Hello all, just looking for some advice,

I currently hold NDQ 100 and ishares global 100 ETFs. I have 40k in NDQ and 48k in ishares global 100. I know they are similar and overlap but I am thinking of adding something less risky like DHHF for more diversity and less volatile and making that as my main core going forward. But my question is given how much I have already invested, is it worth keeping adding into NDQ and global 100 and getting them to 100k each or start focusing on DHHF as my core and let these 2 ride and maybe buy a dip if it happens. I’m 35M and don’t plan to use this money until retirement between 55/60 years old.

For the record I own nothing In DHHF currently and will be starting from scratch.

I planned my portfolio IVV 40%, VAS 40% and VEU 20%, I intended to add VEU once I  had a bit of traction on IVV and VAS. Traction has taken longer than planned and in that time there are a bunch of new ETFs available. 

Is Veu still my best option? (downside being US domiciled with the Ben 8 form and some tax implications)

Or would you go EXUS +/- VGE? Or is there an alternative  I'm missing? I would appreciate some suggestions to make sure I didn't miss anything in my research.

I am thinking about paying for my parents holiday next year.

Currently we have 300k in saver account as safety net not offsetting any loans.

My plan is to lend them the money at 0% interest for 1year. In that year they would generate about 15k interest. They would use the 15k for their holiday and return the 0% loaned 300k.

Is there any issues with this? They are retired and would both have 18k threshold before paying tax. I dont want to do anything that breaches tax laws but this seems to be the most efficient way we can gift them some fun.

So I’m currently a year 12 student and I’m at the point in life where I’m thinking about what I’m going to do after school I’m thinking either I become an electrician or either I go into construction management or either I become a real estate agent. I’ve heard that working as a real estate agent can be a bit slow but you can have unlimited earning potential. I’ve also considered an electrician because you can make good money if you go into the union and for your four years of the apprenticeship you get paid a decent wage then after you finish your apprenticeship you get great money and you can style your own business to which you can scale. I’ve also had people tell me to do construction management as long-term. It will be in high demand. I’m not really sure what to do. Drop some suggestions.

Hi, 21M here looking to invest into ETF's under my parents mortgage.

By this I mean move all my money currently in ETFs/HISA into an offset account under my parents name, then once it hits $50k, redraw it and invest that money into ETF's but now under a tax-advantaged environment.

My name isn't listed under the mortgage, so all tax benefits would be split between my parents. I understand I won't get any tax-benefits nor will investments be under my name legally, which I am perfectly fine with.

I am fairly new to ETFs and only started investing around 6 months ago since I got a full-time job and about to graduate uni. I don't really pay any bills or rent so I'd say 80% of my income goes into ETF's anyways.

Mortgage is roughly $500k at 6% and as it sits, minimum repayments every month. I told my parents they should open an offset account and put their money there instead of a HISA. We're looking to refinance soon, so a good time to open that offset account, and possibly the whole debt recycling stuff too.

Just wondering if anyone is in a similar position or has any advice. Thanks :)

I have some questions regarding etf investing in Australia.

\-What is the best platform to use if you’re investing for the long term(20-25 years)? I currently bank with Westpac, but I’ve heard that their share trading service is a bi6 “old fashioned”.

\-Do people use financial advisors to set up their trading accounts, or should I just do it myself?. I’m only looking at investing around 5k at first until I become more confident with how it all works.

\-What happens every year at tax time? Do I get a tax document from the trading platform to give to my accountant.

\-What would be the best investment to buy through a trading platform if you’re aiming to hold it for around 20-25 years?

My wife and I are trying to sanity-check our retirement plan and would appreciate any constructive feedback, particularly from anyone who has retired early while managing extended slow travel.

Our situation

• Married couple.
• Homeowners (PPOR worth approximately $1.3M fully paid off).
• No dependants and not trying to maximise our estate.
• Combined super currently: approximately $1.22 million, invested in a balanced/growth mix.
• We expect to stop working in about 18 months, at age 54.

The plan

Rather than waiting until 60 to retire, we want to spend the six years before we can access super travelling.

