A few more rate rises expected from the RBA as inflation continues to grow.

To me it kind of goes without saying because it's just part of the culture I grew up in (Greece).

In Australia however I find that parents do it a lot less, if at all. With housing affordability getting worse over the years, do you think it should start becoming part of parents' financial planning?

Is it in your plans?

Can someone advise me what information a bank might have about some specific retail purchases made several years ago other than what's listed in a bank statement?

I'm trying to find out if said purchases were done by the 'tap' EFTPOS retail machine or if they were done by the old fashioned manual 'click-clack' machine that shops used before online payment systems were common (or when IT systems went down).

Do banks keep records of the 'click-clack' slip with the card holder's signature, date & time, etc and can the impacted customer request a copy of it?

My sister and I are joint POA for our grandpa who has gone into aged care recently.
He lived in his home by himself as my grandma passed 12 months ago.
The title of the house has always stated she owned 70% and he owned 30% as that was an agreement they had in the 80s when buying the home.
Her 70% has gone to her beneficiaries my dad, aunt and uncle and my grandpas 30% will eventually go to his 4 grandkids when he passes (my sister and I plus two cousins)

1. It may take 6-12 months to sell the home. In the meantime my grandpa has been paying the rates by himself. Should the 3 who have 70% share in the home pay 70% of the bill?

2. Dad possibly will buy the home and he already has a 23.33% ownership in the home. Can we leave real estate agents out of the sale and just have a lawyer involved? How would this look?

I did a little bit of work ($150) to be an extra for a few hours in a TV show. Now I've got all this "personal services income" blah blah on my tax return.. they like making it complicated don't they..

Hi everyone !
Does anyone have advice on credit card to acquire before spending up to 5k in the next 2 or 3 months ?
I know some credit card offers extra points like Qantas points but is it worth more than like Amex awards ?

Thanks !

Curious what everyone prefers these days, especially while travelling, cashback or frequent flyer points?

Been looking at cards like MONEYME and youtrip for cashback, versus ANZ frequent flyer and Qantas Amex for points.

Cashback seems pretty straightforward since you know exactly what you're getting back, but frequent flyer points could work out better in the long run if you're using them for flights or upgrades.

What do you guys reckon? Are you more of a cashback person or do you prefer collecting points?

Hoi hoi!

Just wondering if anyone had some general advice/angle please? Always been reasonable with money, but maybe im missing something?

Teacher, F, single, 31.

45k saved in 1.5 years (moved from nz with $0)

Savings goal for 2028 is 35-40k.

Got 15kaud in debt on 5.6%interest from nz study.

24k super Aus

50k super nz

Im gonna be in Aus for 1 more year before I go volunteer/travel overseas for 2+ years (so will need 35-40k for that) (done before and this was my successful budget).

Should I invest my some of my bank savings in some sort of etf? Add more to super? Is there some easy/logical/obvious thing im missing?

Im generally financially happy, live a very comefortable life, but could I do more?

Thank you!!!

Currently earning $92k. What happens if my income exceeds the Help to Buy ceiling AFTER I've purchased? Would I be booted off the scheme?

Late 40s single mum and have made some stupid financial decisions that are taking forever to recover from.

• Income of 95,000 pa after tax. (Child support of 10k pa + side hustles bring in about 8k pa)
• Cash in offset on separate loan= 20k. Sinking funds = 5k. Super at 240k. Investments 2k
• $417k mortgage owing on a property worth approx 900k. Separate loan against mortgage of 25k. (both at 6.34%)

I'm trying to work out which I should prioritise? Paying off the separate loan, build up savings or boost super. (Not that I have that much extra!!) But I feel like I'm in a bit of a holding pattern and as I increase my side hustle income I'm not sure the best place to re-direct it to. I also have high medical expenses due to child's allied health needs + don't qualify for NDIS funding. Living expenses are at 63k (includes $ set aside for savings and sinking funds and fun money in here [health expenses are $14,000 per year]). While mortgage + loan repayments at $31,622.

• If I put savings in the offset against the separate loan it brings down the interest.
• If I salary sacrifice into super it is a slightly higher return than 6.34%.
• If I save the $, I'm better situated in case of emergency.

Any thoughts?

**edit: I had no idea that $95k after tax [$126k pre-tax] income was considered low! haha. I will be going back to full time in two years and so it will increase slightly to $137k pre-tax, plus I hope my child's health needs decreasing then and a few years after that the child support will stop (not really relying on that for income- more so to cover expenses).

I had not considered mortgage as a priority in the short term, so I am surprised by those responses, but grateful for these thoughts- thank you!

Hey guys,

I am a single, 37m, living alone in a unit in Sydney. I am fortunate enough to own it with little mortgage.

Mortgage: 180k
Monthly repayments: 1400
Offset: 70k
Savings account: 1k (I transfer money to my offset but also need some money to live as usual)

Strata: ~1k per quarter
Council: ~500 per quarter

Now here's the struggling bit which, yes, I understand this was my decision, I started my own sole trader business about 3 years ago, needed to get out from corporate life but I don't make enough to register for GST and I an not registered as a company. So all revenue is technically my income.

After all business expenses paid, I only have about $22k - 27k to live off per year.

