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Category: Articles

“Fixed interest may be the world’s most boring type of investment, but should you have some in your portfolio?”

Wha-a-a-t? Boring! Old-people topic! Yawn. Wake me up when you start talking about something of interest to Gen Xers. Okay, even for Xers, fixed interest has a place. A small place, like the cavity for Paris Hilton’s brain, but a place. What is fixed interest? It used to be called bonds. Fixed interest is one […]

Pay no tax

PORTFOLIO POINT: Want your accumulation SMSF to pay no taxes whatsoever now? Or ever? Here’s how you can do it and why Ken Henry wants the Government to urgently clamp down on SMSFs. Want to stop paying super contributions tax? Want to get back the whole 30% franking credit and not just 15% of it? […]

“Owning your own home has been the great Australian dream. How achievable is it these days?”

You mean these days? Like today? Well, um, probably not very. Bu-u-u-t … who needs a home, when for just $100,000, you could buy KITT – David Hasselhoff’s legendary wheels from Knight Rider! There’s a lot wrong with research saying houses were “cheaper” 40 years ago. Because it fails to point out a fundamental societal […]

Super’s $750,000 question

PORTFOLIO POINT: At some point, investment options open right up, leaving you to wonder whether tomake an investment inside or outside your SMSF. Plus, the anti-SMSF Red Book commentary. I don’t know when exactly it is, but it seems to be when a SMSF approaches the three-quarters of a million dollar mark, that options open […]

“What was your first job, and what did it teach you about money?”

“Would you like fries with that?” I started flippin’ burgers just after I turned 15. Actually, that’s not true. I needed “experience” before I could cook the meat. My first gig at McDonald’s was “puttin’ buns in the oven”. And did my dad love to snigger at that one. For years. He still does. Bloody […]

Salary sacrificing’s traps

Updated: 20 October 2015 PORTFOLIO POINT: Don’t go into salary sacrifice blindly just because you’ve heard you should. There are plenty of potential traps. Here’s how to avoid some of the potholes. Salary sacrifice should be a reasonably simple affair. You pass a signed note to your employer that you’d like to put some extra […]

“When it comes to household finances, should couples have joint bank accounts or separate ones?”

Good question, Mr Editor … if your aim was to create a flood of bookings with couples counsellors and divorce lawyers like Arnie Becker (Corbin Bernsen in LA Law). The answer should be simple. But when it comes to couples, “simple” would require relationships to be routinely built on trust, equality and other ridiculous concepts, […]

The DIY mortgage buster

PORTFOLIO POINT: Here’s another super salary sacrifice strategy touted to help pay off your home loan faster. If you can tick the boxes, it could save you a $10,000 to $30,000. Everybody loves paying less tax. And falling marginal tax rates – as most people just received again on July 1 – is generally appreciated. […]

“Should property investment be about rental income or capital gains? And will that change as I age?”

We’re talking property, so we’re talking fences. Here’s a general rule for Generation X and property investment: If it doesn’t have a fence, then steer clear of it. Capital gains and rental income are a trade off with property investment, just like shares. And Gen Xers should aim more for capital gains than income. More […]

“What lesson did you learn as a child that has helped you through the investment challenges of recent years?”

It was the toughest lesson of my life and I still grapple with it today. But if I hadn’t learned it, I could never have become an investor at all. As a kid, I had an issue with making decisions. My parents called it procrastination. I believed I just wanted to ensure I got the […]