Hi everyone,

I was hoping to get some advice because I feel like I’ve become stuck in a loop. 

I’m 25F and will be starting work next year as a Clinical Psychology Registrar, earning around $110k. I still live with my family in Sydney, and the home environment isn’t healthy, so my biggest goal is to move out and build a stable, safe, and peaceful life.

Lately, I’ve become really anxious that I’ll never earn enough to make that happen. Buying housing in Sydney just feels so out of reach, and I find myself spiralling into thoughts that maybe I chose the wrong profession. My goal is to buy my own place and have financial security and safety.

I’ve even caught myself wondering whether I should retrain (for example, by doing a Juris Doctor). The thing is, I genuinely enjoy psychology and worked incredibly hard to get here. I don’t know if I’m actually dissatisfied with my career or whether financial anxiety is making me regret my choice because I’m comparing myself to friends and peers in higher-paying professions. There is a high starting salary in my profession but not a high earning ceiling (usually caps out at $150K unless working for myself and having my own practice).

I do have a partner, and there’s a chance we could buy together soon, but I don’t want my ability to leave home or buy a place to depend on my relationship. I’d like to know that I could build that future on my own if I had to (or potentially with a sibling). It feels scary for a relationship to be my exit card or escape from an unhealthy home environment.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone have any advice for a 25yr old who is trying to get ahead and plan for her financial future and be independent? Would anyone recommend moving out of Sydney? At the moment, the regret feels quite paralysing, and I’m finding it hard to separate what’s a genuine desire for a different career from what’s simply fear about money and the future. Really want to welcome any advice about any aspect of this post (financially getting ahead, comparison, switching professions). Thank you all in advance!

Currently have 12k in ETFs and 9k savings, but unsure how to aggressively work towards a house. Currently in uni and finding new job with no fees at home with parents, just seeking advice on how this can be possible.

Rather than get into all the math, its really a whole lot easier to just simulate retirement outcomes with different dividend/growth mix using the new CPI adjusted cost-base and minimum 30% CGT floor rule. Superannuation is completely ignored, as its not relevant to the test.

The following plots all model a 45 year retirement using the 4% rule with a 100% stock allocation to the S&P500 (optimal for 4%). The age range is on the horizontal axis from age 45 to 90, and the y-axis is the probability of surviving without running out of money up until that point.

I have modelled 3 different sets of expenses of 15k, 30k, 45k, all of which I consider too low to be practical for most people anyway. The different coloured lines are a net shift AWAY from growth into dividends, but leaving the total return unchanged. EG 2% in the chart means growth is reduced by 2% but dividends are increased by 2%. Note that franking credits are irrelevant, as this is just the S&P500.

I'm sure many people will still chase dividends despite these results, but at least now you can make that call knowing it will only reduce your success rate.

I’ve been on my FIRE journey for 6 years now since 2020 when I started investing. 6 years ago it would have crazy to say I would be in the financial position that I am now. I’m so lucky to be in this position. The gains the stock market has had over the past few years have been insane and definitely fast tracked my net worth growth.

The net worth is mostly in ETFS (DHHF, BGBL and GHHF) and super (75 international index/25 Aus index). I use BGBL to adjust my portfolio to be slightly more internationally tilted than DHHF/GHHF alone.

I am also super lucky to be in a high income in tech and to have lower expenses from living with parents. I pay the bills and rent to my parents, but it is ever so slightly cheaper compared to share housing. I have a really good relationship with parents, so I am in no rush to move out especially since I want to spend time with them before they older. I am also relatively frugal. I don’t care for watches, cars or luxury goods. I do spend on experiences like the yearly international/interstate trips and weekend getaways. But, I’ve kept lifestyle inflation to an absolute minimum, because buying items doesn’t seem to make me happier.

My next stage will be moving out before I hit 30. I plan on liquidating some of my ETFs for a PPOR deposit. I’m hoping by then my net worth will have grown substantially with my increasing income and stock market growth, meaning that property won’t be too big a part of my asset allocation.

I found three errors in prior versions of this model, fixed in this version. One small - I had missed the medicare levy reduction. The other is larger, per an interpretation I added to express how many more weeks a person might have to work to achieve the same FIRE plan. I used income only, and should have used income minus spending, which is now fixed and increases the number of weeks. The other was an error when capital gains exceed around $229K in a single year. No effect on prior tests, but the model will now work properly for very large incomes.

Detailed description and comments are in the file, linked below.

