Frequently Asked Questions
Independent Means is a 7-stage wizard: you enter your household details, income, assets, property, and superannuation, then see a full retirement and net worth model built from those numbers. This page explains what each stage asks for and why, and what the results actually mean — for the tax, superannuation, and Age Pension rules behind the numbers themselves, see the Methodology page.
The wizard, stage by stage
Is Independent Means a licensed financial adviser?
No, and it does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence. It is a modelling tool: every figure it shows is a projection calculated from the numbers you enter and from published Australian tax, superannuation and Age Pension rules, not a recommendation about what you should do. ASIC allows a superannuation calculator to be provided without a financial services licence, on conditions set out in ASIC Corporations (Superannuation Calculators and Retirement Estimates) Instrument 2022/603 and Regulatory Guide 276. Those conditions are the reason the app starts every model on ASIC's prescribed inflation rates rather than assumptions we pick, shows projections in today's dollars, lets you change any assumption, and never names or recommends a specific fund, product or provider. For advice about your own circumstances, including anything involving tax, contribution strategy, insurance, debt or investment allocation, speak to a licensed Australian financial adviser who holds an AFSL.
How does Independent Means handle the 2027 negative gearing and capital gains tax changes?
From 1 July 2027, negative gearing on residential property is limited to new builds. Net rental losses on an established dwelling acquired after 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026 can no longer be deducted against salary, wages or business income: they are quarantined so they only offset residential property income, and any excess is carried forward indefinitely. Properties held at that moment, including contracts signed but not yet settled, keep today's treatment for as long as they are held, and new builds keep full deductibility. Separately, the 50% capital gains tax discount is replaced with cost base indexation, so only the real gain above inflation is taxed. These measures are in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No.1) Bill 2026, which passed both houses on 25 June 2026 and commences 1 July 2027. Independent Means asks for the three details those rules turn on for each property (the contract date, whether the dwelling was newly built, and the purchase price) and shows you per property whether its rental losses would be quarantined and how the capital gain would compare under each rule. Because the changes are not in force, they do not affect any projected figure unless you choose to model them.
What does Stage 1 — Household Profile — ask for?
Your first name and age, whether you have a partner (with their name and age if so), how many dependants you have with an age for each, your state or territory, your target retirement age, and a life expectancy assumption. Dependant ages aren't just a headcount — they're used to phase out Family Tax Benefit Part A (cuts off at 19), Part B (cuts off when the youngest turns 13, for couples), and Medicare Levy Surcharge family relief (cuts off at 21) as children age past eligibility. Your state also drives the stamp duty and land tax estimates shown later in Stage 4.
What does Stage 2 — Income & Cashflow — ask for?
Gross annual income for you (and your partner, if applicable), a separate annual bonus field with an optional month-paid selector, and any other income streams. Then item-level budget entry across 11 categories — housing, utilities, groceries, transport, insurance, health, sport & recreation, children & education, entertainment, personal & memberships, and other — where each item can be monthly, quarterly, annual, or seasonal, and quarterly/annual items can be pinned to a specific due month. You'll also enter a monthly savings target, any life or TPD insurance premium paid outside super, and whether you hold private hospital cover (this feeds the Medicare Levy Surcharge calculation). Each item can also be given the calendar years it is active, so an expense that ends one day (school fees, a car loan, childcare) stops counting from the year you set and every later projection reflects that automatically. A live take-home-pay estimate and a 12-month cashflow calendar are shown as you go, calculated through the same tax engine used everywhere else in the app, not a simplified guess. The budget is entered once and reused by every stage that follows.
What does Stage 3 — Assets & Savings — ask for?
Item-level entry across five categories: cash and bank accounts, shares and ETFs, managed funds, cryptocurrency, and other investments (business equity, private loans, unlisted trusts, art and collectibles, and similar). Within each category you can also record recurring contributions separate from the current balance. Finally, a dedicated emergency fund field — kept separate from everyday savings, typically representing three to six months of expenses.
What does Stage 4 — Property & Debt — ask for?
Your home ownership status (own outright, own with a mortgage, or renting), and if you own: property value, ownership share, mortgage balance, interest rate, loan type, and an offset account balance. An indicative stamp duty estimate is shown automatically from your value and state (standard rate only — first-home-buyer concessions and foreign-purchaser surcharges aren't modelled). A debt recycling toggle appears once there's a mortgage balance (Premium — see below for what it does). Investment properties are a repeatable list, each with its own value, mortgage details, weekly rent, vacancy and management-fee assumptions, running costs, and depreciation. Finally: credit card balance, personal loans, and HECS/HELP debt.
What does Stage 5 — Superannuation & Goals — ask for?
Employment status for each person (this sets the default Super Guarantee rate), current super balance, employer SG rate, and salary sacrifice — with a "max to cap" toggle that fills in the remaining headroom under the concessional contributions cap automatically. Premium unlocks carry-forward contributions and franking credits here too. You'll also enter any life or TPD insurance premium paid inside super, and — the input that matters most for your results — your target annual retirement spending in today's dollars, which drives both the FIRE number and the Monte Carlo simulation. A life events panel lets you layer time-bound changes onto the base projection: a career break, a part-time transition, a windfall or inheritance, or a major one-off expense.
Understanding your results
What do I see on the Analysis screen (Stage 6)?
This is the results screen, not another data-entry stage. It shows a net worth chart tracking total net worth and its components (super, property, liquid assets) to your life expectancy, a FIRE analysis panel, a retirement probability card with a Monte Carlo fan chart, a scenario comparison overlaying the ASIC default, Conservative, and Aggressive outcomes, a warnings panel flagging things like cashflow shortfalls or contribution cap breaches, a year-by-year projection table, and the Strategy Centre for interactive what-if modelling (all explained below).
What's in my Financial Summary (Stage 7)?
Summary cards for your FIRE number, projected super, estimated annual tax, and Monte Carlo success rate, followed by a categorised list of observations grouped under retirement readiness, superannuation & contributions, tax position, property & debt, cash & liquidity, and insurance & estate planning — each one a plain-language, rules-based observation drawn directly from your numbers (for example: projected balance depletion age versus life expectancy, contribution cap headroom, mortgage debt-free date, HECS repayment notes). Below that is a fixed list of topics worth raising with a financial adviser — contribution strategy, insurance, tax structuring, debt management, estate planning, and Age Pension optimisation — explicitly framed as general education, not advice. From here you can download a PDF report, an Excel budget, and a data CSV.
What is a FIRE number?
Your target annual retirement spending divided by the scenario's safe withdrawal rate (4% in all three scenarios) — the balance that, in theory, funds your target spending indefinitely at that withdrawal rate. It's a standard, widely-used estimate, not a guarantee, and doesn't fully capture tax on investment income, sequencing risk, or how spending needs actually vary through retirement.
What is Coast FIRE?
The balance you'd need today — with no further contributions from this point on — that would still compound to your FIRE number by your target retirement age, at your selected scenario's assumed return rate. If your current super balance already exceeds that figure, Independent Means shows "Already at Coast FIRE." It's a way of seeing whether your existing balance alone is already doing the work, separate from how much more you contribute from here.
What does the retirement probability (Monte Carlo simulation) mean?
Independent Means runs 1,000 simulated market paths, with randomised annual returns around your scenario's average, from today through to your life expectancy — drawing down through retirement against your inflation-adjusted spending target, subject to the legislated minimum account-based pension drawdown rates. The success rate shown is the percentage of those 1,000 simulations where the balance never reaches zero before life expectancy. It's a modelling tool illustrating a range of outcomes under uncertainty, not a guarantee or a prediction of what will actually happen to markets.
What are the ASIC, Conservative, and Aggressive scenarios?
Three sets of assumptions you can compare side by side, and the starting point is deliberately not ours. Every new model begins on the ASIC default set: wage inflation of 3.7% and CPI of 2.5% as prescribed by ASIC Corporations (Superannuation Calculators and Retirement Estimates) Instrument 2022/603, with a 6.5% investment return that is our own assumption, since ASIC prescribes the inflation rates but not the return. Using the regulator's rates as the default is a condition of the relief that lets a superannuation calculator be provided without a financial services licence. Alongside it sit two alternatives you can switch to: Conservative models a 5.5% return with higher inflation (4.2% wages, 3% CPI), and Aggressive a 7.5% return with lower inflation (3.2% wages, 2% CPI). All three convert future dollars to today's dollars the same way, using wage growth while you are working and CPI once you have retired, so the difference you see between them is the market assumptions and nothing else. Premium unlocks custom assumptions, where you can override any figure with your own.
Your PDF report
What is debt recycling?
A Premium feature that models converting non-deductible mortgage interest into deductible investment debt, by repaying and redrawing against your home loan to invest. Independent Means models it as an annual tax saving added to your liquid savings. It's only offered as a candidate strategy when there's meaningful mortgage debt alongside existing shares, managed funds, or an investment property — and, like every output in this app, it's general information only. This is a genuinely complex strategy with real risks (you're increasing investment debt against your home), and it's explicitly framed as something to consult a tax adviser about before implementing, not a recommendation.
What is the Strategy Centre?
A Premium panel, opened from the Analysis screen, offering interactive what-if sliders for whichever opportunities the engine detects as relevant to your actual numbers — salary sacrifice headroom, carry-forward concessional cap, mortgage payoff acceleration, retirement age changes, and re-running the Monte Carlo probability against a modified scenario. Each opportunity only appears if the underlying condition is genuinely met for your numbers (for example, mortgage acceleration only shows if your rate and balance make it relevant) — it's not generic guidance, every slider recomputes against your real figures live.
What's included in my PDF report?
A cover page with the standard disclaimer, a Financial Position page (FIRE number, projected super, debt-free year, and final net worth, with the net worth chart), and a Retirement Projections page (outcome cards, a modelling assumptions table, and a note on nominal versus today's-dollars figures). Premium reports add a fourth page comparing all three scenarios side by side plus the Monte Carlo success-rate summary. Free-tier reports include the first three pages using base-scenario figures only. Every figure is recalculated at the moment you download it, so the PDF always reflects your current numbers rather than a stale snapshot from earlier in your session.
General information only. Not personal financial advice. This page and the Independent Means calculation engine do not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation, or needs. Consult a licensed Australian financial adviser (AFSL holder) before making financial decisions.