The popular rules of thumb were built for a different income, a different tax system, and often a different country. Here's what the numbers really look like for a high-earning Australian. If you've ever searched "how much should I save," you've met most of the rules of thumb. They're clean, memorable, and repeated everywhere. They're also, for most high earners in Australia, quietly wrong. Not because the math is bad, but because the assumptions underneath them don't match y

You did everything right. You earn well, you salary sacrifice into super, you let the system do its job. Then, sometime next year, a notice quietly appears in your myGov inbox: an extra tax bill of a few thousand dollars, for income you earned twelve months ago. Welcome to Division 293, the tax most high earners don't know exists until it sends them a bill. What Division 293 actually is Division 293 is an additional 15% tax on concessional (before-tax) super contributions, ap

Ask almost anyone in finance for a "default" portfolio and you'll get the same answer: 60% shares, 40% bonds. It's the most quoted rule of thumb in investing. But you'll also have noticed a steady drumbeat over the last few years declaring the 60/40 portfolio dead, broken, or hopelessly outdated. So what is a typical split, where did it come from, and has the rule actually fallen away? The honest answer is more interesting than either "it's gospel" or "it's finished" — and fo