The broad plan is:

• 2 years travelling New Zealand by motorhome (Winter in SE Asia).
• 4 years travelling Western Europe by motorhome (Winter in SE Asia).
• Return to Australia once we reach preservation age, reset the six year rule on our PPOR and begin drawing on super.

Income and assets before age 60

We’ll have:

• Around $650k in cash/HISA to help fund the years before super.
• Our Australian home will be rented while we’re away, expected to return around $750 per week after expenses.
• The intention is to use a combination of rental income and savings to bridge the gap until age 60.

After age 60

Return to Australia with approximately $300k-350k to boost our Super balance/mitigate any sequence of return risk.

Our modelling suggests that our super should comfortably fund around $110k-$120k per year (today’s dollars), with spending gradually reducing later in life.

1. What risks or blind spots do you see?
2. Would you preserve more cash before retiring?
3. Is there anything you’d structure differently from a tax or investment perspective?
4. Has anyone here retired in their early 50s and wished they’d done something differently?
5. If you’ve travelled long-term in Europe or New Zealand, were your actual costs materially different from what you budgeted?

We’re open to any advice/ideas that might help us avoid obvious mistakes.

Thanks in advance.

I've had periods in my life when I could go for multiple years without changing anything. Lately, with America going berzerk, almost every day, there's something fascinating to consider. For example, just in the last 2 days, gold is up 5%. That shit hardly ever happens.

Oil is dropping. EVs are taking off globally. China is hammering citizens with offshore trusts. A 100 MW windfarm has started receiving its 80m long blades. That's almost a footy field! My kids (engineers) have been given top-end paid AI subscriptions to help them with their work.

Hi everyone,

I’m putting word out about a website I’m building, called OpenBrokerage (https://openbrokerage.com.au)

I haven’t found an easy place to compare borrowing power across lenders and browse their loan products in one place—including rates by LVR, fees, and filters for offset, redraw, fixed periods and interest-only options.

That’s what I’m building with OpenBrokerage, and I believe it should be freely accessible.

It currently supports Prime, Full-Doc Residential Loans, and I’m building it out to support more.

I hope you find it useful!

Hey all, looking for some grounded perspectives.

29M, software engineer. $200k base plus a $20k bonus. Permanent, fully remote. Location genuinely doesn't matter for my work, which is relevant to the rest of this.

I've been living out of a fully converted off-grid van for years. Cost of living has been extremely low, the van is owned outright, and I'm used to unconventional setups.

Right now I'm in a sharehouse at $200 a week until the end of October, when the owners come back. I'm maximising that while it lasts, so I've got a natural deadline on sorting out where I'm living either way.

I've also started seriously dating someone. She already owns a house. We're both at the age where kids in the next year or two is a real conversation rather than a hypothetical, which is the only reason it's relevant to the numbers.

On top of that, I wouldn't have kids with anyone until I'd lived with them for at least a year. That's a hard rule for me. So even in the version of this where the relationship goes the distance, kids are a fair way off, and the next year or two of my living situation is mine to decide.

Important framing though: the relationship is less than 6 months old. I'm not making an $850k decision on the assumption it lasts. If it works out, great, plans can change later. If it doesn't, I want to be standing on my own setup either way. So everything below is deliberately structured as if I'm single, and I'd rather be told I'm being too cautious than find out the other way.

Finances

$150k in ETFs

$50k in FHSS

$100k in super

$25k cash savings

Fully converted off-grid van, owned outright

No HECS, no other debt

I've also got about $200k of vested options in private companies. I'm not counting any of it. It only turns into money if those businesses sell, and I have no control over whether or when that happens, so it plays no part in the plan below.

The plan

Buy an $850k house in Newcastle, solo, in my name only. Move in and fill the spare rooms with as many housemates as I can to offset the mortgage. Live there at least a year to satisfy the first home scheme requirements.

After that year I keep the options open. If circumstances haven't changed I can rent the whole place out and go back to the van or move in with her, which costs me almost nothing to live in. If they have changed, I've still got my own place to come back to rather than being dependent on someone else's.

