So if you haven't reviewed your private health insurance

15:13

for a while, there may now be an option

15:15

for you to. Increase your access to those

15:18

what might be higher amounts that what you've got them sit

15:20

at. And when you have the higher access you pay

15:22

lower premiums on ongoing. So it

15:24

is a bit of a gamble because if you have to claim

15:27

you're going to be out of pocket, but if you don't

15:29

claim it, you can just reap those savings.

15:31

And often you can not claim for long

15:33

enough that the savings that you've made would

15:36

sort of add up to what the out-of-pocket cost

15:38

could be. So it's a bit of a a

15:41

gamble. But, you know, if you if you're

15:43

a young, healthy person and you're not being admitted to hospital

15:45

for cataract surgery and all the rest

15:47

of the things on your hospital policies, definitely

15:49

playing with your excess is one way that you can look

15:51

at. And particularly if you have someone who's looking at dropping

15:53

coverage altogether, you know, with things are getting more expensive.

15:56

You know, if you're just looking for ways to make it cheaper

15:59

for you to have a call to your

16:01

insurer and talk about the excess.

16:03

Yeah, I mean, I think if I was to get private health, I would

16:05

have my access set at the absolute maximum because

16:08

I don't get admitted to hospital particularly

16:10

frequently and I don't plan to be so.

16:12

I mean, obviously no one plans to be

16:14

right. You know, you're not sitting there to be like, Damn, I think I'm going to get

16:16

into a car accident tomorrow. But, you know, like I

16:19

you know, you're right. Younger, healthy people can probably afford

16:21

to have a higher excess. And just

16:23

finally, sort of the perennial tip when it comes to anything

16:26

like this is just shopping around, making sure

16:28

that you don't just go through the single whatever

16:31

your mum's on or whatever your friends are on. Make

16:33

sure you you go and look at

16:35

various different things. The government website is w

16:37

w w dot private health look of that are you,

16:39

which is where you can go and have a look

16:41

a little bit, little bit of looking, compare some of

16:43

the different products that are out there.

16:45

Yeah. I've actually used that one and found it not

16:47

particularly great of the government

16:50

comparison websites, but it is worth having

16:52

a little look you know all those websites

16:54

like canstar finder compare the market

16:57

you know just put compare health insurance

16:59

policies and some of them you have to give

17:01

away your life details and they'll then

17:03

seriously call you on your mobile

17:05

phone and you have to ignore it for several weeks

17:08

if you don't actually want if you're just trying to test the market

17:10

and find out what the prices are, but just ringing

17:12

up and ringing up and seeing what discounts

17:15

are, just asking for a discount. They're now allowed

17:17

to offer younger people discounts,

17:19

which they weren't allowed to do before. Sometimes

17:21

you can get 6 to 8 weeks, you know, free

17:23

premiums, you know, for signing up.

17:26

And another little tip is also

17:28

to ask if your employer, if

17:30

you have sort of one salaried job, has

17:33

an a corporate discount. So I think for

17:35

our employer, I'm getting about an extra

17:37

5% off just because they had some

17:39

arrangements. So you just ask, are there

17:41

any corporate discounts or sort of bulk discounts

17:44

that you could apply and just have a little bit

17:46

of a haggle?

17:47

That sounds pretty good. I didn't realise that we got a discount

17:49

through public event. So

17:51

yeah, there's a bit of some, some tips and ideas for

17:53

you. If you're like me and you're fairly

17:56

uncertain about the world of private health

17:58

insurance, I still

18:00

even now, even now, having talked about

18:02

it for a good 20 minutes, I still think I'm not

18:05

going to get private health insurance, but that obviously

18:07

my situation might change.

18:08

I'll just see how you go with your pay rises in

18:10

future years.

18:11

Well, sure. I mean, maybe if I maybe I

18:13

start to, you know, increase my pay and then

18:15

it becomes much more sensible to get private health.

18:17

But we'll see. But look, the listener

18:19

question this week. We say it every week, but we always

18:21

enjoy getting them. So please keep sending them through too.

18:23

It all adds up at nine.com.au o'clock today. You

18:26

and this one is from Angela. She says,

18:29

My husband and I are in our thirties and we've started

18:31

considering moving our super into an SME F

18:33

or a self-managed super fund so that we can

18:35

get into the property market for investment purposes.

18:38

However, she's looking at the set up and ongoing

18:41

costs of managing it and is getting

18:43

a bit unsure. I want to know what

18:45

we think and if it's still worth it for

18:48

people like Angela and her husband who

18:50

want to get into the property market but don't have enough

18:52

of a deposit for a place if they can

18:54

do it through the MSF. Just

18:57

what do you think on this one?

18:58

Yeah, so I have reached the level

19:00

of expert adulting that I have

19:02

now recently done the numbers for myself as to whether

19:04

it would make sense for me to set up a self-managed

19:07

super fund. And the exciting thing

19:09

in that space is that there has

19:11

been the proliferation of a lot of

19:14

SMSF administrators and they sort

19:16

of they have technological online platforms

19:18

that look after your tax and auditing

19:21

obligations. And so there's

19:23

one called a super fund, which will do it for

19:25

about $1,000.99

19:28

a year. And if you can start to compare

19:30

that once you get on a bigger balance. So,

19:33

I mean, I've been fairly open that my super balance

19:35

is $350,000 now.

19:37

And if I pay 1% fees on that,

19:39

it's about sort of three. We're getting over

19:42

$3,000 in

19:44

fees, although I've just switched super fund

19:46

and this is my weekend column and it's absolutely

19:48

slashed that to about $300.

19:51

So that is exciting

19:53

because I was like, I don't want to be paying 3000.

19:56

Would it just actually be cheaper to have an SMS?

19:58

If so, you do that. You

20:00

can also like Stake is a brokerage

20:03

app and they also have an SMSF platform

20:05

if you're just investing purely in shares and that's

20:07

about $990,

20:09

there's a few extra fees that go on anyway.

20:11

So the point is that it's a mess if administration

20:14

is getting cheaper, although. When

20:16

you start to talk about investing in property,

20:19

that makes your tax a little bit more complicated

20:22

and you can incur some extra costs

20:24

from accountants and sort of keeping

20:26

all that above board because there's very strict

20:29

rules about what you can and cannot hold in an

20:31

estimate. If and if the purpose of it has to

20:33

be to fund your retirement. So,

20:36

you know, I would just say to Angela, because something

20:38

that she's mentioned in the you know, thinking

20:41

about an estimate off because they want to get

20:43

into a property because they don't have a

20:45

big enough deposit to buy their own,

20:47

you know, principal residence. I

20:49

sort of just go, oh, if

20:51

you're setting up an estimate, if you sort of

20:53

want to be at the level where you've got assets that they're

20:55

high enough, that it makes it

20:58

worthwhile to have those administration

21:00

costs. So, you know, if maybe

21:03

this is not the direction to go in, I

21:05

mean, I have a personal bias towards

21:08

getting a house to live in because

21:10

the great tax advantages there. So,

21:12

I mean, my feedback, Angela,

21:14

if I could be in the room with you is to sort of talk to you

21:16

a little bit more about why you think you don't have the deposit

21:19

to get into property

21:21

ownership of your principal residence, because there's a

21:23

lot of schemes to get people in with low deposits.

21:25

House prices are coming down. So that's

21:28

where I would be putting my attention before, during

21:30

and a semester off. But, you know, you can

21:32

you can look at it, but just also be aware there

21:34

are ultra low super fund fees

21:37

out there as well by some of this industry.

21:39

Super funds have got really low fees

21:41

and I've just switched to one where I think I'm going to be paying

21:43

about 2.1% from

21:46

1% to about 2.1%.

21:48

So stay tuned.

21:50

Just to sort of tie that off. Angela,

21:53

I would sort of be in agreeance with

21:55

Jessica that, you know, there are schemes, there

21:57

are schemes that literally allow you to save

21:59

your super for a house deposit,

22:02

you know, like you can. There are many,

22:04

many, many ways which I think would be probably better

22:06

to look into a better use of time and money than

22:09

possibly setting up an SMSF in your

22:11

thirties. So that's, that's sort of that's how

22:13

I would, would approach it.

22:14

Yeah, they're a bit trendy at the moment, you know

22:17

some assets and everyone wants control. And part of that is

22:19

because the super industry's fleeced us for fees

22:21

for so long that we're all now like,

22:23

wouldn't it just be cheaper to do it ourselves? But that's

22:26

not the direction I've ended up

22:28

in. But of course, everyone's personal circumstances

22:31

are different and there may be things we don't know about

22:33

Angela's set up anyway, but that's

22:35

just some thoughts there.

22:37

Indeed. And just lastly,

22:39

your budget tip of the week. What is it?

22:41

Yes. So this is a a summer

22:44

holidays themed tip. This is

22:46

for people who are going away on holidays

22:48

and maybe going away on group holidays

22:50

with family, Friends with family

22:52

is often you can sort of end up incurring

22:55

a lot of expenses. You know, you go out for lunch,

22:57

you go out for dinner, you're buying things, and

22:59

it's hard to remember who's paid for what.

23:02

And if there tends to be a serial offender in

23:04

the group who sort of just puts it on the group

23:06

tab and never ends up buying the particular

23:08

round. There are apps and my favourite

23:11

one to use is called Kitty Split, so I've used

23:13

that on the girls weekends when we go away

23:15

and just if you have an expense, you lodge

23:17

it into the group. It's just

23:19

a website actually. It's not an app that we

23:21

used, it's just a browser. You lodge

23:24

all the money that you've spent and you can apportion it to

23:26

who participated in that particular event.

23:29

And then at the end it spits out, you know, you

23:31

owe this person this amount

23:33

and you can, you know, reconcile it all. And so

23:35

it's just a little way to sort of avoid if you're the person

23:37

who ends up sort of picking up the tab

23:40

because you're a generous hearted person, this

23:42

might be one to suggest for the group.

23:44

Yes, it's funny because we do

23:46

that in my friendship group. We do that

23:48

for any weekends away that we do. But

23:51

instead of using an app like this, which

23:53

would make a lot of sense and be really easy, we

23:56

have one person who knows how to use Excel

23:59

and we all give our expenses to that person.

24:01

And that person makes a very complex spreadsheet

24:03

which works out exactly who everyone

24:06

is owed and how much they paid for things.

24:08

Is that is.

24:09

That a goal? Okay.

24:11

And can I meet this person? Because I think we would

24:13

get along.

24:13

Yeah, I'm. I'm sure you would. He's an

24:15

Excel wizard. And this

24:18

is just the way that we we've done expenses for like, I think

24:20

like the last like four years for any like group

24:22

trip or anything. And it's, it's notoriously inefficient,

24:25

it's a terrible way and I, I still don't trust

24:27

the guy. I don't know how to excel work. So I think something

24:29

like this would be much better. Yeah.

24:30

Kitty split was the No. There are other ones too,

24:33

so you just google some alternatives. But yeah.

24:35

Happy holidays everyone.

24:37

Thanks again for listening this week. We will

24:39

be back next week with another episode. See

24:41

you.

24:41

Next week. This

24:45

episode of It All Adds Up was produced

24:47

by Chee Wong. The information discussed

24:49

is general in nature and does not take

24:51

into account your personal financial situation,

24:54

goals or objectives. You should always

24:56

do your own research or get professional

24:58

advice before making any major financial

25:01

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