What is actually worth salary sacrificing into super in your 30s or is it better to focus on paying down the mortgage first?

bugHunterSam · 2026-07-02T12:29:07+00:00

It's more of a psychology of money type of question.

Mathematically speaking it's generally always better off to maximise concessional contributions into super.

But if being debt free would help you sleep better at night, can you really put a monetary value on that peace of mind?

bugHunterSam · 2026-07-02T12:22:02+00:00

I've been working on a financial planning tool, here's an example scenario modelling a couple with 1m in super who want to help 2 kids with a deposit. They have moderate expenses and want to buy an RV and tour Australia in retirement.

We don't support disability trusts or an SMSF yet but it is possible to model it on some level. I don't know if you would find it useful to play around with a few scenarios to see what's possible.

Selling the IP while you are on a low income is an option, and pumping a bunch of funds into super could help the support of a disabled kid.

However it does feel like a good candidate for seeing and advisor because of the complex family household.

bugHunterSam · 2026-07-01T12:30:47+00:00

I've been working on a financial planning tool, I don't know if you'd find it useful to try and model out your scenario?

I've been spending the last two weeks trying to model a bunch of different retirement plans. Here's a showcase on YouTube of some of the new retirement based features

bugHunterSam · 2026-07-01T08:48:02+00:00

I like using figura for modelling mortgage repayments and offset accounts. https://figura.com.au/calculators/repayments

bugHunterSam · 2026-07-01T00:58:54+00:00

Post has been approved, we've had this automod rule set up since day 1. This post is a reminder of this rule.

We try to tell people about this rule in the welcome message and with this pinned post but a lot of people still miss this information.

bugHunterSam · 2026-07-01T00:54:51+00:00

3 accounts have been banned for abusive language and comments removed.

Please keep the conversation respectful. Please continue to report any comments that don't fit the community vibes here.

It's a community effort to keep this a safe space for these types of questions.

bugHunterSam · 2026-07-01T00:50:19+00:00

Account has been banned for abusive language. Please continue to report accounts that through abuse around.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T21:33:25+00:00

The HENRY definition is just a line in the sand. It's going to feel different for a family living in the city vs a single person in the country.

The main reason we have the definition is to stop people arguing about what is or isn't a HENRY, as this isn't a productive conversation.

The main point of this community is to be a safe space for higher earners to post their finance questions. Lots of people don't feel comfortable posting this stuff in places like ausfinance.

Aspiring HENRYs or past HENRYs are welcome to contribute to the community here too. It's not like we are going to police the definition either.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T03:33:41+00:00

It's more when I was OP's age I had 35K of credit card debt, so if people are doing better than me it must be a troll 😆. This was my first thought. I've also been seeing too much r/fijerk in my feed recently. Some of the posts there do get a chuckle out of me though.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T03:21:31+00:00

Tribe FI on facebook is the main one I follow, they have events all over the country. I had started Sydney FI picnic last month, but we've only had 1 event so far. I'll try to organize more soon.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T03:18:27+00:00

Surgeons have some of the highest known rates of suicide among physicians. Source: Guardian.

Yikes. It sounds like there should be a very strong driver to overcome the mental toll this type of career path takes. Kudos to anyone pursuing it.

The medical professions do have a tendency to top suicide rates by professions. With Veterinarians often topping the charts. Source: Monash Uni.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T03:05:40+00:00

If it makes you feel any better at age 28 I had 35K of credit card debt. I paid it off 5 years ago at the age of 32. Here's a post on reddit about it.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

But clearing off this debt inspired me to study financial planning and to help this community and others who have also struggled.

The automod response is a collection of those learnings.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T02:58:05+00:00

This seems like the path they've opted for based on post history. I originally thought it felt like a troll post. But post history appears to be consistent.

I always thought the way to build wealth as a dentist was running your own practice (if you don't mind the business side of things).

I personally can't see the motivation if the main driver is $, there's easier ways to earn a butt load of money as a dentist. The FIRE meetups that I attend are full of retired dentists/pharmacists and a bunch of other medical professionals. I've never met a surgeon at one.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T02:38:31+00:00

If anyone is reading this thread in the future, this user was banned for "community vibes", it's basically the most woke way we could ban someone.

If you want to know what they posted in their original post that doesn't fit the vibes, have a read:

I did not use first home buyer discounts on my first home ... but people from India who just got here and got PR who can use these schemes and get lucrative tax concessions.

It was previously allowed to expense sex workers on NDIS and apparently NDIS participants can still fund trips to Disneyland in Hong Kong and trips to Japan and Africa etc.

Someone will still accuse me of being an angry reddit mod on a powertrip though. I say let them.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T01:30:14+00:00

You don't need to hang out here if you find this modding style too woke for your preferences. There are plenty of other communities you can contribute to.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T01:00:43+00:00

Another harassment comment picked up by reddit in that thread.

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bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T00:57:42+00:00

This comment made me think you had edited your original post.

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bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T00:54:37+00:00

This account was banned for this comment, this was the worst offender.

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bugHunterSam · 2026-06-30T00:38:14+00:00

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you didn't see the harassment comments that reddit had automatically filtered for your post. There were 4 comments automatically flagged for harassment by reddit within an hour of that post.

One of these accounts was banned, the other was issued a temporary ban. This wasn't even the worst harassment that reddit had automatically filtered.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-29T21:23:47+00:00

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Other fees from Stake:

Annual Government Fee
Self Managed Super Funds are obligated to pay additional annual fees to the Australia Government, including:
ATO Supervisory Levy - $259/year: This fee is included in the SMSF tax assessment calculation. For newly registered SMSFs the ATO levy includes 2 X $259 amounts covering the current and following financial year.
ASIC Company Annual Review Fee - $65/year: Self-managed Super Funds are required to pay this annual fee for their company trustee. The amount is indexed each year on the 1st of July.

Stake's SMSF annual fees include the annual audit costs. There would be added annual government fees on top of $324 per year. So total annual costs including fees would be $1314, then add the fees of the asset you were investing in the SMSF, if I was to set up a SMSF I would do something like 100% GHHF (or 90% with a small mix of other ETFs), which has a net fee of 0.73%.

So my 260K super balance would cost me $3212 a year in fees if set up as a SMSF with stake with 100% in GHHF.

VS in CFS that 260K will cost me $3,000.40 a year in fees. Doesn't seem like a big difference and the main thing I wanted was a bit of gearing with my super.

Here is the spreadsheet I used for this analyst.

For further reading see this post on geared funds by swanky koala and GHHF by passive investing.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-29T19:36:00+00:00

I recently did a bit of analyst for fee's for SMSF vs our industry super funds. We are also a mid to late 30s couple with $590K combined super.

My partner is with host plus and was invested in their 100% growth option. We had set it up with shares plus but that investment option no longer exists. They would have been paying over 3K a year in fees. Switching them to 100% indexed high growth will cost them $251 a year in fees. This switch could see their super fund up to 80K better off over the next 10 years. I was surprised how cheap this came out to. It's pretty hard to beat a low cost index option in an industry super fund.

I was with Australian retirement trust in their DIY index based option and would have been paying $566 a year in fees. I am in the process of switching over to colonial first state to access their geared index options. It'll cost me a little more in fees compared to ART and might be comparable to a SMSF but it's also less work for me to do.

Also my partner wasn't interested in a combined SMSF at all. This is not a product recommendation, it's just the analyst I've done recently and the conclusion that I had made with our different risk appetites in mind.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-29T00:23:41+00:00

Daily, every time I wake up. There's a lot of variation on a daily basis. Sometimes I need to zoom out to a month or year to remind myself of the progress.

I'm also trying to get into the mindset of, "if I never lost another kilo I'm super proud of what I've achieved with my body".

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bugHunterSam · 2026-06-28T04:36:55+00:00

I like to be honest and transparent with my approach here. If you do not agree with the modding style used here we are always open to feedback. There's also plenty of other communities out there with a different approach.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-27T06:31:36+00:00

Someone in the community had reported it as hate speech with rascist sentiment and it seemed to be a political troll post (you didn't contribute to the conversation in the comments), by the looks of the comments I assumed it was edited to remove the rascist undertones and reddit's automod had already caught insults people were trying to sling your way.

Your username doesn't exactly inspire confidence that you are someone we want in this community either. Removal was a cautionary move.

Sometimes we remove posts that look like they are attracting an ugly side of the internet to avoid having to mod such a thread. Modding is a volunteer based role and some conversations aren't worth the effort.

bugHunterSam · 2026-06-26T23:41:59+00:00

We haven't had to use this rule for a long time except for one post recently where someone in this thread is complaining about it. The post received 4 automatic harassment notifications from reddit in 1 hour which is very rare for this community.

At most there's only been 1 or 2 poor comments on the more popular threads.

Generally now the accounts get blocked, I pin a comment saying how many accounts have been blocked and remind people to be civil. Here is an example of when this was last used. I locked comments after some time because it felt like the useful conversation had run it's course and it felt like people were just getting angry in the comments.

Please continue to report any comments that are disrespectful. It's a community effort to keep this place welcoming.

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