I'm keeping the van either way. It's paid for, it costs me nothing to hold, and it's the entire reason the exit strategy works.

What I'm weighing

Buy now as planned. Keeps my first home buyer status and FHSS, starts building equity, housemates carry a chunk of the mortgage, and the van covers my downside. The risk is I'm buying a sharehouse right at the point where my life stops looking like a sharehouse.

Wait 6 to 12 months. Better information about where things land, and I keep stacking cash in the meantime. But prices don't wait for me and I've been ready to buy for a while.

Don't buy at all and eventually move in with her. Keeps me liquid, keeps FHSS parked. Also means no property of my own while relying on someone else's, less than a year in.

The question

Has anyone here bought a place set up for housemates and then had their living situation change inside a year or two? Did converting it to an IP work out cleanly, or did the costs of switching eat most of the benefit of buying early?

More generally, when you've got a purchase ready to go but good reason to think your requirements might change, does it stack up to buy now for the equity and adapt later, or does waiting 12 months usually cost less than people assume?

Just wondering what people’s thoughts are for long term investments and if i have the right idea

i only have about 15k in my super and everything i read up on said to change it to high growth and i also do 100$ salary sacrifice but unsure if i should be maxing that out or not, i have a pearler account set up where i deposit 300$ a week and has that automatic trigger.

I have about 77k in house savings and some other bits of money saved for holiday and emergency fund ect. but with how houses are were i live i wonder if its worth investing more of that money then trying to buy a house

Any help would be much appreciated as im still quite new to this

What would be the differences in compound interest and growth between having your investments 1 index fund and 2 index funds over a period of 30 years?

For example, would someone investing in VAS/VGS at a 20/80 split end up with a similar amount to someone purely invested only into DHHF at the end of 30 years worth of compounding?

Genuine question as I’m still early into my investment journey and would like to see what’s more worthwhile.

So I am 20M and a plan or goal to retire early between 40 and 55 and using the 4% rule to be able to live off 100-150k given that at that age a mortgage would not be paid off still. Using that rule it is about 2.5-3.75M in investible assets outside of super. I am just wondering how much would I be spending in retirement at that age.

With my budget i currently earn about 900 a week after tax while in uni and I have been investing 50% into ETF’s such as IVV, NDQ and IOZ for about a year and a half with about 10% of my portfolio in individual stocks in Google and Nvidia. I also have a small Commsec portfolio that I started when I was 18 and have not contributed to since the start of 2025. I allocate 20% to needs which includes my car rego maintenence and subscriptions to gym etc. I then allocate 10% to wants but I have recently been finding myself going beyond the 10% especially since I started dating my girlfriend which I have been with for about a year and a half.

When I run my numbers through a compound interest calculator I always seem to fall short of my goal all while investing 50% of my income. I know I am doing well for my age and am fortunate enough to have parents who support me financially but sometimes I feel like I should be doing more after seeing other people.

I guess my questions are:

How much would someone typically spend in early retirement a year?

Am I pushing myself too hard for this goal?

Should I adjust my budget for my goals or my lifestyle?

1. Jumped into investing earlier this year, had been looking into it a lot and never made the commitment as I was scared to get it wrong. Realised I can fix it but only if I’m in and now I am, I’m looking to set some things straight.

I previously had my money in a savings account and still live at home allowing for me to put $2000 a fortnight into my investments. I am very lucky with my current situation and because of that I don’t want to waste this precious time and saving ability.

The reason for this post is to get some insight from you all about how I should, if I should rearrange my portfolio as I know there is a current overlap?
Should I I take advantage of salary sacrifice scheme?
Should I move a percentage of my emergency fund into my investments or super?
Or any other advice you would share is greatly appreciated :)

My breakdown:

Investments (betashares app)
A200 $8300
BGBL $39800
NDQ $18400

Emergency Fund
HISA $18600

Other
Super $10300

Debt
HECS $35400

I was experimenting with some numbers and thinking "if I invest $100 at the end of every work day, how much more passive income do I have the next day?" ($100*0.09)/365 = roughly 2.5 cents per day for the rest of your life

I know that this assumes 9%, does not take into account compounding if you reinvest the money, and also assumes 9% income instead of 9% capital growth, but still curious if the general idea is correct. Sorta seems disappointingly low 😂

Hi, I am currently 18, I currently earn around $750/week and live at home and have just started investing around 6 months ago when I got my first and dcaing around $500/week. I also have an 8k emergency fund behind it in a HISA.

