Book Review > Do It Yourself Superannuation - A practical guide to setting up and managing a personal superannuation fund - 4th Edition

The book covers a wide range of issues and is a good overview for someone who wishes to consider and/or start DIY super. It is an easy read and is laid out well with some chapters including useful checklists. However more actual examples of some of the ways of going about the DIY process would have made the book more complete.
The first few chapters describes the advantages and costs of DIY super and who should and who should not go for DIY super. Particularly revealing for me was the discussion on the limitations of the fund management industry and the misleading advertising by some organisations as to their independence.
One quote from the book is "The investment community does not learn from mistakes" and that is significant to me as I feel that is one thing that I have got through managing my own super fund is to learn from my mistakes - hopefully the right things. Other important points include advertisements that purport to be DIY fund managers but are in reality traditional fund managers coming up with a new angle in the grab for business. This first section is a must for anyone wondering about whether DIY is for them or not and certainly encourages one to go DIY if the amount involved is large enough (over (what I thought was a relatively low figure) $100,000).
Part 2 discusses options and benefits of DIY according to various possible individual situations and goes through the administration requirements providing useful checklists. Once one has been through the text and understands the concepts the checklists make it an easy check that the basics have been covered.
Part 3 covers how to run the fund's investments. This is a good section but I would have thought more detail including actual examples of how to complete the DIY administration would have been more appropriate as there are plenty of books that cover investing principle. However, the material is good with an outline of principles one should follow. A friend who I discussed the content with remarked that all investors should have the listed principles taped to their bathroom mirror to remind themselves every morning before they make any investment decision during the day!
Particularly interesting is the need to be able to separate fact from fallacy and the accompanying fallacy/fact analysis of many of the investment mores often espoused in the popular investment press such as "property values never go down" and so on. The various types of investments of share market, property, fixed interest bearing investments, and the more exotic are described and the advantages and disadvantages of each particularly in relation to Super are discussed.
Timing in property is recommended and the benefits of mortgage funds are outlined along with a calculation guide to calculate the value of a fixed interest investment.
Chapter 12 lists where to get independent advice. The difficulties of knowing who is independent and who is not are discussed and the chapter also outlines who to go to and when if one feels "wronged".
Part 4 outlines how to set policy and strategy for a DIY fund. It gives one example of each but again more discussion and actual examples and the application of these would have been more useful for someone setting up a DIY fund. Good is the discussion on how to determine one's capital allocation principles. The importance of cash flow is emphasised.
The last part goes into more advice on how to manage your DIY fund and be disciplined about it. Useful examples of how to lay out records are also provided.
Overall well worth the money for anyone wondering about setting up a DIY fund and who needs to understand the issues but it does not give all the answers in the actual doing. More actual examples and discussion as to where these might apply at the expense of inclusion of some of the investment guidelines would have made the book more applicable to the subject area and helpful to those already managing their fund. Gives good advice as to the problems in the investment advice and fund management areas and how to deal with these short comings.