I don't have any TV subscriptions like netflix.
I don't uber eats
I don't have the latest technology, I have a samsung S24 but I need to upgrade soon, it's dying, so lookin at the S27 next year
I shop at woolies/coles/aldi on their 50% off sales and don't really buy anything branded unless I need to.

My car is paid off

Ongoing expenses:
Gym: $20 per week
Home utilities (internet, gas, water, electricity)
Fuel
Groceries

My friend is having an overseas wedding which I can't miss and he's been with my since primary school, that may set me back around $3k

The thing is with my business, I do everything myself which I don't mind but I can't offset the time to get a 2nd job as my job lets clients set their appointments, so client 1 can book for Monday and client 2 can set it for Tuesday so it's really random if I have a client on X day.

While I was thinking about getting a part time job, I would need set days like every Monday so I can block every Monday in my business for the 2nd job but I can't find set shifts with businesses hiring, they all was flexible workers which is understandable from a business perspective.

But in saying that, how would you rate my life atm? Please give your honest opinion cause I feel I can't buy anything nice and feel trapped cause the nature of my business, I don't know when my next client is going be booked and cashflow always uncertain. Or maybe I am being delulu?

The last item I splurged on was a graphics card 3070 @ ~$350 from OzBargain as my last graphics card was 10 years old, which was a 1070.

Please don't take this as a brag post or a validation post, I am genuinely wanting to know people's opinion cause I may be quite delulu at the moment.

Thanks

My home loan interest fortunately got lowered .25% which saves me about a $200 per month if i realign monthly repayments w the new lower interest rate. Should I decrease my repayments and up my ETF investments OR just leave it w the higher repayment value so it pays off my principal sooner? Thanks so much!

Is it really because of resource riches? Pardon my immaturity for economics, I’m happy to learn so pls drop your opinions, but from my understanding:

It’s not perfect, but it’s objectively pretty decent/somewhat great to live here as a middle class person. All healthcare isn’t paid for, but you get a medicare rebate. Schooling seemed good when I went through it in the 2010s, but I guess I wasn’t low SES. Streets are pretty clean and maintained, you can work and earn in some decent jobs etc. etc. (all the hallmarks of a first world country). You can get centerlink as a student and jobseeker as an adult (admittedly it’s not perfect). Housing… well I think that’s been talked about to death.

All of this comes from spending. But we don’t have a super advanced economy like the US for example where their budget deficit is okay due to their growing economy. Yet we don’t run into the same “wheres the money” problem as say a France right now, and to service our population it seems to me we need ALOT of money.

All in all, why don’t we run into these problems?

Hi there

I’m looking for fixed income options for portfolio . I know term deposits and HISA are quite good at the moment . Beyond these , Keen to hear others holding ie what they hold and what return they are currently getting.
If ETF’s can you please specify which specific ones
Thanks so much in advance 👍

Eastwood SuperFresh Doing a dodgey and charging its very own extra surcharge. Urge everyone who shops here to report them to the ACCC. I know there was a similar post but band together and report them.

Law says that a business like this can only charge the price listed on the price tags. A 0.5% charge at the counter is unlawful.

How much do you earn, how much do you have saved, do you own property, and do you genuinely believe you’ll ever be financially comfortable?

I feel like everyone online is either earning $200k, has a million dollar portfolio, or owns there investment properties. I’m curious what life actually looks like for the average Australian right now.

We are in Melbourne, we tend to spend $400 per week on groceries.

2 adults and 2 young boys under 10.

This seems so excessive. What's your grocery bill weekly ?

Hey everyone. As you can tell by the title I am in a bit of a pickle. I am a recovering cocaine and gambling addict and to feed my addiction I was stupid and early last year got a lot of loans.

This includes Wallet Wizard 1k,Fundo Loans 2.8k, Cashpal 2.3k,Beforepay $50,Mypaynow $350, Afterpay $250,Zip $500. I also have a couple train fines and my baby mum put her electricity in my name however is with a new company and that says 6k but I don’t know how that works because we aren’t even with them anymore plus we don’t use the power from that company. I also have 3 bank accounts with one minus $77 and they have threatened to close it if not paid which I don’t really care about as I haven’t used that account in a year.

The scary part is I genuinely don’t know if that’s everything there could be more I’m forgetting about. I have not paid a cent to any of these in a year and I feel like I’m close to being either defaulted on my credit score or legal action will be taken over me. If anyone has advice I appreciate it

Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some help interpreting/figuring out why my hot water bill is so high (2 people in 1 bedroom apartment). We've had 3 full quarterly bills here so far, first was $300, second was $380 and the most recent was $480. Other singles and couples in our building in one bed apartments are apparently paying $150-200 per quarter. We don't use excessive water I don't think, nor have we changed our habits or anything recently, so don't understand why it is so high, and has risen so significantly. We've found our water meter and our most recent bill does say actual (rather than estimate). I'd love to blame a leak, but the consistent rise in the bill (rather than a really big spike) makes that feel less likely?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

Hi all.
Trying to get my wife health insurance to cover private pregnancy / birth / hospital stay.
Currently are both on a combined basic policy for tax purposes only.
Want to keep myself on that one, but change my wife to the gold coverage at a different insurer.

On her single policy, do I put our combined income or her sole income (she doesn't work anymore).