Super 101: Understanding Superannuation for Women in 2026

Your super could be one of the biggest assets you ever own. But how much do you actually know about it?

For most women, the answer is probably: not much.

We know we're supposed to have super. We know our employer pays it. We might occasionally check the balance.

But do you know where your super is invested? Whether you're in the right investment option? Whether your employer is paying you correctly? Or what happens to your super when you die?

And here's the uncomfortable part: women currently retire with around 25% less super than men.

In the first episode of our five-part series, Making Aussie Women Super at Super, Molly sits down with Ruth Weaver, Team Leader and Key Client Education at Australian Retirement Trust, to answer the questions most of us should have asked years ago.

No jargon. No finance-speak. Just the stuff you actually need to know.

In this episode:

• Why women retire with less super than men, and what you can actually do about it
• How super works and where your money goes once it lands in your account
• How to check whether your employer is paying the correct 12%
• What your investment option actually means, from conservative to high growth
• How to work out whether your super is invested appropriately for you
• Why constantly switching your super investments could hurt your returns
• How salary sacrifice can help you build more super
• What the $30,000 concessional contributions cap means
• The super check most women put off, but really shouldn't
• Why your beneficiary nomination could be one of the most important decisions you make
• Three things you can do this week to take control of your super

Because you don't need to become a finance expert.

You just need to understand what's happening to your money while you're busy living your life.

This episode is proudly brought to you by Australian Retirement Trust, trusted by over 2.4 million members.

The opinions and comments shared by people in this podcast are theirs alone. The information was accurate at the time of recording. This is general information only and is not based on your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider these factors and read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination before making any decision about any financial product. If you’re still unsure, speak with a financial adviser.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Introduction: Welcome to the Get Rich Super Series
00:35 – What Is Salary Sacrificing? A Simple Explanation
01:26 – Salary Sacrifice Example: $100 in Your Bank vs Your Super
02:02 – Does Salary Sacrificing Work for Everyone?
02:55 – High Income Earners and the Super Contribution Cap
03:17 – Low Income Earners: When Salary Sacrificing Doesn't Pay Off
04:08 – How Salary Sacrificing Actually Works, Step by Step
04:48 – Will You Notice It In Your Pay? What Really Happens
05:34 – Salary Sacrifice vs Lump-Sum Super Contributions
06:01 – DIY Salary Sacrifice: Claiming a Tax Deduction Yourself
07:33 – Salary Sacrificing for Self-Employed Women
09:00 – Self-Employed Super: When (and When Not) to Claim a Tax Deduction
10:15 – Government Co-Contribution: How to Get Up to $500 Back
11:22 – What Is LISTO? The Low Income Super Tax Offset Explained
12:52 – Super Contribution Caps: The 2026 Increase to $32,500
13:29 – What Is the Carry-Forward Rule for Super Contributions?
15:56 – The Bucket Analogy: Understanding Unused Concessional Caps
16:40 – How to Check Your Super Contribution Limits on myGov
17:29 – How to Set Up Salary Sacrificing With Your Employer
18:03 – Can You Stop or Change Salary Sacrificing Anytime?
18:49 – Salary Sacrificing a Car vs Salary Sacrificing Into Super
19:22 – Recap and General Advice Disclaimer

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TAKEAWAYS

SOUND BITES

"You're sacrificing a little bit of money today for a lot more money in the future."
"So salary sacrifice is saying, 'Do I want 68 in my bank or 85 in my super?' That's what salary sacrifice is."
"I made a rule with myself very early on that I'm always gonna pay myself super."
"You put in $1,000, you get $500 back from the government."
"It's only a commitment each time you do it, you can stop."

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Welcome to our special five-part Get Rich series on superannuation, where we are helping Aussie women get super at super. This series is proudly brought to you by the Australian Retirement Trust, trusted by over 2.4 million members. So over the next five episodes, we are making sense of super. So let's get into this week's episode. And just a quick note, everything we cover is general information only and does not take into account your personal situation. So consider seeking professional advice before making any big finance or fashion decisions.

[00:00:35] We're talking about salary sacrificing. Now, when I even say the word salary sacrificing, it's like, it sounds pretty intense. What are, what are you sacrificing? It sounds like, you know, it's not a good thing. But for someone who's like, "I've heard of salary sacrificing, don't quite understand it," what is it?

[00:00:53] You're sacrificing a little bit of money today for a lot more money in the future. The way salary sacrifice works is through your employer. And you're saying to your employer, "I know that superannuation is a very tax-effective strategy," or way to build up wealth. And money that goes into superannuation is normally taxed at 15%. Most of us pay way more than that in our marginal tax. We might, like, pay 30 to 40%. Somewhere between 30 or 40. Most people are 32%, roughly.

[00:01:26] So say I had $100. And I said, "Right, I can do two things with this $100." I can give it to my bank account, and if I do that, let's say I earned 80 grand a year. If I took that $100, 'cause my tax rate's 32%, I'd have 68 in my bank. Or I could go to payroll or say to payroll, "Can I salary sacrifice $100?" And that would only get taxed at 15%, which means it would be 85 in super. So salary sacrifice is saying, "Do I want 68 in my bank or 85 in my super?" That's what salary sacrifice is.

[00:02:02] And does salary sacrificing work for everyone, or is there some situations or some stages of life where maybe it's not for you?

[00:02:11] It doesn't work for everybody. So the first, and probably the less common, is for very high income earners. Because there is limits on how much money can go into your superannuation account at that 15% rate. So your employer's using up a lot of that limit, which is 30,000 at the moment, and it will increase later on in the year to be 32 and a half thousand. Your employer is putting money in, and the amount they put in is part of that limit. Then you can salary sacrifice the difference. If, though, you earn a lot of money, and your employer is putting a lot of contributions in there, well, then you might not be able to salary sacrifice 'cause you'll have got to that limit already.

[00:02:55] And what would you say is a lot? 'Cause I know people listening will be like, "Well, what is a lot? A high income earner?"

[00:02:58] Well, the 15% tax changes when you earn an income of about 225 plus. Because if you think about that, then you add on your super contributions, then an extra tax might start to trickle in. But if you're under about 200,000, you can generally use salary sacrifice quite effectively. So that's one end of the scale. The other end of the scale is the lower income earners, Molly, because if you're, say you're someone that's working one day a week. Maybe you've had a baby or you're studying, and you're doing one day of work a week. Well, you're not probably going to be paying much tax anyway, right? So the first 18-odd thousand that we earn is tax-free.

[00:03:36] So how does 15% tax look attractive if you're not paying tax on it?

[00:03:42] So for salary sacrifice, generally, once your income is sitting around, you know, in the higher 40s, so somewhere between 45 or 46,000, you start to see some kind of a benefit for it. The higher the tax you pay, the better the salary sacrifice is going to be, or the better benefit you'll get from it. So very high income earners and very low income earners are the two that don't generally get the same benefit.

[00:04:05] Maybe not as helpful. Okay. That's really good to know.

[00:04:08] And can you walk us through what actually happens with the money? Like, how does it move? And how does it work?

[00:04:15] So if you're salary sacrificing, and you said to payroll, "I wanna salary sacrifice $100," they would put that into your superannuation account when they're making their employer contribution usually. So it gets added on to the employer contribution. Now, you'll see it on your statement sometimes as a salary sacrifice, or whatever way your super fund discloses that. When it gets into the account, then the super fund puts it or invests it in the investment options that you've allocated or the default option that you're in. So it gets invested.

[00:04:48] So if I set up salary sacrificing, would I be likely to feel it in my, like, weekly or fortnightly pay?

[00:04:52] Probably not as much as you think. So if we think back to that first example, let's say you were going to do $100 a month. You are not going to see $100 a month from your pay. Depending on your marginal tax bracket, you might see, say, if your tax rate is 32%, you'll miss 68 a month. If your tax bracket's higher, if you're earning an even higher income, and you're on the 39% tax bracket, for example, you might only miss $61 a month. So it depends on your tax bracket, but you definitely don't see the same level of loss in your bank account than what you've nominated. Because remember, it's pre-tax money that's going in, not after tax.

[00:05:34] And just in really simple terms, what's the difference between me salary sacrificing or me just putting money into my super at the end of financial year?