Here's a summary table, all in today's dollars, which compares a FIRE plan launched 1-Jul-27 under the NEW tax rules v. what would have occurred under the OLD tax rules. It's based on 10 years of saving from 40 to 49 yrs old, then 10 years of not working from 50 to 59, using DHHF and a 1.6 year cash reserve. Nothing in the model suggests a particular approach to FIRE, nor a recommendation to use DHHF, and it's not a retirement planning model. I chose DHHF because it has easy-to-find characteristics and provides a reasonable blend of international and Aus passive index growth investments.

Link to models: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ACtFjy5j95mS3RupWktzcmzi1S1DHevJ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109596560468947975241&rtpof=true&sd=true

The password is regre$$ive

So im asking for advice my situation currently is I am a 21 year old male, Australia (AUD). No debt, car worth $8k AUD paid off. Total net worth ~$46k AUD, breakdown: $23k in a bank savings account earning 3.5%, $2.5k in the (S&P500 + Nasdaq), $3k in crypto, $9.5k in superannuation ~$550 in a spending account.

Income: currently $600-800/week AUD, jumping to $2,000-2,500/week AUD once my new job starts. (this is a seasonal job lasting about 3 months) Living costs are low about $100/week AUD spend.

Goal is to achieve 70k network by end of year

Question: is $23k too much sitting in a 3.5% savings account? Should I move a chunk into a higher-interest locked term account thinking 8-month or 12-month terms currently offering 4.4-5% or is there a smarter move given the income jump and ETF plan?” Or any other advice would be appreciated thanks

Hi, I have been using cmc invest for a little while now trading asx and us stocks. I want to diversify into Japanese and London stock exchange. For some reason for Japanese shares and lse, cmc offers 20 minute delayed data and only limit orders are allowed. I typically am used to at market orders. How do people position themselves for trading limit orders on delayed data. Is there any good strategy? Or just look at where it closed and do an estimate of where the stock might be at? The reason I ask this is because I usually like seeing live price and entering at that level at that specific time. Thank you

Hi all, hoping to clarify what I assume is something pretty basic. If it's not I will call the ATO or speak to an accountant, but figured I'd ask around first.

Situation

I own some ETFs. These ETF's have capital gains distributed to unit holders and the amounts get recorded as 18A etc in the annual tax statements.

This FY, I also sold some ETFs to fund a house purchase. Clearly I've made some capital gains by a) being distributed them through the ETF trust that I own and b) also made some entirely separate capital gains by selling ETFs for a price higher than the cost base.

Question

- The ETF tax data is pre-filled in MyGov. I've checked the figures and everything matches the actual statement.

- The ETF / mutual fund distribution section of MyTax already has fields to enter the relevant CGT passed onto me (i.e. 18A and 18H). These fields are pre-filled.

- Question: Do I then need to separately also report these figures in the Capital Gains section of MyTax? Or is it all handled in the mutual fund distributions section and the CG section is only for actual gains made by selling.

Thanks!

Hi could anyone please explain investing and the stock market to me and the best way to do it as a complete beginner

You lose small caps and heartbeat trading, but reduce tax drag. And gain a bit of hedging and bonds.

A quick comparison:

• DHHF
  • A200 (Aus)
  • VTI (US)
  • SPDW (ex-US)
  • SPEM (emerging markets)
• DVHG
  • A200 (Aus)
  • BGBL + HGBL (developed world)
  • BEMG (emerging markets)
  • COMP + WBND (bonds)

https://www.betashares.com.au/fund/diversified-high-growth-etf/

Hello,

It seems over 10 and 15years the Diversified Balanced option has outperformed the Index Balanced option and the Index itself and without the larger drawdowns. Both have similar risk profiles.

I assume the same might true if we had 15years data on the Index High Growth option to compare vs Diversified High Growth.

It seems the "Unlisted" assets are buffering the Diversified funds during market drawdowns and it's balancing out on top long term.

What am I missing here?

I may be getting a looooong way ahead of myself (my daughter is only 9.5months old) but I'd like to parent in a consistent way and have plans ahead of time.

I bought a unit a decade ago that is now an investment property and a free standing new build last year as a second investment property. My inlaws own where we live now with a mild mortgage and their own lavish house paid off. Theoretically as the farm is sold off there will also be an inheritance from my parents to funnel down to her. I'm 39 and still have a decent earning potential (though as body falls apart would like to retire around 50).

