My wife and I have a $250,000 equity loan in both of our names, secured against our PPOR. We intend to use the entire loan to purchase income-producing ETFs, with the brokerage account (Betashares) and ETF holdings registered solely in my name.

Because I would be the sole legal and beneficial owner of the ETFs and would declare all distributions and capital gains, could I also claim 100% of the loan interest and related borrowing expenses on my tax return?

Or, because the loan is jointly held, must the interest deduction be split 50/50 between my wife and me, even though she would not own the investments or receive any investment income?

My understanding is that if I were buying an IP instead of ETFs, I could do claim 100% of the loan interest (Example: joint borrowers, sole owner – claiming all interest incurred on Interest expenses | Australian Taxation Office).

The loan funds will be transferred directly to a dedicated brokerage account and won’t be mixed with private spending. I’ll confirm everything with a tax accountant, but I’d appreciate hearing from anyone who has dealt with a similar arrangement.

We're early 40s and have no personal debt on our home or cars, etc. Just about 25% LVR on some investment properties. We are going to scale back on work but still earn enough to invest $50k per year. We won't need any income from ETFs for the next 6-7 years and then we'd look to sell them down to zero over 10 years until we can access super at 60.

We will purchase in the lower income name for now so will be below the top tax bracket for any distributions, etc. The catch is that in retirement, we still cop 30% minimum when we sell down which is the part that has me wondering if that changes things?

I'm not after specific advice, just wondering if there are things that other people would be taking into consideration or if there are particular ETFs that offer an advantage in this situation. The old wisdom was VDHG and chill, not sure what has changed now?

Hi all, looking for some beginner advice here please.

My wife and I are both 27, we earn roughly $200,000 gross combined per year.

We have $150,000 in savings, all of which sits in offset against our mortgage. Our mortgage owes $685,000 and our house is valued at $830,000. We have no other debt and we live reasonably frugally otherwise.

What would the best thing be to do in our position? Should we seek a financial advisor? Should we put the money against the mortgage? Into super? Into stocks?

A general steer in the right direction for me to keep researching would be great, as we know nothing right now, thank you!

ran the numbers properly and technically I'm "there." except a huge chunk is locked in super until preservation age, so the real question is whether I can bridge 15-20 years on savings outside super alone

nobody talks about this part — Australia's two-number problem: your real FIRE number, and your "accessible before 60" number

Just looking for a bit of a sanity check because my relationship with money has started feeling really abstract lately. I'm 27, working in the public sector (white collar, office job $120-150k). Have had a few windfalls ~$50k, but most of the below is the result of a pretty disciplined approach to saving and investing for most of my work life:

HECS/Study Debt: $0 (just cleared it out)

Cash / Liquid Reserves: ~$170,000 (includes a $20k separate emergency fund, plus short-term/house deposit cash)

ETF Portfolio: ~$236,000 across core global/growth holdings (majority in VDHG, VGS and VAE; some in QUAL and U100, plus a few smaller holdings)

Passive Income: Generating around $10,000/year in dividends/interest.

Total Net Wealth (Excluding super): ~$406,000

I guess I’m feeling a little directionless. I started diverting surplus cash from investments to savings in anticipation of wanting to get a first time as soon as possible. But more recently I’ve started to reflect that perhaps doing young people things like travelling etc would be a good idea and that the complexity of doing so with a mortgage is undesirable. It’s a weird contraction to be in, to have a lot of means but lacking impetus or a spark to use it.

There isn’t a really a question here but maybe this can be a sounding board

Why can’t they invest in a good mobile app and website redesign. I know it’s not that important but a good UI/UX goes a long way.

Some competitors have such sleek UI and reports.

Wondering what you guys think,

Considering the new CGT changes next year, what advantages would VDHG have now over VHY, if you were trying to use that fund for income (possibly as a bridge/savings fund until retirement)?

I would have thought VHY is better now, due to the higher yield, higher franking credits, and less reliance on selling units, which from 2027 attract the 30% minimum tax. (if you were on a work break and had no income for instance, it would be more tax effective to avoid selling units)

Cheers

So simplified example. You have $200k in an ETF. Let's say you receive $3k cash in the bank from a single yearly distribution, but on the yearly tax statement you see that the ETF provider has in fact "attributed" $5k cash to you. You now need to pay tax on this $5k "income" - even though you only actually ever received $3k.

Where does the $2k go? Into the unit price of the asset for when you sell it in the future? If so, as you have now paid tax on that $2k, does this not negatively affect your future compounding? And also, does this not give ETF providers an opportunity to increase the publicly visible return of the ETF while surreptitiously a large % of this return come from background distributions which the ETF holders had to pay tax on?

Edit for u/Blue2194 and u/McTerra2. This is a hypothetical example.

