Hi and welcome. One thing that might be helpful is to read the Australian investing thread under the investor forum section. There’s also an Australian section under taxes that’s helpful. I also recommend reading Barefoot Investor.
As for your individual questions.
1. I think you can go either option you listed, it depends on how much time you want to spend re-balancing and doing your trades. I realised I’m not great with this and wanted something as easy as possible so I just opened the high growth Lifestrategy fund with Vanguard and then bpay money there every fortnight I get paid. I’ve worked out what I have left over from expenses and send that. That should work out to $$2-3k every fortnight for you. If you deposit over $100k you get charged the least fees.
I maintain a very small emergency fund. I keep my emergency money in an online bank, separate from the one I get paid into. Look at something like Ubank, you’ll get the highest fees for savings. Australia is a bit different than the US, you probably have permanent employment and can’t be fired easily, so you don’t have that to worry about. You also don’t own your home so don’t have to worry about a sudden cost. You both have a high salary combined so worst case, if you need money, just don’t transfer to your index account that fortnight or month. It’ll be rare that you need more than $5k in cash for anything. If so, just keep that amount in an online account. With the online accounts, you have to deposit a minimum to get the maximum rate.
2. The other thing I’d recommend is having credit cards with reward points (always pay your balance), the credit card can act as an emergency account, as well as let you build,points you can use. Look at pointshacker au and learn how to get the most points.
Sydney is expensive and honestly I don’t see how you could spend less unless you went crazy and moved into a share house but you’re too old for that. If you have a kid your expenses will skyrocket particularly with childcare and school fees.
3. I think you both should max out super, best return you’ll get because of the tax advantages. Super is pretty powerful.
So for FI, you can track your networth by creating an excel spreadsheet and for each month, and each year, record what your balances are for:
A. Your regular checking/savings account
B. Your separate Super amounts
C. Your combined Vanguard amount
D. Your online emergency account
You’ll really see how your money grows. Leaving it in the regular checking is leaving so much money on the table. I also,think it’s smart to rent and invest instead of buy in Sydney. Once you build a stache, you could always look at buying something more reasonable somewhere else as an investment, but that’s a lot of work. Index shares seems much simpler and easier.