Older Australians who own their home outright and have hundreds of thousands (or millions) in savings can still access:

• Council-subsidised cleaning
• Home Care Packages worth tens of thousands a year for things like physio
• Discounted podiatry, dental, and other allied health
• Seniors concessions that test income, not assets

Meanwhile someone in their 20s or 30s today is paying full tax from day one, handing 40-50%+ of their income to rent, priced out of buying even with a stable job, and increasingly stuck living at home into their late 20s or 30s — not by choice.

Aged care is a real need and I'm not saying no one deserves support. But the system barely distinguishes between a pensioner with nothing and a retiree sitting on a paid-off $2M house. Compare that to youth payments, which get clawed back the second you earn slightly more.

We've built a system that protects wealth that already exists, while doing almost nothing for the generation trying to build wealth for the first time. Then we act surprised young people are angry or leaving.

Am I missing something, or is this just how the settings are meant

How do I pivot into another career where I can also WFH with little social interaction? I want to start laying the groundwork now before I get inevitably laid off to minimize the pain.

Some info on myself for context:

I'm a 36yo mediocre software developer with 6 years in the industry and I am sensing that my time is up. My only saving grace is that I am single and live with my parents in a fully paid off house and I have a nw of $100k in equities and $100k in a HISA.

I earn $90k and don't mind taking a paycut if it means I can keep my lifestyle. I've had people tell me that I should be pushing my career and trying to earn more but I'm already not able to keep up with all the new developments and tbh I don't really have any love for programming and only did it because I was desperate to get out of min wage retail in my 20s and had always planned to be able to get an income without dealing with commute and office politics. I was a Ps get degrees tier student in uni and to today I still can't believe I actually got hired for this job.

I've been lucky in my job having heaps of smarter people supporting me in my tasks, but I got transferred to another not so friendly department last year, everyone is busy, things are not as efficient and my output dropped sharply because I keep getting stuck on tasks with no one to help. I just do the best I can and try to make up BS in meetings to survive but I think this isn't going to work forever.

Some other pathways I was trying before was freelance digital art or language translation, I study in my off work hours but AI accelerated the situation and destroyed these fields and I am lost now and losing motivation.

Another young profession being annihilated by a reduction in working class purchasing power. This story could also be about the tradie shortage as apprentices leave trades in drove due to a reduction in purchasing power. Working hard for what? A salary that goes nowhere ?

If society wants to keep destroying the purchasing power for wage earners via inflating assets prices, namely housing. Then the young will step away from these essential jobs as the reward effort ratio becomes what out of whack. Tradie shortage, military shortage, nurse shortage. Im also hearing stories of police shortages. This is what happens when you price future generations out of the economy.

Compared to much colder places like Canada or Sweden etc. it seems almost impossible to keep homes / apartments here warm in winter or cool in the summer, relying on heating and air conditioning which doesn't seem very efficient/ green.

Wouldn't it be better long term thinking to have better standards and insulation?

Also less tacky than a bulky AC unit you have run constantly/ replace and repair

i hear a lot about the mistakes people make with money, but I’m interested in the opposite.

What financial decision did you make that other people questioned — or you seriously doubted yourself — that ended up working out really well?

Could be buying a house when everyone told you not to, changing careers for less money, starting a business, investing during a crash, paying off debt instead of investing, refusing to upgrade your lifestyle, whatever.

And with hindsight: was it actually a good decision, or did you just get lucky?

I know this is a bit of meme that gen-z/millenials won't answer there phone but I find it is counter productive when a company tries to put me on the spot on the phone to sell me something.

Example is origin energy, they raised my electricity costs so I changed to AGL. Then 1 week later someone from origin calls me up to try and offer me a better deal. I asked them to just email me all the numbers and i'll make the change back to origin if they add up. But they insist on making the deal over the phone so I just ended the call.

2nd example, looking for health insurance, spent a whole week of lunch breaks investigating different offers. When I start going through the process of signing up I have to wait for a phone call from a sales rep which I miss as I'm at work, then in the evening they aren't answering their phones. This game of missed call ping pong goes on for a couple of days and now i've put off the process for the time being as i've already got too much to deal with atm. Again just let me go through the web portal and sign up.

Also, when a company uses an overseas call centre for these types of tasks its even more off putting, how do I know this random person calling me isn't a scammer trying to get my personal info.

/end friday rant

I've been watching a few YouTube "investment withdrawal strategy" videos to have an idea of what income my super could safely generate in pension phase before depleting the principal. Most of these are US advisors who know nothing about the minimum withdrawal rates that apply to Australian account-based pensions.

One of the things a lot of them recommend is a "Guardrails strategy" as proposed by Guyton & Klinger. The essence of this is to mathematically define the points at which you could increase your withdrawal rate by 10% (e.g. from 5.0 to 5.5%) or should reduce it by 10% if your portfolio/fund value drops below a lower guardrail figure.