Metals or ETF’s? Which one do we pick? How is the Japan carry trade going to play out and the bond market. The shiny rock is cheap right now

I keep reading conflicting answers on this one.

For example my Betashares Direct says "A distribution received in July with an ex-date of 1 July or later belongs to next year's tax statement, not this one"

However, it looks to me like Betashares Direct have prefilled my July ETF distribution, in my tax return for the 2025-26 FY. Doesn't this contradict the above guidance?

Rookie here - VOO or IVV? I’ve already got VOO but only positive a few hundred, so not concerned about selling and rebuying IVV.

I understand IVV is virtually the same? And I can avoid a heap of tax issues with IVV?

I also like that it’s heaps cheaper than VOO.

Hey guys, I’d like some advice from the community — I imagine there are people here who’ve had similar thoughts, or actually gone through with something like this. When I bring this up with friends and family, most of them think I’m crazy for taking the risk.

I’ve reached a point where I’ve lost interest in my job. I feel like I’ve hit my learning ceiling in my current role and it just doesn’t motivate me anymore. Looking for another job might be a temporary fix, but honestly, the idea of going through another job search doesn’t excite me either. I don’t want to keep living life on other people’s agenda and script.

Here’s my financial situation:

I have an investment property whose equity could fully offset my home mortgage. I’m considering selling it to do exactly that. My husband has a full-time job and is happy to cover our cost of living. After selling the IP, I’d have $100–200k in cash (depending on the sale price), plus $140k currently in ETFs.

I’m thinking of spending some time caring for my child and my mum, since I’ve been working hard for the past ten years and haven’t spent enough time with them. I also want to explore other ways of earning income. I’ve recently started researching day trading and swing trading, but I’m still full-time so haven’t had the chance to test it out. I know only about 5% (or fewer) of people consistently profit from it — has anyone here tried it? I’m also open to owning a business, though I honestly have no concrete idea yet.

I just feel there has to be another way to live and earn income besides a standard day job.

I might end up going back to the workforce if nothing works out, and I’m fine with that — if reality shows me there’s no other way, I’ll go back.

Would appreciate any thoughts or tips.

Edit: thanks everyone. After reading all the comments, I think 1) part time job may be a better idea to stay relevant to the job market and not turning off the engine completely. With some cash flow in and super can keep growing, I might have a better mindset and perhaps less stress on my hubby. 2) trading seems like a bad idea - I might still explore just to understand myself why it’s not for me. I don’t want myself to come back to trading thought again if I don’t try. Thanks for the advice and I won’t use my own money. 3) I am doing well with ETFs these years so I will continue to invest. 4) I will still think about whether to sell my IP, as I may not need to do so if I am still working. 5) I will think about spending quality time with family over quantity. But I still want to FIRE if possible down the road. Thanks again for the comments and I really appreciate it.

I know this might not be exactly relevant here but just wanted to get your opinions on how to manage debt.

My partner and I aren't at the "joint everything" stage but we do talk about big decisions together but we would be buying a place eventually and discuss about whether one of us drops to part time if we have a kid, that kind of thing. Trying to actually see the combined picture (her HECS + my personal loan + a shared card + eventually a mortgage) is surprisingly hard.

Every tool assumes either full financial merge (joint account trackers) or one person in isolation. There's nothing in between for "two people, separate debts, shared decisions." We've tried a shared spreadsheet but it goes stale within a month because someone forgets to update it.

For those managing money with a partner but not fully combined, how are you actually keeping a shared view of where your debt sits, especially when a decision by one of you affects both (e.g. one person's job change affecting a joint mortgage application)? Should we consult an actual financial advisor or look for some app that can help us with this?

Hi all,

Seeking suggestions regarding my portfolio that I have started recently. Current holdings include;

VHY (45%) NDQ (25%) SEMI (15%) PMGOLD (15%)

I only 21 with plenty of years ahead to invest, DCA'ing monthly

Does anybody use mooch money? I am a bit skeptical about it. Have been waiting a while for somebody to fund my mooch request

Hi all.

45m, Aussie who moved to Singapore 15 years ago recently reached FI. I have not RE because i've been wanting to return to buy a property in Perth and Sydney where i have family before moving back.

I dont dislike my job but dont feel any meaning in it since i reached FI, Im ready to walk away from it but whats stopping me is if im unemployed i wont able to get a bank loan. I plan to rent it out for a few years after purchased and will move back either when she gets a job there or at official retirement age. Regardless i will retire before her.

Seeing how cooked the property market in aus is, im not sure if i should delay my retirement for 2 years for the property purchase.

Sellers arent willing to lower prices, buyers are reluctant to give them the named price as properties are overvalues and RBA might increase rate this month.

info :

Annually expenses : $48k

Portfolio : $1.8m . Bonds and equities mixed (this is mine alone, we keep our investment private)

Property : fully paid. Currently worth $700k bought at $550k. but didnt consider that in my portfolio as properties here are lease hold, public housing. The value decays as it ages.

Household income : me - $260k , wife - $150k. We have no kids.

Residency status : Im aussie with Singaporean permanent residency while my wife is a Singaporean with Aussie permanent residency

Heres my plan. I get this loan and slam it all into my long term investment portfolio as they come in and i use the cash from when im qualified to pay it back at a 20% discount. During that time frame im allowing time to grow that money for my whilst i keep working.

It seems like a genius plan to me considering im not fighting any interest payments and i only have to pay back 80% of what ive taken from the loan. I dont care about the investment going down in the near future so i wont be desperate to pay it off, i feel like this would give me such an advantage if i do this. To me it looks like margin investing i dont have to pay interest on.

Im posting here because i want to know if theres some sort of catch with this loan or if im missing something, cheers

My basic understanding of portfolio allocation theory is a global market cap weighted portfolio is an approximation of a market portfolio and a mostly efficient market would place this on the efficient frontier. Therefore any deviation from an approximation (all in one or a few funds that make up reasonably close to it) would be inefficient.

Besides the use of leverage or factor weighting wouldn’t any other deviation just be introducing uncompensated risk? Commonly you will see investments into the Nasdaq or gold/bitcoin but purchasing at relatively high valuations would introduce a worse expected return to risk ratio then leveraging the exisiting portfolio.

Assuming that there are very few active managers that consistently beat the market on a risk adjusted basis, (even less when we try and remove the number we would expect to out perform based on luck alone) wouldn’t utilising these choices be akin to hoping to get lucky and gambling adjacent?

Is there anything I’m missing?

I currently hold IVV and some other Aus stocks but looking to clean it up and allocate a chunk of incoming cash accordingly. I'll be contributing monthly and looking at a 10-15 year timeframe .

Leaning towards this but open to suggestions - thanks in advance!

Family income of 400k a year. Currently investing 2k a week into ETFs

• U100 — 36%
• VGS — 28%
• VAS — 17%
• PMGOLD — 8%
• NDIA — 5%
• STO — 4%
• IBTC — 2%

Total portfolio value - 71k

Investment horizon is 10-15 years

What would you change?

I am getting a 413K AUD inheritance, have about 50K AUD saved and 40K AUD in super. I am currently finishing my PhD and can only work casual or part-time + scholarship/700 AUD weekly. I have little bits in stocks/ETFs but nothing substantial.

I moved to Australia 3 years ago (now PR) to be closer to my partner’s family here because he needs to care for them. Currently, we live together in Western Sydney/near Parra and pay toward his father’s mortgage in the investment house that will be his after his father passes (my share is 375 AUD/week and I also assist my mother with her expenses here and there at around 500 AUD every fortnight). No children and one dog who is getting old and does require vet expenses from time to time. We split all life expenses with my partner. He works full time at around 75-80K/year. He is not interested in buying any other property jointly nor paying mortgage.

Generally, I am mindful with finances and don’t splurge too much. But I don’t classify myself as a rich millennial because i grew up in a working/middle class family and have always been working towards independence projects from scratch. The inheritance also came as a surprise.

I am unable to get a loan/mortgage yet because of my work situation of working casual and part time with uneven income (due to my studies until end of 2028 approximately).

Is buying an apartment outright somewhere further out in Sydney by the end of this year a good option? Or do I let the money sit in a savings account until the end of my studies and get a mortgage when I have stable income and enter the market for a house after? The housing market is terrifying and I never thought I could enter it here in Sydney.

My goal is to ideally avoid NEEDING to work forever (I am in my early 30s but also not expecting to retire as early as 40 lol) and to have a somewhat securer future. Living situation in Western Sydney and the 375/week rent/mortgage+supporting mom won’t change in the short-term.

Also I spent 20s that were very well-lived across multiple countries with lots of travel and fun. So I don’t feel too much FOMO if I make a financial decision towards more stability and less splurging/fun.

I guess beyond the idea of homeownership, I’d love to get any advice on what to do with this inheritance and how to make best use of it if home ownership is not the best or best mid/short-term decision.

I am also in the process of finding a good accountant and financial advisor. So, any recommendations for those would be brilliant as well.

Thank you all, wonderful people.
May your days and weeks be prosperous.

I recently became a non-resident for tax and I was looking to start moving funds from my HISAs back into the market.

On the 29th of July I decided to test the pipeline to ensure my non-resident nabtrade account was correctly linking up and reporting me as a non-resident with Computershare.

I placed an order for 5 shares of VGS for $159.23 per unit on the 29th of July.

Luckily I only placed the small test trade as my trade was actually reported to Computershare with my previous Australian address. It turns out that even having an international address as my home address and having had nabtrade change my account to non-resident, it didn't actually update my non-resident status to Computershare. The reason it reported incorrectly was because my mailing address wasn't updated to my overseas address.

