r/fiaustralia

34M,

Wanted to get some ideas on how to build $100k per year passive income from my current position?

I started in mid-2019 on about $60k income, with around $20k savings and $50k HECS debt.

I’m looking for ideas from people who have built strong passive or semi-passive income streams.

The goal is time and location freedom.

Longer term, I may spend more time based in SouthEast Asia & Europe, where my cost base is lower. But for now, I’m using $100k per year as the Australian-equivalent passive income target.

Current position:

- Super: $210k (maxed out concessional carry forward contributions)

- Income: $230k base, 10% bonus, 12% super

- Perth Property: $1.1m value, $150k owing, $60k offset

- Currently renting 2 of 3 rooms for $600/week total, with the 3rd room about to go out. Expected total is around $1,000/week

- Regional VIC IP: $900k value, $435k owing, $700/week rent, roughly cashflow-neutral after costs

- Available equity/cash: $720k sitting fully offset and ready to deploy

I’m interested in hearing what others would look at from here.

Some areas I’d like ideas on:

1. How would you deploy the $720k?

Property, ETFs, debt recycling, private lending, business income, something else?

2. What cashflow-positive assets are worth looking at?

I’m interested in real net cashflow.

What asset types are producing strong income after all costs?

Examples:

- Boutique units talked about by alot of BAs

- Regional houses

- Duplexes

- Commercial property

What has worked for you?

What looked good on paper but disappointed after strata, maintenance, vacancies, tax and management?

3. Has anyone partnered with property flippers?

I’ve heard of people putting up capital for property flips and earning 15-20%.

What structure did you go for and what security did you get?

What went wrong? Was the return worth the risk?

4. What listed-market income strategies have worked?

For people using shares or ETFs for passive income, what has worked in practice?

What produced reliable income? What eroded capital?

What would you avoid?

5. What semi-passive businesses are worth exploring?

I’m also interested in income streams outside property and shares.

For anyone who has bought or built a semi-passive business while working full-time, what worked?

What produced real income without becoming a second job?

6. For people who reached $100k per year passive income

For anyone who started from a similar base, around $2m assets, $200k+ income and decent borrowing capacity:

What got you there fastest?

What slowed you down?

What was the highest-value move?

What would you skip?

I’m keen to hear ideas, examples, mistakes and real numbers from people who have done it or are close. 🔥

Hi everyone,

The main issue that can happen when you recycle debt is contaminating investment money. Ideally when you split the loan e.g $100k then you need to purchase shares in one transaction (or two if you purchase different shares), like purchase shares for $99990 (leave $10 to avoid automatic account closing). In this case you're left with $0 in your CDIA account (I'm using CommSec) and everything is very clear.

The issue arises from the fact that you can't purchase fractional shares. This means that you need to calculate exactly how much you need to purchase shares, e.g $99967. But the prices updating in real time. What if while you've been transferring money the price has changed and you ended up with some leftover money on your CDIA account. Generally it's not an issue if you top up your investments quarterly, but what if you do this once a year? Transferring money back to your investment loan account is an issue, ATO may see this as mixing investment with personal money. How do you avoid this issue? Thank you!

Aussie couple potentially moving to Canada, $100K in VDHG, only approx $20K capital gain. Is it best to sell before we leave and start again overseas, pay the CGT as a deemed disposal and keep the ETFs, or defer.

Background if relevant:

45M - $350K p/a, super $450K

45F - currently not working, super $440K

PPOR - $1.2M, Mortgage $500K

Will defo be moving back to Aus before retirement, prob in the next 5-10 years so just trying to figure out what is best to do with the ETFs.

Cheers all

I'm wondering whether seeing a financial adviser is actually worth it or whether most people can learn everything they need from communities like this one.

Did a financial adviser teach you anything that genuinely changed how you manage money?

I've realised I need to stop chasing multiple financial goals and focus on one: building a path to retirement. The biggest challenge is balancing that with a mortgage.

Hi everyone,

I have a question about my Australian Retirement Trust (ART) accounts.

