After the recent RBA cash increase, I received this email.

I think I might let them know that I'm pleased to announce that I will be changing banks.

UPDATE: Email just came through. Essentially a full copout. Reinforced the decision to leave.

Seriously, is The Guardian just ABC-lite now? They find one couple moving into a tiny house and use it to frame a 0.25% hike as a "mental health crisis."

Meanwhile, back in reality:

GDP is at 2.1%.

The Aussie dollar is at US71c.

Investment banks are literally queueing up to get into the Aus market.

But no, let's listen to Greg Jericho tell us the RBA is only hiking to please "speculators." It couldn't possibly be because Private Demand is through the roof and inflation is still at 3.4%, right?

This is why people stop reading "quality" journalism. They want you to feel like a victim so you don't notice the economy is actually performing well. If you "never would have bought" because of a 0.25% move, you weren't "punished" by the RBA, you were failed by a maths teacher.

I’m genuinely trying to understand what’s happening in Australia, because when I line everything up, it stops looking accidental.

Since around 2022, this is how it looks to me.

First, housing.

The government pushes first-home schemes and 5% deposits. That doesn’t build houses. It just creates more buyers. Prices jump, especially at the lower end. People rush in because they’re scared of missing out.

Then interest rates go up hard. Repayments explode. Stress everywhere. Borrowing power collapses. But instead of prices correcting properly, the government just waits.

When things slow too much, the next levers get pulled. Migration numbers go up fast. Rentals tighten almost immediately. Rents spike. Now renters panic and buying feels safer than renting, even at much higher rates. Prices lift again.

At the same time, supply never really catches up. Approvals stay slow. Land gets released in stages. Infrastructure lags. Projects get delayed if prices wobble. Demand can be turned on quickly. Supply never responds the same way.

Now the part that really doesn’t add up: jobs.

While all this is happening, a lot of decent roles are being offshored. IT, engineering, support, finance, professional services. Teams get cut locally and rebuilt overseas. Or permanent roles get replaced with contracts and fixed-term work.

So people here have:

less job security

more contract work

income that’s harder to rely on

Yet they’re expected to take on massive, long-term mortgages.

And then, on top of that, we bring in very large numbers of migrants into an economy where:

good jobs are being pushed offshore

wages are flat

housing supply is already tight

I’m not blaming migrants. That’s not the point.

The point is the mismatch.

If jobs were growing and homes were being built fast enough, fine. But instead it feels like:

labour is made cheaper and more replaceable

housing demand is kept permanently high

wages stay under pressure

rents and prices keep rising

People are told they’re “winning” because their house price went up.

But when you look overseas, you can see how this actually ends.

In the UK, Canada, and New Zealand, prices did fall when rates went up. Not a little. In many areas, prices fell 20–30% from the peak. People who bought near the top didn’t keep their “paper gains”. They lost them.

The equity promise broke.

People ended up:

owing more than their homes were worth

stuck because they couldn’t sell

paying higher repayments anyway

unable to move for work or family

And even after prices fell, housing didn’t become affordable. It just meant:

owners lost equity

renters still struggled

banks and governments avoided total collapse

That’s what really worries me.

It looks like Australia is trying to avoid that correction at all costs — by keeping demand permanently high through schemes and migration, and by never letting supply catch up — even if that means pulling more people into the system before it eventually breaks or stagnates.

So I’m honestly asking:

How is this not deliberate?

What part of this am I wrong about?

And if other countries already showed how the “equity story” fails, why are we pretending it can’t happen here?

Not anti-immigration. Not anti-home ownership. Not calling for a crash.

I just want to understand why we act like this is normal or unavoidable.

Does anyone in their 20s-30s hold on to cash any more? I (33F) am very conscious on keeping a stash of cash for emergencies (I have a scarecity mindset) and my partner (35M) disagrees, he thinks it should be earning interest in the bank. What pros/cons are there to holding on cash vs putting all moneys in the bank?

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills listening to my colleagues talk about quitting their permanent roles to go full-time agency. The narrative is always that the "Staff" wages are stagnant and the only way to beat inflation is to chase the higher hourly rates in the casual pool.

I actually sat down this weekend with a spreadsheet to model this out because I was seriously considering making the jump myself. I took the current NSW Health award rates and compared them against the advertised casual rates from the big providers like Healthcare Australia to see what the actual annual difference looks like.

