Net Worth JUL 2025

Chart updated to end of JUL in sidebar.

Stocks/cash increased $202,199 (+69.01%) to $495,179. This was mostly due to receiving a large payment for redundancy and accumulated annual and long service leave. I will keep about six months of basic budget requirement ($25K) in my credit union savings account, and the rest of the cash will be sitting in my investment mortgage offset account to reduce the monthly interest payments. About 21% of my retirement budget of $48Kpa is allocated to savings/emergency fund, and the 'surplus' pension income will be either added to my mortgage offset account or contributed into my SMSF as an personal deductible contribution. My TSB is over the limit for making undeducted contributions, so I am limited to the $30Kpa concessional contributions cap (SGL+ any SS or personal deductible contributions). Making deductible contributions (that are subject to the 15% contribution tax within super) only makes sense if I have taxable income (same with my negatively geared property investment), so I might need to use all the 'surplus' to just add to the mortgage offset account so the investment property is no longer negatively geared. I'll see how things stand towards the end of this year.

Retirement savings (SMSF etc.) increased by $49,785 (+2.29%) to $2,221,314. Part of this was due to receiving a 0.5% 'bonus' payment into my QSuper accumulation account when I moved about $440,000 into two lifetime pension accounts. The pension accounts have an initial value of the purchase price (that would be paid out if I died tomorrow), and that value will slowly reduce over time by the cumulative amount paid out as pension payments (until the final residual value of $0 is reached). The fortnightly pension payments commence next week, so I probably won't need to withdraw the mandatory minimum 4% from my SMSF pension account until the end of this FY (the required minimum has to be paid out by 30 June each year).

Est. valuation of our home (my half) was unchanged at $1,191,911 (for the sixth month in a row!). And the 'Other real estate' (my 'lake house' and the investment apartment) increased by $191 (0.01%) to $2,169,422. A slight rise in estimated value of my investment apartment was offset by a similar slight decline in the estimated value of my holiday home.

Other assets (my online depository bullion account at Perth Mint, and the bullion value of my gold and silver proof coin collection) increased by $991 (1.56%) to $64,470. I am currently adding $200 worth of gold to my Perth Mint online depository account each month.

Overall, NW increased by $253,166 (5.17%) to $5,150,305 during Jul.

After enjoying two weeks of retirement (gardening and tidying up the house and rearranging furniture) I already got a bit bored and reconsidered my decision to permanently retire and decided to see if I would get any responses to financial planning/associate planner/CSO/assistant job applications. I've applied for 15 positions and so far had 3 rejection notifications, 11 are in limbo (awaiting a response), and I had one phone interview today that resulted in a second interview via 'zoom' next week. The pay rates seem to range from slightly below to slightly above what my previous job provided, and any financial planner role would be more interesting than my previous IT QA role. I'm not too fussed about the salary as my tax-free pension payments provide about the same amount as my previous after-tax salary. I'll be mostly working for the pleasure of doing financial planning and helping people, but any extra income that gets added to my mortgage offset account will be nice. I'm only applying for positions that seem relevant/interesting and are in the Sydney area, and in the meantime will continue to work on my PhD.

I also started recording some youtube videos (well, one so far) and will see if that slowly builds up to becoming another stream of income (and a retirement hobby).

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Retired!

Well, sort of. Most of the tasks that comprised my usual workload had been automated during the past year, so my current position was made redundant. There were a range of alternative positions that I could have 'applied' for, but none were really of great interest to me, or a good fit for my skill set and qualifications. It also made little sense financially to continue working rather than receive a redundancy payment (which gets rather good tax treatment). So I decided to take early retirement. As I am over 60 and retired, I was now able to purchase a lifetime pension product from QSuper and use the remainder of my Transfer Balance Cap to move most of my SMSF accumulation account into pension phase.