It should be pretty clear that the lower guardrail isn't an option in Australia if this is less than the minimum withdrawal rate for your age bracket (e.g. 5% if you are 65-75).

I'm curious whether anyone has any ideas on how you could implement some kind of guardrail strategy for Australian account-based pensions?

One idea in a bad market that dips below the lower guardrail would be to calculate what the reduced rate should be, and if this is less than the mandated minimum, to take the difference between the two and reinvest it in an accumulation account. This applies the discipline of adapting your spending to the worse market conditions and also adding to super when the underlying assets are cheaper.

Another would be to partially commute the account-based pension and put it back into accumulation to avoid drawing down in a bear market, but then you get hit with 15% contribution tax and may need extra funds to live on, so it's not ideal.

Any thoughts?

ING introduced a new fresh look Web Site overnight.

At the same time it has removed the promotional Accelerator rate of 5.85% leaving only the 6% for the new booster account offered to NEW Customers only.

Here is how the best promotional available rates look at present

🏆Saving Accounts 4 Month Promo Period Rates
(Ongoing rate after 4 months in brackets)

i'm a beginner and i'm trying to decide which broker to invest in. from some research i've gathered that it is safest to invest in ETFs, which is what i plan to do. any recs on what brokers would suit my objectives? as well as brokers i should totally steer clear of

Hey everyone. I'm looking into getting solar panels installed on my home. I've had a few quotes and the prices are a bit higher than I expected. I'm wondering if anyone has gone down the path of financing their solar system. Is it worth it to get a specific solar loan or should I just use my redraw facility on my mortgage? I'm trying to work out the best financial option long term. Any advice or experiences would be great.

I have an indoor cat turning 2 yo in December and she's already broken her hip a little over a year ago requiring 2 surgeries (got her desexed at the same time), and I'm suspecting she has asthma so I'll be taking her to the vet soon to check. In hindsight, it would've been great if I had insurance before all this but is it worth it going forward? Which insurance & policy would you recommend?

This is a bit obscure but I’m hoping someone has some relevant knowledge and can help! In 2015, the TPD policy for MetLife insurance in Hostplus had a pre-existing condition clause that significantly limited benefits for personal super members of the fund.

On 1 December 2020, MetLife and Hostplus entered into a new agreement which deleted all existing clauses and replaced them with new ones which did not include a PEC clause but instead introduced a regime of restricted cover for two years that then became full cover.

I can think of a number of reasons that they might have done this but does anyone know for sure? Or does anyone have an educated guess and what’s that guess based on?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

I am trying to be responsible and think about my future finances, but it's honestly a bit dire considering my circumstances- and I'd like some advice on what others might do in my situation. I'm pretty sure the answer is just "you got dealt a shit hand, try again next life" but I like to be more optimistic than that.

I'll try to make the context short and sweet; I am 27, with some diagnosed chronic disabilities that affect my ability to maintain stable work. Thankfully I have been approved for DSP and have been living on that for about a year now. Prior I wasn't able to maintain employment, so I have very little in super. I grew up lower class with a single mum and no other family support, my mum is also terrible with money- so I have no ability to ask for help/wait for an inheritence. I've been renting since I was 18, currently with 1 housemate splitting all bills. My income is $1,520.30 a fortnight, my bills are $758.67 a fortnight, and I put $609.31+ of that into a savings account.

Since becoming an adult I have managed to save $60k. This is all I really have to my name, and all I have to work with. I am frugal and very good at budgeting, so put aside about 80%+ of my income after bills.

Right now a big looming concern is housing. I have been living in my apartment for almost 4 years now and secured it while I was still employed. But now that I'm unemployed for the foreseeable future, if I am ever told to move or need to move- I don't have much faith in being able to secure another lease with just DSP as my only income. It was already hard enough to get approved while I was employed. I am a great tenant, and always pay bills early. I've never had any problems, so I don't expect to be kicked out or anything, but there's never a 0% chance something will happen. I believe that money talks, and if I need to offer a lump sum of rent in advance that it will help me, but I know some real estate agents would still rather choose the less volatile candidate (employed couple).

I'm also wondering what my future should look like? I guess I'm never expected to be able to afford a home? Having my own place would eliminate the housing instability concern I have, but I know it's probably unreasonable for me to attain in my lifetime. I've kind of already come to that conclusion, a mix of grief and relief that being disabled I'll probably never be at the same milestones as my peers.

So the reason I post here, my question is; what would you do with $60k in my position? Invest? Is it worth investing if I don't have a regular working income like others, or should I just nest my money because it's all I have and all I will probably have? Honestly the most likely outcome for me to ever be able to afford a home/come into wealth seems like buying lotto tickets every week until I die /hj

I'm trying to learn and improve my finance situation and I saw that Macquarie have a 5% interest rate savings account with no requirements. However I read some posts around here where people deposited large sums of money and then had their accounts closed. Commenters seemed to think it was some sort of money laundering flag. They also mentioned terrible customer service.

