Investopoly

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To spend $120k a year from age 60, you need about $3m to never touch your capital, or $2.1m if you plan to run it down to zero by 90. Most super calculators can't tell you whether you're on track, because they ignore investments held outside super, especially geared property, and they don't handle retiring before 60. In this episode, I walk through a set of tables you can use to add up your super, ETFs, and investment property and see where you'll land. I also cover how to choose between a perpetual and a depleting portfolio, why $1 contributed to super grows to nearly $47 compared with $21 outside it, and what to do if you're well behind or well ahead of your target. The tables and worked examples are on the blog, linked above.
00:00 Introduction and podcast ratings update
 02:58 Why super calculators don't tell you if you're on track
 04:12 The numbers: $2.1m depleting vs $3m perpetual
 06:28 The early retirement problem: accessing super before 60
 07:45 The wealth equation and why time matters most
 08:07 Perpetual vs depleting portfolio: which to choose
 11:31 Return assumptions and sequencing risk
 12:30 Why life expectancy favours a perpetual portfolio
 14:16 Modelling assumptions: returns, inflation and tax
 17:14 Selling assets at retirement and the cost base assumption
 19:30 How to use the tables
 22:06 Investing inside vs outside super: $47 vs $21
 23:07 Table 7: retiring before 60
 24:58 Worked example: couple aged 40 with super and ETFs
 26:04 Worked example: geared property investors aged 35
 28:33 Table 8: spending more than $120,000 a year
 29:49 What to do if you're materially behind target
 32:19 What to do if you're materially ahead of target
 33:57 Caveats and limitations of the modelling
Related episodes:
Episode 402 (March 2026): on spending more today, or in the healthy years of retirement, once you're well on track. Stuart references this episode directly at 32:19.
The super report episode (July 2026): on choosing the right super fund. Stuart references this at 25:46.
Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X
Run your own business? 
Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/
Our most popular free guides:
Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.
Download them here
Got a question for the podcast?
Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au
Subscribe to my weekly blog:
Stay connected here
Important
This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.

Sequence-of-returns risk in early retirement is manageable with a big enough cash buffer. What I'd test is how you'll feel spending it.
In this listener Q&A, I work through Michael's plan to retire at 52 and use an ETF portfolio plus three years of living expenses in an offset to cover the eight to ten years until he can access super. I also explain why I like locking in an undrawn loan facility before you need it. Then I look at a 33-year-old couple's debt recycling bonus and RSU income into ETFs, and where ownership structure, tax drag, and internally geared ETFs fit in. I cover what the draft 30% minimum tax on discretionary trusts means for passive investment trusts (short answer: do nothing yet). I finish with whether money above $250,000 in an offset account is at risk.
00:00 Michael's question: retiring at 52, before super access
 02:39 Do the numbers stack up?
 03:15 Building a valuation-aware ETF portfolio
 04:43 The behavioural test: spending your cash buffer in a downturn
 06:15 Should Michael gear any further?
 07:58 Locking in borrowing capacity: borrow when you don't need it
 11:47 Listener two: debt recycling RSUs and bonuses into ETFs
 12:54 Why RSUs matter for blue-chip property demand
 15:59 Spouse super contributions, and a tax policy idea
 18:20 Super contribution splitting
 19:42 Ownership structure for a debt-recycled portfolio
 23:03 ETF distributions and tax drag
 24:24 Is a non-trading investment company worth it?
 25:21 Internally geared ETFs: GHHF and GBGL
 27:14 Justin's question: the proposed 30% minimum tax on trusts
 28:26 Problems with the draft legislation
 30:09 Options: gearing, CGT rollover, fixed elections
 31:09 Why to wait: 1 July 2028 start and an election first
 32:25 Craig's question: offsets above the $250,000 guarantee
 34:15 Checking whether your lender is an ADI
 34:31 Coming up: are you on track if your wealth is outside super?
Related episodes:
 Ep 427: How to assess whether property and share markets are attractively priced
 https://investopoly.buzzsprout.com/2005600/episodes/19832497-ep-427-how-to-assess-whether-property-and-share-markets-are-attractively-priced
Ep 425: Family trust investing: Are trusts still worth it under proposed tax changes?
 https://investopoly.buzzsprout.com/2005600/episodes/19764156-ep-425-family-trust-investing-are-trusts-still-worth-it-under-proposed-tax-changes
Q&A - Cash-heavy at 48, bridging to early retirement, and debt-free at 31
 https://investopoly.buzzsprout.com/2005600/episodes/19753485-q-a-cash-heavy-at-48-bridging-to-early-retirement-and-debt-free-at-31
Optional:
 Q&A - Untangling a messy structure, cutting losses, and low-income investing
 https://investopoly.buzzsprout.com/2005600/episodes/19720854-q-a-untangling-a-messy-structure-cutting-losses-and-low-income-investing
Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X
Run your own business? 
Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/
Our most popular free guides:
Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.
Download them here
Got a question for the podcast?
Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au
Subscribe to my weekly blog:
Stay connected here
Important
This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.

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Back in 2023, Stuart argued that inflation and rates could stay higher for longer than most expected, drawing on 50 years of history showing that once inflation tops 8%, it typically takes a decade or more to settle. That call has aged well: after cutting through 2025, the RBA has already hiked three times in 2026, and underlying inflation has climbed back to 3.6% in a second wave the Bank's own models failed to anticipate.
But revisiting the research has sharpened his thinking. Stuart walks through three forces keeping inflation elevated: a less aggressive RBA, government spending, and the AI data-centre boom competing for the same workers and materials, while weighing newer studies suggesting credible inflation targets may tame it faster than the grim 11-year median implies.
His most important point has had too little attention: rate rises may simply bite less than they did 20 years ago. An ageing population, older households holding savings rather than debt, and mortgage offset balances up 49% since 2022 all mean a growing share of spending comes from people barely touched by higher rates. The uncomfortable corollary: cuts may not revive spending either. If your strategy relies on rate cuts, stress-test it.
Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X
Run your own business? 
Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/
Our most popular free guides:
Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.
Download them here
Got a question for the podcast?
Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au
Subscribe to my weekly blog:
Stay connected here
Important
This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.

Four listeners think several moves ahead. Silvia, who arrived in Australia in 2025 with a high income but low super, lays out a detailed plan: switch to variable with an offset, interest-only to preserve deductibility, build a buffer while catching up on super, and asks the deeper question: does stretching for a $1.6M blue-chip upgrade in her 40s make the household too single-point sensitive, or is superior asset quality worth the serviceability risk? And if they move abroad in seven years, is one high-quality asset or two average ones the smarter play?
Shadi, relocating to Sydney for family support, weighs selling his renovated Melbourne PPOR into a soft market versus keeping it as a now-grandfathered negatively geared rental and rentvesting, complicated by cross-collateralisation with a Kew unit. David asks a clean execution question: how to structure a fresh $100–200k equity release into ETFs alongside existing debt-recycled holdings.
Finally, Adrienne, heading to Dubai for two to three years, wants to confirm how non-residency affects the six-year rule on her home and the tax treatment of her Melbourne investment apartment.
Structure, sequencing, and post-Budget nuance throughout, with the usual reminder that these are general discussions, not personal advice.
Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X
Run your own business? 
Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/
Our most popular free guides:
Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.
Download them here
Got a question for the podcast?
Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au
Subscribe to my weekly blog:
Stay connected here
Important
This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.

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Stuart calls his approach value-aware: buying high-quality assets when they're attractively priced. Quality decides whether something is worth owning; price decides when to invest and how much. In this episode, he explains why both matter: your return comes from two engines: growth in an asset's underlying value and the uplift (or drag) as its valuation mean-reverts toward trend.
For property, the entry price is everything because it's lumpy, illiquid, and bought at a single point, and he explains why the final third of a multi-decade hold delivers more than half the growth, so selling during a flat patch can cost you the best phase. He walks through how to judge whether a market is undervalued: long-term price trends, rental yields, relative values between property types and cities, and replacement cost.
For shares, where you invest progressively, he unpacks four metrics and how much weight each deserves: price-to-earnings (richest history, but interrogate the "E"), free cash flow (most honest, hardest to benchmark, and complicated by AI capex), price-to-book, and dividend yield as a cross-check. Using the FTSE 100 as a worked example, he shows why the strongest signal is several measures agreeing, never one ratio in isolation.
Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X
Run your own business? 
Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/
Our most popular free guides:
Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.
Download them here
Got a question for the podcast?
Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au
Subscribe to my weekly blog:
Stay connected here
Important
This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.