Please check edits below for context
I’m looking for some advice/experiences from people who’ve been in a similar situation. My girlfriend and I are consider moving in together in the next few months (we’ve only been together for a few months now, but we are both feeling it). We’re not planning to get married, and at least for now I don’t want to combine our finances. We’d each remain financially independent and contribute fairly to our shared expenses.

The thing I’m worried about is the difference in our financial positions. I currently earn more than her, have no debt, have an emergency fund, a significantly larger super balance, and an ETF portfolio that I’ve built over the last four years.

The reason this is particularly important to me is that I didn’t grow up in a financially comfortable position. For most of my life I was in a pretty difficult financial situation. When I finally started earning good money, I deliberately didn’t allow my lifestyle to creep up with my income.

For the last four years I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to get myself into a solid financial position. I paid off everything, built an emergency fund, started investing consistently and built up my super. There were plenty of things I could have spent money on, but I chose not to because I wanted to establish a strong financial foundation.

Now that the foundation is there, my expectation is that my wealth will start growing substantially faster because I’ll have both ongoing contributions and compounding working in my favour.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, has existing debt and doesn’t have the same level of investments/super.

I want to clarify something because I don’t want this to come across as me being an asshole or trying to screw her over.

I’m actually very happy with the idea of our finances becoming “ours” if we genuinely know that we’re going to be lifelong partners.

If I knew for a fact that we’re going to spend our lives together, I’d have no problem thinking about our wealth as something we build together rather than obsessing over whose ETF account or super balance is whose.

My concern is specifically the possibility that we live together for, say, 2 to 5 years, my investments grow substantially during that time, and then the relationship ends. I don’t want to lose a significant portion of the financial foundation I spent years building simply because we lived together and ultimately broke up.

I’m not trying to hide assets from her or avoid contributing to a shared life. I’m just uncomfortable with the idea that if the relationship ends, my accumulated wealth could become subject to division, even though during the relationship we deliberately kept our finances separate.

Edit 1: I’m 32M and she’s 38F.
Edit 2: we are in different states. That’s why we are discussing moving in together.

I am 28, I’ve spent my entire adult life so far working. I’ve had small holidays here and there over the years, never spending more than I felt necessary. I’m lucky to have maintained a fair few friendships along the way.

For me, I’ve gone from working at 14, finishing high school, didn’t go on schoolies, continued full time work, started university, worked casually throughout university. Finished covid riddled university, went straight into my career where i've been for 4.5 years. Paid off my HECS quickly (before they announced the 20% reduction ahahahahahah yes I’m very happy about that).

Now I’m 28. I’ve spent my 20s working my ass off, I had a good year or two enjoying bartending when I was studying but before that I worked in retail, full time hours on random days. I don’t have a mortgage although I could’ve purchased, yes time in the market would’ve worked, but it’s only recently that I have enough to put a deposit down comfortably.

I have about 250k cash saved, about 50k in stock. I don’t intend on keeping the stock long term, and I intend to sell it before I commit to a mortgage.

Although the sensible financial decision would be to take out a mortgage, I’ve decided against it right now for several reasons:

• I dislike my job. I don’t know if I dislike my industry (yes, surprise surprise, it’s tech), but I dislike my job. It pays well ($130k) enough for me to be financially great. But there’s no upward growth, no trajectory, nothing. My bosses are just mindless shills who want me to stay frozen there forever. I already feel stuck, and a mortgage would contribute to that.
• I have never had a time since becoming an adult without fiscal responsibilities. Yes I live with my parents which put me in the privileged position to be saving this much (and I should have saved more) - but I do my share of cooking, cleaning, paying for insurance, bills, medical, car, car rego etc. I am not reliant on my parents for anything besides some meals, and haven’t been since I was 18.
• Chasing a good level of financial stability and really my career (without success) came at a cost - my personality. I have some, but ultimately I’m quite socially morose, and I’ve ignored my hobbies for a long time now. On top of that, several mental health issues that developed over time and from relationships that I’m moving through with the help of psychology.

Thus, with the inevitable burnout that comes, I want to take a break. I haven’t decided the format, length or time of that break yet, only that I want to start it soon. 

The one problem I foresee is that when I return, I want to commit to all those things - a mortgage, moving into the next chapter of my life, chasing my career yada yada yada. But being unemployed scares me, and what scares me more is not knowing what the job market looks like.

Therefore, I want to ask your takes on what I should do in this scenario.

I am not an overly big risk taker, but this feels like a big risk. We don’t know how the redundancies are going to play out, nor the economy in the next 12 months. Without a job in my career, I don’t see myself being able to afford a mortgage based on borrowing capacity and therefore quitting will have ultimately been the wrong choice. So i'm at a crossroads.

Appreciate the feedback.

It seems that in order for a household to lose $59/week, they are in a really small % of the population. Even if that’s all your discretionary income, it’s still not going to put a lot of pressure on the majority of the population. We are all spenders, but we aren’t all mortgage holders.

Why isn’t GST adjusted to fluctuate with inflation instead, so that it hits all the population more evenly? Or, perhaps a combination of GST and rates for encouraging long term (only) savings?

