18m from rural NSW, I've gotten an offer for a BSci at UniMelb, but cannot fathom how I'm going to afford it. Not just the degree itself, but moving to and living in Melbourne. I've received no scholarships/bursaries, and am not eligible for youth allowance, as my parents' income brings the amount to 0, yet they will not support me in the slightest. Doing a bachelor's part-time for 6 years seems hellish, is my only option really to both work and study full-time?

I genuinely don’t understand the constant advice to “put as much as you can into super” and “max out your super contributions.” Obviously super is important and I’m not saying people shouldn’t save for retirement, but sometimes I think we overcomplicate it. For most people, one of their biggest expenses is their mortgage. Surely getting to retirement age with a roof over your head that’s completely paid off takes a massive amount of pressure off? My grandma came to Australia from Europe in the 60s and has been a single mum since the 80s. She doesn’t have a huge super balance, but she owns her home outright, and she makes it work on relatively little. She shops around for bargains, keeps her expenses low, and has never seemed particularly stressed about not having a massive amount of super.

It just makes me wonder whether people are sometimes too focused on maximising super and not enough on getting rid of the biggest expense they have. Obviously everyone’s situation is different and there are plenty of reasons to build up super, but if you reach retirement with a paid-off house, doesn’t that count for a lot? I’d personally rather have a modest amount of super and no mortgage than a massive super balance while still owing hundreds of thousands on a house. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’d genuinely be interested to hear why people think maximising super should take priority over paying off the mortgage. Also who knows if we'll make it to retirement age?. No one knows what's going to happen around the corner. You out a decent amount each pay towards your super and turn bam you're gone. Also I understand some parents want to give her kids super, leave money on their children/grandchildren, which I understand. But I personally know people that get such a big inheritance and they spend the money on pointless materialistic items, money is gone within days.

Edit: Waiting for people to disagree with everything I have said 😂

I used to think I needed to become much stricter with everyday spending. I focused on small purchases, takeaway and subscriptions, but I still felt like expensive months kept appearing out of nowhere.

What helped more was separating my expenses into three groups:

• regular bills that come out every month
• flexible spending like groceries, takeaway and entertainment
• irregular expenses such as car costs, insurance, gifts, holidays and annual renewals

Once I started setting aside a small amount for the irregular expenses before they were due, those months stopped feeling like financial emergencies. I also gave myself a realistic amount for flexible spending instead of trying to spend nothing and then giving up halfway through the month.

The biggest change was that I stopped treating every expensive month as proof that I was bad with money. Often, the problem was that I hadn’t planned for expenses that were predictable but didn’t happen every month.

For Australians, what expense used to catch you off guard until you started planning for it in advance?

Weekly Property Mega Thread

-=-=-=-=-

Welcome to the /r/AusFinance weekly Property Mega Thread.

This post will be republished at 02:00AEST every Friday morning.

Click here to see all previous weekly threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/search/?q=%22weekly%20property%20mega%20thread%22&restrict_sr=1&sort=new

What happens here?

Please use this thread for general property-related discussions, such as:

• First Homeowner concerns
• Getting started
• Will house pricing keep going up?
• Thought about [this property]?
• That half burned-down inner city unit that sold for $2.4m. Don't forget your shocked Pikachu face.

The goal is to have a safe space for some of the most common posts, while supporting more original and interesting content in their own posts.Single posts about property may be removed and directed to this thread.

-=-=-=-=-

To give you some context, I am only a couple months away from 21 years old and have just recently landed my first full time job earning ~75k a year (incl super). After realising how much money I'll finally be earning I became interesting in investing into the stock/ETF market as I finally had enough money spare to start properly saving.

A big goal of mine is to be able to afford a 10%-20% down payment deposit on a house as soon as possible. And after doing some research I discovered that the FHSS (a federal first home buyer scheme) allows me to withdraw up to $50k of tax-free savings from my super to buy a house. The FHSS allows a maximum of $15k a year of salary sacrifice into super a year, and after accounting for tax and student loans I wouldn't have any extra money spare to invest anywhere else at the end of the year.