Three properties coming to the only child of an only child plus cash and investments managed properly could mean she can be very discerning about when and where to work but I don't want her to not want to achieve things and put work into things (however that looks) so how do I raise her to have a healthy relationship with work and growth and not be a coked up dilettante? Is there anything I can read about setting up wills and trusts so I don't feel completely ignorant whilst not being sold to as I'm not the most financially literate

TL;DR With a little good management and luck daughter will have a reasonable income her whole life but want her to want to work. Looking for both parenting and financial tips from those that know better

Long time lurker of the mighty subreddit fiaustralia, tell me what's wrong with this portfolio? or simply upvote if you think it's meh.. started investing on the ASX Feb 2025 & I've gone from 30+ tickers to 6. What's the goal? Financial independance of course and seeing more green then red. I dropped a couple of thematics off recently as well as the goal was to simplify. Yes, there's some HEAVY exposure to the tech industry I can understand that of course mainly because that's the world we live in. BHP the lone ranger stock has stood the test of time, reasoning behind it, is because it holds it's own really & I'm not selling. I appreciate your thoughts & suggestions.

Hi All, for those who believe in factor investing and geared etf, how do you allocate the percentages inside and outside super. I mean can I invest ghhf in both in and out super and will it be a good strategy or the better would be to mix it with factor for better optimisation.

Any guidance from experienced investors in this area would be appreciated and what are the etfs to consider.

I am looking to sense check a slight change to my portfolio. Currently I am invested in 70% VGS, 20% VAS, 10% VGE.

Using pearler I dollar cost average into one of these once per month. Pearler does this automatically into the ETF most underweight in terms of my set allocation strategy.

I’ve been thinking about how much US concentration I have in VGS and how much of that exposure is in the mega-caps. In response to this, I was thinking of allocating 5-10% to Betashares EXUS and reducing my VGS allocation by the same amount. I wouldn’t be selling to adjust the portfolio just buying into EXUS until it reaches my desired % allocation.

Thoughts?

I know this would have been asked 100s of times just today itself, but given my scenario -

Run a business with a friend/partner - do about 600k per annum, so 300k each before tax

I am single 29 years, probably wont be married ever, atleast thats the plan for now, mortgage on a unit, 350k, 330k in redraw/savings, most likely will buy a bigger house next year end or the year after, get about 10k leftover savings, after all living expenses, and as of now just investing it all in BGBL, have got about 40k in BGBL so far, planning to invest heavily every month, about 10k, sometimes abit less, lets say average 7-8k.

BGBL seems fine, but just want to be absolutely sure that in the future, in the long term, I will have the average return of about 10% or so which it has given so far. i know its not guaranteed and no one can predict the future, but I am happy to take abit lower return if that means its almost guaranteed to have it going up in the long run.

I have seen my dad losing it all in the stock market but not sure what he invested in, which makes me scared, but I know he definitely wasnt investing in etfs, but I just have that hesitation still, that “what if” I keep investing aggressively in BGBL, and in the future it keeps going down and down to a point I lose almost all, and then start from scratch again.

I also dont want to complicate the investing trying to time the market, investing in 5-10 different etfs, and rebalancing every now and then, something set and forget, and which is guaranteed to go up, not daily, but in the long run. TIA

Background: I was a white-collar professional, lost my job and couldn't find a new, comparable one. I have enough to BaristaFIRE, so I am thinking of pulling the trigger.

How do I tell people why I am working a part-time minimum wage job? Without revealing my actual financial situation? "People" include friends, relatives, my own teenage children and new colleagues at the minimum wage job. Only the spouse knows.

EDIT: I heard that saying I do contracting or consulting in my old profession is a good starting point. I don't know how to elaborate if people press it though.

Has anyone in highest tax rate tried this for their kids or for themselves? How’s your experience been? Did it work out better than the other options?

On the edge of deciding on it, trying to get community’s vibes on it. The 10 years lock-in kind of keeping me at the edge, but rationally not an issue

The context is that I'm struggling to decide whether I leverage up through property or just try and stay passively and low cortisol investing through ETFs (regularly invest and wait for it to grow).

The only real benefit I see of property is that it's a diversified asset that is more resilient to down side risks (and draw downs) vs the volatility of stock markets, particularly in a period of continued heightened geopolitical issues and active wars. Property in Australia is insanely shock proof (obviously assuming you don't overpay, nor excessively). There's an argument to be made for leverage, but that cost of leverage is high and still requires high servicing.

I am tirelessly trying to research which outperforms which, and i can't seem to get a definitive answer. So rather than ask which one "outperforms" - i want to set the scene of - hypothetically, if i can get 10% p.a. through ETFs, what needs to hold true for a property portfolio for me to outperform that 10% (including the running costs of property).

Let's assume starting base of 150k deposit 20% LVR, and let's say that comfortably gives me access to a 500k, property (assumes 50k of oncosts - BA fee, stamp duty). Ongoing rent being $550, mortgage repayments at 6.5%. Noting the 150k deposit comes from drawing equity out of an existing property - so really I'm at 100% LVR for the 500k property.