At the moment I have:

• a Retirement (account-based pension) account, from which I withdraw a monthly income; and
• an Accumulation account.

I'd like to transfer more money from my accumulation account into retirement so I can increase my monthly pension payments. However, it appears I can't simply top up my existing retirement account.

So my questions are:

1. Can I open a second Retirement account while my current one remains active? If so, I could continue drawing from Retirement Account #1 while also starting withdrawals from Retirement Account #2.
2. Or do I need to close my existing Retirement account, transfer the balance back to accumulation, and then open a brand new Retirement account with the combined balance?

More generally, I'm wondering whether my current setup makes sense. Instead of repeatedly opening new Retirement accounts whenever I want to transfer more money from accumulation, would it be better to transfer almost all of my accumulation balance into a single new Retirement account (leaving, say, $7,000 in accumulation), and then simply vary my pension withdrawals from that one account as my needs change?

Am I thinking about this correctly, or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

52m & 47f HHI 193k gross (both 30% bracket), mortgage 92k (100% offset), 11k in HISA, 340k combined super (290k me), I also have 15.3k ETF 30/70 - VAS/VGS. Have health issues which is being managed, but potentially may not be able to work till 60. Plan is to retire at 60.

Not sure if our super investment is any good as well: 20/40/40

20% Aust index / 40% i'nal unhedged index / 40% i'nal hedged index

Given these, would it make more sense to work on an ETF bridge (continue with VAS/VGS?) - VAS returns have been horrible recently; or work on NC super. Have already maxed my 5y carry forward super last financial year and intend to max out the 32.5k this year. Have about 2k a fortnight spare and unsure how to proceed.

Any advice would be much appreciated. TIA.

I understand that if we hold investments in AustralianSuper’s Member Direct option, any unrealised capital gains become tax‑exempt once the assets are transferred into pension phase under ECPI rules. This is the main advantage compared with a pooled investment option.

However, in the event of divorce, death, or any situation requiring the transfer of the investment to another person during accumulation phase, can that transfer be carried out without triggering capital gains tax?

36M + 34F + 1 and 3 year old

I've been self employed for 11+ years (sole trader for 10 years + current business for 5 years) and for most of that everything has gone back into the business or into property. Paid myself no super the whole time. Our current business is doing really well but only recently started providing any real profit, first 4 years we put everything back into it.

PPOR is worth about 1.7m and we still owe 440k on it. The IP is worth around 1.2m with 900k owing, rents for $740 a week. We've got 220k sitting in the offset and no shares. Super is 10k for me and 80k for my wife.

Additional business debt of 185k business loan + a 70k car loan. Both run through the business.

Income wise, the business generates around 550k profit a year before our wages, we draw 135k out of that between us (90k me, 45k my wife). Business also holds stock worth around 750k. It's a service business and runs through a family trust. We spend roughly 135k a year, though a fair chunk of that is currently going straight onto the PPOR loan as extra repayments.

Here's the plan I've more or less talked myself into. Pump cash into the PPOR offset until it fully covers the 440k. Once that's done, all in on super for both of us. While doing that, continue to structure the business to be a sellable asset that runs without us, in the hope of selling it for a decent number. We could step away 12ish months from now, but as far as I know we need 3+ years of consistent profits or growing profits to cement any real value? It has been quite a stressful business to build/run up until about 6 months ago where we hired a manager, but would definitely prefer an exit plan than holding onto it. Feels stupid wanting to sell something that's so profitable and isn't far from being very passive.

Feeling super unsure about what direction is best, any advice would be very welcome

64M - anything I should know before converting to pension phase with Hostplus? 810k which was all non-con and downsizer from the past three months plus the 10k it's gone up.

Also have 400k cash leftover to invest so still trying to decide whether to leave that in HISA or VHY or something.

And $400k in VGS/VAS and 100k beer money and PPOR and partner works.

