In this Australian Finance Podcast episode, your hosts Owen Rask and Gemma Mitchell dive into a listener Q&A covering real-life money challenges and wins. They cover:
- Celebrating a listener hitting $5k in savings early in the year
- Whether to focus on mortgage repayments or start investing
- How to begin investing with just $2–5k
- Financial Infidelity and coming back from gambling debt
- How to structure assets for retirement income
- What you need to know about changes to credit card surcharges
- The government announcement to cut fuel excise for three months and what it means for your budget
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Topics Covered
- Listener win: saving $5k through expenses & income growth
- Cutting costs: insurance, utilities & selling unused items
- Mortgage vs investing: how to think about the trade-off
- Balancing debt reduction and long-term investing
- When financial advice is worth paying for
- Managing money when one partner isn’t engaged
- Starting to invest with $2k–$5k
- ETFs vs savings: where to begin
- Building habits before scaling investments
- Retirement planning basics: what does “work optional” mean?
- Using assets in retirement: property, shares, super & cash
- The order of drawdown in retirement


