The average 40-year-old has $150,000 in super.

You need $1.5 million to retire comfortably. And

here's the part that should terrify you at the current growth

rate. You're never going to close that gap. You're on track to

retire broke at 67. And there's a

small group of Australians who are closing that gap fast. They're

not earning more. They're not working harder. they're just

doing five things differently with their super. In

this episode, I'm breaking down the five strategies, extra

contributions, smart allocation, fee minimization,

tax optimization, and the ultimate hack

that turns $150,000 into millions.

So first, let's look at the numbers because most people don't

and that's why they're screwed. These are the latest averages

from the ASFA, Association of

Superannuation Funds of Australia, and the other sources around

25 to 26 data. For a 30 to 34-year-olds, the average is about 50K. For 35 to 39-year-olds, $85,000 average. For

people 40 to 44, around 120,000K average. For

45 to 49, about $165 average for those. And people 50 to 54, roughly $215,000. People 55 to 59, about $270,000 average.

And for 60 plus, heading towards $300,000. $450K for men and lower for

women. But averages skew high from big balancers. Overall,

the average Aussie retires with maybe, wait

for it, $400,000 total, way short of

what's needed. And these averages are also brought down by

a lot of people who are self-employed, because a lot of self-employed people, it's

not mandatory to put funds into super, and for the

most part, they don't. So they even fall much shorter when

it comes to their retirement savings. So what do you actually

need, though? Well, the ASFA retirement standard done

in September of 2025 quarter, they say

this. For a comfortable lifestyle, singles need $54,240 a

year. Couples, $76,500. Now that's very modest, right? So basics only. To

fund comfortable without full pension reliance, you're

looking at requiring $595,000 as a lump sum for

singles and $690,000 for couples. So let me just recap that once again. If you're retiring today at

60 odd years old, you would need nearly $600,000 in retirement savings as a single and nearly $700,000 as a

couple. Now this also assumes that you own

your own home, and you're on a part pension,

right? So you draw 4% per year safely, and

that's your income. But if you're average at 35 with $85,000 in

super, at a typical 7% return minus fees and inflation, it grows slowly.

So maybe $250,000 to $300,000 by 60. Now that's modest at best. Pinching

pennies, no holidays, basic life. It's not

comfortable, right? You'll be dependent on the pension, which is

$30,000-ish a year. You'll

be doing cheap groceries, no fun. You

probably won't even be able to get your own haircut, right? You can't even

afford that. With Labor rating super for their pet projects, your

growth is hopeless. It's terrible. The

system's rigged to keep you working forever. So

what you're going to say to me is, Matt, how do we fix this? Well,

here are five practical ways to grow your super faster. Do

nothing and you're coasting to meteorocracy. Do

these and you could retire comfy or even earlier.

Okay, so let's have a look at the first one. Maximize concessional contribution,

salary sacrifice or employer extra. Now

the caps are $30,000 for the 25 to 26 year

which includes super guarantee which is 12% now

plus extras. So salary sacrifice pre-tax

money in saves tax at your marginal rate up

to 45% for high income earners and

it grows tax-free in super. Now here's

the example. You earn, let's say,

$100,000 a year. You sacrifice $10,000 extra. So

you pay less tax and your super gets a boost. You

carry forward any unused caps if underway. So

if you're 35 with just $85,000 in super and you're adding $10,000 extra a year, concessional

on top of the super guarantee. It compounds massively.

So over 25 years at that 7% average for

most super funds, that's hundreds of thousands of

extra dollars. Now, stuff the tax man, get

it working for you. So we're gonna start with $85,000, it's compounding at

about 7%, and we're gonna do this over 25 years, and we're gonna add

in that extra $10,000 per year. But we're also gonna add in, a

monthly contribution of roughly $220 per

week, which would be coming out of your normal pay anyway. So

that would take it up to approximately, let's say $13,000 in extra contributions

in that year. So

over that period, it would grow to $1.283 million. So $1,283,000. Okay.