Hi everyone,

I've recently started to look into mortgage debt recycling and tried to find an accountant who can assist me with it. It turns out that it's not that easy to find an accountant with experience in this field. There are companies that specialise in it but they try to sell you financial advise and/or mortgage brocker services and not keen to just do accounting. Therefore I started to ask myself how hard would it be to do DIY tax return instead of using an accountant? Has anyone tried it before? How successful was it?

Just some background to get an idea how hard it can possibly be:

Joint loan (me+partner) with CBA The tax deduction will be 100% from my salary Investment: ETF VAS+VGS 50/50 split ratio, nothing else Platform: separate CommSec account just for these ETFs, no mixing with other shares Sequence: initial loan split -> on lending agreement with partner -> redraw to the CommSec account -> buy shares -> another split -> etc I'll have to merge the splits to make sure I don't have more than 4 accounts.

Thanks!

I'm 35 and just hit 400k in super (I've been salary sacrificing 10k a year for maybe 6 years, which is a decent amount but nothing insane). Invested in a broad international index - this will likely give on average a 5% real return (using the past 30 years of return and inflation info).

Assuming I want to retire at 40, without doing any further salary sacrifice and only adding employer contributions (from a 140k/yr salary), this will put me at 1.6mil when I am 60.

1.6mil* 4% = $64k/year.

I currently spend $65k/year including mortgage/holidays etc.

Is that not me done then from a super perspective, and I should now try and smash out the outside of super component of investing to get me between 40-60?

I hear a lot about needing to funnel every cent into super but I feel my path has not been that excessive and the power of compounding can do it's thing without me needing to break my back trying to put more in.

My income hasn't been that insane either, graduated uni 15 years ago, income started out 55k and has fairly linearly progressed to 140k today.

As per heading, looking for tips on improvement.
Feel like I’m paying way too much tax and would like to reduce my tax bill and start planning for retirement more/hopefully retire a few years early.

38 yr old

Income $262k inc tax & super (data science manager - inline for 10% increase EOY)
Bonus of 20%-40% if targets met (unlikely this year)
Mortgage $480k owing
House worth ~$750k
Super $210k (Hostplus Aus index shares)
~$30k in offset
~$2k in VAS ($300 fortnightly auto-invest)

Partner(engaged)
39yr old
Small business partnership
Approx $120k business profit she splits equally with partner
~$15k from part-time work to supplement income
$65k super

Out-goings

Hi fiaustralia, I'm a domestic student in Sydney who moved from India with PR and completed by HSC and currently undertaking a USYD engineering/commerce degree.

By the grace of my parents who are both engineers, I have access to a civil engineer (my mother) who works locally in remedial engineering and my dad (mechanical eng) who runs a 1.5cr turnover factory ~250k AUD in India which creates measuring and testing equipment (so think Universal testing machines, metallurgical testing equipment, abrasive cutting machines)

I've loved my time in Australia ​but also want to do my father right so was wondering if there was a way for me to contribute here using this business here?

and if so, I was wondering what major should get to complement the job market here? Like EE, mechatronics or SWE?

I've also thought abt going into mining I'm Sydney since it seems to be the only industry which uses heavy machinery and earn there for a bit and then use those funds and experience to specialise for it.

Was just trying to find what fits my profile the best since imI'm quiet confused

20yr old with a $40000 investment portfolio

**Here's a breakdown of my investment portfolio:**

• ⁠Superannuation/ retirement fund: $12400 balance (invested in hostplus indexed high growth)
• ⁠Private credit fund: $20800 balance (invested in a private credit fund: MA wholesale priority income fund)
• ⁠ETF: $2890 balance @ $39.97 avg cost (invested in betashares DHHF) (70 units)
• ⁠Cash on hand: currently 0
• ⁠Amount invested in Individual Stocks:
⁠• ⁠aud $1000 @ $0.2519 avg cost in ASX:ARU (aus mining company),
⁠• ⁠usd $978 @$605 avg cost in NASDAQ: META,
⁠• ⁠usd $1382 @ $133.99 avg cost in NYSE: BABA,
⁠• ⁠usd $110 @ $27.17 avg cost in NASDAQ: JD,
⁠• ⁠usd $269 @ $141.95 avg cost in NASDAQ: NVDA,
⁠• ⁠usd $107 @ $172 avg cost in NASDAQ: AMZN
⁠• ⁠ 
⁠• ⁠total invested = $1000 aud + $2846 usd
⁠• ⁠value of US/ chinese cross listed stocks has gone down from $2846 to $2602 usd
⁠• ⁠value of AU stock has remained the same $1000 aud

