Cheap as chips

Speyer Technik Museum

2011-11-18T22:48:00.001+01:00

It was a quick, "Let's head down to Speyer this weekend?" and just like that, we packed some bags into the car and headed south towards Speyer. I just returned from a business trip to Gothenburg, Sweden yesterday, and now I am heading to Speyer.

Apart from the nice historical centre of Speyer, there is another reason for heading to Speyer. Planes, trains and automobils. The Speyer Technik Museum was mentioned to us by a friend about 9 months ago, and after reading about it on the internet, it was one of the place for us to go.

The drive from Cologne was about 3 hours, with some stops here and there. When we arrived, we were a bit taken back by a full size Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet that is up in the sky. It was literally put on some pylons and is about 15meters up in the air.

Our two kids eyes became bigger and bigger as we got close to the museum. We found a car park and entered the museum. Once we are in, the whole place is packed with old cars, planes, old steam locomotives, planes, old motor bikes, and oh, did I mentioned planes.

Many of the planes on display were either suspended over our heads by steel cables (inside display) or placed upon pylons (outside display). The planes that were displayed outside are usually the larger planes. A stair well usually is available for the inside of the planes to be entered. However, most of the interiors of the planes were gutted, and only the shell remain. The cockpit is also locked behind the original door, or a fenced off via a large piece of perspex.

The planes were from various dates, most of them were post second world war. There were also several replicas of flight instruments from the Leonardo da Vinci days.

The other main attraction at this museum is the real space shuttle on display. Well, it is the Russian version, the Buran. I am not sure if it actually made it into space, Wikipedia mentioned that Buran was only in space for 3 hours.

Did I mentioned that this museum also has a maritime section? Well, there is a great collection of boats, rescue boats, tugs, hydrofoils and an old soviet submarine. Yep, an old submarine from the Soviets. It was quite eerie to climb down the hatch for a look inside the submarine. It was my first time inside a submarine. I was not claustrophobic, but I could imagine some submariners going insane being cramped up for weeks upon weeks. Life can't be easy for those folks.

The kids also climbed into the submarine. This is the only item on display where the insides did not suffer much renovations. There were buttons, switches, taps, dials, lights, doors and gizmos for the kids (and me) to push, turn, shout into and to stomp on. It was quite an amazing experience.

The museum also has a IMAX 3D theatre. We did not go for this as our children were a little too young for it.

If you are planning to go there as well, one word of warning. We did not see many little girls around the museum compound as we walked around. It was mostly boys and their parents, running around, looking at all the different planes, trains and automobils. It is very much a place for boys to get amount the machinery. Definitely, toys for the boys (big and small).

This the updated museum. The original Technik Museum is in Sinsheim, which is still exhibiting. This Sinsheim museum have the two versions on the Concorde (the Aeroflot version and the British Airways/Air France version), a large display of F1 cars and planes.

We will have to get the original museum one day.

WEBMU 2011, what a blast!

2011-11-10T00:23:00.000+01:00

The WEBMU weekend came with much anticipation. After much planning, debate, polling, discussion and planning (yes, the planning was quite thorough), it finally started. I was not able to make the Friday night dinner at the Cologne's tex mex, but I heard that the mood was good and the conversations were fantastic.

On Saturday, we splited into two groups. A bunch of us brave the cold and the heights, and headed into the DOM cathederal. The other group stayed on the ground and did a tour of the city. Although I have lived in the area ever since I arrived in Germany (2009), I have never been on a tour of the DOM, although I have been inside the DOM many times. The tour gives a different perspective on the DOM.

The tour is a climb into the upper layer of the DOM.

There are things that you can see up here that you can only really appreciate from down on the floor.

The tour was led by a very knowledgable fellow, and he did his best to explan that various facts about the DOM. One of the fun facts he mentioned was the carvings near the top of the DOM are not only of kings, queens and religious items, chickens and football players were also carved in as well!

The DOM tour did not go to one of the two tallest spires at the front, but we did climbed the tallest point at the rear of the DOM, which gave us an incredible view of the city of Cologne.

After the DOM tour, the two groups joined together, visited one of the many churches, and broke bread. It was at a delicious Turkish restaurant at Heumarkt. Excellent choice. It was here that I truly understand why WEBMU is such a great event. As Cliff1976 mentioned to me, "it is the people that attends the WEBMU that makes it", the event such as the DOM tour or the city tour is almost secondary.

I had a chance to talk to CNHeidelberg, German Gems and Snooker in Berlin. It was really fascinating to understand their motiviation on what they blog and what brough them to Germany. Their tales are quite engaging.

We had a free time for the afternoon, after which the dinner was planned at the Paeffgen brauhaus in the Belgium quarter of Cologne. I had a Haxe, and it arrived with a rousing cheer from the party. Our waiter did his job well by keeping the Kolsch flowing nicely.

The annual tradition of the TQEQE (The Queer Expatriot's Queer Experience) was led by Adam into one of the many great bars in the Bermuda Triangle (Cologne Gay district).

The Sunday was the farewell brunch at Cafe Litchenberg in Neumarkt. It was casual, and late enough for those recovering from the TQEQE. It also gave everyone a chance to say their goodbyes before next year.

Frau Dietz did an exhaustive post on the event. This post has all the attendees.

German Gems wrote a post on it.

Cliff1976 did a photo post of the event.

Zurika did a excellent post on the event. Great photos, really capture the ambience.

I just want to thank Cliff1976 for being driver for this wonderful event, and the ResidentOnEarth and Fultile Diatribes on their hard work for organising it with me.

If you are expat living in Germany and write a blog, come and join in the banter next year. Head over to expatbloggersingermany.com and sign up for more information.

By the way, sorry for the lack of photos as I forgot to bring the camera along and only had my phone do the photo snapping.

final countdown to Cologne for WEBMU 2011.

2011-10-19T23:15:00.001+02:00

WEBMU 2011 @ Köln will finally get on the way this weekend. WEBMU is a gathering by the expat folks who blogs and lives in Germany. It occurs annually and this year, it is in Köln.

It doesn't official kick off until the Saturday, some folks will be arriving on the Thursday or the Friday. So they will doing a side trip to Aachen. Dinner is Mexican, Köln style.

The first official event is either a city tour of Köln or a tour of the DOM on the Saturday morning, your choice. The city tour is with an English tour guide, so it is bound to be entertaining. The tour of the DOM will include a climb to the top. The view from up there is going to be spectacular. The afternoon is free with no set plan. After dinner, The Queer Expatriate Queer Expedition is on.

The farewell brunch on Sunday will take place in Cafe Litchenberg.

All the details can be found in this agenda.

It is not too late to join in the fun, make some new friends and enjoy Köln.

Thanks to Köln hosts (Resident on Earth, MusikKöln Media, Futile Diatribes and Cheap as Chips) for organising this. And also to TQE for keeping a tradition going.

If you are an expat blogger who is currently living in Germany, consider joining the forum at http://www.expatbloggersingermany.com.

Compact Calender Google Docs style, part 3

2011-08-26T23:40:00.001+02:00

I must give a big thank you to Michael Kennedy for all the work that he has done on the Compact Calender Google Docs style.

He implemented majority of the features and it almost function the same as the original version of Compact Calender from David Seah. Just look at the change log!

There is only one major feature missing, it is to be able to fit the printed calendar on a sheet of A4 paper.

The public holidays for more countries are needed. Currently we only have full holidays for Ireland and Australia, some for US and Germany. If you what the public holidays are for the other countries, fill them in at the "Holiday" tab.

To use it as it is,

Change the year to the appropriate year.
Change the country to the appropriate country.
You now have a compact calender.

Time to commit

2011-08-09T21:58:00.001+02:00

I know that committing to something can be tough, especially for something in the short term future. It's tough when you don't even know what you are doing tomorrow!

Well, for something as fun as the upcoming WEBMU 2011, this is a no-brainer. We are a bunch of expat bloggers getting together for a bit of chat and a laugh! This year the event is being held in Cologne around October.

There is poll up on the expat bloggers in Germany forum asking fellow bloggers to commit, this is mostly to get an idea of the numbers so that certain events can be booked.

If that has piqued your interest, head over the forum and show your commitment.

By the way, the details for WEBMU 2011 are

Location: Cologne

Date: 22 Oct - 23 Oct, however a kick off dinner is the Friday evening 21 Oct.

The forum also has a list of possible hotel options as well.

The Cologne host team Resident on Earth, MusikKöln Media, Futile Diatribes, TQE and Cheap as Chips will be posting a full agenda for the weekend, and I hear that there are some fantastic events planned :-)

Compact Calender Google Docs style, part 2

2011-08-07T00:04:00.002+02:00

Since starting my attempts to port David Seah's Compact Calendar, and via David's blog note, the calender has gather some momentum and has moved onto version 5. Since that first version, it has obtained two main functionalities.

It displays Month name automatically, thanks to Mike Kennedy excellent work.
It calculates the ISO week number automatically. The week number is calculated using a script that I got from Markus Olsson.

By the way, the latest version of the Compact Calender spreadsheet is named "compactspreadsheet", a bit of a typo on my part.

If you want to some hints on how to use the compact calendar, head over the David Seah's site for some timely tips.