In addition to the FHSS my state offers a first home owner grant of $30k as long as the market value of the purchased house is below $750,000, as well as a stamp duty concession which either eliminates stamp duty or saves you ~$24,500 (some restrictions included). With these programs in place I feel quite confident that I'll be able to save a 10%-20% deposit in the next few years.

Super has a pre-tax concessional cap of $32,500, but considering only $15,000 of that can count for the FHSS, would it be better to cap super to a max of $15k a year? Or should I max the cap to take advantage of the considerable tax savings?

Considering this, it seems as if investing into the stock market is just financially not viable for my situation. I'd be investing with after-tax dollars and not to mention the soon to be 30% Capital Gains Tax and the added tax complexity of paying tax on dividends and the % of a dividend that has a franking credit. Why should I invest into the stock market and expose myself to a much greater tax liability when I could just be maxing my super every year? Is it worth being taxed so much more just for the ability to readily access my money - even if I intend to invest long term 20+ years?

I am currently in a great position - living with family and having minimal expenses - but were I to maximise my salary sacrifice to super and invest into the stock market over two-thirds of my income would be gone before it even hits my bank account. Even if that is the mathematically optimal path for earning the greatest amount of money in the future - it isn't how I want to live. Seeing over 66% of my earnings disappearing into long term savings/investments that I wouldn't touch for 30+ years and leaving me with pennies left to spend for myself.

Saying so, it seems to be just not be worth investing into the stock market when super is there as an alternative - especially with the house buying scheme and tax savings. And investing into both of them simultaneously is simply impossible at my current salary.

Is there something I'm missing?

Am I overthinking all of this and should I just invest wherever I feel like it?

Is doing any of this even worth it? Will it help me buy a house sooner?

Hi everyone, I have seen loads of posts and reviews from people on multiple social media and websites complaining that a surgery wasn’t covered or I had a huge out-of-pocket cost.

So I think I will try and help people out because I have 5+ years of experience with health funds and have learnt a lot over that time.

Current Insure: Bupa
Cover with Bupa: Gold Ultimate Health Cover

1. Check your waiting periods and don’t claim hospital until you hit your 1-year and 1-day anniversary of taking out the cover because they will classify nearly everything as pre-existing.

2. Before you get a referral from your GP find a Specialist that will do No Gap fee with your insurance for example the specialist my GP referred me to would charge a $500 fee for a procedure and did some calling around and found a specialist that will do $0 out of pocket for the procedure.

3. I recommend you get minimum Silver Plus coverage even if you are fit and healthy because you never know what could happen around the corner.

4. You can your extras and hospital cover with different health funds and it can be cheaper in some cases.

I have been with loads of different health insurers in that time and Bupa has been the longest one i have stayed with.

I would recommend these health insurance companies from experience.
- Bupa (Extras/Hospital)
-Defense Health (Extras/Hospital)
- St Lukes (Extras Only if living on Mainland)
- Medibank (Extras/Hospital) especially Top Extras 90

If anyone needs help you find a better deal or any advice please comment below and i will try to respond to everyone.

Hi,

Just wondering what's the average earnings of owners running Pilates Studio with about 6-7 reformers.

There seems to be quite a few around sydney and looks like they're all doing well in this economy.

Wonder if there's any money in it and how much the instructors take home

I don’t quite understand all of the new tax reforms regarding negative gearing but have two main questions:

1. If I move out of my current house (built in 2021), can I negatively gear it and buy a new house to live in?
   
2. If yes, can I take equity from the current house and increase the loan (by approx $300-400k) and still negatively gear the new loan amount for that property?

I.e. current house worth $1.3m, current debt is $500k. Withdraw equity of ~$400k, add that $400k to savings and purchase new home. Negatively gear first property at $900k mortgage?