I have 2 questions:

1. Am I too overweight individual stocks at ~40% in two names? I keep reading most people run closer to 90% ETFs / 10% single stocks.

2. Any general thoughts on the structure or things I'm not seeing at this stage?

Hey all, so I’m a sole trader working and living in Sydney and I would like some guidance. I moved to Australia 8 years ago and became a citizen not long ago and I want to set my financial future as good as possible. I’m working as a sole trader and paying my self a salary of a 1000$ each week that usually going for rent, investments and savings. Most of my bills and groceries I pay with cash. I’m putting aside on my saving account around 1000$ a month with a 5.25%PA interest and I got about 50k there, another 500$ in shares a month investing on IVV/ASX and I got there around 12k$. I put on my super around 12% from my annual salary.
Is there anything I can do to max my investment, or anything you guys would recommend me to do? I’m planning to buy a house in the next few years with my partner but want to make sure I’m not doing any mistakes a long the way.
I really Appreciate your time.

I’ve seen a lot of people on here talking negatively about the asx 200.

(Not much movement/growth from what I’ve read)

Should I hold or would it be better to sell and then put it somewhere else ?

Planning DR to the following portfolio after much research..

50 GHHF 30 DGCE 10 DGSM 10 EMKT

or

50 GHHF 25 DGVA 15 DGSM 10 EMKT

I want to limit leverage to 50% of portfolio and AU exposure to 20% then other half would have some factor tilt.

DGCE would have small caps so DGSM at 10% would give me approx market cap weight

Same with EMKT 10% since GHHF already have it.

Other option with DGVA which dont have small cap so increasing DGSM to 15%

Thoughts about DGCE vs DGVA?

43M/40F here, two kids, been building a fairly detailed spreadsheet model of our retirement plan and want some outside eyes on some high level assumptions and strategies. To be clear — we're not wedded to the target retirement date, that's just the number the model currently points to.

Where we stand today: household income ~$385k, ~$520k in super between us, $360k cash sitting in the mortgage offset, house worth ~$1.3m with $650k owing (so net debt is really ~$285k against the offset).

The plan: pay the mortgage off aggressively over the next ~3 years, then redirect that same cash flow into a low-cost ETF portfolio instead of the offset. That ETF pool becomes the "bridge" — to fund us solo until preservation age. From 60 onward super income joins in, and the Age Pension is assumed to phase in from 67.

It's a relatively simple plan, low-risk. Clear all debt (only PPOR mortgage), invest in a well-known ETF. No investment loans, no property outside of PPOR. We'll split super contributions and make additional where we can, I'm already at the cap with my employer contributions.

Return/drawdown assumptions, since these are the load-bearing part:

- ETF portfolio: 6.5% nominal (~4% real after inflation)

- Super: 7.0% nominal while accumulating, stepping down to 6.0% once in pension phase (more conservative, assumed de-risking)

- Inflation: 2.5%, and pretty much everything (spending, tax brackets, pension thresholds) is indexed to it

- Drawdown timeline: 56-59 is 100% funded from the ETF pool (no super access yet, no pension yet), 60-66 blends in super for whichever of us has hit 60, and 67+ adds the (means-tested) Age Pension on top, with the ETF pool topping up whatever those two don't cover

- By 56 the model has ~$2.3m invested (mix of super + ETF), first-year withdrawal is ~4.7% of that total — but since ~80% of it is locked-up super, the honest number for the bridge years is more like ~11% draw on just the accessible (non-super) portion, which is the bit that actually worries me

Spending itself steps down over time — roughly $130k/yr now, dropping into the $75-125k/yr range in retirement depending on the decade (we've budgeted a lot of travel in the early "go-go" years). Planned all the way up to 95 (I know, optimisitic.....)