[00:05:43] Well, it depends on why you're putting it in. So you're getting to the end of the financial year, are you putting it in because you forgot to salary sacrifice? So let's say you're listening to this and you think, "Oh, I didn't even know that was a thing, and I could have been doing this all along and getting this concession." There's a DIY version of it if you don't have a nice payroll lady to talk to. And you think, "You know what? I would rather do this myself." You could, if you had $1,000 in your bank account, put that $1,000 into your super. You would do it like a bank transfer. So you'd have a BPAY and a reference number for your super account, and you just do it like an EFT from your bank account. And then you have two options. You either leave it as it is, and that's called an after-tax contribution. So it's your own money. Or you can say, "I would like to claim a tax deduction on that." And you tell the super fund you're gonna claim a tax deduction, and you go through the process, and the funds will have on their websites how to do that.

[00:06:41] And that's a form generally you fill out?

[00:06:42] Yeah, it's a form. It's a notice of intent to claim a tax deduction. It's on the ATO website. We've got it on our website as well under the contributions page. Most funds probably do. You fill out the form, and you tell the super fund, "That $1,000 that I put in, I'm gonna be claiming a tax deduction on it." So what the super fund does then is say, "Ah, so this would've been like a salary sacrifice. We'll take 15% tax off it." And then you lodge your tax return. I call it DIY salary sacrifice. The benefit is exactly the same, but you're doing the work instead of payroll. It's very common for people who, for example, didn't know salary sacrifice was a thing. Maybe they thought they were closer to the limit and then realized, "Oh, I actually still have a bit more," and they want to kinda use it up. Couple of reasons why you might do it that way.

[00:07:33] And what about self-employed people? Is that when you would do it as well?

[00:07:35] Yeah. So historically, it was only self-employed people that could do it that way.

[00:07:39] My husband is self-employed, and the problem with self-employed people, or the challenge rather than problem, is you don't have an employer to pay super for you, because you're the employer and the employee.

[00:07:53] And you're actually not obligated. There's no rules to say if you're self-employed, you have to pay into super. So if you are self-employed, be really careful, and I know it's difficult when you're self-employed and you've got some money and you're starting, you wanna reinvest it back to your business or do things. But just remember that one day you will retire, too, and if you haven't been making some kind of contributions into super, you might find yourself quite vulnerable. So if you are going to put money into super as a self-employed person, historically, that's how people would've done it. Bank account into super, and where it made sense based on your tax rate, claimed it as a tax deduction.

[00:08:28] Which is what I've done as a self-employed person, because I made a rule with myself very early on that I'm always gonna pay myself super, and I'm gonna make that the priority, because I just meet so many amazing women who've had great businesses, but they've got no super. And it's sad. It's really sad. Yeah, and they've got very high incomes throughout their working life sometimes. They live very well. And a lot of it is not because they didn't want to contribute, they just really weren't aware of the benefits of it, number one, but the impacts of not having any, number two.

[00:08:57] And I think as well when you're self-employed, sometimes you can have, like, lumpy income, so you get big chunks here, big chunks there. Like, maybe you work off a bonus.

[00:09:08] That's it. And so I guess that would be a good example for when you might wanna do that chunk at the end of financial year.

[00:09:18] That's exactly right. And also, Molly, you know, you might have a year where you haven't earned a lot. There are years when you're self-employed that maybe income was very low for whatever reason. So you don't always have to claim a tax deduction on it. So I said where it makes sense. And remember, if your income from that particular year was quite low, maybe it doesn't make sense to claim a tax deduction on it, because the tax wasn't high enough to get the benefit from it. So there's also incentives for lower income earners to just put money in from their bank accounts. That's called after tax or non-concessional. It basically means, look, I'm not looking for any tax concessions. The money is in the bank account. If it's in the bank account, it's already been taxed somewhere along the way. I just wanna put it into super, and I don't want it to catch tax again. That's called an after tax contribution. You put 1,000 in, the super fund leaves it as 1,000. You ain't claiming any tax deductions.

[00:10:15] And if you're a lower income earner, so say you're earning roughly less than about 45,000, if you can get $1,000 into your account, the government can reward you with up to $500 as part of the government co-contribution. So if salary sacrifice isn't gonna give you a benefit because you're a low income earner, you don't have to salary sacrifice. Put it in. And I did this myself when I was going through having my own kids.

[00:10:39] I was gonna say, it's great for if you're taking time off to look after kids or elderly parents.

