Investopoly

Pre-order Wealth by Design Here
In this episode, Stuart revisits Golden Rule 4 and admits that half of it has changed. In Investopoly, the advice was to build your asset base, then tilt toward income as retirement approached. Wealth by Design confirms the first half but overturns the second. Here's why.
Stuart makes the case that the real objective isn't income at all; it's after-tax total return and liquidity. He explains why the conventional glide path into conservative, income-heavy assets as you near retirement can quietly backfire, amplifying two risks retirees underestimate: inflation eroding your purchasing power, and longevity outlasting your money. The instinct that feels "safe" may actually be the riskier choice over a multi-decade retirement.
The alternative is what he calls a perpetual portfolio: one structured to keep compounding even as it funds your lifestyle, so you're drawing an income without dismantling the engine that generates it. Stuart walks through the total-return decision filters he uses to judge whether an asset earns its place, and how to think about funding spending without reaching reflexively for yield.
He closes with one simple action you can take this week to start reframing your own strategy.
My new book is available for pre-order now: Pre-ordering the book will help me get it into bookstores. So please do me a favour - please consider pre-ordering now - links and pre-order bonus are available here: https://prosolution.com.au/book-preorder-bonus

Do you have a question for the podcast? Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au.

If you're interested in working with our team and me, discover how we can work together here: https://prosolution.com.au/family-office-services

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform.

Subscribe to my weekly blog: https://prosolution.com.au/stay-connected

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

Read Full Blog Here
Pre-order Wealth by Design Here
With the government's changes to established residential property now looking likely to become law, the investment case has fundamentally shifted, and those who try to ignore it will be exposed. In this episode, we unpack why quarantining negative gearing losses hits investors so hard: the asset costs materially more to hold each year, yet capital growth potential hasn't budged. We walk through the numbers, showing how an investment-grade property's after-tax internal rate of return could fall from around 11% to just 8.4% a return you might match through superannuation, minus the debt, concentration risk and hassle.
We also explore "livevesting", channelling your capacity into a better-quality home that compounds tax-free, and explain why Melbourne may now offer compelling relative value. Along the way, we sound a warning on the "obvious alternatives": commercial property and new-build packages that are often overpriced, structurally inferior, or both.
Finally, drawing on the 1980s Hawke-Keating reversal and New Zealand's recent backflip, we ask whether these changes will even last—and why the smartest move now is preserving optionality rather than reacting. Tax matters, but a good investment must still stand on its own merits.
My new book is available for pre-order now: Pre-ordering the book will help me get it into bookstores. So please do me a favour - please consider pre-ordering now - links and pre-order bonus are available here: https://prosolution.com.au/book-preorder-bonus

Do you have a question for the podcast? Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au.

If you're interested in working with our team and me, discover how we can work together here: https://prosolution.com.au/family-office-services

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform.

Subscribe to my weekly blog: https://prosolution.com.au/stay-connected

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

Pre-order Wealth by Design Here
In this mailbag episode, we tackle five listener questions spanning some of the trickiest decisions in personal finance. A Brisbane couple in their mid-forties, with strong super balances and a plan to knock down and rebuild, ask whether to ease off super contributions to kill debt faster or keep compounding inside the lower-tax environment and whether debt recycling is their smartest long-term play.
We unpack a thorny capital gains question on the six-year absence rule: can you settle a new home first, then sell the old one, without triggering a double-PPR problem? A high-income Melbourne couple wonder whether $6,800 a year in ongoing financial advice is still worth it, how to untangle from wrap platforms, and whether a coastal second property stacks up given their age and timeline.
A father in St Ives asks whether tipping $2,000 a year into a 20-year-old's super is a gift worth making. And a Perth listener eyeing his neighbour's block wants the unbiased truth on double blocks and subdivisions.
Practical, numbers-driven answers to real situations and the principles behind them.
My new book is available for pre-order now: Pre-ordering the book will help me get it into bookstores. So please do me a favour - please consider pre-ordering now - links and pre-order bonus are available here: https://prosolution.com.au/book-preorder-bonus

Do you have a question for the podcast? Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au.

If you're interested in working with our team and me, discover how we can work together here: https://prosolution.com.au/family-office-services

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform.

Subscribe to my weekly blog: https://prosolution.com.au/stay-connected

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

Pre-order Wealth By Design Here
Episode three of Eight Rules Revisited continues the Thursday series comparing the eight golden rules from Investopoly with the updated versions in Wealth by Design, released 28 July.
Rule 3 — spend less than you earn and invest the difference- is one of the most straightforward principles in personal finance. It is also one of the most reliably ignored. The rule itself hasn't changed since Investopoly. What has changed is how Stuart frames the implementation, moving decisively away from tracking, measurement, and willpower toward an automated banking system that removes the need for daily discipline by making saving the structural default.
The episode examines the behavioural forces that work against consistent saving, the immediate pull of spending versus the distant reward of investing, the social normalisation of lifestyle upgrades, and the way income growth tends to fund consumption rather than wealth accumulation when there is no system in place to redirect it first.
Lifestyle creep receives particular attention. It is not a dramatic failure but a gradual one, the slow expansion of spending that keeps pace with rising income and quietly prevents wealth from compounding the way it should.
Stuart closes with a single practical action: one automatic transfer worth setting up this week that begins shifting savings from intention to habit. The full system and worked examples appear in chapter three of Wealth by Design.
My new book is available for pre-order now: Pre-ordering the book will help me get it into bookstores. So please do me a favour - please consider pre-ordering now - links and pre-order bonus are available here: https://prosolution.com.au/book-preorder-bonus

Do you have a question for the podcast? Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au.

If you're interested in working with our team and me, discover how we can work together here: https://prosolution.com.au/family-office-services

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform.

Subscribe to my weekly blog: https://prosolution.com.au/stay-connected

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

Read Full Blog Here
Pre-order Wealth By Design Here
Both Houses have passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Bill 2026. Royal Assent is pending but considered a formality. For investors, property owners, business owners, and superannuation members, the changes are substantial, and the details matter enormously.
This blog provides a clear, technical breakdown of what the legislation actually does. Negative gearing losses on established residential property purchased after Budget night will be quarantined from 1 July 2027, with existing properties grandfathered under previous rules. The 50% CGT discount is replaced by cost base indexation and a new minimum 30% tax on capital gains, a change that, for long-term investors in assets growing at 7% per annum, lifts the effective tax rate from roughly 20–23% to around 30–35%. SMSFs lose the ability to borrow for residential property, with a commencement date of approximately mid-August 2026. Trust capital gains rules are also changing, though the legislation has not yet been released.
Stuart addresses the government's framing directly: the claim that these changes improve housing affordability is not supported by the Treasury's own modelling, nor by the historical record in Australia, New Zealand, or the United Kingdom. These are tax revenue measures.
The blog also covers the new $250 worker tax offset, the $1,000 instant work-related deduction, important transition rules for existing assets, and why low-income taxpayers with unrealised gains should consider crystallising them before 1 July 2027.
My new book is available for pre-order now: Pre-ordering the book will help me get it into bookstores. So please do me a favour - please consider pre-ordering now - links and pre-order bonus are available here: https://prosolution.com.au/book-preorder-bonus

Do you have a question for the podcast? Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au.

If you're interested in working with our team and me, discover how we can work together here: https://prosolution.com.au/family-office-services

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform.

Subscribe to my weekly blog: https://prosolution.com.au/stay-connected

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.