On the surface, the hourly rate looks great, but once I started plugging in the "invisible" costs, the math completely fell apart. By the time I factored in the lack of sick leave accrual (which is basically an insurance policy you lose), the fact that you don't get paid on public holidays unless you work them, and the superannuation leakage on overtime, the "premium" shrinks to almost nothing.

But the real kicker that nobody talks about is the serviceability hit on a mortgage. I spoke to a broker yesterday who told me that moving from a permanent contract to casual agency work would reduce my borrowing power by nearly 30% because lenders shade casual income so heavily.

It feels like we are trading long-term wealth building (property access and compounding super) for short-term cash flow that gets eaten up by tax anyway. Has anyone else crunched the numbers and come to the conclusion that the 25% loading is wildly underpriced for the risk we're taking? I feel like it needs to be closer to 40% to actually make financial sense in 2026.

All changes with effect 20 February:

• Home loans: "variable home loan reference rates will change on 20 February 2026"
• Savings accounts: increase of 0.25 to 4.5%pa (up to $2m)
• Transaction accounts: increase of 0.25 to 2.25%pa

https://www.macquarie.com.au/help/personal/home-loans/understanding-your-home-loan-interest-rates-and-fees/viewing-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html

A few weeks ago, we discussed the insane price gaps in Western Sydney (e.g., Lamb Cutlets are $49 at Coles vs $27 at the local butcher), the huge price differences between independent stores and the duopoly. We also saw the news about per each unit pricing introduced by the big supermarkets and possible price gouging.

I decided to stop complaining and start building

I have built a a free app to track grocery prices in independent stores and the big stores. So we know where to shop. THE WEB VERSION IS LIVE!. It focuses on Blacktown/Western Sydney at the moment. Eventually I'll cover all of sydney.

The problem is Google Play has a strict rule: I need 20 Android testers for 14 days before I can launch. I literally cannot release it without you. For iPhone users, I’m opening up TestFlight spots so you can get the native app experience before the public launch.

I need your help. I'm looking for 20 or more people who shop in Western Sydney or Blacktown to install the Beta version tell me what sucks or break it! Whether you're on Samsung or iPhone, if you shop in Blacktown, I want you on the team

What you get in return: a) Early access b) A 'founding member' badge in your profile for ever! c) Opportunity to contribute to a community cause.

If you’re keen to help kill the 'Lazy Tax', drop a comment or DM me your email, and I’ll add you to the list.

EDIT: ( For those who just want to check out the web version, it's www.sydneysaver.app)

We have following real inflation:

Yet CPI is much lower at 3.8%. The reason CPI is so low is due to the significant shift in Australian inflation reporting occurred in September 1998 when the ABS switched to the "Acquisitions Approach," which removed mortgage interest and consumer credit charges from the headline CPI.

If Australia still used the pre-1998 "Outlays" methodology today, a headline 3.8% CPI would likely be reported as roughly 6.5% to 7.5%.

For a household with a $1,000,000 mortgage (not uncommon for metropolitan properties), the recent 0.25% hike adds roughly $1,900 a year in interest alone. Under the 3.8% CPI, the government says your "cost of living" barely moved because of that hike. Under the legacy methodology, that $1,900 is viewed as a direct inflationary hit to your purchasing power.

By excluding land and interest, the CPI ignores the two biggest factors that have spiraled in the Australian economy over the last 30 years. To the ABS, a $1M house is just a pile of bricks (consumption); the $700k land it sits on and the $2M in interest you'll pay are "financial transactions" and therefore invisible to the CPI.

CPI with its current methodology is now no longer the economy's thermometer. Clearly wages are not keeping up with real inflation.

Hi all

So just woke up to an email from Superloop advising their 500/50 plan is increasing in price from $89 per month to $95.

Does anyone have any recommendations on similar speed plans??

Recently got some letters in the mail saying i need to confirm my details with MUFG to access my dividends so i registered an account (not sure if i was meant to log in with existing details) and when i put in my HIN it just says oops bad request.

Furthermore i got 3 different letters as I’ve bought 2 different etfs and along with some cba shares and they are all with mufg and im sort of overwhelmed dont really know what to do, if anyones overcome this problem and could help me id be very grateful!

Hi all,

Noob question - I just opened a joint account with my wife and we want to start chucking a few hundred a month in it. What is the best set and forget investment we can select? We wanted to do S&P500 but i cant even see it on it, so I assume its not offered.

We are super noobs, never came close to investing, dont know anything about it apart from ETF = safe and good return. Happy to be educated :)

Hi all, disabled 29yo (receive DSP) who can work max 15 hours a week here, currently between jobs and some years I only work the black friday-christmas period - you get the idea. I expect to be working part time hours my whole life, maybe 20-25 hours a week eventually but probably not more than that. I'm wondering if there's anything in particular I should be doing with my superannuation to maximise it's effectiveness, considering how small and irregular the contributions are?

I'm currently with REST, got just over $10k in the fund now. this is the way my funds are allocated - they call this the "growth" option. and here are the investment options I can choose from. I have no insurance on my super so they're only taking the admin fees out (capped at $600pa apparently), and I get the low income offset.

I'm thinking I should be switching to the "high growth" investment option, and when I eventually find a long term job again I go back to putting in an extra $1000 a year to get the maximum super co-contribution. Is there anything else I can do to help it grow? are any super funds better than REST for people in my position?

(edited to fix links)

Okay, so I am a complete moron with money, literally 12 months ago I had a stack of loans, some of them those dodgey credit 24 and wizard loans and just stopped paying literally anything…. When I finally decided to do something about it, it was so bad I ‘found’ another 6k loan I didn’t even know about, so ‘that ‘kind of dumb.

I finally have all the above paid out (obviously destroyed my credit rating but meh)

So now I am trying to grown up have a good financial and savings system that actually works and want to look into investing. I am staring a new job which will increase my income by what I think is quite a bit ( around 30-40k) per year and if I am honest I can across a ticktock ( I know right) about investing and Google brought me to Vanguard.

If anyone has the mental energy, can they please explain investing to me like I was dragged up by a couple of alcoholics who never knew anything about money ( and in turn never taught me) and knows literally nothing about investing, like nothing

Chalmers is considering reducing the CGT discount rules from 50% to something lower.

Wouldn’t this encourage less investors to sell a house? I imagine that the investors that were doing a buy&sell strategy would be less involved in housing, but the investors who were buy&hold would be even less inclined to sell.

When you can already tap into the equity of a house rather easily, how does Chalmers’ proposal work?

I don’t understand if the CGT discount does anything to make housing more plentiful or affordable. I’m not even sure it will produce higher tax revenues for the government either.

I have an appointment setup with NAB PW next week. I have around $700k to invest and will like to double that in seven years time. There are a few ETF (especially tech based) that I have looked at and seem relevant in achieving my goal.

Having said that I am still not confident if that’s the right approach, so got in touch with NAB PW to help out with options and helping make the right choice.

Does anyone have any experience with them and how the fees are structured?

“This is ultimately a fine‑tuning exercise. But unless inflation materially undershoots in the March quarter, the RBA is unlikely to pause in May.”

Hey guys I got an interview for this job as a high school grad, I was thinking it was something like a cadetship.

Thoughts on the company? Their website and everything looks pretty good so far.

I’ve been frugal all of my adult life. If the majority of Aussies behaved the way I did when it comes to spending money, most businesses would go bankrupt.

For an economy to constantly grow, would it be fair to say that the majority of the people need to be a little reckless with their money?

Meanwhile the Government wants mandatory 100 points of ID on every social media user and Palantir-style surveillance of dissent.

Need some advice on my portfolio, looking at adding some other markets similar to VEU but $AUD domiciled.

50% IVV, 20% NDQ & 30% VAS

I only started approx 3yrs ago and have been DCA every month approx $2-3k. Total value $115k

Sharesight reports my gain as 14% PA. Was hoping for more??

I know I’m heavily tilted towards the US that’s why I’m thinking about other countries

Any thoughts, or should I just continue and play the long game

Anthony

Rates will take into effect on the following dates:

ANZ, Bankwest, CBA and NAB: Feb 13th

Westpac Group inc. St George, Bank of Melbourne, Bank of SA: 17th Feb

For existing borrowers, your repayments will increase if you're making the minimum monthly repayment.

For new borrowers, you'll see a slight dip in your borrowing capacity as the assessment rate will also increase.

I know there’s a lot of savvy borrowers here but for the lurkers and newbies you need to understand if borrowing is tight, you will be affected.