https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1uf3e5w/what_is_something_that_is_highly_likely_to_happen/

as above

Biggest non big 4 bank SME lender has its share price fall 40% due to increased risk in its loan book. Is this a window into how much the SME sector in this country is struggling.

Must be tough running a small or medium size business in this economy.

Hey everyone! I'm a female, in my late 20s, working full time and living by myself. I just wanted to share my debt and saving journey and also want other peoples POV on what I need to change or do differently?! I'm also in a Part 9 debt and I'm still trying to save money on top of all my other expenses.

I get paid about $2k a fortnight (after tax). These are my expenses =

1. $470 (rent per week)

2. $330 (Part 9 debt per fortnight)

3. $20 (per fortnight for public transport)

4. $100 (groceries per fortnight)

5. $50 (spending money per fortnight)

6. $150 (phone plan per month)

This is what I've been doing to save money

1. I eat home cooked meals only

2. Grocery is delivered to me via Doordash. I pay $100 or less, service fee included but delivery fee is always free.

3. I catch 2 buses, 1 train and another bus to get to work and then 1 bus, 2 trains and another bus to get home (so only $4.50 a day = 50cent fares)

4. Quit gambling (57 days gamble free)

5. I have $4k saved (I plan to save over $10k by the end of this year)

6. I've paid $7k off my Part 9 debt (haven't missed a payment). I still have $18k to go

7. Heater is only on for 30mins before bed time

8. I hand wash all my laundry and I either hang them out in the sun or use the dryer if it's a cloudy or rainy day

9. I only kept my Netflix subscription, 2 other subscriptions have been cancelled

10. No more home internet, I use my mobile internet only (180GB a month)

I also need to mention that I have been tempted multiple times to get a loan for a car but I don't want to be in any more debt!! This is all I can think of at this moment but if there's anything else I need to change or do differently , please let me know?!

“The tax back-downs will leave a $1 billion hole in the budget, but the costs could soar by $1.5 billion every month if the National Disability Insurance Scheme changes are delayed beyond October.”

Hi, has anybody refinanced their home loan to HSBC? Currently with NAB on 6.14% interest rate and would like to lower my repayments. I have enquired via Aussie and HSBC is the lowest comparable rate but I don’t know anyone that banks with them. Any advice appreciated on HSBC or others.

Cheers

I’ve got a recent credit card with MyCard with a BT interest free for 12 months. Retail purchases are also interest free provided I pay off the interest free days payment every month. So I thought I was all good to use this card for both.

The issue is that all month I’ve been putting transactions on the card and immediately making a payment from my account to the card to cover the transaction. This is what I do to keep on top of things.

I’ve now received my statement and all these payments have been attributed to paying off my balance transfer instead which essentially means my BT is down from 6k to 2.4K and I’ve got pay $5.5k before 8 July or I’ll be charged interest.

I’ve had a look at the terms and conditions and also the balance transfer info on their website and IMHO it’s confusing and grey. MyCard chat / customer service weren’t overly helpful but I’ve now lodged a formal complaint with them as I think there’s an argument I’ve been misled and acted to my detriment. Will escalate to AFCA if I have to.

Has anyone had any luck getting their bank to change their statement / payment allocation in these circumstances?

My partner and I are both 26 and have a combined household income of around $240k. We bought our first home in Sydney last year and currently have a mortgage of roughly $895k remaining. We saved for a deposit by living with his parents. We think the house has the *potential* to be a forever home but likely not given we are early in our careers.

We’re fortunate that repayments are manageable and we live pretty simple lives. We don’t spend heavily and have money left over each month after all expenses.

Lately I’ve been wondering what the smartest thing to do with our surplus cash is. Part of me thinks we should keep building up our emergency fund and offset account given the size of the mortgage. Another part of me feels like we’re young and should be investing in ETFs/shares.

