Tom Hawley

26/10/2026

$65 BILLION!!

That’s how much additional income tax Australians have paid over the last four years because of bracket creep.

Your salary goes up.
Prices go up.
But the tax brackets don’t move with inflation… so over time you get pushed into paying more and more tax.

In 2008/09, the top tax bracket kicked in at $180,000.
After adjusting for inflation, that’s roughly $291,000 in today’s money. Yet today the top bracket starts at just $190,000.

So while your salary might LOOK like it’s gone up… your purchasing power hasn’t necessarily followed. But your tax bill has!!

That’s bracket creep… and $65 BILLION in four years shows you just how significant it is.

25/10/2026

Listening to some of stories of people buying atm makes you think about how rare these markets are. When the certainty returns, so will the buyers.

23/10/2026

My piccolo used to cost me $3.
Today... $6.

Has the piccolo doubled in value?? Of course not. It’s the exact same coffee!!

We always talk about inflation as the price of everything going up... But what about the other side of the equation??
Your money is buying you LESS.

Same coffee. Same cup. Same piccolo.
Twice the dollars.

So next time you grab your morning coffee and think “sh*t... this is expensive”...
Maybe the better question is...
What the hell happened to the value of my money??

22/10/2026

$350 BILLION is sitting in Australians’ offset accounts…
But is your offset actually linked correctly??

I received a message this week from someone who saw my post about checking their offset account and decided to call their bank.

They discovered their offset had been linked to the 20% portion of their split mortgage… NOT the 80% portion.
It had apparently been set up that way for years.

They believe it’s cost them TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars in additional interest… and they had absolutely no idea.

That is exactly why I keep talking about this.
If you have an offset account, particularly if your loan is split across multiple accounts, don’t just assume it’s set up correctly. Check which loan it’s actually linked to.

And if you’re not 100% sure… call your lender and confirm it.
It could be a very expensive assumption to get wrong.

22/10/2026

$10 million purchase. New job. Nearly $6 million required in lending. And the first answer was no…

This client earned a significant base salary, but the majority of their income came from bonuses of more than $1 million historically.

The problem?? They’d just changed employers.

For bonus and commission earners, changing jobs can create a major issue with borrowing capacity because lenders will often want to see a history of that income with your current employer.

We took a different approach. We built a comprehensive credit case around the client’s historical earnings, employment history and overall profile, then worked directly with the lender’s credit team to demonstrate why the income should be considered.

Result: approved for just under $6 million.
This is exactly why complex applications aren’t always about whether you can afford the loan… sometimes it’s about knowing how to present the application and which lender is willing to understand it.

The client found the property they wanted. We found a way to get it done.

22/10/2026

Offset vs redraw. For me, offset wins.

It gives you flexibility, keeps your cash accessible and retains your loan limit.

That last point can become particularly important if you’ve got an investment property and may want to use that cash elsewhere down the track.

Redraw has its place. If you need the discipline of physically paying money into the loan and making it harder to spend, it may actually be the better option.

But understand the difference. Money in an offset is still your cash. Money paid into redraw has reduced your loan balance, and access to those funds is ultimately subject to the bank’s terms.

I’d rather keep the flexibility. Just make sure your offset is actually linked correctly.

21/10/2026

Consumer confidence in Australia is falling faster than anywhere in the world.

Interest rates up. Inflation up. Unemployment up. Taxes up.
It’s hardly surprising people are feeling pessimistic. But there’s something interesting in this data.

Consumer confidence has only been around these levels a handful of times since 1990, including COVID, the GFC and the 1990s recession.

And historically, extreme pessimism can create opportunity.
Do I think we’re at the bottom? No. I think there’s a good chance things get worse before they get better.

But if you’re a long-term buyer, it’s worth paying attention when almost everyone else is fearful. You’ll never perfectly pick the bottom. Sometimes the bigger risk is waiting for everything to look good again, because by then, everyone else can see it too…

*Not financial advice.

20/10/2026

Hannah Fry absolutely nails the problem with stamp duty here.
It changes the way people behave.

People who would otherwise downsize stay put. People think twice about moving for work. And people who might sell, free up capital and buy again later are penalised every time they transact.

In Sydney, you can very quickly burn through tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars simply moving between properties. And that has consequences.

It discourages transactions, reduces the number of properties coming to market and stops people from moving into homes that actually suit where they are in life.

The problem with getting rid of it is pretty simple… State governments have become incredibly reliant on the revenue.

19/10/2026

If you could fix just THREE things on this board, what are you picking?

Australia has a lot of problems right now.

Interest rates. Inflation. Cost of living. Property. Rents. Housing supply. Real wages. Consumer confidence. Productivity. GDP. Taxes. The RBA. Small business.

But if you had to pick just three that you could reverse, which would have the biggest impact on Australia’s economy?

I’m pretty confident that if we fixed the three factors I chose, you’d start reversing a lot of what’s going wrong across the rest of this board.

I’ve explained my picks in the video.

If you’d choose differently, feel free to argue your case in the comments.

18/10/2026