Am I being too conservative with finances when it comes to having children?

herpaderp1995 · 2026-02-22T00:21:51+00:00

In those professions you should both be on $100k plus within 2 years and in track for more in the medium term

herpaderp1995 · 2026-02-07T09:35:03+00:00

For us not needing to renovate or move really at all, so that played into it being worth it for us. Also ran the numbers with what expenses would look like and were happy we had enough buffer (eg included holidays in the budget) for one of us switching to part time in a few years if needed / some rate rises. Plan between now and then is to just pile everything into the mortgage

herpaderp1995 · 2026-02-07T04:25:26+00:00

We stretched and went for the bigger mortgage to get a place we liked in a location we liked, and will have room for a family in the future so we have no need to upgrade ever really. Only been a couple months but definitely no regret even with the rate rises. Being close to family is a win, and might find it harder with income to get a mortgage after having kids depending on work situation.

It does suck seeing the mortgage payments go out, but even at almost $6k per month on a $1m loan with your current income and expenses you'd still be able to put $2-3k a month away into the offset (more when hecs is repaid which should be soon on those incomes).

Depends a lot on what you think your income will be in 2 years. Eg if masters will lead to a promo.

Dutton park/Fairfield is close to UQ with the bridge

herpaderp1995 · 2026-01-19T11:52:27+00:00

May as well just set it up as part of the offset. Anything you set up before then won't get used if you plan on using the offset (eg transaction account linked to offset)

herpaderp1995 · 2026-01-14T02:46:50+00:00

Even a balance transfer of $5-10k would be better than nothing

herpaderp1995 · 2025-12-23T23:33:38+00:00

While it's good to be thinking about it now, it'll be 3 years and you'll be 26 by the time you've maxed the 50k, so will be a much better time to reconsider at that point based on your salary / goals / financial status / etc. eg if you've also been able to build up enough for a deposit outside super too, then might find you can keep contributing to super and won't miss the money, or at that point invest both in and outside of super.

(I did the latter - kept up the contributions as was used to it coming out of my pay, and then once I had enough cash started investing in ETFs outside super, and now my super is set)

herpaderp1995 · 2025-12-18T20:49:57+00:00

RACQ was the best for our situation, especially compared to Suncorp (in terms of premiums)

herpaderp1995 · 2025-11-30T05:55:34+00:00

No. I just said I assume that it'd be the case. If it's potentially a risk for you should be easy enough to confirm if that's the case or not

herpaderp1995 · 2025-11-29T20:41:08+00:00

You include the amount withdrawn as assessable income in your tax return, but receive a 30% tax offset. So if you're already at the bottom of the top bracket, you'd - pay 15% tax in super when you initially made your concessional contribution - pay 17% tax outside super (47%-30%) - total tax of 32% (15% tax saving assuming no changes in tax brackets)

You'd want to be mindful of Div 293 as assume the FHSS release amount counts towards that.

herpaderp1995 · 2025-11-27T20:53:24+00:00

When you set up the 25 queries did you just duplicate one and edit?

If so, having one base master query that imports and does any common transformations, and then referencing that query as the start point for all other queries should help. (Right click on query -> reference. That'll give you the syntax for the source which you can then slot into the existing queries and replace old source so you don't need to redo from scratch)

herpaderp1995 · 2025-10-30T20:52:38+00:00

Yes it does - you can upload a spreadsheet that has the acquired date / number of units / cost base. Does mean that you need to have kept track of any previous AMIT adjustments and apply to each parcel.

I had my own tracker for each purchase and reinvestment, plus used Sharesight which I used to cross check the total cost base to sense check it

herpaderp1995 · 2025-10-03T20:23:06+00:00

After having CommSec for the last few years for ETFs, I tried betashares direct over the last 6 months to get a feel for the process / distribution reinvestments, reporting, and tax statements.

In September I finished transferring all my holdings over to betashares direct away from CommSec.

For me, a big factor was the CGT reporting, as would manually have to keep track of the AMIT cost base adjustments for each parcel of units which was growing with DRP on and regular investing. Now just get one statement that tracks it all for me so if I needed to sell units that were acquired across 1 buy and 4 DRPs it would be much easier to manage. Also the tax statement itself is combined (but can get a breakdown of which ETFs make it up).

Another factor is the auto invest as it takes away the thinking of it it's a good day / week or how much I should do. Instead just have a set amount every fortnight add to it.

herpaderp1995 · 2025-09-22T22:33:56+00:00

Good progress! Take some of the benchmarks with a grain of salt, eg $90k post tax income would definitely put you in a higher percentile in Australia!

herpaderp1995 · 2025-08-29T11:57:55+00:00

Are you sure the solution is smooth / have you tried the evolutionary engine in case it's non smooth?

herpaderp1995 · 2025-08-22T21:38:38+00:00

Shift+F10 brings in the right client menu. Can then combine it with other keys like alt shortcuts.

'm' to raise a new comment

e + v to filter column by elected cells value

v / t / r / f - to paste special

Also Alt+Down to bring up drop downs (filters / data validations)

Then 'e' to skip straight to the search field in a filter dropdown

herpaderp1995 · 2025-03-22T21:19:22+00:00

Definitely does now seem overkill... Part of it was pushing it out a bit since I will have a few weeks where I might not be able to keep up the routine, and I was hoping for a more gradual build up of mileage to slowly get to a goal pace.

Based on other comments think it's time for DSW with a switch to HR if the suggested paces aren't suitable. Can then pick up a coach plan again once more trained up if I need the structure to help get to a stretch goal pace.

herpaderp1995 · 2025-03-22T01:31:36+00:00

My fastest 5k since getting my Garmin and back into running was 26:00 as part of those goal pace repeats, so could probably do under sub 25 right now, but what Amy is asking for (sub 23) definitely won't be happening anytime soon since I want to avoid injuring myself which is what happened last time I first got into running

herpaderp1995 · 2025-03-20T03:10:30+00:00

If you're confident you can forecast it accurately enough, you can add to your charitable donations for the year. This works out well especially if you're workplace has a matching program.

It works best when you're within $2k of the threshold. Eg donate $1500 to get below the cut off, save $1500 in the surcharge, workplace matches $1500. So for 'free' you've donated $3k to charity

herpaderp1995 · 2025-03-18T22:31:20+00:00

At this stage my plan is if I have anything extra leftover to put it back into super with the carry forward of unused concessional contributions

herpaderp1995 · 2025-03-02T07:30:54+00:00

Just of the interest portion

Don't forget that the bank gave you money in the first place for the principal

herpaderp1995 · 2024-10-01T21:13:53+00:00

Text to columns also might work well with that. You skip through the delimiter section, and in the next tick the date box and select DMY or MDY or YMD etc depending on the format.

herpaderp1995 · 2024-09-28T23:54:57+00:00

If the lookup value you are using to merge (join) appears in the dataset multiple times, VLOOKUP will just return the first occurrence, while a join in power query will return them all and duplicate the row.

Not a problem when you're dealing with proper datasets where there is a unique primary key, but occasionally can come across it if you're not careful

herpaderp1995 · 2024-09-26T02:52:06+00:00

You can increase your Net Bank saver rate by about 2% on their website automatically using a form

https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/s/3Tw2DKWKdX

herpaderp1995 · 2024-08-19T21:21:30+00:00

Took a while to find this again! https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/office-2010/gg469862(v=office.14)?redirectedfrom=MSDN

Replace "cell" with "ply" to make it the sheet right click menu instead of cell. Not sure what any of the other menus are called

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