r/AusHENRY

I’ve got a plan. I think it’s a good one, but I thought checking with the boffins in here might pay a dividend before I do something that could be expensive to undo.

I’m in the process of refinancing my house (2.5% fixed -> 5.84% variable, ouch) and thought at the same time why not:

1. debt recycle
2. leverage some equity for investing
3. Sounds reasonable enough, right?

The context:
HHI: 450k, 50/50 split with partner, both mid 30’s
PPOR: worth 2.3+, owing 1.35
Around: 230k cash
Super balances: $215k each

The possible jaunt into unreasonableness is this. The new loan structure would be 1.25 ($100k debt recycled from current total owing) and two splits at $250k each for a total debt at $1.75m.

Why haven’t you done something sooner, you might say? Well the fixed term just finished and I’m not in the business of closing loans with interest rates we’re unlikely to see for the rest of this decade.

The arguments for:
We’re comfortably saving the loan repayment difference (+$5k) each month anyway and then some. Even with saving an additional $40k+ to max out super and carry forwards we’re still fine. So serviceability right now isn’t really an issue.

The arguments against:
It’s still a lot of debt and who knows what the markets will do, but volatility is a given and I feel we’re heading for volatile times.
Also the slide in housing prices is giving me pause, I don’t want to end up in a situation where my LVR creeps over 80%

Obviously I don’t have to take all the debt on and invest it right away and the optionality is nice but would eventually taking on that much debt for investment be crazy?

Really interested to hear your thoughts on all aspects of the plan and would love to hear if anyone is in a similar situation.

What would you do?

Hi all.

I am wanting to get out of this save save save mentality and just start spending and living in the moment.

The main drivers are

1. My parents are in their 80s with a few recent health scares (but all good now) - who knows how much longer they will be around. My dad has always been one of my best friends.
2. Kids are aged 0 and 2. The older one is growing and changing so rapdily and I feel I dont have enough time with him with working so much.

I will be paying for everything as my parents are broke (they both get age pension though), and my wife doesn't work anymore since we had children (which we are both very happy with).

As of recently I have started earning around 300k - 400k depending on number of days worked (this was only recent). My income is scalable depending on days of the week worked and location and I could go between $100k and 600k depending on how many days and location I want to work in.

I did do 6 days a week for some time and the money was great, but I was missing out on each stage of my child's development quite a bit.

I am thinking if things become difficult to go back to working 6 days a week in higher paying location to make it up.

Job security isn’t an issue - can pick up where I left off etc.

I have one property worth 1.8M with 1.3M left on the loan.
And 220k in the offset. The house has a granny flat for my parents.

Expenses are pretty low so far, as we had a household income of 45K between my parents and I when I was in uni. Things have been much easier since finishing my qualifications though.

For example:
- Considering taking the family on a holiday (60k) whilst my parents can still travel.
- Buying a new car with space for everyone (new Kia Carnival is 75k) so we can go on road trips together (i.e. 7 seater with enough safety and convenience features that would make it easy enough for my wife to drive a big car).
- Dropping down to 4 days work for a while to spend more time with kids. Won’t get this chance when they are in schoo.
- Living overseas for a little while (e.g. few months a year) before the kids start school (I can work remotely if needed for a few months of each year, albeit with a bit lower pay) so we can engage the kids in my wife's culture / language.

I would appreciate any advice from people who have been in a similar situation and anything they did or did not do, and if they have any regrets with their decisions.

So I changed jobs late last year and took a $70k pay cut to give some more flexibility and interesting work. At the same time we moved house using a bridging loan we ended up with $180k after sale, which we kept in an offset. Issue is we keep spending like we were previously. The $180k has dwindled to $70k (there were some big items in there like a funeral and a new camper trailer). We have slowed the bleed but still keep drawing from it for emergencies which seem to keep happening. Keen for advice, thinking of going to a cheaper house, or should I use what’s left to pay down the mortgage and reduce payments… or do we need an intervention on our spending? Thanks!

