If somebody offered to sell you a magical weekly $20 ticket that guaranteed you a lottery win of between $180,000 and $392,000, would you buy it? Sure you would!
A quick look at the maths reveals that if you bought a $20 ticket each week for 35 years, you’d turn $36,120 of lottery ticket spend into a huge sum.
Well, what if Canstar told you that the above returns are 100% achievable. And instead of magical lottery tickets, you can earn the same returns with just a $20 per week investment in your KiwiSaver.
Big lottery win: good luck!
Before we look at the maths behind winning big with a $20 weekly punt on your KiwiSaver, first let’s take a look at what winning the lottery involves.
Each week, as a nation, we spend around $26.5m on Lotto NZ’s various games. And, yes, last year, 45 people did become overnight millionaires. But a hell of a lot more people saw their money go down the gurgler.
A big lottery win is a very hard thing to achieve. It’s an understatement to say that the odds are stacked against you. They are completely bewilderingly against you.
The odds of winning Powerball with one line of numbers is 38,383,800 to 1. If you were presented with 38 million identical suitcases to choose from, could you pick the one with the loot?
Fair enough, if you buy a $20 lottery ticket, you get a few more chances to win. But, still, your chances of winning are infinitesimal. Here’s what a $20 Triple Dip will get you:
Odds of Winning | Average Prize | |
12 Lotto lines | 12 in 3,838,380 | $350,000+ |
12 Powerball lines | 12 in 38,383,800 | $11m+ |
2 Strike lines | 2 in 2,193,360 | $300,00+ |
Big KiwiSaver win: dead cert!
Now you can see that playing Lotto is a good way to lose money, it’s time to reveal how your same $20 weekly stake could boost your retirement savings by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to government statistics, the average 30-year-old has around $10,000 in their KiwiSaver, so we’ll use that as a basis.
In the table below, we’ve taken the latest average five-year returns from three types of funds: balanced, growth and aggressive. We’ve then calculated how much you could earn at those rates if you pay just an extra $20 per week into your KiwiSaver over the next 35 years.
As you can see, the $36,120 that you would have wasted (most probably) on Lotto $20 Triple Dips could have earned you up to $346,206.
Balanced: 5.83% | Growth: 7.35% | Aggressive: 8.69% | |
Initial Deposit | $10,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 |
Regular Deposit | $36,120 | $36,120 | $36,120 |
Total Interest | $137,464 | $227,593 | $346,206 |
Total Savings | $183,584 | $273,713 | $392,326 |
Check your contributions
The easiest way to pay more into your KiwiSaver is to check your contribution level. You can choose to contribute 3%, 4%, 6%, 8% or 10% of your pay to your KiwiSaver account each payday. If you’ve not chosen one of the higher levels already, you will be on the default 3%.
Depending on your weekly wage, increasing your contribution level to just 4% or 6% could have a dramatic effect on your retirement savings. And if you stop buying lottery tickets, it won’t even affect your weekly budget.
Check your KiwiSaver
Unlike winning lottery, making the most of your KiwiSaver relies on more than blind luck. The responsibility of ensuring you’re getting the best returns is all yours. So take the time to review your KiwiSaver and to compare it with other providers. You’ll soon have a clear picture of whether you’re happy with your choice of KiwiSaver provider and your returns.
Ultimately, the more informed you are as a KiwiSaver investor, the better the decisions you’ll be able to make, which should help you build more funds towards retirement or that all-important first-home deposit.
And this is where Canstar can help. Our KiwiSaver dynamic comparison tables put all the information you need at your fingertips, from average five-year returns to fees.
So if you want to discover if you’re getting true value from your KiwiSaver, start comparing providers today by hitting on the button below.
Compare KiwiSaver providers for free with Canstar!
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