As a long-term investor, a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) offers me an opportunity to put my preferred long time horizons into practice. But, like any other investment vehicle, a SIPP will end up growing (or shrinking) in value based on what I do with it.
With that in mind, here are three ways I try and boost the ultimate value of my SIPP.
1. Higher contributions
Many of us regard inflation as a financial enemy that eats away at the long-term value of investments including pensions. After all, £1,000 today is almost certainly worth more than £1,000 will be a decade or two from now.
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But that can also be used to my advantage. Putting money into a SIPP today could mean it has the ability to grow in value over time. Simply by putting more contributions in now, hopefully I will have a bigger pension pot later.
2. Managing costs
Different SIPP providers charge different fees and costs. From one day to the next, the difference might not seem big. But remember, many investors will be using a SIPP for three, four. or even more decades. On such a timeframe, even small-seeming charges can add up.
So having set up a SIPP, I do not simply then ignore the charges. Rather, from time to time I check to see whether I am getting what I think is a good deal, or else should consider moving my SIPP to another provider.
3. Focusing on long-term wealth accumulation
I also aim to boost the value of my SIPP by always investing with a long-term mindset. I reinvest dividends, look at what a company might do in a decade not just the short term, and also consider risks that may change the long-term prospects of companies in which I invest.
That helps explain why one of the shares I own in my SIPP is Prudential (LSE: PRU). One concern I have about some shares I own is shrinking end markets. But Prudential’s market of people looking for financial products such as life and health insurance is huge.
By focusing on developing markets such as Vietnam, the company is positioning itself to take advantage of growing demand as populations get richer and are more interested in taking out insurance that can help protect them if things go wrong.
There are risks in such a strategy. Weak demand in China is weighing on the firm’s performance and developing markets always bring political risks, such as currency exchange rate movements.
But by looking at where I think things are going a decade from now not next week, I hope that I can build a SIPP stuffed full of shares that are set to benefit over time from changing demographics and consumer needs.