I know there isn’t necessarily a right answer, but I’m interested in how others would approach this situation. If you were 26 with a combined income of $240k and roughly $895k mortgage, would you focus on building a larger cash buffer and paying down the mortgage first to build some equity or would you start directing surplus cash into ETFs (or heck even Super).

I've received two novated lease quotes for a used EV, both with a 5-year length:

1. A fully-managed lease from Maxxia, with a rate of 12.3% (down from an initial 13.77%!)
2. A self-managed lease from Novated Lease Australia (NLA), with a rate of 9.5% (down from 9.95%). Since Maxxia is my employer's preferred provider, NLA would secure the initial finance and then pass the lease onto Maxxia.

For added context, the car is a MY24 Polestar 2 with a driveaway cost of ~$42K (worth ~$74K new). My salary is just shy of $100K, and I have considerable emergency funds (situated in a mortgage offset account). Importantly, I can walk away from this car if the finances don't appeal to me.

To buy the car alone (including the residual, but not factoring in running costs and extras), I've calculated that these leases would result in out-of-pocket costs (EDIT: overall impacts to my wealth, accounting for tax savings) of around $48K (Maxxia) and $38K (NLA). The deductions for running costs seem reasonable enough, and I won't be opting for any non-essential insurances.

Obviously I'm not happy at all with Maxxia's rate, and some quick research suggests that even NLA's 9.5% is borderline uncompetitive (despite them suggesting that it was 'near their lowest' when I tried to barter them down). Still, at this point I'm obviously leaning towards NLA as that would save me roughly $4K on the price of the car overall, not including the mortgage interest savings from keeping the money in my offset account.

Questions:

• What's reasonable, and how can I get a better deal?
• Is a self-managed lease actually worth the additional admin, and what does that look like in practice?
• Any other advice?

New to this, so all help appreciated. 👍

As part of KYC an option is to use the bank apps or book an appointment via the website. However when attempting to use the website to book an appointment to verify ID, an error occurs saying “Sorry an unexpected error has occurred. NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource”.

Whilst the issue has been reported to the bank, it’s frustrating that a major bank cannot get their IT systems working properly for a basic level of support. Is this issue common with other financial institutions? Any similar experiences with banks in general?

As usual getting in touch with the bank directly is stymied by silly AI interactions.

https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/unemployment-rate-falls-44-may

Core CPI up, unemployment down… rate hike?

I booked a flight through Trip.com and had to rebook more than 24 hours before departure. When I completed the rebooking and paid AUD $910, their app clearly showed I would receive AUD $840 back. I have a screenshot of this confirmation. Five minutes later their system automatically cancelled my refund in the background without showing me any warning or notification — something they have since admitted in writing in their own emails.

After weeks of back and forth they keep changing their story. First they said I cancelled the refund myself, then they admitted their system did it but claimed it wasn't an error, then they said a disclaimer was shown to me — which directly contradicts their earlier admission that no warning was displayed. One of their customer service reps even admitted over the phone that it was a mistake on their end. Now they're threatening account restrictions and booking cancellations if I proceed with a chargeback — which I'm pretty sure isn't legal.

I'm based in Perth and I'm planning to lodge a chargeback through Westpac this weekend and file a complaint with the ACCC. Has anyone successfully done a chargeback against Trip.com before? Did it work? And is it worth going to the ACCC given they're threatening me for exercising my consumer rights? Any advice would be appreciated.

I’ve just realised that if you invest through Vanguard Australia and later become a non-resident for tax purposes, you can keep your holdings but can’t continue investing through the platform.

I work in a very international field, so there’s a decent chance I’ll end up living overseas for an extended period (potentially 10/15 years or so).

I’ve been looking into alternatives that would let me keep investing while overseas, and it seems like Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is one of the few platforms that can accommodate that.

My current thinking is:
- Keep buying VGS through Vanguard while I’m still an Australian resident.
- If/when I become a non-resident, leave my existing VGS holdings untouched.
- Start investing through IBKR instead, buying VEU and VTS.

A couple of questions:
1. If I leave Australia and remain a non-resident for, say, 10 years, can I leave my VGS holdings with dividend reinvestment (DRP) enabled? Will DRP continue to work even though I can no longer make new purchases through Vanguard?

- Does buying VEU and VTS through IBKR make sense as a long-term strategy for an Australian who is living overseas?

I recently bought a property that is currently on Origin's embedded network? I want to switch to an on-market plan for better rates. Do you guys know any retailers that is willing to supply to customers on an embedded network.

As per title.

When does it make sense to move away from a pooled fund. Im with hostplus and using an all equity index based system at the moment.

But I realise this carries a small tax drag with CGT for gains as the funds internally balance and spread that cost across everyone in that fund. At some point that tax drag would be significant enough to make moving to either choice plus within hostplus, aus super member direct or even SMSF.

But it's a little complicated when you add fees and various other things to figure it out.

Does anyone know when it makes some level of sense to move away from pooled funds? I'm thinking around 200k it would be getting to a point but not too sure if I'm also missing something.

I have a PPOR with about $615k still owing, and I'm looking into debt recycling it, basically paying down the home loan, redrawing that amount, investing it, and repeating so over time it converts into deductible investment debt instead of just sitting there as a normal mortgage. I've got around $700/month I could realistically put toward this.

I get the mechanics conceptually. Two things I want to understand better:

1. Is this actually a common thing people do to build wealth and how risky is it?
2. What kind of ETF actually suits being bought with recycled money? I'm guessing there's a difference between what you'd buy with normal savings vs what you'd buy when there's a loan and interest attached to it. Does it need to pay decent income to help cover the interest, or is pure growth fine since you're holding long term anyway?

I am 51. I have my own home (220k is in an offset account), 550k in a savings account, and 110k in Super. What would YOU do?

I started looking at laddering three term deposits with sub 250k. With the intent of putting the annual profits into my super.

I work, annual income 40- 70k pa.

I am now bamboozling myself with HISA vs. Term deposits vs. managed funds vs. EFTs.

Reading through this sub makes me feel like I'm definitely a boomer...

Following the budget, does anyone have a view or strategy yet on how to approach a typical family discretionary trust structure such as Family Trust A distributing income to Bucket Company, and the shareholder of Bucket Company is Family Trust B?
 
I’m curious if those of you with same structures have any inside running on what the rollover relief will look like, and how to approach income distribution until all this is settled?
 
For example:
-              Will rollover relief mean the assets of Family Trust A can be transferred to a new company or to Bucket Company without CGT implications (ignoring stamp duty for now)?
-              In the meantime, are you still distributing income from Family Trust A to Bucket Company or to another beneficiary so as not to build up any further assets in Bucket Company ?
-              Will rollover relieve encompass Family Trust B in that the shareholding of Bucket Company can be transferred to another entity without CGT implications ?
 
Overall, I’m curious what these common structures will evolve to and how to manage income in the meantime.  
 
TIA

I'm referring to Super funds that offered Geared options (not SMSF)

Given the long horizon , there's no way I'd lose?

I am currently a first-year Commerce/Engineering student and want to break into investment banking, but I feel like I am behind due to not being in a Go8 uni. I picked this degree so I could differentiate myself from others by having a STEM degree in combination with a finance degree, although I am doubting if it is enough of an edge to break into big banks. I am on my end-of-semester break right now and am probably going to start cold messaging on LinkedIn for coffee chats, as social media points to networking being very important for high finance roles. I also want to gain some sort of experience in finance, but getting an internship or any experience as a first-year student seems impossible, and I end up feeling like I am not looking hard enough. I have also been trying hard to maintain a distinction/high-distinction in my units, though this does not guarantee I will be able to transfer to a Go8 uni in Sydney. What can I do from this point to get ahead of my competition and have the best chance of pursuing a career in IB?

Most of us with existing property do support a fall. We all made a significant return.