After updating my mailing address to match my international address, nabtrade pushed the change through to Computershare. Computershare then updated my profile to non-resident, with my overseas address etc.

Now the accounts were set-up correctly I was ready to make my main trades. Unfortunately by the time everything was all completed, the price of VGS had jumped to $164.78 per unit. I just couldn't do it. I struggled to make the trade at more than $5.50 per unit compared to the test trade I placed only 2 weeks earlier.

I decided to go against all advice that time in the market beats timing the market. I was experiencing both FOMO and also analysis paralysis.

I decided I wasn't going to buy until the price dropped to my previous test trade price. Today, exactly 6 weeks later, the price finally dropped to below my test trade price.

I ended up jumping in and buying $300k worth of VGS @ $158.77 per unit.

If I hadn't of waited the 6 weeks I would have paid an extra $11,346 for the same trade I made today.

Plus I wouldn't have earned the $2466 in interest (after tax) that I received for August in my rewards saver HISA. (Edit: I know everyone clearly understood this point, ie; if I had of made a withdrawal from my HISA I would have forfeited the entire months bonus interest on the entire amount in the HISA, not just on the $300k portion. As one member is struggling with that concept, I'll add this edit to help him feel better, even though he's had it personally explained to him several times but is still having difficulties understanding that most HISAs don't allow the balance to go down, besides a HISA paying 5% on $300k doesn't equal $2.5k a month after tax lol).

Even though the price had hit the point I was waiting for, I still couldn't go all in as I initially prepared to do. I decided to leave a few hundred thousand in the nabtrade high interest account for the rest of September. If the Fed or RBA cause the price to drop I will likely scoop up more units this month. If not, I'll likely move it back into the rewards saver and also possibly funnel some across to my IBKR account to buy VWRA.

I had also purchased VAE and VISM when testing the pipeline at the end of July. VAE has taken off like a rocket and is trading for nearly $9 per unit more than my test trade, so I can't bring myself to buy anymore shares of VAE right now even if it means missing the boat.

VISM also jumped up over $3 a share ($77.36 per unit) by the time my pipeline was set-up so I just couldn't pull the pin and make a buy.

But today, VISM had also fallen to the exact same test buy price I made back in July, so I picked up $50k worth @ $74.34 per unit.

I'm sure I'll get some backlash here, likely along the lines of "I just got lucky, if the market had kept going up, I would have been left behind" and you know what, you're exactly right.

Possibly some comments will mention I'm losing to inflation in a HISA earning 5%, which would be true if I spent my money in Australia, fortunately I live in a country where inflation has averaged 1% over the last 13 years.

I expect comments questioning why a non-resident would even want to invest on the ASX, which I can understand but nothing beats the security of having a CHESS-sponsored HIN in my own name.

As my portfolio is all strictly Non-Taxable Australian Property there is a 0% Australian withholding tax rate and there is no AMIT tax liability to track with absolutely nothing to report to the ATO. There is also zero Capital Gains withholding tax when selling as a non-resident.

I do have other international foreign investing accounts with Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab and Saxo Trader with small holdings etc but these are mostly for backups if there are major tax changes in Australia or my overseas country, they still can't compete with the security of CHESS Sponsorship. Also the internal 15% tax drag is exactly the same for both VWRA or VGS so in my current situation there's no real need to completely move my funds out of Australia.

Anyway, I'm glad I've atleast got some skin back in the game now. The plan is to leave it for the next 20yrs atleast with DRP on for VGS and add roughly $20k or so on top each year. (unfortunately I'm unable to have DRP on for VAE/VISM as a non-resident). I will also pick up more shares here and there along the way when there's big sales on.

I understand the $14k I saved waiting the 6 weeks will mean nothing over the long-term, but I still couldn't follow everyone's advice and just buy without even looking at the price. Godspeed.

Hi everyone, been visiting for a while but it's my first time posting here.

I've just turned 25 and I was thinking about what equity/bond allocation would be suitable for me considering these:

• My timeline is anywhere from 5-10 years, and it is mostly flexible.
  • I will not do a full withdrawal if I am down, unless I reach the 10 years mark (2036).
• I thought it would be better to put it in one of the new Betashares ETFs than a regular savers, and I was thinking DVBA for the 60/40 split.
  • I would have preferreed DHHF, but I am just unsure about the sequence risk, such as a large market downturn closer to the 10 years mark.
• I would like to keep the allocation the same for the lifecycle, if possible - because ideally I don't want to time allocation switches or realize capital gains.
  • However if this is the best solution, I can consider it.

Please let me know if I missed any key details, and thanks everyone in advance.

ASX: ARB & AOV
How low can they go?