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Welcome to Bruce Brammall Financial

Is this the ultimate super loan?

PORTFOLIO POINT: What!? A no-interest loan to your SMSF? Maybe, but don’t rush in just yet. For now, just watch this space. Sometimes regulators work in mysterious ways. Very mysterious ways. There is a bit of a buzz in the upper echelons of the world of SMSF professionals in regards to some recent utterings from […]

Should people hand back money they are wrongly given, and in your experience, do they?

Damnit. I know every time I answer one of these, my chances at wearing a halo get slimmer. My first money lesson was: “Find a penny, pick it up, then all day you’ll have good luck.” If I was handed too much change at the sandwich shop checkout? I’m not sure I’d notice half the […]

Stay calm, everyone, but check out these fixed mortgage rates!

Fess up. Who doesn’t occasionally succumb to a panic attack? Usually, panic bobs up when we’re at our most vulnerable, our most irrational, our most stupid. It’s natural to look for a lifeline when we’re feeling stressed. A tourniquet to stem the bleeding. A silver bullet to … you know … kill the “American Werewolf […]

Don’t make a super stuff-up

PORTFOLIO POINT: Time to check your salary sacrifice contributions – before you bust out of your limits. The vast majority of Australians don’t think too hard about their super contributions. They show up for work, they get paid, and an extra 9% gets sloshed into their super funds. But for anyone who does actively manage […]

How do you work out how much money you’ll need in retirement, and how do you plan for it?

“Price check, aisle four! Price on a medium-sized tropical island, 50-room palace, 100 staff, world-class golf course, an endless supply of Bollinger and Bintang, an airstrip and a dozen watercraft? Oh, and heaps of those electric golf cart thingys.” Could you get bored of that? Um, no. I forgot to mention the Lear jet. Just […]

Hands off our Super

PORTFOLIO POINT: Twice in a year? Another enemy of superannuation must be declared. Sometimes, “research” adds to debate, because of the inequities that get raised and the opportunities to right wrongs that get pointed out with compelling figures. On other occasions, research is so unbalanced, biased and deliberately devoid of key facts that it should […]

Like riding a bike, money habits are hard to forget

I don’t remember learning to ride a bike. I don’t remember many of the early spills. I do remember one time, with my head down and bum up peddling faster than ever, hitting a neighbour’s parked car and breaking a dozen eggs in the back seat. Serious bruising to me. Dents in the car’s front […]

Fixed versus variable mortgage rates: how do you work out which one you should choose?

“I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots, or only five … you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do you feel lucky?’ Well, do ya punk?” Thank you Dirty Harry. Interest rates are that 44 Magnum and getting the fixed rates equation wrong could “blow your head clean off” in a financial […]

Raising the preservation bar

PORTFOLIO POINT: The pressure is on to lift superannuation’s “preservation age” closer to age pension eligibility. We know superannuation is about investing for the long term. There’s an accumulation phase of up to 45 years. That’s about getting enough money into it and then managing it as well as possible so that it’s enough to […]