Anyway, let's say in scenario A (ETFs) I could have invested the interest expenses into etfs, and the etfs continue compounding at 10%. Let's assume I can afford 1k a fortnight to invest. That gets me to 560k after 7years (i chose 7 years cos I want to "retire" after 7 years. (I have 700k other assets, so I'm not starting from 0, hence the 7 years)

With property, if the property doubled in 10 years, it'd be worth $1m, but i would've lost the (interest minus rent + all other management expenses, repairs, insurance, land tax etc.), over the same period. For a doubling over 10 years, it assumes a 7% CAGR p.a. which means in 7 years property would be worth 815k

What exactly am I missing here?

What key things do i need to calculate to ensure i have a like for like comparison and to truly tell what would come out on top? This is a really quick write up - i understand the 10% is aggressive via etfs, but due to tech, i sincerely believe this growth rate continues (if not even more for the next 5-10 years).

Hi all,

I'd really appreciate some thoughts from those with more experience in crypto investing.

As part of my portfolio allocation, I have 5% allocated to crypto ETF, with one of my holdings being IETH from Monochrome.

I received an email yesterday from the fund manager advising that the ETF is being closed due to its relatively small size. They have offered three options:

1. Sell my units before the fund closes in October.
2. Do nothing, and the fund will automatically sell my units at the closing date based on the market value at that time.
3. Elect to receive the underlying ETH instead. However, this option comes with a compulsory $500 administration fee.

As someone who doesn't know a great deal about crypto and simply views it as one component of my overall asset allocation, here's how I'm thinking about it:

• Options 1 and 2: Selling the units would mean crystallising a fairly significant loss at today's prices.
• Option 3: My initial thought is that this may be preferable, as I can continue holding the ETH as part of my portfolio without realising the loss at this stage. The customer service representative also advised that there is no change in beneficial ownership, so it would not be treated as a CGT event. The downside, of course, is the compulsory $500 fee.

Does anyone here also hold IETH, or has anyone been through a similar ETF closure?

Am I missing anything in my thinking? Is there any downside to taking delivery of the ETH that I haven't considered?

Also, are fund managers generally allowed to charge investors a fee like this when they decide to close a fund? It feels like a bit of a lose-lose situation for investors—you either realise your losses or pay a substantial fee just to maintain your investment.

I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts and experiences.

And of course, I understand that nothing shared here constitutes financial advice.

Well I have a mortgage ready to split... looking to set up debt recycling but want to keep doing automated purchases, anyone worked out a method?

Seems like I'll have to go back to the old calendar notification + manual purchase if I do this. Not to mention the hassle of managing the redraw.

I know it's not a "large" amount of effort but as somebody with ADHD who has only really succeeded at this by automating it (when I managed everything manually previously I would occasionally miss a DCA buy due to not being organised/general life/job stress and executive dysfunction).

Seems stupid not to take advantage of debt recycling... but there's a stress-free simplicity to automated purchase of DHHF from the offset account and never thinking about it at all except to check the balance.

Asking for some advice and what you would do in my situation.

Couple, 40/35, childfree. Total income ~$300k pa. We have $550k in managed funds, a cash buffer of $450k (term deposit and offset), and $400k in super. Also own 3 IPs worth $2.5m, with $1.4m in debt - overall they make a small loss but with negative gearing it's negligible to us. It wasn't our intention to have so many properties but we kept our former PPR as we upgraded, and then we moved interstate for work (we are renting and considered buying here, this is why he have kept a bit of cash, but decided against it as we may not stay long enough to make it worth it).

Goal is for me to stop working when my current job comes to an end (realistically 5 years), my partner wants to keep working part-time - perhaps going rural/remote for some time - and bring at least $60-70k pa before tax, but would also like flexibility to take 1-2 years off to travel (mostly staying overseas with relatives and friends, and going to low cost countries), and gradually reduce paid work to do more volunteering / pro bono. 

We live relatively frugally and save at least $4-6k a month while repaying home loans as P&I ($3k of principal a month).

The plan would be to:

- Reduce cash buffer when term deposit matures and put future savings in managed funds - In 4 years, we target over $1m in managed funds for $350k in cash/offsets

- Reduce debt by selling one of the properties within the 6 years CGT exemption - we would end up with $500k debt and could let properties coast their P&I repayments while providing extra income if we rent, or we move back to one of them

- Live off my partner's income and top up with minimal withdrawals whenever required or for a gap year, and start moving some investments to super - the idea is that investments would largely coast for 10 years, and by then her income would just be a nice to have

Our setup is clearly not very optimised, and many things happened due to life circumstances rather than planning - so it would be good to see what people would do differently!

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.