What's the second option? Well, you could pump in non-concessional contributions.

So after-tax top-ups. Now

these are capped at $120,000 a year,

and it has a bring forward rule. So if total super balance

is under 1.76 million, you could dump up

to $360,000 over three years. Now it's great, because

I'm not going to say, we're going to come up with that money. If, for example, you get a

windfall, like you win the lotto, or you sold a boat, or

you got an inheritance. So the benefit with this strategy is,

of course, it's post-tax, but it grows tax-free, there's

no contributions tax, and if you're 40 with $120,000, slam in $100,000 extra in non-concessional contribution,

right? At 7% over 20 years, turns into a fortune. So

you can also use spouse contributions for offsets, too.

So this is how high earners build fast. Don't

leave money on the table. Let's have a look at the calculations. So

on this calculation, you're starting off with $120,000, and you're adding in an extra

$100,000. So it's going to take it up to $220,000. do

the interest component, the growth at 7%, over

20 years now, because obviously we're a bit older, and we're going

to add in that same $220 per month

as your extra pay contributions, and that would take your

earnings, or your super, up to $1 million.

Let's have a look at option number three. Switch to better performing

assets. Ditch those default balance funds,

because default MySuperBalance funds, guess what? 7% to

8% long term, but fees eat it at like 1%, then

you've got inflation at 3%. So real return

is absolute garbage. Switch to high growth options,

more shares, international, or go SMSF for

full control. Now without the extras, average

$85,000 at 35 years old grows to about 400,000 by

60 at 7%. And with better allocation, say between nine

and 10%, way more, right? But traditional,

still limited. Let's have a look at the numbers. So let's compare them.

We started with $85,000 in this scenario at 7% over 25 years. This is our younger person. We're still contributing $220 a

month. Now,

that would get us to $664,000. Let's

go back now and say we allocated to the better performing assets, and

we actually got, let's say, 10%, so an extra 3% compounding.

It now jumps up to $1.3 million,

a huge difference over that time. All right,

let's go to option number four. This is the ultimate

hack. This is allocating into Bitcoin

via SMSF. Now, like I said in the Retired 50 episode,

you can go check that out. But the minimum is $70,000 to be

practical. But you can go all in on Bitcoin just like

I've done. Now, historically, it's had a CAGR of

60%. But long term, it's volatile and past performance

doesn't guarantee future performance. But let's have a look

at our younger person who's 35 who's perhaps got $85,000 in

super. What would it mean if they put all of

their $85,000 in super? So let's say we've

got $85,000 starting and we're not even going to use

60%. Let's just use a 30% conservative number. That's half

that. 30% over 25 years will

still have the contributions of $220 per month. This would grow, just 30%, would grow to $155 million.

That 35-year-old is going to be sitting very, very pretty. Let

me just do the number though. What if they didn't put any more money in whatsoever? So

that $220 per month, let's say they didn't do that at

all. It would still grow to $60 million. So

what I'm saying in this scenario is they rolled all of their existing

super into an SMSF, the full $85,000. And

then as they kept working throughout the years, they didn't put any more

money into Bitcoin. They just left it. And they used that extra

$220 per month and they put it into something else like Tesla or gold or something like

that. it would still bring the Bitcoin value to

$60 million. Totally insane. Now, let's just say you said,

Matt, that's totally nuts. That 30% is ridiculous. What

if it was just 20%? Okay, 20% and they put

nothing else in over the whole rest of their life, it

would still be 8.1 million. Now, if they

decided to actually put in that $220 a month, at 20% still, it would still

grow to then $14 million. So you're definitely gonna be

over that $1 million, if that's what your dream is to retire on.

Now, I've done it. I've put all of my super into

an SMSF and allocated to Bitcoin. My wife's done exactly

the same things after seeing the numbers as well. But you know what? The banks

fight transfers, right? NAB, ANZ, ING,

ComBank. But you need to find the loopholes. Now,

this isn't a diversification play, right? Not at

all. It's about sovereignty. So stop looking at

price because right now, We've had a drawdown by

50%. And the way I see it is this is now the time to stack

Bitcoin. It's on sale. So you can now start stacking

SATs in your super. Now, when you're rolling over your super

into an SMSF and allocating to Bitcoin, you

do need an exchange to actually do this. Most of them are

clunky. They've hidden fees or treat SMSF customers

like an afterthought. But my recommendation for this would

be CoinStash. I personally use them for all of my

crypto SMSF and personal and company. And

they're 100% Aussie owned, fully compliant with

same day onboarding with a dedicated account manager. Now

the link is in the description if you wanna go check them out. Now,

I've just given you the top four hacks, but this number five, this

is the one you've all been waiting for. Compound plus

consistency. This is action, automate, review.

Combine all of the methods that I've just said. Now, of course,

if you want to go for the top method, it's going to be Bitcoin at

number four. But not just that method alone,

but compound and consistency. So allocate

to Bitcoin within an SMSF and do extra contributions

for as long as you possibly can while you can, including all

those extra like max concessional and non-concessional

contributions allocated to Bitcoin. review

it yearly, automate the contributions, and basically, once

that's done, it's a set and forget. Now, what does it

look like? Well, it definitely looks much better than where

you're sitting now, because where you're sitting now is absolute garbage. You're

definitely going to be reliant on the government and the pension

system the way things are going. I don't want that for you. You

want to be looking for really a comfortable or better lifestyle,

right? One where you can actually afford to put the heating on and

pay for the groceries. Now, under the methods I've just shown you, you

would expect to have at least $1 million plus, maybe

$50 million. Maybe if you're much younger and you're allocating sooner, maybe

it's $100 million plus balances. And how much drawdown can

you expect? Which is how much income can you expect each

and every year? At least $50,000 plus. And

for most cases, it's going to be $100,000, $200,000, or

even a million dollars plus every single year as a drawdown.

And definitely no pension relies.

You do not want that you do not want to be dependent on

the state. So it's freedom at 60 or earlier if

you stack Bitcoin outside super as well. Now

look, the average Aussie thinks just plug away,

super will sort me out and they really just don't worry about it. but

they don't look at the numbers, right? So 120K a year,

let's say you're drawing down that at retirement. In

today's dollars, it's going to be nothing in 20 years. Inflation

is going to completely erode that away. Now what about property? It

has hassles and low returns now, and

a lot of government control, but can be

leveraged with banks' money, right? So that's one benefit. What

about stocks? Not bad, but you need to

essentially become a high trading

expert to know what to do with stocks. But

on the other hand, with Bitcoin, it's the king for growth if

you hold long-term and if held in self-custody with

no risk of seizure. So guys, we've covered

the grim averages. I hate to tell you all those things, but

I think it's important for you to know because if you don't know where you're at

now and where you're headed to, You can't make the changes that you need

to. And the earlier you make the changes to your super, the

better off you'll be in retirement. And this is the thing that's why

most people are behind. And by looking

at those five ways to grow your super, max contributions, better

assets, Bitcoin and SMSF hack, and the

entire system rolled together, it's going to set yourself up

better for the future. Because you know what? The system is rigged.

but you can beat it. Now, if you want to know more about all the

strategies I've just talked about, come and join our free

Crypto Collective community online. I give away all

these strategies. I even give a step-by-step guide of

how to set up an SMSF and allocate to Bitcoin. Drop

your comments. Are you happy with your current superannuation

bounce? Or would you like to see it grow much,

much faster and perhaps much, much sooner? Because like what people

are saying right now, Most people won't have enough to even retire by

the time they get to 80 or 90. You may have to keep working. Don't

let that be you, all right? Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Take care.

Thanks for tuning in to Crypto Collective. If you've enjoyed this episode, the

best way to show your support is to leave a five-star review on

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of me at I'm Matthew Fraser on all