I am a long-term share investor, I began share trading in my early 20s after attending a night school course to learn the fundamentals of the Australian Stock Exchange. The Australian Stock Exchange better known as the ASX was located on St Georges Terrace and still had boards with chalk boys running around. You could go in and see them at work running around, I eventually worked with one of the old chalkies on a mine site near Laverton after they went electronic in the early 90s.

As I was a young guy working in the mining sector back in those days, I was investing my hard earned dollars in Australian shares. I purchased a newsletter Your Money Weekly from Ian Huntley, I was put onto this by my stockbroker and I would read and review each newsletter as if my life depended on it. I would call my stockbroker when I was on night shift, discuss the market and make purchases with the funds I had just earned.

I was also involved in margin lending, this is where I would borrow money from a credit provider arm owned by the Westpac bank to purchase shares. For a 21 year old, this was a risky investment strategy as I had only put a 10% deposit on a property [requiring mortgage insurance] to purchase the property that I still live in today. Whilst I still have the option to

In the mid-1990s I decided to open a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) to do my own investing. In the early 1990s superannuation became mandatory in Australia, I had a private superannuation account that I joined as an 18 year old. Despite all the promises from National Mutual, this was a high fee, low return account that was really set up to benefit the advisor and not the ##. For me to get out of this fund, I would be fined an enormous amount of money, this was a quasi life insurance fund with high upfront fees and a declining penalty to get out.

I still needed an industry superannuation account as employers would not pay into my private super fund or my SMSF. So for a long time, I was paying fees on four accounts. This was devastating financially, I was being ripped off and there was nothing I could do as I had a contract with National Mutual, then sold to AXA, the French financial company and later to AMP, the Australian investment company.

My fund was on-sold to a series of financial advisors within these corporations who offered me no services of benefit at all, this was a scam affecting my long-term financial viability. After 25 years of membership, all I ended up with was half a year’s salary at current earnings – pathetic. They held me to the initial contract, I have really regretted these managed funds, I decided I could do better myself and created my own investment fund that is performing far better than what they offered.

I also had a state government fund that I was required to join when I began my government employment in the mid 2000s. I did not understand it at the time but this is my best performing fund. The fund’s benefits were so good that they prevented new members from joining a year after I was employed, the fund was closed to new members. I am lucky that they have grandfathered the tax deferred status of the fund, I effectively pay no tax on my earnings until I withdraw an income. Since I have also closed my private superannuation fund where tax was already paid and rolled the proceeds into this fund, I will not pay tax on my withdrawal.

Yet, what has been able to resurrect from this financial catastrophe was the independence of my SMSF where I control my investments. At this point in my life, I am making regular post tax contributions and I am attempting to get my cash balance down and share investments higher. I cannot get caught up in my mistakes, I can only build on my successes and learn from these mistakes and opportunity cost.

The intent is to be fully invested and use the share dividends to fund my retirement, I use dividend forecasting and attempt to maintain my level of contributions. I will also be drawing down my state government superannuation account for my primary income, this will form my secondary retirement income once I turn 60. So at this point I still have 6 years of contributions to pay off my investment property and top up my share trading account.