[00:10:43] Definitely. You put in $1,000, you get $500 back from the government. And you don't have to put the $1,000 in one hit. I used to have a direct debit for $20 a week coming out of my bank, and then I would lodge my tax return, and I'd get $500 reward. And I did that for about seven years, so when my kids were all really small. So there are different ways to get money in, but there's also different incentives. It all comes down generally to your income, right? So all the incentives and the reasons you might use one or another, it'll all come back to what's your income. So just be mindful of what would work best for you. And again, if you are someone who's taking some time off work, we have a whole episode on how you can actually catch back up.

[00:11:22] Now, we talked about the government co-contribution and obviously the salary sacrificing, but are there any other government top-ups or benefits alongside salary sacrificing that women might not know about that they should?

[00:11:37] Well, it's probably just something that happens anyway, whether you're aware of it or not. And it's, again, those very low-income earners. So for those individuals who are earning 37-odd thousand or below, generally, there is this thing called LISTO. LISTO is the Low-Income Super Tax Offset. It happens automatically. You don't need to do anything, and if you qualify for it, you'll just get it. But remember how I said when your employer is paying money in, whether it's the employer's contribution or whether it's your salary sacrifice, it catches a 15% tax going in.

[00:12:11] And I said, "Well, why would I salary sacrifice if I'm a very low-income earner and I don't even pay that?" So if you think about the employer amount that goes in, and that catches 15%, that's also not fair. LISTO reimburses, to an extent, that tax back into your account. So that's another government incentive to say, "Look, we understand 15% is not really attractive to you, so therefore we'll reimburse the tax that your employer contribution also caught." And that's going to increase. The thresholds for that will increase in 2027. So it's gonna be a lot more people actually picking up that rebated tax. But they don't have to do anything. It just will happen automatically.

[00:12:52] Love that. The government will pick that one up.

[00:12:54] So that's the lower-income end of the scale. Now, we talked about salary sacrifice, and right now it's a $30,000 limit, but on 1 July 2026, it'll be 32 and a half thousand. That includes your employer contribution, right? But let's say you've paid down the mortgage, kids are now independent, you've got a bit of disposable income for the first time in your life, and you're thinking, "Now's my chance. I'm now going to pump money into this really tax-effective system." And then you see the 32 and a half thousand and you go, "Oh, that's really restricting me." Well, there is a thing called the carry-forward amount, the concessional carry-forward amount. And what it means is even though we all start our financial years with the 30,000 or the 32 and a half, in actual fact, what's happening is the government are looking back at the four previous financial years as well. And if you never reached that limit before in the last four years, you're bringing the unused amounts with you. Which really means that there's many of the ladies listening to this that could have 100,000 or 80,000 to work with in this financial year, however.

[00:14:01] Red flag. If your balance is over 500,000 on 30 June, you cannot do that. So this is why you've got to be really aware of the opportunities when they come around. And you've also got to be mindful that if you're in the high 400s right now, and your plan was to use this strategy, once you get to 500,000, you can't use it. So don't wait too long for these things to become available.

[00:14:27] The other thing, Molly, is with that particular strategy and the 500,000, is the way the government look at that. So let's say we're in this financial year, and your oldest financial year is '22-'23, or maybe it's the one before that. But let's just say it's '22-'23, and you didn't really work much that year, or earn much. So, in this example, can we say, like, that 30,000 or that threshold, they're buckets?

[00:15:03] Like they're buckets, and you've only put a little bit of sand in the bucket, so there's lots of leftover space. That amount carried on to the next year. But if the government are looking at it, and you might say, "Oh, that year, I didn't really put anything in." So out of the 30,000, and it used to be 27 and a half, but let's just make it easy, out of that amount, I only had 10,000 go in. So I might have brought about 20,000 into the next year, which means the next year I could have had a $50,000 limit. If you've got one financial year where there was very little and you had a big amount that you were able to bring, they get rid of that first. So the oldest year goes away first. Don't lose that opportunity. So you might be saying, "Oh, I'll eventually get to it." They don't average it out. The oldest unused amount is done first. So if your best year is about to be finished, you need to get onto it now.