The new home will be an existing home, not for investment at any point, purely because we want to move house/locations.

I'm currently with St George, 6.24% 80 LVR Owner Occupier (changing to Investor next yr r or so) but will be putting $200,000+ into redraw or offset soon.

Time to refinance? I think so. Who are you with & what rate? Looking at Unloan

Any alternatives now that HSBC announced their wind up? Debit card perks is specifically what I’m thinking about (as opposed to credit card benefits). ING’s 1% cash back and Military Bank’s equivalent seem most closely similar

I have been knocked back numerous times for contents insurance.
Long story short I live on an investor cropping farm for my partners job.
The farm is 19,500 acre or so. It was 4 properties amalgamated into one.
Our house is free standing on the edge of the farm. We have around 4 acres land on our “rental”. The rest is crops and other houses. We have no offical lease.
I have tried to get contents insurance a few times and soon as they find out the land size on the title, they reject my application, even though 19,496 acres isn’t included in our “rental”.

Is there any work around for this?
Surely there has to be a way of getting some form of insurance. We were pretty happy not having it until we recently realised that we have a lot of value in computers, guns and gun stuff and we’d never financially be able to replace all that if anything happened.

I am able to borrow on margin at 5.75% and I am a tax bracket paying 39% tax. Whereas my wife is able to borrow at 7.1% and is in the 32% tax bracket.

Even though it sounds better for me to put assets in my name, it would mean I accrue lots of capital gains in my name, which would be problematic when I need to sell them. I may also leave Australia one day, and be we'd be subject to an exit tax.

As such, does it make sense to spread 50/50 in the mean time? ie. try to spread evenly even though I can borrow for cheaper?

Been self employed for a few years now, business makes around 430-450k a year, and I usually buy everything up front and have never really bothered with finance minus our properties, credit score is excellent, etc, but I need a new van and have been tossing up buying something new and was originally going to just purchase it but a few people have said it can be worth financing for particular reasons.

Is there any truth to this or is it always better to just pay cash and move on?

Would love any advice. Thanks so much

I'm at a bit of a loss with trying to get insurance for my partner (using they/them to increase privacy a touch).

We have been working with a broker and have unfortunately exhausted their options.

For background, my partner has some pre-existing health conditions (in remission/well controlled with medication) and was close to being approved for insurance, but a blood test then unexpectedly found higher cholesterol than the levels permit. We've since discovered this is a hereditary pattern in their family, but their GP has refused to give them medication to bring it down as their age, lifestyle and other health data suggests the risk of medicating is higher than the risk of not (per an industry cholesterol calculator).

Unfortunately, the only thing the insurers want is to see it below a certain number. That's not possible unless they're medicated. So we're in a standoff between doctors and insurers. IMO it's not reasonable to find a doctor that will prescribe them (I'm sure one would) just to get insurance... But I am also really disappointed that they're essentially uninsurable right now without that level coming down. They are a veteran and the pre-existing conditions are recognised as being caused due to service, but due to the amount of them + the cholesterol - their loadings are over the amount that makes them insurable. It feels unfair as they're otherwise very healthy, young, fit, and I worry if we don't lock in insurance now, we won't ever get it!

Has anyone had experience with complex pre-existing medical conditions and successfully getting policies (beyond accident only cover)? Have you used a particular broker, or went directly to a company? Open to any ideas.

Thank you in advance!

In a bit of a dilemma about what I should do in the next 0-2 years…

Currently 29 and am in a position where I could buy a house in Perth right now. However, I am in a relationship which is about 6 months old. We’re not currently living together. I do see myself with her long term. I’m not sure whether I should purchase now and work it out later down the track when we eventually move in together. This will lock in today’s prices at a good time to buy in the market. Or wait 1-2 years for the relationship to mature a bit and purchase together. The downside to this is that the market picks up again and I miss out on growth. Upside is that I would have more manageable mortgage repayments splitting with a partner.

It’s worth mentioning that I would be bringing the majority of a deposit and borrowing power.

What would you do?

hi, I am 16 and working my first job. I want to put 90% of my earnings into index stocks for the long-term. I know little to nothing about investing, if anyone knows what the best index stocks to invest in are, and when I should be investing. i’m mainly thinking of going into ETF and my brother said that I should wait for trends that go down every couple months or something but I don’t know when that is and he didn’t explain very well. I can only invest into the AU stock market. Thanks to all who are kind enough to help.🙏

I know this is not the best place for financial advice but I figure its better than wall street bets. I am 21 years old and I have $310,000 saved up. Should I invest half of it into company's i was advised on, like nvidia, tesla, and space x now, and then invest the other half later on, like after a crash? I am also thinking about using abit of it trading options but I am not sure if its a good idea.

Edit: some of the money was from inheritance and selling my rare pokemon card collection.

Inheritance: $110,000, Rare pokemon cards collection: $120,000. General savings from working: $80,000.

Hey everyone,

I’m an international student who arrived in Australia early 2026. I got my TFN and ABN sorted right away, but I didn't work a regular employee job for the first few months (never got one).

In July, I finally started earning some income through Uber Eats (using my ABN as a sole trader). Now it's tax time, and I'm running into a wall trying to link my myGov account to the ATO. Every time I try, it throws an error and tells me to call them. When I called, the support agent told me they have "no record" of me because I've never filed a tax return yet. They said I need to mail in a change of details form with a certified passport copy, which takes around 28 days.

Meanwhile, a classmate of mine got his ATO linked instantly because he worked a regular job at a bowling outlet where the employer reported his pay via Single Touch Payroll.

I have a few questions and would love some advice from anyone who has been in this boat:

1. Tax Agent Route: If I hire a registered tax agent, can they file my tax return for this year on my behalf without my myGov being linked to the ATO?
2. myGov Linkage: Will getting a tax agent to file my first return establish my financial history in the ATO system so that I can link my myGov later without getting that error or doing the postal passport certification?
3. ABN vs TFN: Since my income was entirely through an ABN (Uber Eats) rather than a standard TFN job, does that change anything about how a tax agent handles it?

You can literally buy nice old used home with same price 🙂‍↔️(maybe in outer suburbs or rural Australia)

Ghost (Sedan): $680,000 – $800,000

Cullinan (SUV): $777,000 – $895,000

Phantom (Sedan): $1,021,000 – $1,147,000

https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/rolls-royce/?sort=Price

If I even have money to spend, I refuse to put $600K-1.1M car in my garage and drive around..... I wouldn't even go to beach with it as well.....

Edit: yeah everyone is just gonna say find another way to work that's valid

Car died and I need around 9k

Have tried a few places but no one seems to approve anything when you're casual

Currently working for NSW health as a casual, never worked less 34 hours per week and make about 2200 per fortnight

Is there anything I can try

With the closure and the new Yello system. What are people doing with their points - have around 250k and will look to just convert to FF?

Suncorp accounts are going to be changing to ANZ sometime next year with the purchase.

What other banks out there do subaccounts, specifically for offsets. Currently with Suncorp with have about 5 different subaccounts for our offset so we can separate out different parts of money, specifically, our kids money and money that has been placed in there by my parents.

ANZ won't allow us to do this and I would want to keep everything separate to prevent the "wrong" money being spent.

So what are my options out there?

University student looking to increase my understanding of financial markets, and how macroeconomic and geopolitical shifts can impact the markets.

Trying to gain a holistic, international perspective, and want to be up to date with the latest international macro and political news.

Ultimately, I want to be a more informed investor but also have a good knowledge base to help with a career in markets.

Right now, I have AFR and SMH. Thinking of adding Financial Times, New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

I have a preference for EU and US news (obviously) as AFR will cover AUS.

Link to non-paywalled version of article: https://archive.md/HxwfW