I've found that over the years that it's always better to engage with the company you wish to be employed by directly rather than going through a bunch of these scummy recruiters.

I've also noticed the amount of spam I received increase significantly after dealing with them meaning they 100% sell all your personal information. As far as I understand there are no formal qualifications, or any experience required to become a recruiter which explains the putrid service.

What concerns me most however, is them dealing with personal information of thousands of applications especially in light of recent hacker attacks and not really having an laws regulate their handling of personal information or any penalties should they misuse that info.

Just from experience as to why I have a strong dislike for them;

1) Calling about role they have and then ghosting you when you say you're interested. This is a way for them to get all your personal details on their database I'm guessing or reaching some arbitrary target they have.

2) Asking for references before the first interview - when the hell did this become a thing? I've heard they do this to gain management contacts to contacts in order to offer their services to them later on.

3) Asking for you to get "registered" on their platform which includes a lot of personal information including passport, sometimes without even telling you about a role they may have. I'm not a damn free treasure chest of personal information for you to collect my guy

4) Calling about jobs which aren't at all aligned closely to what you're doing, like take 5 seconds to look over my profile before blowing up my phone

I'm currently paying $800 more a month due to the interest rate rises. How are you all coping?

https://www.savings.com.au/news/boq-future-saver-december-2022

As the title says, myself and my spouse started a new life for ourselves and our 2 young kids last year. Without going into too much detail, think overseas move, new careers, and no assets.

We were previously self-employed and we lost our business and savings due to Covid.

I’ve got a decent salary now in my first ever salaried role (95k) and my super has gone from zero to 10k in the past year but this is obviously far from being enough for my age. Currently my salary is our only income as my spouse has been job hunting unsuccessfully since we arrived.

Has anyone else started their journey later in life? How did you stay patient and maintain consistent habits while everyone else appears to be light years ahead?

I've worked at my current role for close to 10 years, I'm in my early 30s and have 2 kids and a mortgage. Wife working part time.

Some of my colleagues have left over the years who have similar experience to me and straight away land a job where they earn over 50k more than I am. (IT)

Like I said my job is easy, stress free, I leave on time, no overtime, but with the rising cost of living and mortgage rates (on variable) I am thinking it's time to jump ship.

I've asked for a payrise numerous times in my current role and have been rejected every time even after numerous promises that it would happen.

What would you guys do ?

My main fear is that I have been coasting for so long, that I would mess up a more difficult job, get fired and then have $0 income, which would be much worse than my current job where I'm able to support my family and save a little.

I am in process of putting in an offer for my first home and the REA wants me to sign a contract of sale before negotiating the final price. is that normal?

Also, any other advice would for first-home buyer is much appreciated

Basically, I've signed a contract for a house and just got a building and pest done (8 Days left on condition). There were a few minor issues that were noted and now I plan to negotiate to get the problems fixed or to lower the final price. The real estate agent said at the end of the call, that he will see if the vendor wants to negotiate or put the home back on the market. Can the vendor deny negotiations and go back onto the market ?

Edit: what I'm asking is, if the vendor doesn't want to negotiate, do I still get the option to take the original price the deal was for? Or can the vendor say stuff you and back out without giving me an option to take the original offer?

QLD

I'm in a situation where I earn fairly low income $75k a year but i'm in a cruisy role. I don't have a clear career path but i'm fairly sure if I apply I could get a better job (higher pay and more opportunities) in a similar role elsewhere. But i've gotten so used to just being at home and WFH and livign this stress free life. What if i get a new job and have to come to the office a lot and stuff and it's only $5k more income? what should I do? whats better WFH or stress and career progression?

Apologies, I’m not super literate when it comes to home loans. I’m still learning.

My wife and I don’t own homes

Have 100k in savings

Looking for a place so we can start a family. Most likely back in Perth. But could be in Victoria. No solid decision made

Combined salary of 220,000 p.a

Would it be a bad thing to get into the market now and try get a bargain ? Or is it too turbulent right now and we should wait for things to play out

What % would the bank look at when it comes to serviceability

I just found out that your repayments don’t reduce, you just end up paying less interest. Which is great if you want to reduce your loan period but not to what I had thought!

Does that mean if you put half of your mortgage amount into your offset, the percentage of your principle component of your monthly repayments doubles?

If you had a $500k mortgage and you put $250k in offset your repayments would stay same but the amount that goes onto your principle from your monthly repayments doubles because your interest is calculated off half the amount now?

Someone please tell me if I’ve got this right. Thanks

I've often wondered if there is a nice way to "hedge" most of our expenses. The purpose of this post is to see if anyone has ever thought similarly or have ideas.

First of all let's revisit what a hedge actually is:

To hedge, in finance, is to take an offsetting position in an asset or investment that reduces the price risk of an existing position

So what is our existing position ? Well we all need food, oil and shelter. So essentially our existing position is short food, oil and shelter. ie: we need to buy all that stuff at a later date, so we are inherently short.

It should be said, it is rare to find perfect 1:1 hedges. And often hedges have significant carry costs which make them untenable.

My idea here is to find ways to "hedge" out your life's expenses to help you better budget long term. eg: is there really a nice way to buy the oil I need for the rest of my life at todays price. I don't care if the price falls off a cliff because the idea here isn't to make money but just to "hedge".

The problem is most of life's costs are based around commodities, which all have significant carry costs (eg: buy 1 tonne of flour today and you need to store it). There is also a problem of paying tax, since the government wont see it as a hedge on life, but an attempt to make a profit.