The one thing that I want to do is set it up so that when it is printed out, it fits correctly onto an A4 sheet of paper. Any hints? Anyone?

No more adsense

2011-07-26T23:31:00.000+02:00

I have removed all the widgets that has to do with my blogs. It is quite frustrating to spend the time to set it up, and then to see it being unapproved. Anyway, there are better ways to to spend my time instead of mucking around with this. Goodbye adsense!

Compact Calender Google Docs style

2011-07-18T23:59:00.003+02:00

I have always like the way David Seah designs his forms and documents. They are highly functional and I really feel organised when using them.

The first form that I used from David's suite of documents is his Compact Calendar. Being compact, you could print it out on an A4 sheet of paper and mark it up for some quick planning.

However, it is relies heavily on the way Excel works. My home computer does not have Excel installed and I rather not install it. It just cost a bomb to use it. The main spreadsheet that I am using it Google Spreadsheet.

I have open sourced my attempt to implement the Compact Calender on Google. There are still some more automation required. I have only ported about 20% of the Compact Calendar functionality. If you want to improve it, pleas feel free to download copy. Remember to share your improvements.

WEBMU 2011 accommodation options are up

2011-07-04T23:16:00.001+02:00

If you are planning to visit Cologne around October 2011, and you are an expat blogger, why not consider meeting up with other expat bloggers at the annual WEBMU, 2011 edition.

The Cologne host team Germany Doesn't Suck, Resident on Earth, MusikKöln Media, Futile Diatribes and Cheap as Chips, came up with a list of accommodation recommendations. The list consist of wide range optons, ranging from hostels to high end hotels, and also in a variety of locations around Cologne. It also has recommendations for different size travelling groups (singles, couples to family groups).

If you are interested, join in at the Expat Bloggers in Germany, be part of the fun.

WEBMU is scheduled to started on the weekend of 22 October 2011, but some items are being planned for the Friday 21 October 2011. Possible options are a shopping trip around the Belgian Quarter, a side trip to Aachen or a visit to Augustusburg and Falkenlust palaces of Brühl.

By the way, WEBMU is Whinny Expat Bloggers Meet Up, well we really get together for a fun time and experience a new city.

Bike ride to work

2011-06-03T22:02:00.001+02:00

I have recently taken to riding my bike to work. Well, it is all together my decision. I recently lost my driver's license in a traffic offense (more about that in another post). Anyway, I live in Leichlingen and I work in Fuhlingen (a town just across the Rhine from Leverkusen).

In Leichlingen, I have noticed that there are many bike path signs. I thought great! but how do I plot a route from home to work or from work to home.

I initially tried to use Google Maps, but that only shows roads suitable for cars. Even so, the map is not that accurate. I mean, the street that I live on doesn't even have the correct name.

After some investigation on the net, I came across the rad route planner.

There is an English version, but I found that the German version has much better features, and also not too bad to work out. Best of all, after you have decided on a route, you can download the path in a variety for format for usages in other applications such as Google Map or your GPS.

Update on WEBUM 2011

2011-05-10T00:41:00.001+02:00

The planning for the 2011 edition of WEBUM is well on the way. Let's do a quick recap on what is already planned.

Place: Cologne

Date: 22nd & 23rd of October 2011

Although the "official" dates are 22nd and 23rd, there will be some events planned for the Friday on the 21st as well.

The current poll is to decide what activity to do on the Friday. On offer we have either

the Augustusburg and Falkenlust palaces of Brühl
the Old Town of Aachen

So if you are a non-local living in Germany and have a blog about anything, consider joining us at WEBUM 2011. More information the expat blogger.

Buying German car insurance

2011-03-24T22:57:00.002+01:00

Our beloved Renault Scenic died unexpectedly. It all started when my wife rang me to see if the car is still OK to drive even though it was making a funny noise when it is braking. Not to tempt fate too much, I check the car into the mechanic. The problem turns out to be three major costly problems, a sensor has malfunction within the braking system, a belt has reached its end of life and needed to be replaced and the car is overdue for its regular service by 10000km. It was going to cost about 3500 € to get the car back on the road.

Given that we originally only paid 5000 € (some say that it was too much already), we opted to trade it in and get a new car.

Well, with a new car, I need to shop around for some insurance for it. The insurance needs to be the full insurance covering liability and comprehensive.

Along the way, I discovered the following things.

There are surcharges if you choose to pay quarterly (3% surcharge) or monthly (5% surcharge). So go annually or half yearly if you can.
Protect your insurance rating. We had a accident during the year and our rating went from a SF 10 to a SF 04. The higher the number, the lower your insurance cost. For us, this is a different of 30%. The rating goes down quickly, but goes up slowly.
Shop around. Using both check24.de and geld.de, we were able to get a comparison of some of the major German insurers. From this comparison, we were able to get a 10% discount from our current insurer's offer.
Internet insurers vs shop front insurers. Those who sell insurances online seems to cost a bit less.
A small car may not be cheaper to insure than a bigger car. Apparently if a lot of young people drives a particular type of car, the cost of insuring it will be higher even though the driver is not consider young any more.

After a few days of insurance shopping, I decided to stick with my current insurer as they can speak a good deal of English. I feel that my German is probably not good enough to deal with the insurers if something goes wrong.

WEBMU 2011 - to be hosted in Cologne

2011-03-20T22:56:00.001+01:00

After 3 weeks of much jockeying and debating among four possible cities, the host city for WEBMU 2011 has been elected. It is Cologne!

The next step is to come up with a range of possible dates and put them up to the vote.

If you haven't heard of WEBMU, it is a meet up for Whiney Expat Bloggers. If you are a blogger and an expat in Germany and want to meet other expat bloggers in Germany, consider joining up to WEBMU and come along.

Formal German language

2011-03-15T23:04:00.001+01:00

Guten Tag!

My formal German language course has just started with some home lessons. The teacher is from Intracultura. We have just gone thru four lessons and have really enjoyed it very much. It makes such a difference when the teacher is able to communicate with you in English while teaching German.

My wife was part of the integration course when we initially entered into Germany and it was hell. Her class conducted in German, and herein lies the fundamental problem. How is she expected to learn German if the instructions are being delivered in German??

We have about 15 more lessons, so hopefully at the end of the lessons, I should be able to hold a very simple conversation with my colleagues. I now know how to tell the time or ask for the time. Small steps...

WEBMU 2011

2011-02-24T23:56:00.001+01:00

WEBMU 2011 is getting some nice discussions happening. The current list of cities are...

-Magdeburg
-Frankfurt
-Cologne
-Aachen
-Cologne
-Münster
-Somewhere in the Ruhrgebiet
-Nuremberg
-Düsseldorf
-Stuttgart
-a smaller town perhaps in the countryside
-someplace Ian can cycle to
-Anywhere
-Berlin

I am rooting for Cologne with the obvious bias, but it guess it will be the activities associated with the event that will make it a winner.

By the way, if you are a blogger and an expat living in Germany, feel free to drop by at WEBMU for a quick discussion, especially if you have a town or a city in mind.

Düsseldorf Rheinturm

2011-02-19T21:51:00.000+01:00

Becoming bankrupt is easier than you think

2011-02-12T15:13:00.001+01:00

The following is a guest post by Caramon Khan of PayPlan.

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Staying in control of your finances can seem like a nightmare at times. Controlling debt can be difficult at the best of times. With a static economy and rising prices many people ignore the problem and hope it will just go away. Beware though, do this and soon you could be facing the slide into bankruptcy. Avoiding bankruptcy and the stigma that goes with it can seem impossible. If you are at the situation where you no longer feel in control, take action. Putting together a debt management plan is a major and necessary part of that action

First of all admit there is a problem. Pretending that there are no problems in the face of mounting interest and charges is a perfect way to drop into bankruptcy without even realising it. Once you face up to your debt problems the issue of bankruptcy and the likelihood will become clear. Secondly, admit that you cannot keep control; there is no shame in that. If you do not, then the problem will just get worse. Too many people try to borrow their way out, thinking it is the answer. But, the debt will not magically go away. Last of all seek professional advice. Sit down with a debt professional and you will start benefiting straight away. If you feel confident enough, you can use a computer to make your own debt management plan. Although, if you have debt problems, then a professional will have more experience and authority when dealing with creditors.

What will a debt management company do and what is the benefit of a debt management plan? For a start you can get free initial advice and consultation. They will look objectively at your debt problems and see how dangerous they are. Next and most importantly your consultant will draw up a solid plan to manage your debt. This is vital, to allow him to approach your creditors and persuade them to join the plan. He will try to hold or freeze debts you have. Stopping interest and other charges is a massive step as it stops the 'snowball' effect on your debts.

A debt management plan will show the true extent of the debt problems. That clarity is quite sobering and a big wake up call. Seeing how close you might have been to bankruptcy shows how easy it is to lose control. But, it will also have your new month to month budgets so that you take control of your finances again. This will exactly lay out your new spend in detail. It will cut back on unnecessary items to allow a payment each month into your debts. The plan will usually aim to pay off your debts within three to five years.

