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Back in 2023, Stuart argued that inflation and rates could stay higher for longer than most expected, drawing on 50 years of history showing that once inflation tops 8%, it typically takes a decade or more to settle. That call has aged well: after cutting through 2025, the RBA has already hiked three times in 2026, and underlying inflation has climbed back to 3.6% in a second wave the Bank's own models failed to anticipate.

But revisiting the research has sharpened his thinking. Stuart walks through three forces keeping inflation elevated: a less aggressive RBA, government spending, and the AI data-centre boom competing for the same workers and materials, while weighing newer studies suggesting credible inflation targets may tame it faster than the grim 11-year median implies.

His most important point has had too little attention: rate rises may simply bite less than they did 20 years ago. An ageing population, older households holding savings rather than debt, and mortgage offset balances up 49% since 2022 all mean a growing share of spending comes from people barely touched by higher rates. The uncomfortable corollary: cuts may not revive spending either. If your strategy relies on rate cuts, stress-test it.

Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X

Run your own business?

Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/

Our most popular free guides:

Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.

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Got a question for the podcast?

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Important

This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.

Four listeners think several moves ahead. Silvia, who arrived in Australia in 2025 with a high income but low super, lays out a detailed plan: switch to variable with an offset, interest-only to preserve deductibility, build a buffer while catching up on super, and asks the deeper question: does stretching for a $1.6M blue-chip upgrade in her 40s make the household too single-point sensitive, or is superior asset quality worth the serviceability risk? And if they move abroad in seven years, is one high-quality asset or two average ones the smarter play?

Shadi, relocating to Sydney for family support, weighs selling his renovated Melbourne PPOR into a soft market versus keeping it as a now-grandfathered negatively geared rental and rentvesting, complicated by cross-collateralisation with a Kew unit. David asks a clean execution question: how to structure a fresh $100–200k equity release into ETFs alongside existing debt-recycled holdings.

Finally, Adrienne, heading to Dubai for two to three years, wants to confirm how non-residency affects the six-year rule on her home and the tax treatment of her Melbourne investment apartment.

Structure, sequencing, and post-Budget nuance throughout, with the usual reminder that these are general discussions, not personal advice.

Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X

Run your own business?

Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/

Our most popular free guides:

Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.

Download them here

Got a question for the podcast?

Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au

Subscribe to my weekly blog:

Stay connected here

Important

This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.

Read Full Blog Here

Stuart calls his approach value-aware: buying high-quality assets when they're attractively priced. Quality decides whether something is worth owning; price decides when to invest and how much. In this episode, he explains why both matter: your return comes from two engines: growth in an asset's underlying value and the uplift (or drag) as its valuation mean-reverts toward trend.

For property, the entry price is everything because it's lumpy, illiquid, and bought at a single point, and he explains why the final third of a multi-decade hold delivers more than half the growth, so selling during a flat patch can cost you the best phase. He walks through how to judge whether a market is undervalued: long-term price trends, rental yields, relative values between property types and cities, and replacement cost.

For shares, where you invest progressively, he unpacks four metrics and how much weight each deserves: price-to-earnings (richest history, but interrogate the "E"), free cash flow (most honest, hardest to benchmark, and complicated by AI capex), price-to-book, and dividend yield as a cross-check. Using the FTSE 100 as a worked example, he shows why the strongest signal is several measures agreeing, never one ratio in isolation.

Read Stuart's latest book? He's only got 19 reviews on Amazon so far, if Wealth by Design helped you, leaving one would mean a lot: https://www.amazon.com.au/review/create-review?asin=192318654X

Run your own business?

Check out Business by Design, Stuart and Mena's show on starting, growing and exiting a business, at https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/

Our most popular free guides:

Over the years we've written hundreds of articles. These three bring our best thinking together on the topics that matter most right now: choosing a super fund, debt recycling, and navigating the new tax changes.

Download them here

Got a question for the podcast?

Email us at questions@investopoly.com.au

Subscribe to my weekly blog:

Stay connected here

Important

This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.