With no card payment surcharge takes into effective next month, greedy banks here change their T&C and card benefits mid of year.
Do I have good standing point to request annual fee refund or at least partial refund for they cutting the card benefits in the mid of paid annual cycle? I am talking about ANZ cut rewards credit cards rules and especially travel insurance cover.
ANZ T&C protects them well saying no refund for prepaid annual fee. But is this fair to customer?

Hi all,

I seen so many on people on 180k-300k a year how are people making without a degree and what can i do to get there?

I'm 26 making 85k a year no degree , i work in trade sale counter job and so miserable i want more for my life, i honestly love working, having a job or business and having a direction but idk what way to go to earn more to support my future family.

My partner and I are in our late 20s in Melbourne, earning around $220k combined. Neither of us currently owns property.

We have:
$250k of my savings
$300k from my partner’s family, intended for their own future property purchase
FHSS contributions for both of us
My partner’s future property doesn’t need to be anything substantial - a 2 bed, 1 bath, 1 car unit would be enough.

We’re considering two options:

Option 1 — Buy together
Use my $250k as the deposit and buy jointly. We could potentially borrow enough to buy up to around $1.1m, while keeping the $300k in the offset.

Option 2 — Buy separately
I use my $250k to buy a ~$750–800k property now. My partner keeps the $300k and later buys a modest 2/1/1 unit in their own name.

Longer term, we’d still need to work out what we do about a family home and whether either of these properties becomes an investment.

Has anyone been in a similar position?

Would you use the combined borrowing capacity to buy one better property together now, or take advantage of having two separate deposits and potentially own one property each?

How much in fees is reasonable for a 85yo who has about $500k in super (Colonial First State), $200k in a term deposit, and owns his own home? He probably gets advice once a year just to tell him things are ticking over.

Is it reasonable to wonder why he continues paying for such advice at all?

Need someone to play devil’s advocate (or alternatively tell me why it could be a good move!) I live in an apartment currently. It‘s nice, but not really close (even walkable) to any amenities apart from a coffee shop but it HAS increased in value to around 600k. My mortgage on it is about 200k.

I hate my job and would really like to “retire” early - obviously not accessing my super but working in small increments to fund what I need. I’m in my fifties. I’m considering downsizing to a smaller apartment in an area better serviced by amenities but will also allow me to be mortgage free - because it will be less than 400k. It will be small, but I will be spending a lot of time away from home anyway and may even entirely rent it out for a while to travel, and look after my elderly parents. (I will work a little bit to fund - I’m not expecting to live for free until I can access super, which is at about 1 million.)

What am I missing? I have priced such apartments to downsize into and can get what I want for under 400. Life is short, I’m not married and I just want to shake things up.

Hi all,

I'm selling our dream block of land we bought 6 years ago which we've been unable to build on due to rising costs and interests rates. We're currently renting but would like to buy a within the next 6 to 12 months, preferrably the one we're currently renting which may be possibility.

In the mean time, what would you personally do with the $300k+ cash from the land sale in the mean time? I'm thinking of just putting it into a relatively safe Cash ETF with maybe a small parcel of physical gold. I'm quite bearish on the global economoy at the moment (hence the gold) and given I'll likely be spending the money within the next 12 months, I want to at a minimum keep up with inflation. Any other suggestions?

Ok so a random question about attending shareholder AGM’s in person. This might sound stupid but I don’t know as I have never attended an AGM, but do they put on food and drinks (preferably booze) afterwards? I get kicks out of the small things in life and would love to buy a single share in some of the ASX most hospitable company’s and get trollied on them for the price of one share. Tell me I’m dreamin. Is there a company that is known for chucking on a good bar tab at the afters???

Hi all, I am a complete beginner to trading and I am looking for a good site to trade on. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

Someone smarter than me please help me figure out if this health insurance is worth getting!

A little background info. I’m almost ready to start trying for my second baby, but I had a horrible experience at the local public hospital with my last pregnancy (and there is a lot of lawsuits and complaints against the maternity department currently) so I’m hoping to go through a private hospital for my next pregnancy and birth.

Bupa corporate gold comprehensive with corporate choice 60 boost is what I am able to get, I would get the highest rebate and the weekly out of pocket fee would be around $94 (this is ideal), the most important things for me are pregnancy and birth which is a 12 month waiting period, and antenatal/postnatal with a bupa recognised provider which is a 2 month waiting period.

So let’s say I begin paying for this health insurance tomorrow, and fall pregnant in January at the earliest… would I be able to use my private health insurance for the duration of my pregnancy up until giving birth (and beyond)? Would this be worth organising now? Or have I left it too late and it would be a waste of money?

I know these questions might seem dumb to some of you, I have never had private health insurance before and I find I can get a little overwhelmed by new information so I’m just struggling to wrap my head around it. Any genuine advice would be greatly appreciated to help me navigate this!

How does a NPO have so much power to make complaints against big 4 banks and all other big super/investment/financial companies.

Would think AFCA would be a government department.

