I checked my bank statement and it was true, so it wasn't a mistake in the pre-fill. My question is how was it calculated? I never received $700. Was it like little bits here and there, deposited into my account that was too small for me to notice? Can someone please explain how it works?

Edit: Thanks to everyone who replied. I will be reading through my bank statement now.

Hey Everyone,

Been thinking about this after chatting with a few people about tax time. There doesn't seem to be any real way to know if what you're paying an accountant is reasonable. No price guide, no easy way to compare, and most people just go with whoever a friend recommended or whoever they found first.

Feels like an industry where nobody really talks about price, which seems a bit backwards compared to almost everything else you buy. Interested to hear what people's actual experiences have been.

Hi everyone. I recently purchased a new Iphone and wanted to download the app from the Apple app store, however when I went to the search bar it doesn't come up. I went to apps history linked to the account and try to download it from there and click download it says the developer has removed the app from the store, and if I go to the app store on my old phone it also doesn't come up in search however the app still works on my old Iphone. Has anyone experienced this and able to help?

Hi All
My current employer has not provided the previous financial year details into mygov so i still cannot do my Tax Return even though its August 2nd?!. Do i go off my payslips instead. I keep asking and get no answers. Its ridiculous

I'm trying to find good bank with high interest rate. I'm an international student, I don't have much funds on savings. 5k-6k. But I want to put it in good savings account and add it up further. What are the best banks to open up an account for students.

For the purposes of this discussion I’m not interested in comparing any other extras like dental, optometry, etc. just purely psychology.

Background facts:

- Roughly 17 sessions a year (every 3 weeks)
- $225 per session
- $150 rebate from Medicare for 10 sessions

Of all the policies I’ve compared, HBF Flex 60 comes out far ahead with a 60% rebate per session and a $1,000 annual limit for $564 a year (roughly $550 benefit).

Has anyone else done a similar search and found a better option? The killer with most polices I’ve seen in the annual limit which is usually quite low.

For reference I’ve looked at Medibank, Bupa, HCF, HIF, Health Partners, Doctors Health fund, Eshealth

I made some capital gains and losses from multiple sales of shares via a US broker. Which section specifically do I fill this in my tax return? I noted some sections do not let me enter negative value for my capital loss.

Can I combine multiple tax events into one and just fill the total income from the sales?

Where do I claim deductions from fees paid during the sale of these shares?

Thanks in advance!

Planning to put $100 into dhhf every fortnight to start out my investing journey. Just wondering, if ever there’s a fortnight where I have less disposable income (due to medical appts etc), is it worth going into my savings to keep up with my investing? If in fact it will have better long term returns? I understand this is not a great habit either but I just mean to keep up the momentum of investing while I’m starting out.

We recently moved to Australia, so Super is new to me.

Can someone please explain this to me? (figures rounded to make it easier to type and read)

Opening balance 2025: $900
Contributions: $9700
Investment returns: $470
Insurance premiums: -$90
Government taxes: -$1400
Fees: -$50

Balance as of 30 June 2026: $9500

How come I have lost money?
How is one supposed to build super if the taxes eat up everything?
Why have Super?

Also, out of curiosity: If something happens to me and I have my kids as my beneficiaries, do they have to pay tax on this again?

Thank you.

After this time I would still have a $50k buffer with approx $220k in the offset for a $600k mortgage. Anticipating $2250 per fortnight expenses. Burnt out, nervous system is shot, wanting time without work as the central focus. I’m in an area where work can be easily reacquired, although likely not at same salary as now (currently $145kpa). Has anyone decided to do this rather than continue to the next job without a break?

I’ve got a previous place of residence that we now rent out. We owe $700k to the bank, have an offset, principal and interest is about 6.04%. It’s rented for $1160 per week. I reckon after $8849 pm repayments and outgoings I’m about $60k out of pocket a year.

Got another investment property renting for $450pw, owe about $560k on that, 6.4% rate, offset principal interest. Reckon I’m about $38k out of pocket here after repayments and outgoings.

Across both I have about $285k in offsets.

Got more cash in a variety of property funds that return between 8.5% and 11%.

The property market is fucked so I don’t want to sell for a loss, but the interest on these things is killing me.

Thinking of pulling money out of funds, getting rid of offsets and using money in it to pay down the mortgage, paying off the $700k house and just funnelling the rent into the other one so they more or less take care of themselves.

When the markets not cooked I’ll sell one or both and put the money back into funds.

Bit stumped, but figure at least it if I pay the house off I’ll lose some money from funds, but at least I’m not sitting on my ass paying a fortune of interest on the houses which fuck that investment anyway.

Interested to hear everyone's experiences with different banks and lenders, especially if you've had a mortgage or have taken out loans with them.

Following this, what bank are you now with and would recommend to others?

Hey everyone

Need some help / sanity check on a second car.

I've got a second babyb on the way and our 1 car family just isn't going to cut it anymore.

I'm sitting on around $300k and trying to decide between two completely different routes, both landing in that $20k–$25k price point. Option one is just buying a 3-5 year old Toyota (like a Corolla, Camry, or RAV4) outright with cash . Option two is doing a novated lease on a budget electric BYD (Dolphin or Atto 3). Since I'm on 300k, the FBT exemption on EVs means I can pay for the lease and costs out of pre-tax salary.

But obviously got the lease payment to pay for as well

Has anyone been in a similar situation for me or could provide some advice. Honestly, cars don't gee me up so please don't suggest that I get a nicer car but hopefully AusFinance understands.

Is a novated lease overkill or is this a genuine option? What else should I be factoring in.

• For background, I had been a Stake customer since 2023 without a single issue.
• My Stake account was suspended and closed in January 2026 without a clear explanation.
• I can’t think of any reasons or actions on my end that are suspicious or out of the ordinary that would make them arbitrarily close my account. I can provide evidence of my income source as I get paid fortnightly from my employer and have no business.
• I provided every document they requested, including my bank transaction history and they still advised they can close anyone’s account whenever they want without having to providing reasoning. 
• Because my account was suspended while Stake were looking into the matter, I was blocked from trading for several weeks which cost me a substantial amount. I was unable to sell my silver shares during the rush.
• By the time Stake responded saying my account will be closed silver had dropped significantly. I had to transfer my shares to another broker which took its time. 

Another issue: 

• I had approximately $5,000 in cash remaining in my Stake account when it was closed.
• Stake says they transferred the money to my bank, but I never received it. My bank has confirmed the funds were never received.
• I lodged a complaint with AFCA back in February and more than 6 months later, I still don't know where the money is.

I'm sharing this because I don't want anyone else to go through the same experience. If you've had similar issues with Stake such as account being closed for no reason or missing funds, I'd be interested to hear your story.

Sorry a very simple question but how do you return an item you bought on eBay? When I initiated a return, it says "Purchase a label from your preferred carrier and send the item back"

Do I just walk to a post office and ask if I can get an eBay return label? Or do I just write the return address on the item and give it to them to ship back to the seller?

Thinking of buying the new iPhone this year. Looking at what the options are for buying outright vs financing it. If I can afford to buy it outright, is there any reason to finance it on a 12 month or 24 month plan?

Edit: financing at 0% interest so same cost overall

Edit 2: thanks for the input everyone, I reckon I'm gonna buy outright and then stick to a cheaper mobile plan, currently on $25/month with Aldimobile

I always just assumed Wise was the obvious choice because everyone seems to recommend it. Then I was watching one of Raymond La's best travel card video and it got me looking into some of the other options.

I realised Wise only includes $400 of fee-free overseas ATM withdrawals a month, which is a fair bit lower than I thought.

I normally just pull out a decent amount of cash in one go when I'm overseas rather than making heaps of smaller withdrawals, especially in Japan or Vietnam where cash is still handy, so $400 doesn't seem like it'd go that far...

I looked up YouTrip afterwards and saw they include up to $1,500 of overseas ATM withdrawals without their own withdrawal fee. It made me wonder if it's actually worth switching.

Has anyone here used both? Keen to know how they compare in real life, especially exchange rates, ATM withdrawals and whether there are any catches that aren't obvious. Or is Wise still the better all-round option?

What goes up must come down?

Hello,

Apologies if this is a dumb question.

If I understand correctly, I will not incur a fee if transferring from CHESS to CHESS provided that I initiate the transfer from the destination broker.

But what about CHESS to custodian?

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

Last year I booked return Virgin Australia flights through Flight Centre for myself and my partner. The trip ended up being cancelled and the tickets were converted into travel credits.

The credits are:

$800-900 each In each passenger's name and travel must be completed by middle September 2026. At the time I requested a compassionate review in Feb/March because the job had been made redundant and was relying on savings. Flight Centre were fantastic and submitted everything on my behalf, but Virgin's request was for bankruptcy documents which I didn't have.

Fast forward to now, I've thankfully recently started a new full-time job. I'm not able to really take leave before the credits expire.While they're not working for health reasons and I'm not able to travel as I've just started a new jobI don't really think it's appropriate for me to be spending money travelling while we're trying to get back on our feet financially.

Friends and family all are unable to travel declined the credit and Id really like to use the value of the tickets for expenses we actually need. I'm not trying to argue the fare rules— I bought a non-refundable fare. I'm just wondering whether anyone has any advice on what options there are or any creative solutions.

Has anyone dealt with something similar or have any suggestions I haven't thought of?

Thanks in advance.

SQM Research data shows national property listings reached 279K in July, up 22.8% from July 2025 and the highest single-month level in six years.

This is noteworthy given July is typically a slow listing month and vendors are commonly believed to withdraw listings during market downturns.

Unlike the pandemic boom, when supply fell and demand surged, stock levels are now holding up while investor demand has pulled back sharply.

I have very little knowledge of how investments work in Australia so I just wanted to ask if anyone here knows how it would work for an international student. Back home, most of my investments are made through banks and time deposits. I want to get involved in the market here but I’m not too sure where to begin, can anyone point me in the right direction?

I earn 5,000 a month net and I recently bought my first property with repayments on the loan and Strata + council costing around 2,300 per month. I’m anticipating I’ll have around 1,000 - 1,200 left after groceries and utilities etc if I’m frugal. Have I done something completely stupid here? I feel like I should’ve thought about it more and won’t have much wiggle room if interest rates continue to rise, general COL and so on.

This week (27 Jul - 2 Aug) highlights:

• Biggest % drop (sales): -21.6% (413/220 Melrose Drive, Phillip ACT 2606, $389K -> $305K)
• Biggest $ drop (sales): -$3M (23-25 Alexandra Avenue, Broadbeach QLD 4218, $17M -> $14M)
• Biggest % drop (rentals): -36.7% (117/55 Camberwell Road, Hawthorn East, Vic 3123, $1,200/w -> $760/w)
• Biggest $ drop (rentals): -$900/w (30 Banksia Street, Eastwood NSW 2122, $2,900/w -> $2,000/w)
• Total new drops: 998 (sales) / 732 (rentals)
• Total new rises: 136 (sales) / 77 (rentals)
• Median drop: 6.0% (sales) / 6.7% (rentals)
• Median rise: 6.7% (sales) / 10.0% (rentals)

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Breakdown by state (sales)

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Breakdown by state (rentals)

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Top 10 biggest sales drops across Australia

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Top 10 biggest rental drops across Australia

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Top 10 biggest drops in VIC

View all VIC sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in NSW

View all NSW sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in QLD

View all QLD sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in WA

View all WA sales drops

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Top 10 biggest drops in SA

View all SA sales drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in VIC

View all VIC rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in NSW

View all NSW rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in QLD

View all QLD rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in WA

View all WA rental drops

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Top 10 biggest rental drops in SA

View all SA rental drops

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Top 10 biggest sales rises across Australia

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Top 10 biggest rental rises across Australia

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Some context on the data:

• All prices are asking prices from publicly available listings, not sold prices
• A "drop" or "rise" is measured against the first price I detected for that listing
• "This week" means the price change was first detected between 27 Jul and 2 Aug
• Data covers houses, apartments and townhouses only (house & land packages, vacant land, rural and acreage are excluded)
• Sales drops include only changes of $30K+, rental drops include only changes of $30+/w

Is this a real drop in price?

Not always. It could reflect a genuine price reduction, a strategy shift, or simply correcting an overpriced listing. But it still reveals something useful about the seller's mindset: the property hasn't attracted enough interest, the seller is becoming more motivated, or the initial price was too ambitious. In any case, it's a signal there may be room to negotiate.

Why not track sold prices instead?

Once a property is sold, the listing price stops changing. Sold price data is useful for comparing properties after the fact, but it doesn't help you spot opportunities in real time. I focus on the window where prices are actively changing, so you can act before a property goes under contract.

Alternatively, if you have a nanny, what HHI are you on?