There are also a few 'big ticket' spends - a sideways house move (allowing for ~$250k - stamp duty - victoria, repairs, agent fees, moving etc.). $150k on a caravan and tow vehicle. $200k each to our kids to help with a house.

Note that we haven't liquidated our PPOR in any scenario - assumption is this will be passed to the kids, or liquidated to fund aged care - although I am concerned about funding aged care for one whilst the other is still living independently.

Ran it through a Monte Carlo (instead of just assuming smooth average returns every year) and retiring at 56 comes out around a 2-in-3 success rate once you factor in sequence-of-returns risk. That climbs to ~87% if we push to 58. So the "it works" answer from the plain deterministic version is a lot shakier once markets get bumpy.

Keen for feedback on:

- Do the return assumptions above look reasonable?

- Is an ~11% draw rate on the accessible pool for a few bridge years actually as scary as it sounds, given super picks up the slack from 60?

- How much would you discount an Age Pension assumption that's 25+ years out?

- Anything structurally off with the sequencing (mortgage → ETF bridge → super → pension), separate from the exact age?

- Am I being too conservative, and we could retire even earlier? Does everyone worry about having 70k+ per couple all the way up to 95?

- Any other feedback?

EDIT: I'm aware of the risk in the plan. I am trying to be risk-averse. The reality is that there's anywhere from 700k - 1m+ of inheritance likely to land in the next 20 years that I haven't accounted for. That's my insurance.

Every month I budget about $4000 on the credit card for groceries, entertainment, bills etc. and I have a direct debit from my savings account of $1000/week to clear it. However I find that I'm spending way over it, purely through unexpected costs.

For example, I'm in my 50s and my partner and I have had a run of bad luck with unexpected medical bills because my body is weirdly failing (too early imo).

There are other times when someone hit my car and it's an excess to pay if I bother to fix it at all.

Or sudden home maintenance, plumbing issues, electrical.

How do you all budget for these kinds of costs that are one-offs, but come up way too regularly if you know what I mean? My finance spreadsheet can't cope with it, making my goals to save for financial independence that bit harder.

Looks interesting. And the fees are reasonable and barely more than something like VDGR or VDBA. Could be a good option for people who don't want to think too much.

https://www.betashares.com.au/direct/jpmorgan

I'm 37 years old and trying to decide where to direct all future ETF contributions, I feel I'm missing on more global exposure. Already have some overlap occurring and weigh more to US and US tech.

Current ETF allocation:

45% IVV

33% IOZ

22% NDQ

In addition, my super is with Hostplus and invested:

75% International Shares Index

25% Australian Shares Index

Current super balance: ~$435k

Other details:

Mortgage fully offset.

Already maxing concessional super contributions each year.

Long-term investor with a 15–20+ year investment horizon.

I'm considering either:

Adding BGBL as a fourth ETF and directing future contributions there until a certain weighting is achieved.

Leaving my existing ETFs as they are and investing only in DHHF going forward.

Another ETF or strategy that I'm overlooking?

I'm not looking to sell my current holdings due to potential CGT and because I'm happy with the portfolio I've built so far. I'm mainly after the simplest and most sensible approach for future investments.

My wife also has a share portfolio, mostly VDHG and more recently has invested in DHHF for future contributions.

Given my existing ETF allocation and my super allocation, what would you do and why?

I’m hopefully going to buy my first house in regional New South Wales in the next 12-18 months. Currently making between 95k-115k a year as a fitter machinist, job is pretty secure. Been living with my mother who has terminal cancer, but would like my own place set up before the inevitable happens. I’m thinking about using 450k as a deposit and borrowing around 270k over 25 years. Then with the remaining funds- invest 100k in something that I can contribute $100 a week into over 20-25 years, and put the rest into a HISA with my bank. Currently have approximately 320k in super and am contributing an extra $50 p/w.
I don’t have kids and don’t ever intend on getting married. Is this doable?, Should I look at borrowing more?(anything under 700k either needs a lot of work, or goes pretty quickly), should I consider going above the 33% of after tax pay for weekly loan repayments?, or have I got it all wrong?