A financial adviser for young professionals earning real money for the first time.
A financial adviser for young professionals right across Australia — junior doctors, lawyers, consultants and engineers on $120K to $300K. Your first home, your super, your cover, your HECS, and what to do with money beyond the default fund. One file, one adviser. We are based in Melbourne and most of this happens over video anyway.
Six conversations that come up before 35.
The same adviser across all six. The plan, the loan and the cover sit on one file, rather than three quotes from three firms who have never met.
First home, deposit gap and all
On a registrar or junior lawyer salary you can usually afford the repayments long before you can save the deposit. We go through the government schemes, using your super to save, a guarantee from your parents, and what 5 versus 20 per cent actually means.
Salary packaging, if you get it
Public hospitals, charities and some employers offer it, and the money is real. We work out what is worth packaging, what is not, and how it plays with your HECS debt and your tax bracket.
Tidying up your super
Three or four old accounts quietly leaking fees is completely normal at this age. We roll them together, look at what it is actually invested in, and lean it toward growth while you have 30 years to go.
Debts, in the right order
HECS, a car loan and a bit on the credit card is the usual picture. Which to kill first, whether the car loan can be refinanced, and a written rule for your spending before you add a mortgage on top.
Cover, while you are still healthy
It is cheaper and far easier to get before your first specialist referral, your first knee reconstruction, or the first time you see someone about your mental health. Genuinely worth doing now.
Investing outside super
Index funds, turning your mortgage into deductible debt once you have one, and a straight conversation about whether a rental property suits you yet or whether it is too early.
The decade that sets the next four.
Your pay climbs faster between 25 and 35 than it ever will again. Graduate to senior, then bonuses or partner track start landing. What you decide in that window quietly compounds for the next thirty years. The first home buyer hub covers the deposit and the schemes, and investment-property briefs start coming up once the first place is sorted.
Three things get left too long. Super, because nobody ever looks at it. Insurance, because everyone assumes whatever came with the job is enough — it usually isn't. And the deposit, because most people save for it in fits and starts rather than to a plan. None of it is urgent, right up until it is.
This isn't someone flogging you a product because of your age. It's an adviser who has had this exact conversation hundreds of times with registrars, junior lawyers, consultants and engineers, and can tell you what actually matters against what merely sounds important.
The deposit, the schemes, and what you can really borrow.
On a senior associate or registrar income you can usually afford the repayments on a $700K to $900K loan long before you have the deposit. The job is closing that gap without picking up debt you will regret.
First Home Guarantee
Buy with 5 per cent down and skip lenders mortgage insurance, as long as you are under the income and price caps. There are only so many places each year. We check the caps for your suburb before you build a plan around it.
Saving through super
Put extra money into super before tax, then pull it back out for the deposit. Good for higher earners, because it is taxed at 15 per cent going in rather than at your normal rate.
Full deposit, no LMI
Sometimes the right call is to wait six to twelve months, hit 20 percent, and skip the LMI bill. Other times the market move outpaces the saved deposit. The numbers determine the answer, not a rule.
Income protection now, while the underwriting is easy.
The most common regret we hear from clients in their 40s is that they did not set up income protection before a back problem, an anxiety claim or a knee reconstruction made the policy harder to write. Premiums are also age-rated, so the policy is cheaper the earlier you start.
Default cover inside super is rarely enough on a $150K income. It is worth a proper conversation, not a tick-box.
See the income protection page for how the underwriting actually works.
Super is doing more work than you think.
Most people in this bracket have three or four legacy super accounts from past jobs, each with its own fee and insurance. Consolidation, investment option review, and a sensible growth tilt are the basics. They take a single afternoon and they pay back for forty years.
See superannuation advice for what the engagement looks like.
Questions we get from people in this bracket.
No. The five years between your first real salary and your first house are the most valuable years you will ever have to plan. What you decide now about super, insurance and how you save the deposit has thirty years to compound. Nothing you do later gets that long. The first conversation is free.
Usually yes, if you work for a public hospital, a public health service or a registered charity. Where people come unstuck is the cap, and how packaging interacts with HECS and the Medicare levy surcharge. We run it against your actual payslip rather than an example off a website.
If everything ahead of you — the house, the kids, retiring — gets paid for out of what you earn, then yes. And it is at its cheapest and easiest to get while you are young, healthy and not smoking. Locking it in before anything gets written on your medical record makes it a far more useful policy in ten or twenty years.
HECS goes up with inflation, not with an interest rate, which makes it a much gentler debt than people assume. The sums usually favour investing or saving your deposit ahead of paying it off early — though that shifts around the income thresholds. Worth actually calculating rather than following a rule of thumb off the internet.
Yes. The super saver scheme lets you put extra money into super before tax and pull it back out for a deposit. The First Home Guarantee lets you buy with as little as 5 per cent down without paying lenders mortgage insurance. You can use both. We check the price caps for your suburb before you count on either.
The first chat is free and takes about half an hour. If we go on to write you a plan, the fee depends on the work and we quote it up front. The loan side costs you nothing — the lender pays us. And if we are buying your property too, the financial plan is included.
Keep reading
- Financial planningHow the Statement of Advice work fits at this stage.
- First home buyer loansFirst Home Guarantee, FHSS, stamp duty concessions and lender choice.
- Income protectionCheaper and easier to write while you are healthy.
- Superannuation adviceConsolidation, investment option, and contribution strategy.
- Debt managementHECS, car loans, credit cards. Order of attack.
- First home buyer hubEverything that goes into buying a first home.
- Investment propertyWhen the first home is behind you and the portfolio starts.
Set the next thirty years up in one afternoon.
If you are between 25 and 35, salaried, and the file has not been opened yet, the first call is free. About 30 minutes. No homework before it.