Learning how to monitor and control debt, whether business or personnel is vital. Bankruptcy is not a fun experience as anyone who has gone through it will testify. A debt management plan is a sensible and practical way to relieve the burden and stabilise your life before it is too late.

Sold our house.

2011-02-10T23:49:00.000+01:00

When we shifted to Germany, we had plans to service the mortgage by a combination of rental income and international money transfer from Germany. The house was rented essentially the day we flew out of Australia. This was a very good start. The exchange rate was about 0.65EUR to the aussie dollar. At that time, it was quite feasible for this arrangement to work quite well.

That was in the middle of 2009 when the GFC was in full swing. Fast forward to the end of 2011. The tenants have shifted out to buy their own house, and the exchange rate is at all time time for the aussie dollar at around 0.76EUR. This made is quite difficult for us to keep servicing the mortgage. When we fixed interest rate on our mortgage, we made a simple mistake. It was not the fixing of the interest rate as that was on the increase. It the length of time. We fixed it for four years and it was way too long.

The only that we could really do and be able to sustain some sense of normal life in Germany is to sell the house in Australia. Contribution to that decision are a couple of positives.

Firstly, the housing market is still going strong in Melbourne so we will be getting a bit of profit. We have own the house for about four years, and over that four years, we have made about $30K. It is not spectacular, but it is welcomed.

Secondly, we avoid the hassle of managing the house from Germany. Even though we have an agent looking after the house in Australia, there are still a lot things that concern us. For example, we had to worry about how the marketing is going to get the new tenants, any damage to the house when the previous tenants shifted out etc.

When the house finally got sold, the deadly Queensland flood cause the settlement date to be delayed. The bank that the purchaser used were based in Brisbane and the floods caused the bank's system to be shutdown. I felt pretty bad that I had to impose a penalty on the purchaser as the delay was an "act of god", but I am sure that their bank will pay for the penalty at the end of the day.

A small introduction to the CGT.

2010-12-13T22:15:00.000+01:00

After leaving in Germany for close to 18 months, we have put our house in Australia on the market and just sold our house in Australia. A couple of things stood out for me. One is how fast our house actually got sold, and secondly, CGT is a minefield!

From when we made the decision to put on the market to when we have signed contract, it took about 2 weeks. It is the quickest sale of a house that I have been involved it. The previous house sale that I was apart of took an average of about 4 weeks to sell. Now we have to wait for the banks and the lawyers to sort out the details and finalise the sale. We have opted for a 30 day settlement.

Now, CGT or Capital Gains Tax is a crazy thing, but I guess that it is the same with any tax law. For our situation where we have lived in the house for sometime before renting it out, we will be liable to have part of the profit subjected to taxation. Essentially, we can proportion the profit to the rental period over the time which we have the house in our possession. In our case, the house was being rented for about 40% of the time we owned it, so only 40% of the profit is subject to CGT. The CGT portion is further discounted by 50% before it becomes part of your taxable income assessment. That is the simple version. There are other rulings that you can use to help minimise the liability. I may need to talk to a tax accountant.

Stereotypical

2010-10-12T12:06:00.001+02:00

After reading a great post over a Cheeseburgers and Sauerkraut about being, among other things, feeling stereotyped, I felt it struck a core with me.

After living in Germany for about 14 months, I must be quite lucky to have any stereotypes thrown at me. For one thing, the Australian culture does not a profile as high as that of an American or an Britain. Furthermore, I don't physically look like a stereotypical Australian.

In some ways, I stereotype the Germans more than the Germans stereotype me.

Liege, Belgium

2010-10-06T00:42:00.000+02:00

My family wanted to get away for the weekend. As it was only for the weekend, we don't want to drive too long to reach it. After doing a quick search, we settled on visiting Liege, Belgium. It is about one and half hours drive from home, and the drive is almost all on the autobahn, so it is perfect.

The one thing that strikes me about Liege is the industrial nature of it. The general colour of the city is grey and black. Not too many green or blue. I also were quite taken back by ambience of the town, the people of the town are a bit on the depress side. Maybe I am more accustomed to the higher levels of living in Germany.

I have heard that food, more specifically food from the restaurant or cafe, are a bit more expensive than Germany. We had lunch at a local cafe in town, and it costed about 33€. Lunch consists of a three servings of open sandwiches for everyone, coffees for my wife and I, and a slice of cake. I would have expected to pay about 25€ back in Germany. Having said that, I must say that the sandwiches were absolutely delicious. The children also eat all of their sandwiches as well. The Belgians really do know how to do pastry food.

The October fun fair started the weekend we arrived, actually our weekend apartment is across the road from the fun fair. It is one of the largest in the region, with about 150 stalls. Our kids were a little bit too young for the majority of the attractions, they were mainly targeted towards to young adults. However, the lights and the sounds captured their imagination.

The usual suspects were at the fair, the carnival food of hamburgers and pommes frittes, the many bright lights and loud music, and the abundant spruikers tempting you to part with your money.

There were a new fair ride that I have not seen before. It is basic and looks quite terrifying. You sit in a open capsule, and the capsule is located at the end of a swing arm. There is also another open capsule at the other of the swing arm which can also hold passengers. When the ride goes, the swing spins in a vertical axis, very, very fast. It claims that it is pulling 4G as it swings around. For the spectators, they can safely stand under the downward swing of the arm. I tell you that it can get quite scary for spectators as well.

On the Sunday, it was a trip to La Batte for the Sunday Market. It was one of the largest market that I have ever been too. It is located on the La Batte on the Meuse River. We heard that parking is hell, so the we walked to it. It was only about 15mins from where we are staying.

There is quite a large variety of things to be bought, for eating, for wearing, for admiring, for listening and for drinking. I love the noise that a market generates. We also saw a monkey in a pram!

The main language spoke in Liege is French, and this is true for the market. We were not confident enough in our French to negotiate prices on some of the items.

The market is big! The market walk stretches for at least 3km!

We bought some lovely ham, local cheese and some local sour dough bread, and had lunch at the after the market visit. It was delicious.

In the afternoon, the drive home was easy and relaxed. We are definitely looking on our next visit to Liege.

Freecycle and the Germans

2010-09-07T22:26:00.000+02:00

When we were living in Australia, Freecycle was extremely popular. We would actively participate by offering our stuff that we don't use anymore, and receiving stuff from others. There were plenty of other participants in Freecycle.

Now that we are living in Germany, we also want to participate in the local version of it. However, it doesn't seem to be as popular as the Australian versions. The stats from the Cologne version of freecycle shows that only a small number of traffic.

The equivalent group in Frankston, Australia shows almost an order of magnitude more as the following screen capture shows.

I don't have any ideas why there is such a disparity between the two Freecycle groups. I do have a feeling that most of it may have to do with cultural differences.

In most part of Australia, there isn't a stigma of receiving or using second hand items. That stigma does appear to be present in Germany, especially among the locals. However, among the expat community, the sharing of used items are more prevelant. Having said that, Freecycle is not popular among expats as the language is German rather than English. The expat tends to use forums such as Toytown Germany or English Speaking clubs / community such as AIWCC or English Speaking Cologne.

All around town, I see many hard rubbish items sitting on the kerbside waiting to be picked up. Most of these items are is reasonable condition and would definitely be usable in someone's house. For a country that exercise plenty of recycling, and being environmentally friendly, I am really surprise that it does participate more in Freecycle.

Perhaps, it could just a case that I don't know where to look. Any suggestions?

Foto Friday....Köln Balloon Festival

2010-08-26T21:15:00.000+02:00

Köln balloon festival at the RhineEnergieStadion. It was spectacular.

There's a Better Way: Saving on Food as a University Student

2010-08-11T22:14:00.006+02:00

The following is a guest post from Jena Ellis.

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While this may not be particularly true of university students in Europe, the stereotype of the American collegiate scholar is one who drinks cheap beer--more like water--and eats Ramen noodles, perhaps the cheapest microwaveable meal available. There is also the legend of the "Freshman Fifteen", which constitutes the alleged fifteen pounds a first-year student is supposed to gain as she navigates the world for the first time without mummy and daddy.

As someone who graduated from university not too long ago, I can attest to the fact that these stereotypes are by and large true. I myself ballooned a little over fifteen pounds, and my friends did the same if not more. Of course, a lot of these weight gain travails can be associated with drinking heavily for the first time, or even the stress induced by having to set your own study schedule without the structure imposed at home.

But there's one culprit to university student weight gain on which I'm going to focus--and that's cheap food. We all, of course want to save money. And saving money is a prime mode of activity for college students. Whatever is cheapest, whether its food, alcohol, textbooks, or clothing, we'll go for that first. And this is a great thing. Unfortunately, in the case of food especially, cheap food tends to be of low quality and low flavor.

Take Ramen Noodles for example. Can't get any cheaper than that. But the problem with Ramen is that its taste is very one-dimensional. What's more, it's really quite terrible for you. While Cheap as Chips has suggested to get off your lazy butt and learn to cook (wise advice, I may add), sometimes, for whatever reason, working on those culinary skills is inconvenient as a student. So what then?

My advice--what really turned things around for me during those college years of no money and junk food--is being a little bit smarter and more selective at the grocery store. For one, go to the smallest grocery store you can find, because the more options you have at a Mega Store type of environment, the more likely it is that you'll buy things you don't need.

