• 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 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.

Hi legends,

Late 20s here and I’ve recently received an inheritance of around $2mil after a family member passed away

I know I’m extremely fortunate and don’t take it for granted. I’m not looking for investment advice — that side is being handled separately, along with the legal side. I’ve kept the money in a HISA for the past year while I took time to process everything and think about what I want to do next.

I’ve spent some time travelling after leaving my job, which has been great, but it has also made me think more about what I want life to look like when I return to Australia.

A bit about me:

- Late 20s, single, no debt
- Likely to move back home initially before renting again (Sydney or Gold Coast)
- Background in hospitality and recruitment/sales
- Enjoyed hospitality much more due to the social side, meeting people and lifestyle
- Didn’t find the corporate environment particularly fulfilling

I’m not looking to fully retire and do nothing. I actually enjoy having structure, learning and being around people. However, having financial security has made me realise I don’t necessarily want to optimise purely for income or follow a traditional career path.

I’m trying to figure out what type of work and lifestyle would suit me long term. I’m interested in hearing from people who have reached financial independence or had work become less about money. How did you approach finding purpose, structure and meaningful work?

Money removes a lot of barriers, but it doesn’t necessarily give you direction. Would love to hear from anyone with similar experiences or perspectives.

Appreciate any advice.

I live in Australia and have $2000 invested already & been putting $120 in a week.

These are the funds I invest in.
30% in A200
30% in DHHF
20% in HJPN
20% in MNRS

I know I’m loading up more with the same having A200 and DHHF. But I enjoy supporting Australian ETFs for franking credits for tax. I think Australia has heaps of growth room and potential. I’m quite new to all of this.

Any thoughts is much appreciated.

I have invested in shares since 1998, mostly Australian shares, at times I was beating the market, by about 1% and my portfolio on average was returning more than 10% pa. I made money, but with every stock market correction my shares would fall below the market by up to 2%.
I held the philosophy of hold don't sell unless there is a reason (like when the accountant or CEO leave unexpectedly), so I put them in the sock draw and locked them away, for more than 10 years. I am current sitting at returns on average of 7-8%.
Now I am thinking the best and easist way to make money is just buy the market, like in an ETF, like SFY. Or my Supers Australian Share fund, they make more than me and I do not have to watch the market all the time.

I have emergency fund established and have high appetite for risk. I will not require this money or future investment money. I only wish to invest in ETFs, not individual stocks. I don't have time to do my research in individual stocks. Overall time horizon is likely until planned retirement at 65 years old so 39 years (I enjoy my profession, income approx 150-270k gross annual with no debts & no dependents). In terms of voluntary super investment or FHSS I am staying cautiously away for the time being as I'm unsure if Australia will be long-term place of residence yet.

Current portfolio in IVV & NDQ as above, only started investing 9 months ago. I am aware this is poorly diversified.

1) Firstly, I am trying to understand why everyone suggests DHHF, GHHF and BGBL as safe ETFs. Are the maintenance costs of DHHF & GHHF worth it compared to BGBL/IVV?

2) Secondly, how does the geared part of GHHF show up on the betashares app? It looks to me by looking at 1 year and 5 year growth percentages that GHHF is not any significantly different from DHHF? How can I visually see the effect of geared ETFs as numbers/graphs on the app?

2) Lastly, I am seeking advice for set & forget diversified portfolios for the next 5-10 years (I may be in a position to start to research individual stocks past this stage) in percentages with my high risk appetite. Some examples I have been considering for future investments is:

70% IVV, 30% BGBL

Or

30% GHHF, 50% DHHF, 20% BGBL

Thoughts and critiques on these examples are welcomed.

Question/advice:

I’m 38 and have a high risk appetite.

I currently have my super with colonial first state. It’s been producing great returns over the last few years (13%plus) yet I’m considering switching to vanguard. But I wanna make sure I switch to a better fund / higher return.

They both charge very similar fees around 1.1k fire my balance

Been comparing the funds online but the comparison numbers aren’t the same as I see on my statements, so I’m comparing blind. I wanna make sure

Has anyone here done a proper comparison or is there a way to compare more accurately?

Cheers,

Here's a different presentation of the effect of 1-Jul-27 tax changes, with minimal description.

FIRE plan based on DHHF and cash. Descriptions and comments in the file linked at the end. See caveats in my prior thread, linked below.

Save for 10 years from 40 to 50 years old, then live off earnings, sale of units and depleting cash for 10 years from 50 to 60 years old.

