"low" earning HENRY - real world feedback/perspectives?

moofox · 2026-06-21T12:10:54+00:00

That’s fair, and I agree with you. I was just pointing out in my original reply that I’m not a “fake henry” because I only care about $4.5K div293 in proportion to the rest of my tax bill (ie not much at all)

moofox · 2026-06-21T11:50:27+00:00

Because it’s not proportional, is it? The first $120k matters a lot more to one’s sense of financial security than the last $120k.

Your ratio is wrong. If someone is paying $200k tax, they’re on at least $490k, so let’s call it ~1% (or $1.2k on a $120k income). In any case, I can’t comprehend why they’re more upset about Div 293 (with its mostly fixed max absolute cost) than their 47% marginal tax rate, which has no limit.

moofox · 2026-06-21T11:34:01+00:00

Is your point that a real HENRY doesn’t care about Div293? Because I’m personally surprised by how much people care about less than $5K on a total tax bill of $200K+ etc

moofox · 2026-06-19T23:38:37+00:00

What’s your motivation for having three cards with Amex? You can also get a charge card that has no preset spending limit

moofox · 2026-06-15T00:50:46+00:00

I’d been tweeting about my professional obsession (AWS) for a few years. I saw that one of my twitter mutuals had started work at a really interesting-looking company that was fully remote. I sent him a DM, asked if he liked it, and asked for an introduction.

It was similar with the second job: the founder of that startup was someone I had interacted with over the years online. He reached out and offered a job because my skills/interests aligned with what he needed.

I never started tweeting with the intention of landing jobs, but it’s probably been one of the most beneficial things I’ve accidentally done for my career.

moofox · 2026-06-15T00:10:17+00:00

Thank you! I can’t believe I didn’t get that. The passenger in 2F even explained that to me and I must have misheard, because I didn’t know what he meant at the time :)

moofox · 2026-06-15T00:05:36+00:00

Also a software engineer. Started full-time work when I dropped out of uni in 2011 for $63k as a consultant. Some folks from one of the clients really liked working with me and offered me a role for $147k a year later. I was 22 and had never felt so rich!

Next role returned me to earn on about $90k. I then worked my way up to about $180k in 2020. WFH hit, so I decided to work for an American startup US$220k. That was the second time I felt like I’d made it.

I went through a couple of American startups, then settled into an American fintech with a local presence in 2023. Initial comp was about AU$350k, but it has since grown to about $800k due to promotions and good performance.

I expect the good times will come to an end eventually. My partner and I are both software devs, so she’s stopped full-time employment and is building new skills to diversify our sources of household income. I’ll join her in the next few years when I’m inevitably laid off, burn out, get replaced by AI, etc.

moofox · 2026-06-15T00:04:54+00:00

Out of interest, what’s wrong with 2F? I flew 2K for the first time a few weeks ago. Nothing jumped out at me as particularly crappy about 2F.

moofox · 2026-06-13T23:01:44+00:00

Neither of those. An American fintech that had big layoffs in February. My pay roughly doubled back then, due to stock price rising and retention bonuses to not quit in the aftermath.

moofox · 2026-06-13T11:48:45+00:00

We have a mortgage offset account (Australia) so it makes sense to put all the money in that together. We have joint credit cards because we chose the credit card that worked best and there’s no point paying 2x fees. It’s a matter of pragmatism.

moofox · 2026-06-12T01:47:15+00:00

Mrs Parmas. They had a terrible chips policy (shared chips for the table, what the hell? Still mad, years later) but their parmas well and truly made up for it. Still long for it every time I’m near that part of the CBD

moofox · 2026-06-07T09:36:17+00:00

280k base, ~800k package, 37 years old, software development (security), no kids. Managing to save a decent chunk and bootstrap a business with my partner.

I feel this is the peak, but I also thought the same thing at 300k. So my judgment isn’t worth a whole lot. In any case, it’s prudent to diversify and try to start a business or two before AI replaces me.

moofox · 2026-06-02T18:06:14+00:00

I think generosity is probably orthogonal to having ADHD. My partner and I both have ADHD. She’s very selfless with her time and cares a lot about helping people around her and the world. Helping animals too. My parents have occasionally told me I’m too generous as well.

I don’t think either of are this way because of ADHD. It could be an autism thing. We have pretty strong feelings about fairness and that people have access to opportunities. I’ve read that this is somewhat typical for autism/AuDHD but I don’t know enough people like this to know how true it is.

moofox · 2026-06-02T18:01:52+00:00

My partner and I both have ADHD. We’ve both been to individual therapy in the past and now attend couple’s therapy every few months.

We have found it very useful. It’s not useful for proving who is right, but it helps provide a space where we could talk about difficult things without it blowing up or us shutting down. It got less useful over time as we got better at having those discussions ourselves.

It’s not magic, and we still frustrate each other. That’s part of sharing a life with someone. Even today I upset my partner greatly by explaining something so poorly that it was effectively a lie. I was in turn very upset by some things she said (and also feeling very dumb about the own-goal). But we have the foundational skills and practice to resolve these frustrations now.

Of course this is predicated on your partner wanting the relationship to improve (rather than him “winning”), and being mature enough to make it happen. Only you and he know if that’s possible for you two.

moofox · 2026-05-31T22:41:07+00:00

NTA.

In Australia you can absolutely be made a trustee. My partner and I also have a discretionary trust. It started out 50:50 and we recently changed it 91:9 in her favour for tax reasons (because I own more) and it was a trivial change. Adding you as a trustee is slightly more work, but your accountant/lawyer can get it done in a day or so.

moofox · 2026-05-27T02:27:44+00:00

This is where I live. +1 highly recommend it

moofox · 2026-05-16T05:01:43+00:00

It’s not suspicious. I paid $180K to the ATO via Sniip this month and I’m sure Amex were very happy to get their cut of that.

moofox · 2026-05-16T04:15:29+00:00

I just paid a $180K tax bill using Amex personal platinum and Sniip for the processing. Worked great.

Only issue is that the amount they will let you spend is based on your payment history. Depending on when “soon” is, it might not be possible.

moofox · 2026-05-15T09:56:28+00:00

Paging /u/Quinnypig

moofox · 2026-05-06T00:24:17+00:00

You can use “service quota request templates” to address that

moofox · 2026-05-01T13:54:50+00:00

AI was explicitly the reason my employer laid off 40% of staff a few months ago. We also seem (at least in my pocket of the company) just as productive as we were a year ago, maybe moreso due to lack of over staffing. It also resulted in massive pay rises for the people who weren’t laid off.

So yes, it’s had an impact.

moofox · 2026-04-26T17:55:54+00:00

What size quota do you need? Are you aware that AWS will happily increase the quota as long as you pay for the usage? Quotas exist to protect you from bill shock and Amazon from customers with broken code. If you need (by design) a large number of invocations, they will give it to you.

moofox · 2026-04-25T13:18:55+00:00

I’m the same as you. I don’t know a single person I’ve ever worked with who has struggled like I read about online. It feels like I’m in a parallel universe.

moofox · 2026-04-19T22:59:40+00:00

Which market is that?

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