[00:15:44] That's good to know. So a lot of people forget that. They think, "Oh, well, it'll carry forward anyway." The oldest year is the one that's gone, and if that's where your best opportunity is, don't leave it too long.

[00:15:56] So how I visualize this is, like, you've got four buckets from the previous year, and you've got a bucket full of money that you can go back and top up with, like, let's say that's sand. You can go back and top up that bucket with sand, the next bucket with sand, 'cause you've only used certain amounts. But if the bucket's replaced, right? Yeah, the bucket's replaced, so you'll lose that bucket, which might be empty. That's exactly right.

[00:16:20] So I don't know if that makes sense for those listening.

[00:16:23] It made sense to me. But the buckets in my head made sense. That is really good to know, 'cause I did not know that. 'Cause a lot of people lose the opportunity on maybe one of the financial years that they were holding, where a lot of that amount is coming from. Then we go into the next financial year, and they realize, "Oh, no."

[00:16:37] And I'm sure they can call up their super fund, and they can help them.

[00:16:40] They can, but an even easier way to do it is to go to your myGov account. So if you go to your myGov account, go to the ATO page, there is a super section on there, and there's a little tab at the top, and there's a dropdown box. And in the dropdown box, it's a bit of a mouthful, and I can't remember the exact terminology, but it's something like, um, unused concessional carry-forward limit. And you'd click that. It's going to tell you what you're working with this financial year. So it's been adding it up for you anyway. You don't have to go to the super fund. And the best thing about that is if you have multiple funds as well, and you only ring one, and you might forget you did something with the other one earlier on, you might find yourself not calculating it properly. I think the ATO is the best source of truth for that one.

[00:17:24] Gosh, Ruth, we just need you through all elements of our super.

[00:17:29] And for people who are employed, and they wanna set up salary sacrificing, they're like, "This sounds so good, I need to get onto this," do they contact HR or payroll?

[00:17:40] Usually. So most employers will have some sort of digital form on their intranet. If you're with a smaller employer, just pop in and see the payroll lady, and they'll do it for you. If you're with a bigger corporation, they usually have platforms and digital forms. But talk to payroll. It's not the super fund. If you're salary sacrificing, it is your employer, and it is payroll.

[00:18:03] A couple of things. Some of the things I've heard people say is, "Oh, it's a big commitment." Well, it's only a commitment each time you do it, you can stop. You're not locking salary sacrifice in for the rest of your working life. You might decide that things are a bit tight at the moment, I'm gonna stop this. You might say things are better at the moment, I wanna do more. So you can change it. Now, some employers, if you've got a cranky payroll lady, she might not want you changing it every week. They might say, "We allow you to change it, there's certain windows throughout the year you can change it." But it's definitely not something that you're locked into for life. You can absolutely increase, decrease, cancel it.

[00:18:51] So you hear that, ladies? You can go speak to payroll or HR, and then if you're self-employed, you can do those yourself, to yourself. Put it in from the bank account and claim a tax deduction. But you've just gotta make sure, DIY, to fill out the notice of intent to claim.

[00:19:03] And I've heard of people contributing extra money, and it goes towards, like, a car or something like that. Is that different to-

[00:19:06] Yeah, it is. You can hear the terminology sacrificing, salary sacrificing. It's not really always connected to super. So that's kind of separate to superannuation. Salary sacrificing into super is just the money going into super, and that's where you'd only get the tax benefit, for the 15% tax. Sacrificing things outside of super is very different. So that's a different conversation.

[00:19:22] Awesome. Well, thank you, Ruth, for helping us make Aussie women super at super.

[00:19:26] You're so welcome.

[00:19:29] Thanks for listening. Now, remember that this was just general information, and it might not be right for you. Super rules can be complicated, and they change over time, so make sure you consider your own situation before acting on any of what we've talked about. For more information about today's episode, check out the show notes.

KEYWORDS
Salary sacrificing, Superannuation for women, Government co-contribution super, LISTO (Low, Income Super Tax Offset), Concessional contributions cap, Carry-forward, contributions super, Unused concessional cap, Super for self-employed, Notice of intent to claim tax deduction, Non-concessional contributions, Super contribution limits 2026, Salary sacrifice calculator, Boost your super, Super tax deduction, myGov super contributions, ATO super contribution limits, Pre-tax super contributions, Australian Retirement Trust