Another thing to avoid is big brand name college staples. I'd often resort to Ramen Noodles, frozen pizza, Mac 'n Cheese, and other commonly known frozen or nonperishable food items simply because that's what I heard university students eat. If you do a little more searching, you can find things that are just as cheap but are a whole lot healthier for you. Most importantly of all, they have flavor.

Flavor is a huge component of consuming food that satisfies you. If you eat flavorless food, you'll want to eat more of it. And the more you eat the more weight you'll gain. One place I looked is in the ethnic food aisles. Japanese, Indian, you name it, tends to have more flavor than your standard, quick prep fare.

In the end, it can't be emphasized enough--check the labels for nutrition content, and check the prices. You'll be surprised by what flavorful bargains you can find if you just do some searching.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Jena Ellis, who writes on the topics of Online Certificate Courses. She welcomes your questions and comments at her email: jena.ellis20@gmail.com.

When will I be fluent in German?

2010-08-10T00:05:00.001+02:00

I have had the two opportunities to change to language context that my brain is living in. The first time was when my parents shifted the family from Singapore to Australia. From a language perspective, I went from a multi language location to a singular language location, a place where the primary language is Mandarin to a place where the primary language is English.

In recent time, I relocated with my wife and our two kids from Australia to Germany. Both locations are dominated by a single language, however as you can appreciate, the language are quite different. I guess that I am little bit lucky as the German and English have the same heritage.

Both experiences are quite similar, except I was only about 10 years old when I shifted to Australia. Now that I have just pass 40, I am find that the relocation to Germany to be a bit more difficult. As a child, I was able to absorb the new language a lot faster and be able to use the new found langauge faster. I also believe that as a child, I did not have the pressure to acquire the new language and to use it. The pressures of getting it right is significant greater now that I am an adult.

I tried to listen to news on German Radio and found that I am constantly translating the small snippets of words that I recognised into England so that I can get a gist of what the news story was about. This is increasing frustrating and I was never fast enough. Only when I can listen and not understand it without initially performing a translation will I be truly fluent.

I would love to hear your stories or experiences on living in a new country where the primary language is not native to you.

Getting access to cash while travelling

2010-08-07T22:53:00.002+02:00

It is the middle of the summer holiday travelling season in Europe. The freeways are close to capacity as everyone gets on to road to their holiday destination.

I have just returned from England on a summer holiday. It was a great trip, and the family really loved it. It all went smoothly except for one thing, I miscalculated our access to cash. There were a couple of causes for these, I forgot to bring or remember the PIN for our international ATM cards (very seldom used at home) and did not withdraw enough cash before departing. When we discovered this, the family was not very happy.

We tried to get cash from a Bureau de Change in London via my credit card, but I didn't have enough identification. I usually would provide my German driver's license as my identification as I don't possess an ID card. The Bureau de Change did not accept this as it does not have expiry date on it. My only other alternative form of identification is my passport, which I did not bring along (who would be stupid enough to take their passport with them on a visiting trip into London! It could easily be stolen or lost.)

Furthermore, the Bureau de Change informed that they would a whopping 12% surcharge for using my credit card! At the time, I was getting a bit frustrated and would have taken the hit on the high surcharge. Not being able to do much, we only visited places in London or purchased items that would accept credit card. Luckily, shops and tourist attractions are more likely to accept credit card than in Germany.

The next day when we visited Southend, I visited a travel agent with a Bureau de Change. I also made sure that I had my passport with me. When I ask them if I could purchase some British pounds, they said no. They said that there was a law against directly purchasing cash with credit card in England. I wasn't an expert so I accepted their decision. However, we came across the idea that I purchase some traveller's cheques in British pounds and then immediately cash them in at the same spot. It was a sensational idea as it allowed access to cash. After the lovely lady at the Bureau de Change check my identification and the necessary transaction, I walked out of the travel agent with some British pounds in my hands. The family was happy and we went to the beach for some lovely fish and chips.

Furthermore, the overheads for the traveller's cheques were quite low. It was a lot lower than the 12% surcharge. The travellers cheque cost 3% per 100 pounds to issue and the same amount to cash them.

I have learned some lessons from this trip. Always make sure that I have enough cash in the domination of the country I am visiting, before I depart. At least, make sure that I understand the methods for access to cash.

Celebrating Sommerfest

2010-07-04T23:26:00.001+02:00

Summer has arrived in Germany with a mighty force. Yesterday, the temperature reached a top of 37degC, and it was the same the past 3 or 4 days. The afternoon thunderstorm that arrived yesterday was an extremely welcomed relieve to the high heat and high humidity.

One of the things that my family have noticed since we have been in Germany is how active the Kindergarten are in doing extracurricular activities with the children. It was not something that we experienced or heard about when we were living in Australia.

Yesterday, the Sommerfest at our eldest's Kindergarten was held. As Germany is doing quite well in the Football World Cup 2010, his group decide to paint a German flag on a white T-Shirt for everyone of his classmates and use them for a uniform. It was fantastic! All the parents that attended contributed either a dish for lunch, or something for desert. Some parents also provided drinks as well. The food was excellent.

During the course of the day, there were plenty of activities to keep the children entertained and stimulated. The whole day started at 11am and due to be completed by 2pm, but it could have easily continued until about 5pm. The children were enjoying the day so much, especially that they were enjoying the day with their parents.

The only time when I saw some tears were from the children when they didn't want to go home. They were have too much fun and excitement.

My family and I also enjoyed it very much.

Tupperware English

2010-06-21T21:34:00.000+02:00

Just want let everyone know that my wife has started her Tupperware career. She has a website/blog to help her along.
Check it out at tupperware-english.blogspot.com

She will be doing Tupperware parties in English, so it will great for the English speakers of the NRW region.

If you wish to book a party, or just curious on what it is all about, send her an email on tupperware.english@gmail.com or call her on 0173 7378709.

Converting an Australian driver's license to a German driver's license.

2010-05-04T21:51:00.002+02:00

When I shifted to Germany with my family, one of the many things that needs to be converted are the driver's licenses for my wife and I. Initially, I suspect that it would have been a simple swap over. However, given that there are many, many different differences between the Australian driving laws and German driving laws, the reality is that I had to go through many tests before obtaining the German license.

To initiate the conversion process, I had to register at my local town hall that I want to convert my license. This is where I struck my first problem. My local town hall does not have a representative of the department that handles driver's license, and the department is located at the district town hall, which is about 35mins away. This caused some delays as all the documents had to be send to the district town hall to be processed.

I was under the impression that the original documents that I have shown to the local town hall is good enough for the district town hall as I assumed that both town halls has the same authorities . This is my second mistake. The I kept receiving letters back from the district town hall requesting for my originals to be shown. This caused several trips to the district town hall.

The type of documentation that was requested does not appear to make sense. One of the documents that they requested was some documentary evidence that I lived in Australia for 185 days or longer. At the time, they were after a certificate from an Australian authority that I lived in Australia for 185 days, and guess what, there is not such thing in Australia. Unlike some parts of the world, there is no need to register your place of residence at the town hall. The closest documentation that I could provide are my utility bills over a 185 day period with my Australian address on it. They seem to be happy with that.

As part of the conversion process, I need to complete a first aid emergency course (conducted only in German, of which I can hardly understand), and to pass an eye test. I also need to select a driving school for some driving lessons and assistance with the driving test. The driving tests are part theoretical and practical. The theoretical tests can be done in English or German but the practical test must be done in German. I am actually glad that I went through the process of studying for the theoretical tests as it introduced me to the many different road rules here in Germany, especially the 'priority' rules.

I almost completed the whole conversion process when I received news that Germany and Australia have agree to do a simple swap of the driving licenses. This website has more information.

The Australian driver's license is rather strange as the authority of issuing the driver's license is at the state level, not at the federal level. However, German's license is issued at a federal level. A simple swap would have to be on an Australian state vs German basis. As I was holding a full driver's license from Victoria, I am eligible to convert my license to a full German license. Yippee!!!

As a lesson learned from one of my earlier mistakes, I went to the district town hall instead of my local town hall, armed with a print out of the website, to change my license over. After paying them some more money, I got a provisional license. It is provisional as the actual license is being prepared. As I was saying thanks to the officer that served me, I saw a driver's license with my photo on it. I asked if I could have that license instead. The officer told me that if I completed through the whole process of passing the tests, I would have got this license. However, as I am now doing a simple swap, I will be getting a different license. I don't know what the differences are, or if there will be any restrictions.

Anyway, I am now a happy driver on the German roads!

Asperger's syndrome resources

2010-03-29T16:03:00.004+02:00

This a list of resources that I have found as resources for my family and I during our investigation about Asperger's syndrome. I will continue to add to it as I find more resources.

Definition
Wikipedia - Asperger's syndrome - Wikipedia has a definition of what Asperger's syndrome is. It
Wikipedia - Hans Asperger - An wikipedia entry for Hans Asperger who started the work into the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome.

Books
The complete guide to Asperger's syndrome - This was the book that started us off on the investigation of Asperger's syndrome. The language that Tony Attword uses is pretty easy to read, and he appears to avoid using many medical terms and phrases so the reader can spend the time understanding the texts.

Video
Sue Larkey - Part 1 - first part in the lecture that Sue gave at a seminar for education children. It is highly informative and education for someone to start understanding Asperger's syndrome, especially in a school situation. This is a youtube link, and it should suggest the other parts of the Sue Larkey's lecture.

Internet Forum
Aspergersinfo.com - A internet forum where parents of Asperger's syndrome children and adult Asperger's discusses anything to do with Asperger's. Free registration is required. It has a helpful section for talking about children with Asperger's syndrome and practical tips on how to react to them.
Toytown German thread - An discussion thread on a expats internet forum discussion how to deal to a child that shows signs of Asperger's syndrome or autism in Germany.

Websites
Tony Attwod - The author of the book "The complete guide to Asperger's Syndrome".
Sue Larkey - Great website with plenty of resources links to books and information.
Aspergerssyndrome.org - A great online resouce for aspergers and autism, but requires a fee to participate in some of the website's activities.

Guest Post: 5 Ideas for a Frugal back to School Season

2010-02-19T22:41:00.002+01:00

Thank you for Fred who has kindly provided a guest post. I hope that you enjoy it.

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5 Ideas for a Frugal back to School Season

Raising children can be an expensive business and there are plenty of business out there ready to charge you your entire savings fund just to kit out your kids in books and uniforms. However, if you plan your back to school shopping a little more carefully this school season, you can frugally find everything you need with plenty of change to spare.

1 Seek out second hand uniforms

Since you have children you know just how fast they can grow, especially during their school years. Therefore, you can find some very good quality uniforms with very little wear at second hand uniform shops. Your school may have their own second hand uniform shop or you may look through the school newsletter or local noticeboards for parents wishing to sell on their now undersized uniforms. Plus, because your children are likely to grow out of their new-second-hand uniforms before they add much wear you can get back a lot of your uniform costs by selling them on again to new parents.

Also, if you have more than one child try and send them to the same school so that you can save even more by recycling the school uniforms within your own family. A hand-me-down school uniform is going to be in the same good quality as a second hand uniform and you don’t have to search through the second hand stores, or pay for the second hand uniform at all.

2 Shop at home

Before you head out to the stationery stores check what you have at home, and what can be salvaged from the previous year. For example, you probably don’t need to buy a new backpack or pencil case at the start of every new school year and there are likely to be pencil sharpeners and staplers which have a bit more school life left in them – these are some of the most expensive back to school items you’re going to need so look for these first.

Once you’ve checked what your child has left from last year, have a look around the house for anything else they need. It could be a spare calculator your child can use at school, or a nice binder or notepad they were given for Christmas which can be used for one of their classes.

3 Compare prices

Your letterbox will be clogged with back to school specials and stationery catalogues at this time of the year, so take the time to see which store has the specials on the items you need. Also don’t worry that the paper is on special at one store and the pens at another because you don’t have to get everything from one store – that is how the stores build their business, by getting you in with a special and getting you to buy up big on the items which aren’t on special. To save you even more time and money, do your back to school shopping at a store which will price match so you can get everything in one place, for the best prices in town.

4 Make a list and stick to it

If you’re taking your children shopping to help with back to school supplies then you can easily blow your frugal back to school budget with ‘I want, I want, I want’. Instead, make a detailed list of the things you need for each child and the amount, often you can buy ten pens cheaper than you can buy five and if you’re organised you only need to make one trip and can save on fuel and time costs too.

If your child does want a school item which is not on the list (of course they will!) budget for one extra item and have them pay for anything else they want themselves. Alternatively have them pay for the upgrade from the affordable white binder to the one with the flowers printed on it to teach them the difference between needs and wants, and what their wants really cost them.

5 DIY school supplies

You’ll probably notice the difference between the white binder and the prettier coloured one too and if you don’t want to upgrade all of your child’s school supplies at the store – no matter how much pocket money they are willing to contribute – personalise their school supplies when you get home. old wrapping paper or a cheap packet of stickers can decorate books, binders, pencils and pencil cases and be covered in a clear layer of plastic or contact for protection. Leftover stickers can be used for future art projects and your child now has a personalised back to school set, and has learnt the value of their savings, and the satisfaction of making something from scratch instead of just buying it already made.

Fred Schebesta writes for an Australian

Credit Card Comparison website Credit Card Finder helping to find credit cards.

Ciak diary

2010-01-15T22:09:00.003+01:00

The new year has arrived and many new things will have to be started. One of them is a new diary. Oh, I could hop onto the Moleskine bandwagon, but I don't really understand what is so good about them.

I ask my wife to get me a diary as she was going to be in town, and she came back with a red diary, and I must say I am starting to really like it.

The diary is made in Italy,and it is handmade. Yes, Handmade in Italy as it says on the back of the diary. The cover is made of leather and is bounded around the outside in one sheet. It gives a nice soft feeling when I carry it about. There is a book tassel that you can use to mark the current page. One problem with have a leather bound like Ciak is that the diary cannot be opened flat. Some pressure will need to be pressed onto the diary if all the area on the page is to be used.

It a simple diary that has an elastic band that is locked into position via couple of notches on the cover. This simple mechanism is patent protected. As he elastic band is quite tight, it snugly holds a pen within the diary. The soft cover also allows the diary to mold itself onto the

There is a nice review of a Ciak notebook over at Black Cover, and it claims that it has a much higher quality that the Moleskines. Although I haven't used Moleskines before, the Ciak does give it a nice luxurious feel.

Firstly, the Ciak that I got is a planner rather than a notebook, as my purpose for it is planning, and taking notes. As I open the cover, the first page has four lines, allowing for your immediate particulars to be noted down. The rest of the diary are broken down into the usual bits of information such as a world map with time zone information, a calendar for 2009 and 2011, holidays for the major western countries etc. The majority of the planner arranged into a day of the year.

On each of the day page is simply laid out. On the top outside corner is the date number, and the day of the week. The body of the page are lined and are comfortably spaced a part. These lines are prefixed on the right hand side with some times of the day. On the bottom of page the week number is displayed. The way it is organised, each page provides plenty of space for numerous notes to be take, and events to be planned. It does not cramp the page with information that I don't really need. It is left up to me on how I want to use the page, but still has all the essential information on it.

Towards the end of the diary is about twenty pages with an alphabet index on the edge of the paper. This section can be use to store phone numbers or addresses.

I have used the Ciak diary since the start of the year, and I am starting to really like it. I augment the diary with postnotes to mark pages that contain frequently used information.

Ciak diary home page is http://www.ciak.fi.it

Development Teams across cultural boundaries

2009-12-10T22:59:00.001+01:00

I have been part of many development teams from all over the world. As I migrated from team to team, I see the good mix of experiences and background that each team member contributes to the team. Apart from contribute to the team in technical manner, they also contribute to the team from a personal perspective. The current team that I am working on has 10 different nationalities. As I am being expose to people from different cultural backgrounds, my personal growth advanced a bit more.

Lets hold that thought for a moment and think if a team will work better or worse if each of the team member is from a similar cultural background. I mean, would the team stand a higher chance of delivering the project successfully? would the team deliver a project on time?

I really don't have a clear answer for this. From my observations and from events from the world at large, the evidence points to a NO answer.

Imagine a development team where the team members have been together for more than 25 years, speaks the same dialect of the language and graduated from the same University. Would such a team work?

Hack girls?

2009-11-05T21:39:00.002+01:00

I just came across a story on Hack a Day where Yahoo hired some strippers for their Hack event in Taiwan just recently. Judging from the quick manner which an apology got posted and the response from, it sounds like Yahoo made an unpopular decision by hiring these strippers.

Is this just an over-reaction? Perhaps it is the environment that it is in. I have been to many trade shows and conferences, Cebit, E3, etc. and guess what, the booth hosts are they because 1) they look good and 2) by looking good, they attract people to the booths to talk about the products. They even use the same techniques on webpages, have you ever noticed that when you click onto the technical support page, they usually is a picture of a hot looking girl/guy smiling holding a phone.

Do get me wrong, I don't like the exploitation of women and events like the Hack is absolutely not the correct occasions for this.

I reckon the guys leaving the Hack will be yelling out Yahoo! OK, lets move on....

The cost of setting up to live in an another country

2009-10-30T22:17:00.001+01:00

Relocating is always a significant event in anyone's life. It is ever more so if the relocation is to another continent. We recently start our relocation from Melbourne, Australia to Leichlingen, Germany. We are still in the relocating process, but are getting close to finalising it all.

The cost of the relocating is extremely astounding. Before we actually shifted, I did a budget on what I envisage we would needed to spend for the shift to be successful. Needless to say, I totally underestimate it. Some of the assumptions that I made during the formulation of the budget proved to be totally false.

The following are the major ticket items that we have encountered during the relocation.

Cost of renting a house. In Germany, the cost of renting a house is much, much higher than in Australia. The cost can be divided into two catergories, administrative and constructive. Overall, I estimate that it has cost close to about $20,000.

For the administrative, you will need to be paying for the real estate agent's commission (2 x monthly rent), the security bond (3 x monthly rent), the rent (1 month in advance). For a typical house, this is a total of about 6500 EUR.

For the constructive side, the houses in Germany is usually bare and it need to be kitted out with lighting and a kitchen. Yes, I mean the kitchen. This could easily cost up to 2000 to 3000 EUR.

Cost of transport. We managed to get a car, an old car but driveable and suitable for the family for about 5000 EUR. However, it is the incidental cost that caught us out. This includes the conversion of our Australian driving license to a German driving license, (1000 EUR for my wife and mine), the car taxes (400EUR for my diesel car), the insurance (400 EUR per year) and registrating it in the your town (100 EUR). It is certainly not cheap to own a car in Germany.

Cost of appropriate clothing. The winter in Germany is totally different to the winter in Melbourne. For the kids, they will need to "upgrade" their winter clothing. The clothing includes their shoes, coats and jackets, thermal underwears, hats and beanies, gloves and mittens, and the list goes on and on.

I think that we were fortunate that our relocation occurs in European summer. It just means that we can delay the cost of the appropriate clothing until the winter time.

Returning...

2009-10-29T00:07:00.000+01:00

I have decided to restart this blog as I starting to feel the need to write. However, I have evolve this blog from a personal fianance blog to something that I can write about anything. I guess time will allow it bias it towards a certain theme.

In the meantime, I hope that you will join me on this ride...

I'm going for a spell....

2009-01-15T12:17:00.003+01:00

It has been blast and now my time that I have available for writing articles for this blog is getting smaller and smaller. I am having too much fun with the kids and my wife. So I am taking a spell, or a break from writing any more articles.

I have a few thankyou to say before I close off.

For those who reads this cheaps as chips regularly, I thank you for readership.

For those who subscribes to cheap-as-chips via RSS or email, thank you for subscribing.

I hope that all that have ever read this blog has gain something out of it.

See you at another time in the future.

Hooray!! Cheap fuel!!!

2008-12-01T13:13:00.002+01:00

Well, cheaper than a few weeks ago when the cost of petrol was about 150 cents per litre.

I pulled up to my local petrol station to get some petrol into the car, and I had a feeling that I haven't felt in a few years. It was like an old friend visiting and saying "Hello, I haven't see you a while. I hope that I can stay for a few months."

My service station was selling petrol at 102 cents per litre. This is the cheapest petrol I have purchased in the last few years.

Actually, there is not much point to this article except that strange deja vu feeling of living in an era where petrol was less than a dollar a litre. Hooray for cheap fuel!!.

Now where is that jerry can....

Talk About Debt

2008-12-01T12:58:00.002+01:00

I recently received an email from Matt, the editor of TalkAboutDebt, bringing my attention to a UK based website call www.TalkAboutDebt.co.uk. I like the title as it encourage people who are in the debt to start talking about their problems. So I had a better look at it.

TalkAboutDebt is run by a group of bloggers who have, in the past, been in debt and are able to provide some dialogue about their debt experience.

It is good to talk about your problems as it allow the problems to be acknowledge and then for it to be tackled. TalkAboutDebt provides a forum, in their "Questions and Answers" page, which your debt problems can be discussed. By using the forum for the discussions, your anonymity is retained.

The thing to watch out for with TalkAboutDebt is that the advice provide is generally only useful for UK based debt.

It has a page where it lists a range of companies that are able to provide you with profession advice on getting out of debt. Most of the companies feature provide a free financial planning service to help you get out debt.

As with most information on the internet, beware of the information that you received, and double check it against another source. However, from what I can read information on TalkAboutDebt, it appears to be sensible and logical.

In summary, TalkAboutDebt provides another source of information, however, just beaware of the information that you received or read on it.

Fixing our interest rate - a retrospective

2008-11-11T13:47:00.003+01:00

Back in February this year, we fixed our home loan interest rate for the the next four years. Now that we are coming up to the one year anniversary, and falling interest rate. It is interesting to find out if we have made the correct decision.

One of the things that fixed interest rate gave us was a peace of mind. Like the many mums and dads out there, I don't really have a clue on which way the interest rate is going. At the time when we fixed the interest rate, it was on the way up. Looking back on it, it pretty much hit the top and is starting to plateau. However, we missed about two interest rate increases. Furthermore, the fixed interest rate gave my wife and I a peace of mind and some certainty on what our monthly mortgage payment is going to.

Now that interest rates are on their way down, we are considering re-negotiating a new loan. However, among the fees that the new loan will incur is an re-establishment fee, which will be about $600 to $700 and mortgage insurance if the new loan amount is more than 80% of the loan (a few thousand dollars). A calculation will need to be made to determine how much will be save and the saving will begin when the fees are taken into account.

During the reconsideration of the new loan, we are not going to limit ourself to our current bank. Perhaps we should consult a mortgage broker to see if they can secure a loan with a low cost.

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Interest rate fixed

Movember 2008

2008-10-31T12:59:00.003+01:00

Hi All,

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'm growing a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about tackling men's health issues and being proactive in the fight against men's depression and prostate cancer.

To donate to my Mo you can either:

Click this link and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account

Write a cheque payable to 'Movember Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1608361 and mailing it to:

Movember Foundation
PO Box 292
Prahran VIC 3181

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative. The PCFA and beyondblue will use the funds to fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and depression.

Did you know:

Depression affects 1 in 6 men....most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who will die from breast cancer annually.

Imagine if one of these men could be your father, your brother or your son.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the details at Fund Raising Outcomes.

Movember culminates at the end of month Gala Partés. If you would like to be part of this great night you'll need to purchase a ticket. The ticket can be purchased at Gala Tickets.

Thanks for your support.

More information is available at http://www.movember.com/.
Remember to make your online donation via this link: Donation

Movember is proudly grown by Holden and Schick.
Movember is proud partners with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative.

Where to go for the freebies?

2008-07-27T14:51:00.001+02:00

What could be better than getting something for free? I would certainly would want it, but where do you find all these free things? Doing a Google search with the keyword freebie brings up 7.9million hits.I have come cross three place that. Some of the hits only provide links to promotions like "get a Free iPod if you click on this advert, and then only if you and then of your fiends sign up for an online survey and ....blah blah..", I think you know what I mean.

Having said that, I have three sites that are has quite reliable information about freebies, what to do and where to go etc.

The Freebies Blog - This is my favourite in getting what is going for free. What I like about it is that it also has pictures of the freebies received.
BuckScoop Forum - BuckScoop has a forum for freebies. This is good as it is a forum and many users would provide feedback on how good the freebie is. This Crispy Creme freebie is a good one, stirs out the patriotic blood. :-)
Whirlpool Forum - Whirlpool also has a forum of freebies. Similar to the BuckScoop foum, it has reader feedback, however it does not appear to as active as BuckScoop's forum.

The two forum sites are mainly focused on Australian Freebies, while The Freebies Blog are mainly Australian and American.

Does anyone else know anymore of these sites?

The twin's mums just lost an unreasonable case.

2008-07-24T09:36:00.000+02:00

A few months ago, I wrote an article about the parents of an IVF twins suing their obstetrician for implanting two embryos instead of one, causing a set of twins to be born.

Well, the case has been settled in favour of the defendant. This article from The Age has some details on the case.

Apart from the ridiculous amount money being sued for, the following quote stunned me.

"The court was told the twins' birth mother had lost her capacity to love and the couple's relationship suffered as they became mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children."

Having read this, I get the feeling that this set of parents have lost (or perhaps, never gained) the notion of being parents. Not only have the mums blessed with children via the amazing IVF program, they have twice the amount of enjoyment with the twins.

I am not saying that having twins is an easy job. I have a young toddler myself and I can imagine that a pair of twins will be even harder, but as a parent, I will never lose the love for my son.

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High fuel price costs jobs

2008-07-22T15:30:00.003+02:00

About two weeks ago, when I was waiting for my car to be serviced, I had an interesting conversation with the mechanic at the car dealership. It goes something like this.

me: "Did see the price of petrol today? It is getting pretty high."

mechanic: "When I drove in to work this morning, I saw about $1.70 per litre."

me: "I hope that it goes down a little in the next few weeks"

mechanic: "Well, I think the damage is already done. Some of my mates had to quit their jobs because the petrol prices are too high."

me: "Really?!?"

mechanic: "Yeah. They had to travel about an hour to work, and the cost of petrol is around $125 per week. They just couldn't afford it."

At that point, I start the feel how lucky I am to be working about 5 minutes drive from home. In a city like Melbourne where the suburban sprawl of extremely wide, it is quite common for workers to travel for more than two hours each day between home and work. The lack of public transport to service the widening suburban sprawl does not help these people.

The mechanic went on to say that his friends would have got more money in their pockets if they went on the dole, or unemployment benefit, however they manage to find similar jobs closer to home.

If I was in a similar situation, I probably would have seriously consider this option as well. In the current economic climate, having enough money to provide for your family the number one priority.

What would you have done in a similar situation?

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The real cost of that hamburger, movie, or kid

2008-07-22T14:33:00.001+02:00

Welcome to a guest writer, Aaron Stroud, who blogs On Financial Success. He provides plenty of down-to-earth writing around personal finance. Many thanks to Aaron for the guest post.

What do burgers, kids, and movies have in common? They all involve opportunity costs.

When you buy a burger, you can't use that money to rent a movie, pay down debt, or invest. And when you sit down to watch a movie, you've traded your time and money for two hours of entertainment.

Sometimes a movie is the best use of your time and money, but that's time you can't spend reading or walking in the park.

These alternatives–the missed opportunity to read, walk, pay down debt, or to invest–are the opportunity costs of picking one option over another.

So how much does a $2 hamburger really cost? Well, over the next 25 years you're missing out on:

$65 if you carry credit card debt at 15%
$9 in saved interest on a 200k mortgage at 7%
$34 in missed retirement savings if you earned 12%

Perhaps it is worth rethinking your options before ordering that hamburger!

Oh, and the costs of children? Costs vary from family to family, but one thing is for sure—children are expensive. Fortunately they pay dividends superior to any stock.

Aaron Stroud shares reliable, easily followed steps to build wealth at On Financial Success. Subscribe to his feed to follow along or ask a question to direct the conversation.

Would you use a fuel price monitoring service?

2008-07-17T13:24:00.002+02:00

With the fuel prices almost reaching the $2 per litre mark, I am always looking for different ways to spend as less as possible when I am filling up the car. One of this ways was to exploit the volatility of fuel cycle. Sometimes, I believe that the fuel cycle is manufactured to keep the illusion that the poor driver is getting a bargain at the bowser, (I am probably too cynical).

Fuel watch was a program that was first used in Western Australia with varying degree of success. It was introduced in 2001, so its effect on the local fuel prices would be well understood if it was to be introduced for the test of the country. Fuel watch was to provide the drivers to make an informed decision on when and where to get the next load of fuel.

An article in WA Today today has indicated that fuel price cycle in Western Australia has basically disappeared. It is not conclusive that Fuel Watch was the main reason. If the price cycle is as predictable as it is, what difference would Fuel Watch make?

I believe that fuel cycle will not totally disappears. It's price will still go up and down,following the world oil prices. It just that the fuel prices is not going to be as volatile as it has been. The volatility cycle will probably be measured in weeks rather than days.

Instead of investing money into Fuel Watch for the rest of the country, that money should be invested into more worthwhile projects such as ways of dealing with housing crisis, or getting more people in homes.

What do you think about a monitoring service like Fuel Watch?

CoPF #161 up at The Budgeting Babe.

2008-07-14T15:10:00.002+02:00

The 161st edition of Carnival of Personal Finance has just been hosted by the Budgeting Babe. My entry on the rental crisis was also selected for publication.

Some of the articles that caught my eyes were.

Sallie's Niece on how she spent $900 on Gyros.
Money Ning on adjusting your invesment contribution.
Our Four Pence Worth has some wise advice on splurging on that next purchase.

There are many other great articles at the carnival. Get over there and take a look.

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Watch out for David Rhodes and his crazy chain letter

2008-07-09T15:18:00.001+02:00

About two weeks ago, I received a letter in the mail addressed to "T. Chin", Upon opening it, I discovered it is a letter from David Rhodes. It had a 5cent coin taped to the top corner of the letter. It certainly caught my attention on what it was all about. Having never heard of David Rhodes, I read a bit more. It dawned on me that this is a classic pyramid scheme/chain letter that no one will ever be the winner. Furthermore, this type of activity is illegal and will incur a heavy penalty if found guilty. The Consumer Affairs of Victoria has a nice bulletin of what this chain letter is all about. The fines are more than $24,000! Wikipedia also has a good article on the history of this letter.

Essentially, the chain letter works by having you sending a gift of $10 to the person at the top of a list of 5 people. Of the 200 letters you send out, the person on the top of the list is removed and you placed yourself at the bottom of the list. The person that receives your letter will do just as you have done. You get your $10 when you have reached the top of the list.

That evening, I read it again trying to understand why so many people would be drawn into it and give it ago. Let's have a look at some of the letter characteristics.

The plan itself appears to be extremely plausible for it to work, and the instructions looks thorough enough for it work. It even contain steps on how to fold the letters so that the creases in the folded letter does not mess up any future photocopying by your receiver.
The chain letter contain a calculation of a scenario where it appears to be reasonable and realistic. It used a 3% response rate on letters that you sent out.
The outlay for the participation is about $200. Most people may think that this is not such a large outlay and would be willing to risk to receive the "guaranteed" $70,000 return.
Everyone loves a rags-to-riches story and caused them to think "if it happen to him, it certainly can also happen to me as well." The letter also contain several other rag-to-riches testimonials.

This is the first time that I have ever received such dangerous spam through the post. However, it is only dangerous if I acted upon it. The best thing I can do is take the 5cent coin off the letter and throw the letter into the recycling bin. At least that way, that letter did increase my wealth by giving me 5cent, better than nothing.

By the way, just found the Make Money Fast Hall of Humiliation. Reading the comments, I am amaze on how gullible some people are.

Rental crisis and what you can do to avoid it.

2008-07-07T05:18:00.003+02:00

The ever increasing affordability of housing in Melbourne is causing some grief in the rental market. The landlords may be loving it as there are no shortage of potential tenants. This situation has inflated the rents of properties. I don't believe that the situation is isolated to only Melbourne, the other capital cities are also experiencing similar effects, especially in Perth and Brisbane.

Unfortunately, the rent for a property is almost dictated by how many people wants to live it. In today's rental market, I would not be surprise if the rent is higher than a mortgage's repayment.

In the Frankston area, just a short drive from where I live, the landlords are being opportunistic in trying to extract as much rent as possible. This article from the local paper discusses the sad state of affairs.

So, if you are renting, what you do to help with the rising rent rates.

Move the an area with cheaper rent. Some suburbs has lower rent rates than others for many reasons. If you are happy with the reasons on the lower rent rate, consider moving to these locations.
Negotiate with your landlord. Most land lords are reasonable people, and an attempt with communication with them shows that you are willing to discusses the crisis with them. In most cases, most land loads are happy with a good tenant with a reasonable rent rate than a bad tenant at a high rent rate.
Know your tenant rights. If your land lord is not is reasonable, have a good knowledge of what your rights are. For rentals in the state of Victoria, you can contact the Consumer Affairs for more information. The are similar government bodies in the other states an territories.
Consider purchasing a house. If the rent that you are paying is so high that it almost as high, if not higher, than a mortgage repayment, then consider purchasing a house. In today's market where new house purchases are declining, the developers are extremely accommodating in the terms and conditions. Have a chat with them. Be aware that purchasing a house is not something to be entered into lightly, it is littered with traps and pitfalls.

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Happy New Year

2008-07-01T04:26:00.002+02:00

Happy New Year!

Today is the new day of the new financial year in Australia. For most of Australian businesses and general public, the financial year ends on the 30June, and the new one starts on the 1July.

So what can be expected for this financial year, from my perspective, I can't see as many positives as I can see the negatives. Lets start with the negatives.

The interest rates are expected to rise. My prediction is that mortgage rates will hit 10% by the end of the year. Recent reports of the slowing down in the economy such as spending in retail and housing will probably stop the interest rate from going much further than 10%.
The petrol prices will continue to increase. Even though there was a recent conference among the oil producers to help reduce the cost of oil, I feel that the days of seeing the pricing at around $1.20/ltr are long gone. I expect to see the price of unleaded petrol to hit $2/ltr by the end of the year.
Australian manufacturing industry to slow down dramatically. The current Australian economy is really riding on what the land can provide, more correctly, what the underground can provide in mining. Another industry such as manufacturing, services and farming will probably suffer due to environmental reasons and economic reasons. Personally, I would like to see the manufacturing industry enjoying the same economic boom as the mining industry, I don't think it will happen in the near future.
Due to the on-going drought and increasing fuel pricing, the groceries prices will be increasing.
Our superannuation fund is on its way to give one of the worst return ever. We can blame the US subprime problems for this.

Feel free to shoot me down in flames with these predictions, and I hope that I very wrong with some of these predictions.

A couple of the positives are

The personal tax rates have changed, which means that you should be getting a little bit more in your pocket each payday.
With the increase of petrol, focus on alternative energy are being looked at in a serious way. So hopefully, a commercially viable solution is not too far in the future.

With those predictions, let's try make the best of the new 08/09 financial year by viewing the negatives as problems which solutions are to be created for, especially on a personal finance level.

Quick post towards the end of Apr08

2008-04-23T15:13:00.002+02:00

I haven't been keeping up with one of my goals for 2008, that is to post at least articles per week on this blog. There are many things to talk about, like the inflation rate has just hit 4% today, the level of mortgage stress is at a record high and how the fixing our interest rate is working out for us.

Things on the family front and work front have been extremely busy. My wife is about half way through carrying our second child, and project deadlines are looming at work!

Hopefully, I will get back to regular posting sooner than later. However, if any one wishes to do any guest posts, drop me an email via tehn.yit.chin@gmail.com

CoPF #147 - Q1 financial advice edition

2008-04-08T15:24:00.001+02:00

Carnival of Personal Finance #147 is up at MoneyNing. Many great articles, some of the ones that caught my eye were...