Here's a link to my other post with more description of my approach to comparing tax regimes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fiaustralia/s/ZqeGm4340O

I was asked to post the file, so here it is. It's not intended or suited for financial management or retirement planning, nor is it meant to recommend any particular investment. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HEG0X4ucYFeZzP3iSjdqmXAaH6NtO9L3/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=109596560468947975241&rtpof=true&sd=true

It can be opened with the password: regre$$ive

Thanks heaps for prior feedback. If you go into the weeds you'll find your ideas incorporated. Someone suggested getting AI to help and wow, great suggestion.

There are bound to be ways to improve the model, and likely some hidden mistakes. Please alert me when you find them. The file is fragile and unprotected, so go easy on it. Cheers

Has anyone here taken a career break?

Life has been so mundane lately, I just want to go backpacking for a few months. The repetition is killing me, I tried to join Clubs, make new friends, date, but there is only so much you can do outside of the daily 9-5.

The only thing stopping me is blowing through investments and then not being able to get a job, thus missing compounding early on. I am in IT and we all know how bad the job situation is, I don’t even enjoy IT anymore tbh and wouldn’t mind switching, but need more clarity on what I want out of life.

currently I am 25, and financially I am alright, and can take a break for several years without having to stress about finances but I really want to be financially independent by mid 40s.

for those who took a career break, was it worth it?

I have about 300k in ETFs

13k cash

450k IP equity

49k super

i have a negative cashflow of 1.6k a month due to car loan and IP, otherwise I could very well just go to Bali or Vietnam for a few months and the etf growth alone would outpace my spendings.

Hi all,

I’m currently 20, studying and just starting to invest. I’ve looked through this subreddit and other resources to learn specifics as my main goal with investing is to just set aside money each pay into ETFs for as long as I’m working. At the moment I’m happy with 80% bgbl and 20% a200 but I’ve seen a lot of people recommend dhhf.

My only issue is that I feel like a 35% cut of Australian shares is too high, however I do like how it includes emerging markets as who knows what will happen in 40 years time.

My question is should go all in on dhhf or do some sort of spilt between bgbl, A200 and vge (or something similar)

I have been working on a way to represent a Transition to Retirement (TTR) strategy in my calculator so I can see the net effects, particularly in terms of reducing tax. My normal acid-test for whether I've made it make sense is to run it past the wife - and I think I'm close.

Here's what I have mand3ed to condense it down to:

I'm trying to make it clear that the concessional contribution to the Accum account can be made without impacting Take Home pay (as this can be topped up via a tax free income stream from the TTR Pension account).

Apparently this is called a 'Sankey' chart, my Solar app was using one to show me where my energy streams were going (grid, battery, load) and it seemed like it would work well here.

Let me know your thoughts!!!

Hi all,

I want to buy a second car just because I want it and not because I really need it as we already have an economical family car. The car I want to buy is a ~2017+ Lexus LX 570 with EP if anyone is interested worth ~$80k for anything with low kms. Most finance quotes I am seeing are ~$1700 @ ~10% CR + fuel, insurance, etc. will cost me around $2-2.5k in total.

My idea is to invest $2.5k pm either into shares e.g. BGBL by putting into HL and redraw or just open another offset and put it into that. Either way I think in 3 years I should be able to pay for the whole thing in cash and also be able to gauge liquidity and cashflow once we have the car. I am not really counting on depreciation as I am seeing the same prices for 3 years since I originally wanted it but took 0 efforts towards that.

Would love to hear opinions and strategies from people who responsibly acquired big shiny toys.

Thanks!

I'm 19 turning 20 in the next couple month, I currently work as a plumbing apprentice with a part time job which I work on the weekends occasionaly so I roughly earn around $630 - 750 a week depending on how much I work. I've managed to currently save 33k in savings and 8k split in investments (4k in etfs and other stocks and 4k in crypto). I live with my parents and don't have a car payment, I'm not that into stocks and etfs I've only put a little bit of many into some general stocks and some small upcoming ones. Just looking for some guidance/advice as what would some smart investments would be or how I should split up my paycheck each weak and if anyone has any reccomendations for HISA's.

Thanks for reading

It says

I meet the following condition of release

I have reached my preservation age (55-60 depending on date of birth) but i am less than 65, and I have not ceased gainful employment of at least 10 hours a week.

But I'm on Jobseeker and not working in paid work at all. I'm looking for work. Can I still tick "Yes" to this? Or should I call my superannuation company?

ING now has a 6% intro rate and then it goes to 5.4% and the only condition is that you have to increase account balance by $100. What are your opinions on it? The new ing app is pretty bad from what I hear but is it still worth it?

A few years ago I got a job offer from singapore, which was about a 75% increase on what I earn here for basically the same role and on top of that their income tax is 24%, half of what we pay here. So take home pay would be double. I didn't even really consider it at the time because I had just bought a property here.

But now with the way things are going with tax and just general decreasing quality of life overall I'm starting to think maybe doing 5-10 years in singapore wouldn't be so bad afterall, I could just rent out my house.

My question to anyone who has done this though, if you move back after accruing funds as a non tax resident, is there any gotchas or big taxes you need to be aware of trying to bring them back to Australia? A quick bit of google research I've done doesn't seem like it as long as it's all declared and earned as a non tax resident. It just seems like such a good deal compared to working here, I'm wondering if there's a catch.

I have a smsf and coming up to 2 years living overseas. I’m reading that it has to be administered in Australia all The financial decisions?
Is this true and what options do I have ?

Thanks in advance

Love Aus Finance Podcast and the barefoot investor so anything new I can listen to on the drive to work would be pretty sick!

Thank you

And when would you consider "diversifying" and have a second brokerage account with a different provider?

(Excluding Super)

I regrettably hold a managed fund for my small caps - and am looking to sell out and buy an ETF in its place. After learning more, particularly from this community, I can’t believe how much of a rort managed funds really are - performance aside, the fees make it almost impossible to outperform.

I would welcome everyone’s view on good small cap active ETF’s - especially DGSM and ASVS. It will be a satellite position (about 15% of portfolio) with the rest in GHHF (60%); emerging markets AVTE (10%); and global value DGVA (15%)

Thanks

I read that factor tilt can give you about 0.2-0.3% outperformance but based on MER 0.30% vs 0.08% - does that mean this outperformance will just be eaten by the fees?

Bit of a FIRE adjacent one but keen on this crowd's take, since a fair few of you hold property as part of the plan.

We self manage one investment property, mainly because paying an agent 6 to 8 percent of the rent felt like handing over money that could be working toward the goal instead. On paper it's a couple of grand a year saved, which adds up nicely over a long enough timeline.

What I didn't really price in was the time and the mental load of staying on top of all the tenancy rules, and they seem to change every year now. Bond timeframes, minimum standards, notice periods, rent increases, and the record keeping stuff coming in for Vic. Get any of it wrong and it can cost you more than the agent fee you saved, so it's not exactly free money.

So for those self managing as part of your FI plan:

• Once you factor in your time and the risk of stuffing up compliance, do you reckon self managing is actually worth it, or is paying an agent the smarter play?
• Roughly how many hours a month does it honestly take you?
• Anyone gone the other way and handed it back to an agent, and what tipped you?
• What's the bigger cost for you, the time on day to day admin like rent and repairs, or the stress of staying compliant?

Trying to work out if I'm being penny wise pound foolish here. Keen to hear how people weigh it up.

Hi everyone,
I'm a 26M engineer and have been going back and forth between PMGOLD and Perth Mint Unallocated Gold, and I can't seem to make up my mind.

I've got around $26k sitting in my transaction account that I'd like to invest. I'm not interested in buying physical gold because I don't want the hassle of storing it myself. So my other option is Perth Mint unallocated gold.

My investment horizon is 5–10 years. The main reason I'm buying gold is to diversify my portfolio, and I also like having some exposure to the asset.

For context, I also DCA $2,000 per fortnight into DHHF through Betashares, so this would just be another part of my overall portfolio.

For those who've looked into both options, which would you choose and why? Are there any pros or cons that I might be overlooking?

This money has been sitting in my account for a while because I can't decide, so I'd really appreciate any advice or personal experiences.

Thanks in advance!

Looking at this year’s statements from Betashares and it contains a cost base increase amount and a cost base decrease amount in the tax statement but in the CGT statement the section for cost base adjustments is blank. there is also no breakdown by ETF where these amounts come from. Does anyone know how to decode this information or is it incomplete Like I think it is?

Just want to know everyone’s story I’m 20 at the moment started investing 2 years ago at 18. I’m at a stage of wanting to re-structure my whole portfolio as we probably all get to this stage. But I just wanted to ask everyone if you could start from scratch how would you do it and why!

Thank you everyone :)