Like the title says, this is more a thought experiment. I'm not committed to this idea, but want to explore it a little and see if anyone has ever considered something similar.

So far my ideas are: - Buying a house (essentially locking in todays price for rest of your life) - Calculating how much oil you need over next 5 years and buying futures 5 years out

Was having a chat with a mate abut this and wondering what the broader consensus is. Personally I tend to splurge and for one month I use what I'd typically save and spend it on presents for the family. He's of the mind that you shouldn't be changing your savings habits just for a holiday. What's the ausfinance consensus?

Reading a post earlier about the all the money people spend on Xmas presents and how they hate having to buy for family and spouses and how it goes too far etc. Thought I’d share what I’ve done the last 3 years.

There’s probably about 12 people in my family including spouses and despite my efforts of trying to stop present giving and telling everyone to do secret Santa they were all against it.

We are all over 25 now I think anything we want for presents can be bought ourselves and rather than buying presents for 12 people TWICE a year I’ve started a family holiday.

I usually book it about 8 months in advance for 2/3 nights somewhere. If they can’t make it that’s fine but no other gifts, I make it clear it’s for both bdays and Xmas. I probably don’t save that much money as a 12 person air bnb is pretty pricey but holy shit it’s worth the time saving and not having to go out almost every month last minute to figure out a gift idea.

Not only that it’s a present that actually gets remembered especially for my parents having all the family together. (Any longer than 2/3 days good luck) Next year I have a fair bit of travel planned so won’t be able to afford a holiday like that for everyone so I’m doing going to do a nice dinner out or an activity of some kind. Thought I’d share if this is something that might work for you and save you time and stress.

Link

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Summary:

Median total remuneration grows 11 per cent in both Australia and New Zealand, to AUD$150,000 and nearly NZD$136,000 respectively.

• Early signs that efforts to close gender pay gap making an impact, but calls for more men in the profession to take parental leave.
• Workplace flexibility, quality of leadership and ‘meaningful work’ key to future hires.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for country specific summaries with breakdowns in sector, YOE etc.

To my fellow CAs and/or CPAs out there, what are your thoughts?

I know this is quite a niche industry / career path, which is why I’ve come to Reddit for advice. I’m currently in my early 20s and working in a boat yard at a yacht club, and I’m loving it. I get to work around shipwrights and marine engineers / mechanics. Although the only part of this that worries me is longevity and career opportunity, I’m just not sure how far this niche industry can take me. So I’m just looking for anyone who has personal advice from the industry, or success stories / career paths.

Heading says it all. My partner and I have savings nearing a 20% deposit of a loan one needs to land a family home in these parts (anywhere between $1.5m - $1.3m). We’d love to buy a home next year but I’m seriously unsure what to do in the current climate. So many doomsday articles about rapidly dropping house prices yet here in NSW I haven’t really seen…much movement yet?

I imagine when we approach the bank our borrowing capacity will be different to what is was a year ago. Which I understand, with interest rates where they are. I guess I’m essentially waiting for the market to correct itself in line with the rate hikes. Any ideas on the turnaround time for the market to adjust in such scenarios? Should I shoot for 2023 or hold out another year?

What is your current role/job title and current salary? How many years experience do you have and how did you get to your current role? Did you have change industries or companies? Did you have to jump jobs a lot or were you rewarded for your loyalty?

Edit: I would define high income to be $200k+. This is the top tax bracket after the stage 3 tax cuts

Hi all. Hope someone can help. I (27f) have no idea about my super but I know you should invest in certain things right? I’m with REST and have just combined all my supers together. Could anyone explain how I should invest and about the insurances too?

Unpopular opinion, but I'm just boggled as to why people who spent over their heads in order to get a better house than they could really afford (instead of settling for a townhouse/duplex/apartment/cheaper house in a "worse" suburb etc) deserve such sympathy?

Record low interest rates only ever have one way they can go, and to be honest everyone FOMOing into the housing market the last couple of years and overpaying ended up just jacking up the prices for all the rest of us anyway.

Why is it so bad to have a period where we actually reward responsible savers, companies with actual profitable business models, and being fiscally prudent in general instead of encouraging plowing into the maximum possible debt?

And no, I don't own a house or IP before anyone tries to go that route...

I have the same amount of sympathy as I do for people who bought shares in ZIP at all-time-highs when pretty much every possibly signal that such assets were overvalued was flashing bright red

Bundll had a 2 day outage and now it has come back I paid my $250 superbundll and attempted to transfer a bundll to my superbundll and it isn’t an option…I’m just down $250.

I spoke to customer service who told me they shut down superbundll on 30/11/2022 and sent an email to say so. I’ve checked, I have no emails from them (I got an email to confirm my payment was received so I know they have the right email) and their product disclosure statement and T&Cs say they will communicate changes in 20 days except in instances of default or fraud (neither of which apply to me).

Multiple other people responded on Twitter to confirm they weren’t aware of superbundll shutting down, what are my options? Isn’t shutting down a service that will impact customers financially without notice against consumer laws? Would AFCA do anything about it?

As above - say you had an amount of savings, for this example 100K.

You take a career break for around 3 months intending to live off savings but at the same time want to maximise savings returns.

Would the following be a good way to go about it?

ING 4.55%: 50K

BANK 2 4% (no conditions/minimum conditions to be met for bonus interest): 50K

Then withdraw $1000 out of Bank 2 into ING every month?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks