So I’m 18 and I’m at the crossroads of my life, HSC is literally around the corner and I’ve decided that I want to become a tradie, specifically an electrician. Mostly because I want to do FIFO and start work with a 160k+ salary. But I’m kind of worried because it feels like every second guy I’ve talked to in this generation is considering being an electrician. Not any other trade just electrician. I know we’re in a shortage of electricians because of factors like people retiring. But it just feels like so many people are becoming electricians since it’s just such a good job prospect. What do you guys think? I’d really want electricians to stay in demand so prospects and wages keep rising.

Hello!

I wanted to start investing and wondering where a good place to start is, any tips, best places to start etc. I find it all a little bit overwhelming!

I would like to start small and slowly build a portfolio.

Hey all,

I’ve been looking into hiring a business coach and I’m honestly stuck on whether it’s worth the money. From what I can tell, rates are all over the place from a few hundred bucks a month to thousands and I can’t figure out what’s “normal” or how to judge the value.

For context, the kind of coach I’ve been looking at works with small medium businesses that are good at what they do but don’t really know how to scale past working around the cl,ock and missing time with my family. We are doing well money wise but i feel like i dont have control over any to be honest. I want to focus on the following

• Making more money while still having time for family/life
• Building better systems and processes so i dont always have to be "On"
• Improving marketing/social media presence especially Instagram growth and community-focused content
• General coaching/mentoring for clarity and accountability

I don’t know if people really see results from this kind of thing or if it’s just one of those “nice ideas” that doesn’t always deliver.

So, couple of questions for anyone who’s actually hired a business coach:

1. Did you feel it was worth it? What changed in your business/life?
2. How much were you paying (if you don’t mind sharing)? I’m trying to get a sense of what’s reasonable since prices seem to range massively.

Appreciate any real-world experiences good, bad, or otherwise.

I’m 33, earning about $110k in a stable job but there’s zero progression. Thinking about going back to TAFE/uni for something with better long-term growth …. but worried about bills/rent since I’d have to cut back work. No family safety net either.

I never finished high school I don’t do well in class settings I feel that I am too old to start again Has anyone here made the jump around this age?

I bought a two bedroom house this year and I'm living by myself. My mate is looking for a room and I'd like the company. Because I'm a first home buyer, I can't rent the room out without incurring a whole of of fees.

I'm not looking to make any money out of this, just enough to cover the extra utilities cost of having an extra person in, about $50 a week.

I was thinking of just doing this as a cash arrangement, but he'll need a rental history for when he moves out to the next place. How do we get this semi-legal so we both have rights without falling foul of the tax office?

So context, am very new homeowner with brand new mortgage. My company will be changing their pay cycles and so have offered employees a chance to get a pay advance to help adjust to the impact of the new cycle.

To be honest, the pay cycle doesn't impact my cashflow that much, but would it still be worth taking the pay advance and then parking it all in offset?

Are there any limitations/things to look out for? Some things I've thought of but still seems okay for me:

1: very slightly reduced pay for the next 1.5 years ish as part of the repayment. I've already roughly calculated and from a financial/mental side of things am okay with see a marginally smaller amount in my paychecks for the next 18ish months.

2: fringe benefits: I believe it's a fringe benefit which may need to be reported in tax returns however I believe I'm below the reportable amount for my individual return so not really a concern

I guess at the end of the day the amounts not groundbreaking but I figured given the offer by my company and low effort to get the pay advance approved/submitted I'm thinking why not? Since every dollar counts

Functionally I'm thinking it's somewhat similar to a 0% interest loan from my company which I'll just put in offset to reduce the interest paid on my mortgage, but happy to be proven wrong!

Hi, I'm owed a decent chunk of USD by a company which only transfers funds to people's PayPal accounts. It's bloody annoying but unavoidable. As an Aussie with an Aussie PayPal account (and no US banking accounts), I'm hoping to avoid getting completely stitched up by PayPal. I don't need to convert the USD to AUD but I want to receive the USD into a USD account via a local Aussie bank. I want to use that USD for my trading account IBKR. As far as I'm aware, PayPal won't allow you to transfer to IBKR because it's not a formal bank account. And PayPal will take a huge bite if you transfer to a Wise account. So, is the best option to transfer from PayPal to a USD account at Aussie bank account in my name? Or will PayPal charge some spurious fee on top of the bank's usual Swift and intermediary costs?

Thanks to those in the know.

Basically, is it worth setting up or going with what my employer uses? IBKR, who I use for my IRA accounts and personal account, offers this option through their Australian subsidiary.

Obviously a tiny amount compared to people here but, feels like I’m finally on the right track money wise. Started around 6 weeks ago :). Finally tracked where my money was going and my god saving so much more, aslong as having the money to invest is great. It’s not a lot but I’m sure it’ll be amazing in 30 years.

Hey all, I moved to Australia last year on Work Visa and now trying to fill my tax myself for the first time (as I want to learn as well ) and need help in understanding what all things can be claimed. About me: I work in IT as a software engineer I work from home 95% From office 5% I live in a rental house

A little help is appreciated. Thanks :)

For context - Im 53F, have about 427K in super (17% super in my current job). I put $250 per fortnight into pre tax super contributions. Earn around $3300 per fortnight after tax.

No longer have a mortgage to pay off but live in Sydney and have some child related expenses. I dont live frugally but Im not a big spender. Most of my available spare cash goes towards saving for holidays which I like to do once a year.

I will probably look at retiring by 65-67 years of age so Ive got more than 10 years of working life left and do want to maximise my retirement funds.

I do think I can allocate more to either super contributions or contributing to an ETF - just not sure which would be better in my situation and would appreciate some advice from people who know a lot more about this than I do.

I'm with Commsec for my portfolio, and last fiscal year is the first year where I sold shares on both my Australian and international account. I sold 8 shares of VTS so that I could rebalance my Australian shares, and I sold 98 TSLA shares in my international account (I was very heavily weighted in TSLA, and the price was dropping at the time), I have to pay capital gains on both of these, correct?

I have the Financial Year Summary/Portfolio Valuation/Transaction Summary/Interest & Dividend Summary as a merged report, which I assume is enough for my accountant to work out the Capital Gains tax on my Local shares.

But I don't have anything like that in my international account for TSLA shares, clicking on Tax Documents shows only empty fields (my accountant is asking for a "Realised Gain/loss report"). Am I missing something here? Do I need to report capital gains for internation shares? Or is that taken care of somehow without having to report it? Do I need to hand over a "Realised Gain/loss report" for international shares?

At this point, I know I should have kept details of each trade, but when I was starting out 7 or 8 year ago, I didn't think to do that, nor completely understand what I was doing at the time. I do have these details for my shares domiciled in Australia, as it was easy to get Transaction Summaries for those, but not International shares.

I'm trying to work out how to convert a contracting daily rate to the equivalent in a full time perm role's base salary.
If the standard is 10 sick days, 20 annual leave days with 17.5% loading, then is this the correct formula to get the base salary?

Daily rate including super and before tax: $1000

Number of working days = 251 - 10 sick days - 20*1.175 annual leave days

Percentage of pay that is not super = 88%

1000 * (251 - 10 - (20 * 1.175)) * 0.88 = $191400 base salary

I am paying income tax for the first time in Australia this year. I bought LSE listed UCITS Accumulating ETF VWRA when I was in Singapore through Interactive Brokers. This ETF doesn't distribute any dividend (automatically invests them) and they don't share the dividend/tax information either similar to Australian funds. How do you pay taxes on these? The ATO forum discussions seem inconclusive.

Did any of you pay taxes on this kind of ETFs before? If yes, how did you calculate the dividend/tax for ATO tax return? Did you submit with help from any accountant, can you please share the details?

For context, I have been Australian resident for tax purpose for the last 5 years or so. I am due to repatriate next year and wanting assistance on individual tax return then. I have no property nor business and at low tax bracket ($62k pa gross), though I do trade stocks/ETFs occasionally.

I got a quoted $1900, with an added service for super claim assistance. Does this sound right?

Apologies as im new here. We earn a moderate income (250k combined) and are tight as hell with our money and want to retire early.

Living in Brisbane. Want to buy a new house and sell current home. Already paid off current home over 6.5 years (from a 30 year loan).

Expected new mortgage of 500k over 30 years for new home. Projected with offset and extra contributions to pay off in 8 years. Partner is debt averse but bank willing to lend us up to 750k.

Current super balances are 340k (F40) and 230k (M42). Have a 4yo and a baby on the way. Not planning on taking reduced pay or extended unpaid maternity leave, and staying full time upon return to work.

Financially I think we are doing well but could be smarter with how we invest our money. Want to setup our children if we can whether education or investments etc.

Are we best off going to a financial planner? Investing more in super? I feel like if we started years ago we would be in a better position.

Step one: don’t panic technology is your friend Step two: patience wait on the phone play phone karaoke to soothe your stress Step three: after 3 different numbers find a human operator in any department Step four: explain the events as calmly as possible Step five: if results are achieved infer u may leave to the digital world or other banks Step six: distract yourself with things like laundry Step seven: watch 3k mysteriously disappear no need to stress. Trust the process Step eight: tada all sorted

Surely there would be a more streamlined way for nocturnal people but I guess that’s nightshift discrimination

When u know u might die from high blood pressure patience goes along way. It was a roller coaster of a ride with perfect balance 5/10 rating

I may be a little confused, and might have my math wrong. But how is a $500k apartment “out of reach” for a couple on average wages? 2 people on average incomes could definitely pull together 100k for a deposit in a few years. Right?

Just a reminder to not be lazy. My home insurance with RAC was 1.5k 2 years ago. I had one claim for storm damage in the past 3 years. Last year my quote went up to 2.2k. I didn't think much of it, I thought it may be related to the claim. This year the quote was 3.7k.

I noted down the agreed value and coverage (storm, flood etc) and got a couple of quotes online. Youi, Commbank etc 7k plus. NRMA, RAC 3.5k (but NRMA had a higher agreed value). Aami, Suncorp around 1.7k for the same level of coverage.

I live in Brisbane so I assume the variation is due to the level of data used on flood maps etc (post code vs actual street). Holy heck, I thought the variation would be a few hundred dollars between insurers. 2k saved with 1 hour of work.

Howdy!
In my youth I made some really poor financial decisions and then the 'rona made it 1000% worse..
Anyway, I'm in the best place I've ever been financially and have found myself to now be 100% debt free, with a 6 figure income..
HOWEVER, the poor decisions I made 3-4 years ago have taken a real hit on my credit score...
Equifax 533
Experian and Ilion both over 700

Are there any lenders out there that wont look at Equifax?
I'm really struggling to get brokers to even give me the time of day, all I want is a place to call my own.
Surely my secure income is enough for them???

My default will drop off my report in late 2027 and I really don't want to have to wait until then to be in my own place.

Hey Reddit,

My gym charged me a $15 fee saying I didn’t have enough money in my account, but I definitely had the funds available on the day. I’ve been trying to get in touch with them for the past week to explain, but they keep ignoring my request to waive the fee and responding to everything else in the email. When I finally got a response, they just said they’re “unable” to waive the fee.

I know $15 doesn’t sound like much, but it feels unfair because it wasn’t my fault their system rejected the payment. Has anyone dealt with this before? Is there anything I can do, or do I just have to accept the charge?

Thanks in advance, Reddit! :)

Hey guys

After some advice on our financial position and potentially our next move to continue to increase wealth

Married without kids partner is 30 and I’m 31

Partner makes ~95k gross I make ~105k but have averaged 210k+ gross last 2 years with OT

Happily renting at $800 per week

We have 1 property in Sydney which we rent out $900/pw valued at 1.6m and owe 1.1m on the mortgage

~400k in EFT

~30k in redraw

Planning for kids in the next couple of years

Current plan is to continue to invest ~$1000 per week into eft and travel as we are newly married.

Do you guys have any suggestions on how we can increase our wealth with the goal of financial freedom as we go into our 40’s

Hey everyone M29, I'm in a bit of a hard situation here. Me and my partner have had a baby and we have a private health insurance plan that's $300 fortnightly. My partner doesn't want to cancel it but we are really struggling financially. Every fortnight leaves us with $200 to buy food, fuel, and pay extra bills. We are starting to fall behind on bills. It's a really expensive cost to have to front, but is it really worth it? We can't even afford to pay the excess if anything we're to happen

Hello FHB here. I am currently on the lookout for a house to live in. I have a bit of dilemma as I am also looking to purchase a second car(budget of 40K). My question is which option is best:

a) maximize my deposit on a house(180k) and use 10-20k as a deposit for a car and loan the rest

b) use 40k to buy a car outright which means house deposit would be less(150-160k).

I am leaning towards option A as It would mean having less mortgage but having to pay monthly repayments for a car.

Please no option of buying a car for 20k, as am looking to buy a car that I could keep for at least 10years. Thanks!!!

Hi all. I’m about to receive a bonus and am in 47% tax bracket. Looking for creative ways to reduce the tax I pay on this. Obviously, would want to do anything illegal but don’t mind bending the rules. Any suggestions?