# Fuel relief is coming, credit card surcharges are going plus, starting with $2k & retirement planning Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/australian-finance-podcast-1163565/fuel-relief-is-coming-credit-card-surcharges-are-going-plus-starting-with-2k-retirement-planning Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/australian-finance-podcast-1163565/fuel-relief-is-coming-credit-card-surcharges-are-going-plus-starting-with-2k-retirement-planning.md Podcast: [Australian Finance Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/australian-finance-podcast-1163565) Published: 2026-04-09T21:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.raskmedia.com.au/podcasts/australian-finance-podcast/ Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/RRKKR6765999528.mp3?updated=1775714897 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/australian-finance-podcast-1163565/episodes/fuel-relief-is-coming-credit-card-surcharges-are-going-plus-starting-with-2k-retirement-planning Duration seconds: 2497 ## Resource In this Australian Finance Podcast episode, your hosts Owen Rask and Gemma Mitchell dive into a listener Q&A covering real-life money challenges and wins. They cover: – Celebrating a listener hitting $5k in savings early in the year – Whether to focus on mortgage repayments or start investing – How to begin investing with just $2–5k – Financial Infidelity and coming back from gambling debt – How to structure assets for retirement income – What you need to know about changes to credit card surcharges – The government announcement to cut fuel excise for three months and what it means for your budget If you like this Australian Finance Podcast episode, you'll love our series. Don't forget to subscribe for weekly shows on⁠⁠ Apple⁠⁠,⁠⁠ Spotify⁠⁠,⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠, or wherever you get your podcasts! Follow us on⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠ and⁠⁠ TikTok⁠⁠ for more investing insights. Topics Covered – Listener win: saving $5k through expenses & income growth – Cutting costs: insurance, utilities & selling unused items – Mortgage vs investing: how to think about the trade-off – Balancing debt reduction and long-term investing – When financial advice is worth paying for – Managing money when one partner isn’t engaged – Starting to invest with $2k–$5k – ETFs vs savings: where to begin – Building habits before scaling investments – Retirement planning basics: what does “work optional” mean? – Using assets in retirement: property, shares, super & cash – The order of drawdown in retirement Resources for this episode Free Rask Retirement course Finders Keepers challenge tracker and workbook Buy Gemma’s book “The Money Reset” Ask a question (select the Finance podcast) Show partner resources Join Pearler using code “RASK” for $15 of Pearler Credit Get 50% off your first two months using PocketSmith… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/australian-finance-podcast-1163565/episodes/fuel-relief-is-coming-credit-card-surcharges-are-going-plus-starting-with-2k-retirement-planning/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/australian-finance-podcast-1163565/fuel-relief-is-coming-credit-card-surcharges-are-going-plus-starting-with-2k-retirement-planning.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.