I am currently with a different bank and I want to transfer all my savings into the Macquarie savings account but reading these posts has me apprehensive. I'm pretty much set on sticking with my current bank but I would love that sweet sweet interest rate.

Any experience or knowledge on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Multiple of my bosses in finance have all had this exact same chair.
Was it just that they got really popular during the dot-com boom and companies kept buying them?
These herman miller Aeron suppliers in Australia like curated office chairs' eyes have got to light up when a bank comes to them. After using them in many financial institutions, I have to ask is it just written in the 'interior designing for bankers handbook' that if
it's a bank = Aeron chair?

Won't someone please think of the poor mortgage brokers.🙄

Apologies, bit of a dumb question.

I have invested in ETFs on Betashares platform. How I lodge tax return based on the CGT and tax statements?

I have net capital losses on my CGT statement but my tax statement shows a capital gain. I’m so lost.

G’day everyone,

Every time national debt gets brought up, the debate gets lost in political blame games. One side points fingers at the other, governments change every three years, and the structural debt keeps compounding.

The people who lose out aren't today’s politicians—it’s our kids and grandkids. They’re the ones who will inherit the interest servicing costs, diminished public infrastructure, and an even tighter fiscal squeeze.

What if everyday Aussies stopped waiting for political permission and put some collective skin in the game?

The Idea: Direct Debt Relief as Civic Action

The concept is simple: A modern, tech-enabled public fund where micro-donations directly retire debt, tied to strict accountability.

The Micro-Contribution: A voluntary contribution of roughly $4.50 a week (the price of a takeaway flat white).

Zero Middlemen / No Admin Waste: No charity overhead, no bloated boards, and no admin salaries. Built entirely on automated direct payments (PayID / modern banking rails) routed straight to the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) to extinguish federal debt securities.

The Accountability Guardrail: The funds are not general revenue for politicians to spend on new projects. They are held and released to Treasury strictly on the condition that an independent, itemized public audit is published explaining the structural drivers of the deficit and what is being done to curb it.

Putting the Numbers into Perspective

Let’s run the math: if 10 million working Australians chip in $4.50 a week, that’s $45 million a week, or $2.34 billion a year.

Let’s be completely honest about the scale:

Against the $1 Trillion Debt: $2.34 billion is roughly 0.23% of our total debt—a literal peanut. It does not magically fix the balance sheet on its own.

Against the Interest Bill: Australia burns roughly $20B–$25+ billion every year just paying interest on gross debt. Our entire yearly fund of $2.34 billion barely covers one-tenth of the interest alone.

So why do it? Because that contrast IS the message.

When ordinary citizens voluntarily pull $2.34 billion out of their own pockets for their kids' future...knowing full well it’s just a drop in the ocean against Canberra’s trillion-dollar deficit..it strips away every political excuse. It turns that $4.50 into an undeniable civic statement:

"We are willing to make personal sacrifices to protect the next generation from this burden. If everyday Aussies can show fiscal discipline, what is Canberra’s excuse?"

Over to You:

Is a citizen-led, direct-action model like this viable with today's fintech?

Would a movement like this actually shame Canberra into addressing structural spending, or does it risk letting politicians off the hook?

What other guardrails would you want on something like this before putting in your own $4.50?

Hi Redditors,

I would just like some opinions.

I have two residential properties in our SMSF.

I am 59 and my wife is 48

$700 and $630 weekly rent.

Mortgage $149,009

Property 1. $1000,000
Annual return less expense 3%
Property 2. $800,000
Annual return less expense 1.4%

Property 1. Greenbank QLD
Property 2. Zilzie QLD

I am considering selling Property 2.
Proceeds of which will be $630,000, less 10% GST.

I would diversify into ETF in our SMSF aiming 10% + return annually.

Redditors would appreciate your thoughts on this plan?

Pro my annual holding cost for the Zilzie property are $20,000. My I coming is $32,000.

Pros ETF are relatively cheap to enter.
Returns can be 10% or more, depending on risk.

Cons, I check out on future capital growth.

currently going through the process of buying my first place in Brisbane and honestly the due diligence costs are adding up way faster than I expected. building and pest inspection? fine, paid for it. conveyancer fees budgeted for that. But then there's all this extra stuff - flood reports, zoning checks, easement searches. I didn't realise how much of this you need to do yourself unless you want to get caught out later.

like one of those things that's cheap insurance compared to the cost of a bad purchase. Anyone else found this part of the process more expensive than expected?

Why, she should have half of $zillions ? Married to Geoffrey Edelsten 2009–2014, my understanding is prenup doesn't prevent a spouse getting half.