As you may have heard once or twice, super is a long-term investment. It’s your money, being held and invested for you in a structure run by super fund trustees, for your retirement.

This means that you don’t have to feel like you’re on the trading room floor on the ASX.

However, it’s still important to make sure you think about where and how your super is invested every so often by reviewing your investment options.

There are a couple of key occasions when you may want to review your options.

Each investment option is built with a specific time horizon in mind – in other words, it’s been built to deliver on its return target or objective over a specific period of time. This time horizon is determined in line with the design of the option itself, or the mix of assets it is invested in and the degree of risk it carries.

Our Aggressive option, for example, has a time horizon of at least 10 years, while our Growth option has a time horizon of at least seven years, and Balanced at least five.

If you have been invested in a particular option for the same length of time as its listed time horizon, this may be a good time to review whether this option is still right for you, or whether another option better aligns with your retirement goals.

For many people, super is just one piece of the financial pie.

Whether it’s a simple savings account you transfer some of your wages to every month, a term deposit you have stashed away, a property, or a share portfolio, it’s important to think about the different roles your various assets have to play, as well as how they are working together to achieve your financial goals.

With this in mind, it may be worthwhile setting time aside every so often to review your broader financial situation, and how your super fits in. Any broader change, such as buying or selling a property or upping your investment in your share portfolio, for example, could be a good time to review your investment options.

If you are a member of our Gateway division and didn’t make an investment choice when you joined, your super has been invested in Glidepath, our automated investment option.

Glidepath has four investment stages – Take-Off, Altitude, Cruising, and Destination – and it works by adjusting the growth and risk profile of your super investment over the course of your career.

This means that the way your super is invested automatically changes every few years, depending on your age.

However, it’s important to remember that because it’s an automated strategy, Glidepath doesn’t take into consideration your personal needs and circumstances.

It’s been developed based on Qantas Super’s assessment needs of the investment needs of a typical accumulation member, aiming to provide a comfortable level of income in retirement.

Like our more hands-on investment options, it’s important to review your investment in Glidepath to ensure it’s still right for you.

The stage of Glidepath you are currently invested in depends on your year of birth: