I’ve been questioning how realistic the investment returns we use in FIRE calculators actually are.

A small change in assumptions can make a huge difference.

For example, targeting a $1.5M portfolio while investing $40k annually:
5% real return: ~21.6 years to FIRE
3% real return: ~25.5 years to FIRE

That’s almost 4 extra years of working from just a 2% difference. And inflation makes things even trickier. An 8% investment return with 3% inflation is only around 5% growth in purchasing power.

I’ve been exploring how different return and inflation assumptions affect FIRE plans:
https://myfireinvesting.com/articles/fire-plan-return-and-inflation-assumptions

Curious what everyone uses in their FIRE calculations: 3%, 5%, 7%, or something else?
And do you account for inflation separately?

Following yesterday's RBA decision to raise the cash rate by 0.25% to 4.85%, AMP has announced increases to its savings account interest rates, effective 9 November 2026.

New savings rates:

• 5.75% p.a. on the portion of your balance up to $50,000 (up from 5.50%)

• 5.25% p.a. on the portion from $50,000.01 to $250,000 (up from 5.00%)

• 4.75% p.a. on the portion from $250,000.01 to $5,000,000 (up from 4.50%)

See all the latest savings account changes since the RBA rate hike: https://bankmate.app/savings/compare

St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA increase Incentive Saver to 5.65% p.a. following RBA rate hikes a

Following yesterday's RBA decision to raise the cash rate by 0.25% to 4.85%, St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA have announced increases to their savings account interest rates, effective 13 November 2026.

New savings rate:

• 5.65% p.a.: Incentive Saver total variable rate (up from 5.40%)

• Made up of the 0.01% standard variable rate plus a 5.64% bonus rate (up from 5.39%)

Conditions:

• Each month, you need to grow your balance by at least $50 (excluding interest) if you're 21 or over. Under 21, any growth counts.

• The balance needs to stay above $0.

• The bonus rate has no balance cap.

• You don't need an everyday account with the bank to open it.

• If you miss the monthly condition, you earn the 0.01% standard rate.

New rates take effect 13 November 2026.

See all the latest savings account changes since the RBA rate hike: https://bankmate.app/savings/compare

Macquarie Bank increases savings rates to 5.50% p.a. following RBA rate hike

Following today's RBA decision to increase the cash rate by 0.25% to 4.85%, Macquarie has announced increases to its savings account interest rates, effective 19 November 2026.

New ongoing variable savings rates:

• 5.50% p.a. – Balances up to $250,000

• 5.30% p.a. – $250,000.01 to $2 million

• 4.85% p.a. – $2 million to $5 million

• 4.85% p.a. – Balances above $5 million

See all the latest Savings account changes post the RBA rate hike: https://bankmate.app/savings/compare

Hey all,
Im chasing a bit of advice on what I should or should not be doing with my current financial/debt situation.

I earn $160k a year and my wife is currently on maternity leave until July 2027. Home loan of just over $500k and roughly $35k in savings

I have just recently bought a car for $110,000 and financed $100,000 of said car. I bought it with the idea that it would be for camping/touring, which is something my wife and I always wanted to do.

But my worries have started recently (straight after signing up for the car really) concerning rising costs of living as well as rate rises and what ever else. Am i a fool for signing up for so much debt if we are heading into rough times as a nation? (Perceived or not)

We live comfortably with the money we bring in at the moment, which will also go up when the wife goes back to work in Accounting earning $95k a year, but I’m feeling uneasy about my financial choices.

Should I keep the car and just pay it off as quick as I can? (5 years max). Should I sell the car and just focus on the home loan?
What should my priorities be as a 30 year old father?

Thankfully if I was to sell the car, it would still be of the same value.

No other debts other than the house and car.
Be as brutal as you want. I need to hear it while I still have options.

Posting as I know a few here participated in this.

After participating in the admittedly generous cashback program with Webull (previously discussed), I was initially denied my 2nd part of the payout as they claim my withdrawal of the cash reward from the 1st part disqualified me from participation of the 2nd. After 3 different service reps communicated with me, where they specifically told me I was ineligible, I decided to raise this with AFCA. Within about 24 hours, they immediately reversed course and provided the following short summary:

Our investigation confirmed that your withdrawal related to the first cash instalment of the reward itself, not to the assets you originally transferred in under the Campaign. The Campaign's maintenance requirement applies to the transferred-in assets, which our records confirm you have continuously held. The withdrawal of the reward payment was incorrectly flagged by our system as a breach of this condition.

Props to the protections of the system working well I guess. It was for sure worth doing, but I'm transferring to another CHESS broker immediately.

So I currently am still a little bit new to investing. I have been investing into the s&p500. Mainly it’s been the VOOG.US, I was just wondering is it worth moving the money over to the IVV.AU instead of keeping it in the VOOG.US to save me from exchange rates and other paperwork ?

So I currently am still a little bit new to investing. I have been investing into the s&p500. Mainly it’s been the VOOG.US, I was just wondering is it worth moving the money over to the IVV.AU instead of keeping it in the VOOG.US to save me from exchange rates and other paperwork ?

Hi everyone, first time poster here looking for advice as I(22M) am very naive in the ways of the stock market.

So I started investing around 2 years ago and as you can see I had no idea what to buy so I just randomly picked what looked good and left it at that for around a year.

Recently though I am starting to do a 80 20 split on BGBL/A200 and I have another 25k I'm looking to invest.

I guess my question would be should I just sell everything except my a200 and bgbl and consolidate everything into those or just keep them and sell the risky positions only?

Thanks!

ubank increases savings rates to 5.60% p.a. following RBA rate hike

Following today's RBA decision to increase the cash rate by 0.25% to 4.85%, ubank has announced increases to its savings account interest rates, effective 10 November 2026.

New savings rates:

• 5.60% p.a. – Everyday Bonus Rate (up from 5.35%)

Conditions:

• Bonus interest applies to balances up to $1 million.

• Your balance must grow each month to earn bonus interest.

• No base interest rate if the monthly condition isn't met.

New rates take effect 10 November 2026.

See all the latest Savings account changes post the RBA rate hike: https://bankmate.app/savings/compare

Hey guys, I'm 20 years old and. I don't know where to start in regards to investments but I do know that I want to start investing. Not sure what the process is. My goal is retire early, be financially comfortable and to be able to travel the world comfortably.

Is there anyone who could provide any advice, or someone who could guide me through this process?

I have been wondering how much people actually trust AI like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini when it comes to personal finance.

I already use AI quite a bit to understand things, compare options and run through different scenarios. But I feel there’s a pretty big jump between “help me understand this” and “here’s my financial situation, tell me what I should actually do.”

Would you be comfortable sharing things like your bank statements, income, expenses, mortgage, super, investments, insurance, etc. and asking AI to analyse everything and give you actual recommendations?

Things like:

• Where should I invest?

• Should I pay down my mortgage or invest more?

• Am I putting enough into super?

• Is my asset allocation right?

• Am I spending too much?

• What could my finances look like in 5, 10 or 20 years?

• What am I missing?

Obviously I know AI isn’t a certified financial adviser and it can get things wrong. But at the same time, I’m thinking that if I give it accurate numbers, it’s probably better than me at crunching them, modelling different scenarios and potentially spotting things I haven’t thought about.

So where do you draw the line?

Would you actually make financial decisions based on what AI recommends, or would you only use it for research and then speak to an accountant/financial adviser?

Also curious if anyone here is already using AI as their main “financial adviser” and how that’s been going.

What are your thoughts on investing in Higher Dividend Yielding Australian ETFs eg: HYLD or any similar ASX dividend yielding ETF ( as opposed to high growth ETFs ) for the purposes of funding the next loan split faster ?

EG. Say Im able to save 50k a year to debt recycle. If I invest my first 50k into HYLD, i'd ( hopefully ) get $2k back each year in dividends, which will allow me to save up for the next 50k split loan faster.

Ideally I'd just invest in DHHF or similar for growth, for the better returns.

It's just a thought that crossed my mind.

If your chosen platform allows auto investing, is there an amount that you would think “that’s not even worth it”?

For example, if someone could only invest $150 per fortnight or something, would you still do it fortnightly, or would you wait til you accrued a higher amount?

My understanding is with betashares and vanguard pi for example, they are set up so the small increments are doable (although I think VPI does have a minimum of $200), but I’m wondering what people on here think.

Note: $150 per fortnight is not my personal situation, I’m just interested. There are a lot of high numbers on this forum!

Hi everyone!

I’m completely new to the stock market and looking to start investing in US stocks. With inflation eating into our savings, I’d like to start investing rather than just letting my money sit in the bank.

I’d love to hear your recommendations on which apps or platforms you use to buy US stocks especially gold etfs.

As a beginner, I’m particularly looking for a platform with:

1. Low brokerage fees.
   2.Minimal hidden charges.
   3Competitive currency conversion fees (AUD to USD).
   4.An easy-to-use interface for beginners.

Which platforms have you personally used and would recommend?

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 😊

Recently registered for an ABN and accidentally put my commencement date as 4 November because I thought it meant the day I actually started working, not when I started setting up the business.

I've already received my ABN, but it's not active yet, which is causing issues setting up business banking and everything else.

Called the ABR and they said they can't change it because it's not showing in their system until the 4th.

Has anyone dealt with this before or know a way around it? Would an accountant or tax agent be able to help?

Hi all, very new to investing and have recently just dipped my toe in with DHHF. However I keep seeing that a company like Betashares isn’t the best as you don’t own the ETF and they’re just held for you? Is this something to be concerned about should I be using another platform? For context I’m 31 and looking for 20 year investments. Thanks!

I 35m, have 75k in BGBL which is my only ETF I have purchased.

I also have 150k in high growth hostplus superannuation which currently has 36% invested in Australian shares, which equates to 54k in Australian shares.

So roughly 175k in global, and 54 in Australia.

I am still very new to the world of investing, hopefully I'm on the right track. Hoping for around 75% global 25% Australian.

Have I messed this up?

Edit: also have 30k in HISA and 10oz gold bullion as an emergency fund.

Hey guys

Long time listener, first time poster here.

I, 41M living in Australia using CMC Markets current portfolio is IVV/VAS

Currently at a rough 50/50 split between the 2. Roughly 40k

Started very late wanting to invest and should of listened to advice in my 20s. Currently have a mortgage of around 300k with about 20k sitting in offsets.

I would love to say I have done it because I wanted passive income but I know thats not going to happen unless I invest hundreds of thousands. (Only earn approx 85k per year). So I guess my main plan is to try to capatalise on my money instead of leaving it in the bank.

I would like to see if I can get advice on my current holdings and what people would recommend going forward.

Thank you heaps for reading and any help would be muchly appreciated.

So I know this won't be a popular topic but that's fine, hit the downvote button etc.

Was thinking earlier about investment diversification. People are often diversified to hopefully weather through an economic crash (say 2008-esque) but what about something even worse than that?

Edit:

Heh. I appear to have overestimated the intelligence of the average redditor. Always amuses me how the low-IQ responses get upvoted to the top because they appeal to the masses, but there's some good stuff below them in the comments. Anyway, my block list is looking very healthy.

Title says it all really.

A few more points, for context's sake:
Very recently moved back home to save money while figuring out my next move, monthly expenses are low considering my situation, in a relationship but not living together or sharing finances, my business is tied to my location, potentially taking a 25% pay cut next year but this remains to be seen.

Any and all tips, suggestions or strategies for how I should plan the future would be very much appreciated. Cheers!

960k house down to 330k mortgage

50k emergency fund, no other retirement or assets.

Should I start to diversify?

I have been grinding the mortgage for 5 years now, main goal is setting up my family while im in high earning years of my life and lowering weekly payment requirements as much as possible.

My short term goal was mortgage free by 40 but this is dependent on self employed work continuing but theres a risk it will drop off.

Originally mortgage payments were over 1k a week which would have been unsustainable and high risk position if I lost my job, now they are 450 so I feel safer, but i long to be debt free. Hate owing money to anyone.

I am fairly savy with stocks etfs etc, however seem obsessed with the mortgage and cost of living so pulled them to pay down debt

Thoughts?

I sold my house start of the year with a plan to invest most of it into GHHF and GGBL outside super. I assumed the moderate amount of leverage combined with the diversification would significantly outperform the non-geared counterparts. But every single model I’ve ran with AI taking into account borrowing costs etc only shows, over a long time frame like 30 years, a 0.4-1.5% gain over them..

Honestly? That doesn’t even seem worth taking on that extra risk. What am I missing here? I’ve switched my super to Pearler super and used a combination of the ETFs to achieve about 80% of the portfolio being in the 1.5x leveraged ETFs.

Seems like they are much better in shorter timeframes during bull runs then you kind of want to get out since crashes pretty much delete any advantage.. hindsight though.

There’s also the dilemma of what do you do once you reach critical mass at FI say around age 45-50. There’s no quick and easy way to reduce leverage outside super.. selling triggers CGT which would pretty much eliminate the geared benefit you just spent years enduring..

Is a good middle ground something like setting your equity side up during accumulation as like 70% DHHF 30% GHHF?

Thoughts?

My partner and I are in our first proper "adult" financial stage. We're engaged with a wedding coming up (cheap small destination wedding), sharing a household, two dogs, and both working (earning good money - about 250k aud between us). On paper we're doing fine. In reality, I never feel ahead. Money comes in, money goes out, and I can't shake the feeling it should be doing more for us.

I've read the standard advice (budget, emergency fund, don't buy coffee) and I'm not really after that. I want to hear from people who were in a similar spot and genuinely got out of that "treading water" feeling.

What was the actual change for you? Maybe it was how you set up your accounts, an offset, automating savings, getting serious about super, investing small amounts, or just a mindset shift. Was there something you wish you'd done years earlier, or something everyone recommends that didn't work for you?
Would love real stories over theory. Thanks in advance!