41yo couple with 3 kids
Only I work, $270k annual incl super
PPOR worth about $1.1M, loan is $660k
Money in offset ~$70k
Super ~$500k

Edit:
Well I guess I did ask for it lol, I love how the morning traffic everyone is polite and being empathetic, arvo posts are calling me out for the ‘regard’ that I am I guess. I’ll try and redo the budget and post something a bit more tangible next time. Cheers for the advice and tips, I better book a camping trip ha.

Now the dust is settling after the budget, I’m wondering what people are doing with their surplus investible cashflow for the family?

Besides debt recycling and super contributions, are we left with just investing in the lower income earners personal name? It seems like personal name, company structure or investment bonds are the only options.

I was going to go the personal name route but curious what other people are planning?

Hi everyone,

I (25y/o) am planning a long-term wealth-building strategy and want some community feedback on asset structures for optimal accumulation and eventual drawdown.
I’m currently running a high-conviction, geared ETF portfolio. With the massive upcoming scale of this portfolio and the abolition of the 50% CGT discount on 1 July 2027, I am trying to determine if establishing a Personal Investment Company (PIC) is commercially viable compared to investing in my personal name.

My Current & Future Setup

Current Portfolio: ~$50,000 in my personal name following a geared ETF strategy (75% GGBL / 25% GHHF).
Incoming Capital: Expecting a $200,000 cash injection next year (repayment of a personal loan).
Ongoing Contributions: Positioned to invest a consistent $2,000 per week ($104,000/yr) over the next 10 to 15 years.
Target Horizon: 10–15 years.

The Strategy & Dilemma

Given the project scale (easily hitting $1.5M–$2M+ in 10-15 years), I am weighing the 30% passive corporate tax cap against the incoming individual indexation rules.
Specifically, I want to explore the feasibility of injecting the upcoming $200,000 and the $2k/week contributions as tax-free Director’s Loans into the corporate entity.

What the Models Say

I’ve used AI tools to model these scenarios, and the numbers heavily favor a corporate structure. However, models don't always capture real-world tax friction or compliance costs.
I am booking a session with a specialized accountant soon to validate the math, but I’d love to hear from the community first.

Has anyone run a similar high-conviction, geared ETF strategy inside a company structure?

What are the major blind spots I'm missing (e.g., Division 7A issues with Director's loans, high ongoing accounting fees, or drawdown friction)?

Would a Discretionary Trust with a Corporate Trustee make more sense here than a pure PIC?

Appreciate any insights or experiences you can share!

Asked on the Up bank community, but would appreciate any insight here from similar people given our income and goals. Added context Up Home loan product = 5.95% fully variable, 0 fees, all shared accounts infra with my wife count as offsets against loan, all other details below.

Other perhaps useful context aside the bank specific Q: super bal = 235k me, 80k wife, both standard Rest Growth portfolio (should prob change this but that’s a separate question as we’re finally taking finances seriously)
TIA 🙏

My wife and I (37m/f) have done all banking with Up for the past few years now. Last month we finally refinanced our mortgage to Up, something we’d planned to do since the product was announced but needed to let job changes settle and get some consumer debt under control that we’d let get away for too long under the excuse of having a son who will turn 2 this week.

Goal is to pay down fast so we can afford a shift closer to the city (Melb, currently living a 60-90min commute to city we both do 1-2x a week on average) smaller place, easier to clean, but way closer and better before little man starts school. Target price likely 1.2-1.5m +/- whatever the housing market does.

Current situation:
PPOR value ~$800k
Mortgage bal ~$581k
Offset bal ~$26k

My income highly variable ~$250-300k (sales with monthly comm)
Hers part time $80k

3 months ago we cancelled all our credit cards, and refinanced 2 outstanding bills, card balances and the dregs of a loan used for the final part of our wedding into a consolidated 7.9% loan, ~20k remaining paying $490 a fortnight, will be killed off in under 2 years, no penalties on additional repayments. One goal will be when offset is healthier to kill this faster with the lumpier parts of my pay.

Offset is ~equally split between a small amount we’ve put away every paycheck for our son since he was born (plan to grow till he’s 18-20 to help with uni or buying a home) and a ‘rainy day’ saver we started 2 months ago and have built up rapidly thanks to tax returns and commissions.

We have set mortgage payments to happen every fortnight, 1 day after my pay hits:
Pay comes in
-$2500 goes to mortgage saver, 1 day later it pays mortgage
-$250 goes to son account
-whatever’s left allowing for ~$1500 spendable bal (nearly all expenses set as regulars) goes to ‘Rainy Day’

Sorry for the context novel: here’s the question:
-We’ve made 3 fortnight payments since settlement mid July: $2000, $2500x 2
-Min repayment = $3752, 25y term
-Till yesterday mortgage had no interest applied, so bal had come down $7k, and we had an available redraw of approx $3200 (can’t remember exactly but I would guess $7k -$3752?)
-First interest charge applied: $2825.45
-Available Redraw: $0

Our plan is to continue paying $2500 a fortnight (likely more once personal loan cleared), but it’s also important to us to build up more liquidity to avoid a situation like we were dumb with on credit cards (I paid hundreds a month in CC interest for a decade 🤦‍♂️). Why has the redraw gone to 0 despite interest being less?

This is likely a dumb question the answer for which is basic math, but appreciate and insight if anyone in a similar boat thinking about how they balance this. 🙏

My base pay is 180k including super with a 15% bonus component so my employer super is at $22250.

My employer also gives me 1% extra super if I pay 3% or more so I do the math and add 5% usually so that it reaches $30k,/$32.5k I know that 1% doesnt add to the $30k/$32.5k but its around $2k of free money which will compound so why not.

We have an IP where we lived for 3.5 years before moving out 2 years ago which we want to sell this year to go mortgage free. The approx CGT I would have to pay would be $35k each, my thinking is if I drop that $35k into super then I only have to pay 15% tax instead of 47% on the majority.

The thing is I only have $25k left in carry forward super contributions so do I stop the voluntary super now and use the balance to cover the lump sum or it doesnt matter as I pay the same amount anyways??

I have tried doing the math but I keep getting confused.

TIA

Edit: Apparently the extra 1% counts towards the concessional cap, I thought it didnt .

I had this idea and sometimes it just helps to talk it through. So thought I'd ask.

- 46M
- Single no kids, don't see that changing
- 150k in Mortgage - Edit again: PPOR value is about $1.1M
- 40k in offset
- Portfolio 140k
My plan was to FIRE in about 10 years time. Only something I started considering about 18months ago. I don't hate working but had a couple of events that changed my view on my life.

I wasn't sure because it feels a little like I'm just shuffling money from one bucket to another.
Sell out the portfolio, put about 45k into carry forward super. Short of a market going backwards is is the last year I'll be able to do it, as it'll tick over 500k this year, it was just under at the end of last FY (edit: about 480k). 45k is the full amount I can carry forward. Use the rest to pay off/offset mortgage for essentially debt free. Some of this is personal piece of mind. Some of it is guaranteeing a 6% return.

Use my mortgage payments and investments contributions to rebuild portfolio. I'd expect this to be approx $2-4000pm (my income varies). Part of this was to use the CGT discount while still available, I'm not sure how significant it will actually be. I was aiming for $450k+ out side of super.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Edit: Sorry it was late when I posted. The carry forward as a deduction would at least offset the discounted CGT.

M38 married with a 1 year old kid and another on the way.

HHI around 600k p.a. gross.
After expenses we typically save about $250k p.a. including principle repayments on our home loan.

PPOR worth $3.3m, loan balance $1.48m, offset $735k. So about $2.5m equity.

50k invested in ASX and 400k in super (combined).

Our dream is to sail around the world, leaving in about 7 years. We set that timeframe so we could sail/travel for 4-5 years and be back in Australia before the eldest starts highschool.

I thought I'd post this, hoping the guru's here might have some bright ideas to help us get where we need to be financially to make this plan work.

Boat purchase will be around $1m. I figure we need $120k per year to run the boat, feed and entertain ourselves. And we'd need to have $120k in the bank when we left as buffer. I'd like to keep our PPOR so we have somewhere to come back to when we return.

Income on the seas:
We could probably rent our PPOR for $2000/wk.
We get A$20k dividend per year from family investments.
We could also work remotely - Starlink. But probs wouldn't want a time consuming job.

I've been tossing up the idea of buying an investment property, but with recent neg gearing changes i'm not sure it's worth it anymore. Now i'm leaning more to debt recycling and buying ETF's.

If we stopped paying down our house and focused solely on debt recycling & buying ETF's... we should have over $2m in our portfolio in 7 years and our house by then if rented, should be paying itself off.

It's tight............... can we get it done?

Also, what would our tax implications be if we're not tax residents of Australia but earning money there from renting out our house?

Our position

• Me: 34, $250k + ~20% bonus
• Wife: 29, $175k
• Kids likely in 1–2 years; wife may take ~1 year off per child
• PPOR: ~$2.2m value, $1.5m loan
• Offset: $550k
• Shares: $130k

We currently live mostly off my wife’s salary and put mine into the offset+mortgage.

We previously owned investment properties but sold them to fund our home and offset, we didn’t enjoy the hassle of being landlords.

The goal: pay off our home and eventually own a generational holiday house in a beach area we love.

The problem is prices have exploded. Land has gone from roughly $650k to $1.4m, builds are around $700k+, and established homes are now ~$3m. I'm getting so much FOMO.

My concern is that the best cliff/beach-view blocks are genuinely scarce, so waiting until we can comfortably afford the finished house may mean missing the location altogether.

I’m considering buying the right block when it appears, holding it while we keep building the offset, then building later. Potentially putting a small/tiny home on it initially if that helps with holding costs/rental income/negative gearing.

What would you do?

• Smash the PPOR mortgage first?
• Secure scarce land now and build later?
• Who should I speak to to properly model this, tax adviser, broker, accountant, buyer’s agent?

This is definitely an emotional/lifestyle goal rather than purely an investment decision, but I want to achieve it without doing something financially stupid.

I recently decided to insure myself for death, TPD and income protection given I'm a dad and all now.

Mid-30s, checked my super fund for recommended levels of insurance after plugging in all the numbers and it generated an age-based cover of $400k or something.

I decided to run some quick figures myself based on what I think my family needs if I was to disappear or not work anymore, and landed on $2m death and TPD, and about $7200 per month for income protection. There isn't any really formula to it, just what I feel they'd need to get by.

How do you guys calculate your own level of insurance? Do you mind sharing your coverage (type and amount)?

Wondering if there are any other HENRY single parents who can share their experiences. For background I genuinely grew up rural below the poverty line, got married and had kids before 20. Now I’m 30, 2-years divorced and have doubled my income since then by focusing on career progression intensely.

Most recent promotion will place me towards $185k. I’ll be paying about $15k child support despite being 50/50, but still have more money than I had ever had coming in. My income now exceeds what household income ever was while married. But with 2 kids (7 and 9), paying Sydney rents and having absolutely no assets, it still feels like I’m behind and I’m not sure where to start.

I’d say I’m well below my ceiling and goal is to be towards $275k in about 5 years if I keep playing my cards right, and family expenses will much be less of a factor by the time I’m 40. If anybody is in a similar situation or has been - where have you focused your money moves at this point while costs feel high and options feel somewhat more limited. PPOR in Sydney that would accommodate my two kids feels truly out of reach.

I’m diving into the deep end with a big move by taking the common advice by putting our home on rent, then renting where we want to live.

HHI this FY was net ~331k.

Monthly spend, including a 3.5k mortgage at P+1 is about 7.5k. On an IO loan, the mortgage goes down to 3.2k.

We want to rent a place for 950 per week.

Current PPOR was appraised at around 580-620 per week rental income.

If I go for the 950 p/w nice house, our monthly spend goes up to $9250 per month.

All I want to know, as i’ve never been a big spender, is if this 950 per week figure is good and doable, and if people in similar income bands are paying around this much. And also - how much would be your upper limit in terms of living in a rental per week while having the IP generate rent on the side?

Cheers

My partner and I are 39/38 with one child. Current position:

Household net worth: $6.5m excluding PPOR
Family trust share portfolio: $3.5m
Combined super: $800k
Household employment income: $650k p.a.

Our situation is a bit funny- i earned quite good money early out of school and invested heavily, that’s what the family trust and property equity represents today. My partner was studying for a long time and only started earning really good money about 3 years ago, and her income now makes up 70% of our household income today.

I appreciate we’re in a very very fortunate situation, and on paper we’re ‘rich’. But we’ve also leveraged ourselves with debt on IP and PPORs so it certainly not a case of having a lot of discretionary money leftover to spend each month. We still run a pretty frugal budget and stick to the principles of the barefoot investor.

The thing I’m struggling with now is switching from accumulation mode to actually enjoying some of it.
For most of my adult life the default has been save and invest. That mindset has obviously worked, but it’s surprisingly difficult to turn it off when the numbers suggest we probably don’t need to be as disciplined anymore.

At what point did you loosen the purse strings?
Did you deliberately increase your discretionary spending once you hit a certain NW/income level? Did you set a percentage or fixed amount for guilt-free spending? Or did lifestyle creep naturally happen anyway?

I’m not looking to start buying $200k cars and flying business everywhere. More interested in finding the balance between being financially responsible and realising that endlessly accumulating money probably isn’t the point either.

At 39, with a young family, I’m increasingly thinking time and experiences might be the thing we should be accumulating now but it’s hard to flick the switch.

That's the whole point of the NRY (not rich yet) part of this community.

This post is inspired by this post and is a response to some of the common misconceptions that come up here.

Community reminder

First off, a reminder of why this community exists. It's pretty common for high earners posting in other finance subs to get unhelpful responses like, "you can afford an advisor".

Here is a safe space to ask all manner of wealth building questions regardless of where you are in your financial literacy journey. Please be kind and respectful. It's even easier for high earners to do dumb shit with money and we are all at different stages with our learning process. It's ok to learn things the hard way. I know I had to.

High income does not equal smart with money by default, mmmkay?

Definitions reminder

HE = High Earner.

We use a top 10% earner for an individual and top 10% income for households. We update these thresholds when new information becomes available. This was last set to $156K pre-tax, excluding super for an individual and over 235K for a household. I think we are due to update these soon.

"But that's not even the top tax bracket" OR "they aren't even paying div293"- I hear you say. Top tax brackets are also just as much of a line in the sand as the definitions we use.

"That's not a high income in x location or for y reason" - I also hear you say. Yes, high income is very dependent on location and your household situation. a 235K household income in a major metropolitan area with 2 young kids is going to feel very different compared to a rural couple approaching retirement. Also this nuance doesn't fit in the 500 character limit we have for reddit community descriptions.

NRY = Not rich yet.

Our definition of rich here is having 3m+ in usable assets towards retirement. This includes super and excludes the home. Your definition of rich can be different.

The main reason why we exclude the home is it's possible for someone to own a 3m home and to have no other assets. They are asset rich but cash poor. That's a very different retirement lifestyle compared to having 3m in super.

Reminder: we don't strongly police these definitions

Aspiring HENRYs and post HENRYs are more than welcome to contribute to the community here.

We mainly use these definitions to filter out low effort posts like, "I'm on 80k, how do I become a high earner?". We try and keep the conversations here more productive and tend to remove duplicate posts or frequently asked questions.