**Some details on my financial situation for a better perspective**:
Im a student, will be working full time hours @ flat $38 p/h for the month of july, along with a few hospo shifts here and there @ $38 or $32 p/h for the month of july.
After july, my semester break ends and uni schedule rolls in, I plan to cut down to 22.5hrs at my main role, and maybe 10 hours or less at my hospo gig. This schedule will go on until end of sept I'd say as there may be uncertainty with maintaining my main role after that period, along with exam season rolling around.
\- I don't pay rent or groceries, however I have a car that I do pay rego, fuel, insurance, repairs/ service on. Major repairs has been done so not expecting any large car expenses for a while.
\- I currently pay about $285 p/m on fitness memberships (martial arts and Gym) and $12.50 p/m on necessary subscriptions.
\- I try to DCA about $500 per fortnight on DHHF, i may miss some fortnights if unexpected large purchases/ payments are made. Its looking like I may have to cut down on the amount invested per fortnight if some expenses take a larger proportion of my pay
\- I primarily put aside about 60% of my income for savings/ investment. If i have too much spare cash laying post personal expenses, I usually will allocate that to savings/ investment
\- I plan on securing an overseas internship in Singapore that will likely be from jan- june 2027, and during this time, I will be burdened with all of an adults life expenses, which means that will be my current/ future savings goal. My income will be on a full pause for this period.
\- I also plan on buying a $500 course this year for the purpose of pursuing a hobby.
\- I generally go out about once a week, and do long weekend camping trips where I can.

The goal of this post is to receive insights/ advice on my financials and maybe some life advice; how I should manage it moving forward to maximise wealth in this economy!, what I can do to my finances to maximise wealth in this economy; how you achieved FIRE and what would you do in my shoes moving forward; whether you're in a similar path and have similar goals. Im at crossroads on whether i should continue dca dhhf or investing in general over the next few months or a year given the statistically likely possibility of a market crash as i would like to have liquidity to invest if so called crash occurred. My overarching goal in life is to be financially independent whereby I have enough passive income to travel wherever & whenever I want, have a homebase by the beach, and a Jeep by late 20s, early 30s and this will be done. I believe I have a pretty balanced lifestyle. I dont really want generic advise such as cut down on going out lol, im young, and once a week, u cant be serious. I'd love to hear all of yalls valuable thoughts! Thanks in advance. Love!

\*also any stock recs would be appreciated too!

I got sick of finance apps that (a) want to connect to your bank, and (b) are built for the US and have no idea what a franking credit or EOFY is. So I built my own for the Australian setup, and it's now at the point where I'd love some real people to poke holes in it.

What it does:

- Budgeting (50/30/20 + adaptive suggestions), cash-flow forecasting with "what if I lose income / buy a car in August" scenarios

- Subscription tracker that flags price rises and forgotten subs

- Investments with franking credits + CGT (the AU 50% discount), and an EOFY tax pack you can hand to your accountant (PDF/CSV)

- Goals + savings round-ups, spending anomaly alerts, a household view (joint goals + bill splitting)

- An AI assistant you can ask about your own money

On the trust stuff (it's finance, fair question):

- No bank connection — it's manual / CSV import, so you're never handing over logins

- Try the full demo with zero signup 👉 https://ash-finance-app.fly.dev/dashboard

- Privacy-first: encryption at rest, 2FA, no third-party trackers

It's free, I'm not selling anything — I just want 5–10 people to use it for real and tell me what's confusing, broken, or missing. Brutal feedback genuinely welcome.