I used about $440K of my overall super to purchase a lifetime pension from QSuper, that will provide about $29,682 pa pension. The amount isn't automatically increased in line with CPI rises, but does get 'adjusted' annually based on the performance of the underlying Balanced fund vs a 5% 'benchmark' and also how the 'pool' of pension recipients fares in terms of mortality (vs. actuarial expectations). Looking at how the Balanced fund has performed over the past 17 years, the average ROI was 9,85%, with two years of negative performance. After taking off the 5% benchmark hurdle, the average performance was 4.85%, with four years of the past 17 having a negative 'adjusted' return. The mortality adjustment is a bit harder to estimate, as there was only five years of historic data available, and the mortality adjustment ranged from -0.50% to 0.64%, with the average being -0.21%. However the mortality adjustments were likely affected by the impact of Covid on life expectancy during this period. Overall though, it looks like there is a good chance that the average adjustment during my retirement may will be able to keep pace with CPI. There is a minimum total payment guarantee, so if I die before the total pension payments exceed the initial purchase price, the difference would be paid out to my estate. On the other hand, if I live a long time most of my longevity and sequence-of-returns risk is mitigated.

As my annual budget is only about $48K, this means that the lifetime pension should cover about 60% of my core retirement expenses. My remaining TBC 'space' meant that I was able to also move about $1.55M of my SMSF accumulation account and TRIS into 'pension phase'. At the current 4% minimum pension withdrawal rate (based on my age), this means I will have to receive about $62K pension from our SMSF. As I only 'need' about $18Kpa in addition to the lifetime pension to cover basic living expenses, I will use the 'surplus' pension income to continue my regular investments (PM gold and my Investment Bond contributions) and to build up my investment property mortgage offset account balance. Overall, my tax free self-funded pension payments total around $90K pa, which is equivalent to what my after-tax salary income was.

I spent the first two weeks of retirement organizing my superannuation pension transactions, planting some blackberry bushes in the garden, and doing some home chores (tidying up and throwing out accumulated junk, and rearranging some furniture). I was already getting a little bit bored (although I could always spend more time working on my PhD...), so I decided to submit a few job applications for financial planner positions. I have no idea if I'll get any job offers though. As my superannuation pension payments are not taxable income, any employment income would be quite tax effective, so if a get a job offer I might reconsider retirement. Fortunately reconsidering and resuming employment after retiring will not impact superannuation that is already in pension phase.

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Net Worth JUN 2025

Chart updated to end of JUN in sidebar.

Stocks/cash increased $11,153 (+3.96%) to $292,980. My IBKR margin loan facility was finally approved, so transferred in $50K from my mortgage offset account and I bought some VDAL and VVLU ETF units in my IBKR account using a small amount (about $16K) of leverage. The trade fee for buying about $66K of ETF units was about $60.

Retirement savings (SMSF etc.) increased by $43,042 (+2.02%) to $2,171,529.

Est. valuation of our home (my half) was unchanged at $1,191,911 (for the fifth month in a row). And the 'Other real estate' (my 'lake house' and the investment apartment) increased by $3,831 (0.18%) to $2,169,231.

Other assets (my online depository bullion account at Perth Mint, and the bullion value of my gold and silver proof coin collection) increased by $204 (0.32%) to $63,479. I am currently adding $200 worth of gold to my Perth Mint online depository account each month.

Overall, NW increased by $58,230 (1.20%) to $4,897,139 during Jun.

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Net Worth MAY 2025

Chart updated to end of MAY in sidebar.

Stocks/cash increased $7,015 (+2.55%) to $281,827 but a large part of that increase was the bi-annual allocation of employee shares via the ESPP. I bought some VGAD and VVLU ETF units in my Vanguard Personal Investor account. I will 'rebalance' to my target 80:20 allocation via any future purchases (by varying the ratio of VGAD:VVLU units I purchase in each tranche. The good thing about the Vanguard Personal Investor account is that there is no trade fee when purchasing Vanguard ETFs, and only a flat $9 trade fee when I eventually sell the accumulated units in an ETF.

Retirement savings (SMSF etc) increased by $99,697 (+4.91%) to $2,128,487, partly boosted by the final $20K NCC made during the month.

Est. valuation of our home (my half) was unchanged at $1,191,911 (for the fourth month in a row). And the 'Other real estate' (my 'lake house' and the investment apartment) decreased by -$13,272 (-0.61%) to $2,165,400.

Other assets (my online depository bullion account at Perth Mint, and the bullion value of my gold and silver proof coin collection) increased by $1,182 (1.90%) to $63,275. I am currently adding $200 worth of gold to my Perth Mint online depository account each month.

Overall, NW increased by $94,622 (1.99%) to $4,828,909 during May.

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