We also use these definitions to prevent people from arguing about what is or isn't a HENRY. As this is not a productive conversation and it gets tiring to see it come up again and again.

Don't like these definitions?

There are plenty of other communities out there with different thresholds and you are more than welcome to create your own community. The more the merrier.

A high earning household has a pretty easy path to post HENRY status

Say a 30 year old couple with 100K in super between the two of them are on a house hold income of 240K. They could have 2m in super by age 60 in today's $ assuming 6.5% returns after inflation. This is not even adding any extra to super.

They don't need to actively invest much more to get to this subs definition of rich. But at 30 they probably won't feel all that rich.

To get to that 3m in super by age 60 they could both add $250 a month into super. That's not a big sacrifice out of their 15K a month after tax income assuming that income is split evenly.

3m in super can fund anywhere from 140K to 180K a year in retirement all tax free for 30 years depending if you are following the 4.7% rule or have a more drawdown to zero mindset. That's a pretty extravagant lifestyle assuming you've got your home paid off and all kids have left the nest. It's about double ASFA's comfortable retirement standard for a couple.

Most high earners have a pretty easy path to getting rich because of the way our super system works.

I'm going to get on my super high horse

Have I told you about our lord and savior, superannuation?

Focusing on super can even help with early retirement. I've got a post on how that could work. There's also the super explainer if you want a refresher.

Checking your super is invested appropriately for your goals and risk appetite at 30 can make a huge difference.

Comparison is the thief of joy

It can be pretty easy to see your neighbors or what people post on the internet and go, "I don't feel rich", but that comparison is the thief of joy. Money is a tool to enjoy life with and it can be pretty easy to build long term wealth when you are on decent income.

Building long term wealth is a slow burn.

28M & 29F - HHI minimum $425k per year (excluding super) however can reach $500k+ depending on bonus outcome.

We have our PPOR in Sydney valued $1.75M, $1M mortgage and have $290k in Offset cash.

Shares: ~ $350k mainly in international, small tilt towards Aus.

Super: ~150k me / $60k her

Crypto ~ 20k.

I took out a small Investment Loan split against the PPOR and have some redraw available to acquire more shares if needed.

I’m at a crossroads on what to do next.

I’m paying a lot of tax and unfortunately don’t have the benefit of self employed tax advantages. I only have a small portion of deductible debt which is my investment loan split for shares.

I do like Shares, however any money I put into the market, realistically can’t be touched unless I have a low income year (otherwise I’m hit with even more tax).

I’m not opposed to renting out my current PPOR and converting to INV, and then buying another bigger house to convert into my PPOR. However this will carry a lot more leverage and I’m honestly uncertain on the future outlook on Sydney and Aus housing as an asset.

I’m planning for kids by 33-34 years old, and I’ll likely need a bigger PPOR down the track once we do aim for kids.

Super is also not really of interest, due to my DIV 293 - and importantly, I want to retire early and don’t want to lock up my money for 35+ years.

Genuinely, what would you do in my position here, to maximise and accelerate wealth building??

Hi everyone

I just settled on my 3rd property. I have no emotions, just saw the Pexa and Solicitor confirmation. I have no one to share the news. Im single. No friends, I have no family either.

I was hoping to share this with someone. Hope everyone having a beautiful day today.

Anyone here hold ASX:FANG?

I lodged my 2025/26 tax return through my accountant before receiving the FANG AMMA statement. It shows a large amount at 18H for capital gains, even though I didn’t sell any units, so I may need to amend my return.

I also received cash distribution/dividend on 16 July 2026. Is that payment related to the capital gains reported at 18H from the AMMA I just received? If I pay tax on those gains in 2025–26, does that mean some or all of the July distribution won’t be taxed again in FY26-27?

The statement also has an AMIT cost-base adjustment. Did you update the cost base of your FANG units using that amount, and how did you record it? Are there any paper record I’ll need to keep for tax/audit purposes?

Interested to hear how other FANG holders handled this. And whether IVV and VGS has similar issues.