Thanks
Ash

Apologies if this has been discussed before

Lately i am seeing lot of folks worried that when they retire early and sell their stocks for the yearly expenses ,capital gains will attract 30% tax irrespective of how small the profit is.

Instead of just selling the long term holding, why don't we build a small corpus of say 100 to 200k over the next 10 to 15 years and use that to short term trading.

Agree not everyone enjoys and can consistently make big profits , however a decent 8 to 10% annual returns should be achievable if we are following equities for a long time.

As stock trading is considered as a business we will be subjected to tax slabs and we can use losses, expenses to offset any profits made, which should add another 0.5 to 1%

Just trying to understand why not many people are considering this, are there any drawbacks with this approach other than the lack of interest/self confidence in doing it

I'm working on a model for a 29 yr-old to launch a FIRE financial plan. The indexation of capital cost base somewhat forces integrating inflation throughout the plan, IMO, which is a lot of work.

So, I'm going to ask for some help, from anyone that's willing. My goal is to base it on some reasonable assumptions. What do you think of the following starting points.

Single person

FIRE goal at 50 yrs of age.

$120K per year annual income, plus 12% super, rising at 5% per year.

3% annual inflation.

$90K per year annual spending in retirement (today's dollars).

Tax brackets following inflation, but lagging, and only ratcheted up every five years.

A200 total return 7% (3.5% dividends, 60% franked) 3.5% capital appreciation.

BGBL total return 8% (1.5% dividends) 6.5% capital appreciation.

Cash fixed at 2 times annual spending plus paying tax minus annual cash received across two years in interest and dividends. The rest held 30%/70% A200/BGBL. Cash earns 4.5% interest.

Thanks for reading. I would very much welcome feedback on any individual assumption or combinations if you're up for it.

If anyone has found a way to do a reasonable plan without inflation, I'd love to hear that even more!!

After 7 years in the UK, I’m moving back to Australia to start a new job in Sydney.
- I’m 23 and have 4 years of work experience in the UK
- My new job is an assistant manager working in consulting, paying 115k AUD inc. super. This can also include up to a 30% bonus
- New job starts in mid September and am looking to stay in Australia for the considerable future, maybe one more stint back in Europe in the future but that’s very TBC
- I’m very lucky to be moving back home, so rent will be low / invested by my dad and returned to me when I need it I.e. house deposit
- I’m good with my money, and have always made the most of UK wealth growing vehicles such as stocks and shares ISA

As I’ve never lived in Australia as a working adult (I’m 24 years old), just looking for some advice with how I should set out my financial plan. My understanding is:
- new CGT tax is crap and really de-incentivises young professionals to invest money, only solution is set and forget ETFs, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing?
- FHSS is great, and I should look to max that over my first 3.5 years to reach the 50k AUD
- Salary sacrifice any expendable money into my super, to benefit from the marginal tax rate

Is there anything else I should be considering / factoring in to my wealth plan? I’m not particularly focused on buying a property in the next 2-3 years, but depending on job growth, maybe the plan would be to buy in 4-5 years. What else should I be thinking of to drive my Aussie wealth?

Really appreciate any guidance / support! And happy to engage in comments :)

Sorry if already posted but this might be huge news for some people aiming to retire early, or just simply take some time off work, maybe to travel etc.

I read this comment here, quote:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1ul7dp9/comment/ov2i7tw

"Virtually everyone that is genuinely low income is exempt.

any payment whatsover even as little as $1 or less of any income support payment (which anyone genuinely earning under 45k should be except for maybe a few edge cases) at any point in the financial year will exempt you from the floor.

https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2026A00049/asmade/2026-06-26/text/original/pdf

you can see under section 119-15 which payments are eligible, and it includes quite a broad set of them so there is now clarification rather than just the vague wording of the budget night papers which was just "Income Support Payments like Jobseeker and the Age Pension".

It even includes Parental Leave payment, which was initially a concern some people had about a partner taking time off to care for a child and liquidating unrealised capital gains to make up the income loss.

another payment that Qualifies that i was initially unsure of is the Family Tax Benefit."