Investors name 5 biggest barriers to financial goals
Report finds income is not keeping up with living costs
3 min
Australian investors say housing costs, goods inflation and slow wage growth are the main barriers to achieving their financial goals, according to a survey. Their biggest goals in order of importance are retiring and living off their investments, supplementing their work income with investment income, funding holidays and travel, cutting back on their hours of work and buying a home.
Online trading platform Stake surveyed more than 2,000 Australian investors for a comprehensive report about their ambitions this year. The report concluded that the biggest barriers to financial goals reflected a broader problem, being that salary and wages are not keeping up with rises in the cost of living, including property prices and weekly rents.
Australians say the biggest barriers to achieving their financial goals are as follows.
Housing costs
Saving a deposit is one of the biggest hurdles for first home buyers today, with most workers unable to save fast enough to keep up with rising home values. The median Australian home price rose by $59,000 over FY24 while rents increased by 7.3 percent over the same period. CoreLogic data shows rents have risen by almost 40 percent over the past five years. Stake CEO, Jon Howie said: “In Australia, over the past 30 years, house prices have risen by an average of 8 percent per annum, compared to around 3 percent for wages …”.
Goods inflation
Since the pandemic, rising inflation has significantly increased the cost of goods and services. At its peak, inflation hit 7.8 percent per annum in the December quarter of 2022, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). By that time, the cost of petrol had risen 13.2 percent over the year and fruit and vegetables were up 12.6 percent. Higher interest rates are now working to bring the rate of inflation down. But this only means the cost of goods and services is rising at a slower pace. For example, petrol prices rose by another 7.7 percent in FY24. Services inflation is higher, with insurance up 14 percent over FY24 and electricity up 6 percent (although without government rebates it would have been 14.6 percent higher).
Slow wage growth
This week the ABS published an updated Wage Price Index report, which found wages rose by 0.8 percent over the June quarter while inflation rose by 1 percent. Over FY24, wages rose by 4.1 percent and inflation rose by 3.8 percent. Once again, higher interest rates are bringing the rate of inflation down now. However, when inflation was at its peak of 7.8 percent in December 2022, wage growth was well below this at 3.3 percent.
Costs of supporting a family
ABS data documenting how inflation is affecting various household types found employee households, which include working families, are worst affected. The ABS Living Cost Index for employee households rose by 6.2 percent in FY24 compared to the overall inflation rate of 3.8 percent. A recent report from KPMG found rising living costs were impacting family formation. KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said: “With the current rise in living expenses applying pressure on household finances, many Australians have decided to delay starting or expanding their families.”
Unfair tax system
While the Stake report did not specify which taxes survey respondents felt were unfair, there is ongoing debate in the community about tax breaks given to property investors. Negative gearing is very common among Australian landlords, with rental income not typically enough to cover holding costs, including interest on an investment loan. Landlords are able to deduct this loss against other taxable income, such as their salaries. Investors also pay tax on only 50 percent of their capital gains when they sell an asset if they have held the asset for more than 12 months.
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The lunar flyby would be the deepest humans have traveled in space in decades.
4 min
It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.
On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.
The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.
Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.
“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.
“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”
Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
What are the goals for Artemis II?
The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.
The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.
Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.
SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .
How is the mission expected to unfold?
Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.
The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.
After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.
Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.
Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?
Yes.
For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.
Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?
The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.
Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.
Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.
Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.
What will the astronauts do during the flight?
The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.
Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.
On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.
There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.
Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.
The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.
What happens after Artemis II?
Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.
NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.
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