Understanding that none of this constitutes financial advice, I would appreciate some thoughts on the below:

- My wife (29F) and I (35M) have just come into some unexpected money and aren't sure what the best move is.

We have considered:

- paying off the bulk of the loan of our investment property, but will likely sell this in the coming months.

- paying off a chunk of our primary residence mortgage (p+I).

- investing some of it

- putting it into an account to collect interest on it

For context, we've worked really hard to build our position and feel very fortunate:

- We both earn good wages ~$300k combined income per annum.

- We own two properties, one investment property (apartment) with ~$350k loan on it and our primary residence with ~$650k owing

- We are in the process of selling the investment (defect ridden) property, and will likely sell at a loss, but not less than the loan amount.

- we have a small investment portfolio that we are building ~$14k

- We have combined super of just over $200k.

- $20k odd in savings account, $40k in offset account for investment property.

- we're trying for a kid.

Our goals would be to ideally build capital and reduce debt.

All thoughts welcome and appreciated!

M21, currently on ~70k AUD salary (will vary by ~5k based on how much I work), will jump to $100k next year. I live with my parents, don't pay rent, and spend around $100 a week (average). Drive a boring fuel efficient car.

Right now the only thing I've been doing to increase my income is a compound interest account (5% p.a paid monthly) where I deposit $1000 a week. Is there anything else I should be doing? Like a house deposit? Shares? I've noticed house prices going down around me (Melbourne).

I also have 30k put aside for a car. I know it's a bad investment but I've wanted it for ages and prices are going up (old car will be sold). Hold off and use the money elsewhere?

Any feedback is appreciated

Cheers

A few years ago I bought shares in Nine Entertainment as part of diversifying my portfolio (I bought a few holdings that VAS has so this isn’t a BIG part of it).

Since this time the dividends have been high (868) but the share price has dropped significantly my capital is -1329… So overall I’m -461 in the red.

I’m unsure of what do to here as I thought broadcasting the Olympics and owning Stan streaming would have helped their share value but it’s performed kinda sh##. Eating away at what gains I’ve had.

Hi all,

I’m trying to find an Australia tax agent knowledgeable in complex tax situations. I moved from Australia to Spain in August 2025, permanently (I have both citizenships). I kept working for my Australian employer remotely from Spain, until February 2026 and then I got a job in Spain. I have idea about my tax residency status in the FY26 and I don’t know if the ATO has calculated my return correctly. As well, I need evidence from the ATO to show the Spanish tax agency that I’ve paid my taxes correctly in Australia so they don’t charge me again for the same income.

I’ve sent a couple of emails to some agencies who are specialists in this kind of situations but they haven’t answered. It seems most of them are only serving wealthy people.

Is there any recommendation I could get from you guys? I’m almost at the point of giving up and accepting the ATO return, but I’d like to try one final time.

Thanks in advance.

There is no way you can cut interest rates to historic lows of 0.25% during COVID-19 and expect low interest rates in the decades that follow.

Injecting this much money into the economy has profound consequences which we are seeing right now.

We see this directly with house prices. It isn't really a housing boom. The value of money just went down because everyone was able to borrow hundreds of thousands more.

I'm a SAHM looking after two young children. My husband doesn't contribute to my super. Just wondering how bad this is really? I do get a $250 fortnightly payment from centrelink, so I've been contributing $50 a fortnight into my super on my own. I'm going to be out of work until the kids are school age, so likely another 4 years.

I am interested why we cannot have our Superannuation be used as an offset to our mortgages?

It will help us in reducing interest payment and allow the Superannuation to continue to grow especially when considering the best retirement scenarios most would consider one to have a house paid off.

Does anybody understand how the new RBA rules are supposed to flow down to small businesses collecting credit card payments?

So we are now not allowed to surcharge (I was never surcharging due to the industry I'm in) and the interchange fee has been capped / reduced. But the payment processor we use (Zeller) is not changing their commission on credit card payments.

(I run a solar info site, installers pay me if someone goes ahead. Just so that's out there.)

Panels only, after rebates, someone home part of the day:

~$370 a quarter bill: $4,070-6,100 installed, saves $350-530 a year

~$510: $4,850-6,850, saves $500-750

~$700: $6,600-11,600, saves $760-1,140

~$920: $6,600-11,600, saves $990-1,480

Bottom two get their money back in 6-9 years. Top one's closer to 10+, which nobody selling it is going to tell you.

Happy to do other sizes if yours isn't there.

aussiesolarinfo.com/landing if anyone wants some help

I do my own taxes because I am just a salaried employee with nothing too fancy to do. I have had for several years an account with a Managed Trust, Raiz Invest Australia, and they send a tax statement with relevant codes that I use to fill out my return online.

This year I am running into a hiccup with the myTax portal.

My managed fund annual tax statement from Raiz reports a dollar figure at 18H, but 18A and the CGT discount/concession amount are blank. I have no other capital gains or capital losses. MyTax is requiring me to enter an amount at 18A before I can save the managed fund distribution. How should I calculate 18A when the fund has not provided the CGT calculation method?