Wide Open Wallet - The pawn shop are thriving. This article gave a scary thought of pawning items that are financed. I guess when folks are desperate, crazy things are done to get money.
You might as well burning $5! - The $37 Latte. This a great article on keep track of you finances.
On Financial Success - Can we afford college? A good range of tips on how to go about getting a university/college fund ready for your kids.

My recent article on you are only worth at market value was also included. Many thanks to MonyNing. Happy reading!

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Did Earth Hour 2008 really work?

2008-04-04T15:18:00.001+02:00

Well, Earth Hour 2008 came and went last weekend. I even wrote an article about it. Unfortunately, I was not able to participate in it as our 2 year old was caught the croup a few days previously and needed some attention.

How did it go for you? Even though I was not able to participate in it, it has made me more aware of the my usage of electricity. This also goes for the other resources such as water, gas and food. So Earth Hour wasn't just one hour for me, it is going to be an effort for me to apply it to my day-to-day living.

The one thing that got me beat is the amount of energy used to increased the profile of the event, to create the infrastructure to support the event and to celebrate the event.

Earth Hour's blog has figures quoting a reduction of 264MWatts in Toronto, Canada but it hosted huge public music/party for the event. It also has figures about Bangkok, Thailand saving 73.34MWatts.

I can't help but think that if we all just stayed at home and turned off the lights, it would have been an even more significant savings. A cynical person would think that many people got into the spirit of Earth Hour because it is the in-thing to do for the environment. Think about it, imagine the public music event in Toronto, what kind of infrastructure is necessary to support it, and the energy consumption of that infrastructure.

Am I just a bit too cynical about this type of events?

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CoPF #146 - Online Broker Tip edition

2008-04-01T13:58:00.002+02:00

The 146th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance is up over at Stock Trading To Go. I was fortunate enough for my post on revisiting my superannuation to be included among the many fine articles.

A selection of the articles are:

Dreaming of Ferraris - Personal Benefit of Savings
Blunt Money - The high cost of inertia
The personal financier - How to make sure that this is your dream home: 7 Practical tips
Smart Easy Money - If you build it, they will come
Mommy gets paid - Friends and Money

These are only a small selection of the many articles being hosted. Go and check them out.

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You are only worth at market value

2008-03-30T12:26:00.002+02:00

Back in 2002, my wife and I went into semi-retirement. Well, more really like putting our working lives on hold and recharging our personal life. Since graduated from university in 1992, I have never had an extended period of holiday or even a time to reflect on my life and where I want to head towards.

At the start of 2002, I told my boss that I am resigning my position, I told my family that I am selling the house going traveling around Australia in a caravan. Their reaction was a bit of disbelief and telling us that we are quite mad.

So we sold the house in Feb 2002, paid all our debts and put any remainder into a term deposit.

We reached Brisbane after six months of a traveling up the east coast of Australia from Melbourne. I started to look for a job and ended up with an offer of a job that I thought would paid a bit more. They offer me $45K, and I rejected their offer. That is one of the biggest mistake that I have ever made!

I rejected their offer because I believe that I am worth more than the offer, and my mistake is that assumption. The reality of what I am worth is that I am only worth as much as the job market is willing to pay for my services.

You may be the the most talented engineer in the country that is worth $150K, but if the hiring companies can only pay $50K, that is all you are worth.

What do you do if you think you are worth more? Well, the following may be worth attempting.

Wait for the job market to evolve. The job market may change so that your position is worth more, but are you able to wait that long?
Move to another city where the job market is willing to pay more. Many people do this, think of how many country folks come to the city for the bigger salary.
Switch profession. If a different job market pays more, consider switching. However, the time it takes to reach the equivalent career level may take a few more years, and then the job market may change again!

We finally returned to our working lives when our travels brought us to Adelaide and I got a position to work in Singapore for three months. My wife enjoyed it very much, and I enjoyed the food very much as well ;-)

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The rules of buying

2008-03-28T13:46:00.002+01:00

My pair of shoes are just about to die, it was then that I realised that the last time I bought some shoes was back in 2003! I haven't even bought a pair of cheap sandals for the beach since 2003.

There are quite a few reasons why that is, but I believe that the main is that I purchase high quality and robust shoes.The last three pair of shoes that I bought were Birkenstock shoes. These shoes are build to last! These shoes are not the cheapest nor are they the most expensive. However, I believe is spending that little bit more to ensure that I get good value for money.

Applying this concept to other products, such as kitchen appliances, clothing and other house hold items, have allow us to not purchase many high price. However, with many of the electrical products emerging from China and India, their quality are questionable.

So my rules are

Buy the best that you can afford. Everyone has a budget on what they can afford, so buy the best that you afford. Some of the best quality products are not even the more expensive products.
Know what makes it a good quality product. For example, a good pair of shoes that last a long time has real leather uppers and eyelets that doesn't cut the laces. For high price items, I would spend a few weeks researching on the product. The car that we purchased, we spend six months researching it.
Dare to be different. Not purchasing the same product as everybody else allows you to choose from a larger range of products, however do the research on why the popular products are popular. They might actually be of good quality.
Talk to the experts. The majority of the items that we purchased, we have no idea on what qualities we should be focusing on? Is the fit of a shoe, or how breathable the upper that is the most important. I have no idea, so I talk to a few of our friends whom have worn Birkenstocks before.
Make sure that it has a good support system. If the product does need to be repaired, it is supported by a good warranty return system with a quick repair time. Is the warranty period reasonable?

What are some your rules when it comes to buying?

Photo credit: sundeip arora
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Earth Hour 2008

2008-03-27T12:21:00.003+01:00

Earth Hour began in 31 March 2007 in the Australian city of Sydney at 8pm to 9pm. The idea is for as many people as possible to stop using electricity for one hour, such as turning off their lights or switch their appliances at the power point, for one hour.

The effect was startling. For that one hour, it reduced the power consumption in the City of Sydney by 10.2%! That is only in one city. In 2008, Earth Hour is going global!

29 March 2008 8pm - 9pm is Earth Hour 2008.

Earth Hour 2007 showed us the following.

It shows how much energy is being wasted. The majority of the time, we just leave a light switch on because we can't be bother to switch it off. Just switch off when you are not using it. I usually leave my computer on at work when I leave my desk at the end of the day. I need to make a conscious effort to switch it off when I leave, especially over the weekends.
Stand-by power is really wasteful. Stand-by power is when the appliances are still be left on when you 'switch it off'. For example, when you switch off the TV, it is still being powered up. The TV is still powered up to do things like being able to be switched on via the remote control, or remember its last settings. To really switch it off, flick the switch at the power point.
Wasting energy is also wasting money. If you like wasting energy, then you must like throwing money into the bin as well. The effect to your wallet is just the same. Don't do it!

Please consider support this. You don't really have to register to join in. Just switch off the power on the 29 March 2008 at 8pm, and consider doing it every week. It will make a difference.

Earth Hour is supported by WWF, (no, not the wrestling guys, these are the panda guys!).

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superannuation revisited

2008-03-24T13:09:00.001+01:00

I have just received my annual statement for my superannuation fund and it has triggered some rethink on my superannuation strategy. The downturn in the stock market this year have probably put many superannuation funds in a similar position. Lets start by looking at some of the figures that has caused me to do the rethink.

Account balance change: 7.12% on the opening balance
Return on Investment: -2.58% of closing balance
Management Fee: 16% of contribution

Looking at each of these figures in turn.

Account balance change: This represents the raw change in my account balance. A positive figure here is an absolute must as it indicates that I haven't lost all of the my contributions to the falling investments, fees etc.

Return on investment: I was expecting this figure to be a negative value. We can look across the Pacific Ocean towards the American economy. I actually thought this figure would be a lot worse, I expected it to be around -5% to -7.5%. I was quite relieve to see this figure of -2.58%.

Management Fee: This is how much I am paying my super fund to management my account. Now 16% of my contribution goes off my superannuation's wallet. When I did the calculation and realised what I am paying, I was pretty upset. This figure is what actually drove me to investigate other superannuation fund and how I can maximise the investment.

At end of my calculation, it came down to the following strategy.

Lowest fee structure. Two reasons here, firstly minimising fees is one of the very few items about the superannuation fund that can be influence so make it as effective as possible, secondly, I want to maximise the magic of compounding interest.
Online access. My current superannuation fund does not allow online access. So its performance can not be analysed in a timely manner.
Good insurance policy. Most superannuation has an insurance component, we need to ensure that the policy is suitable and covers all the family members.

What are some of yours?

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Lowest taxable income in metropolitan Melbourne

2008-03-19T13:37:00.001+01:00

The Australian Tax Office has just released some tax statistics for the 2005-2006. Although the data is a few years old, it makes for interesting reading, in particular the data on personal tax.

One of the statistics that I noticed was that Frankston North has one of the lowest mean taxable income at $33,638 for each taxable resident.

We lived in Frankston North for about two years, just before we shifted to our current location. I must say that during our time in Frankston North, we can sense that the place is not a wealthy suburb, but from talking to our neighbour and the other Frankston North residents, the ambiance certainly does not give it that sense.

Living in such a low income area does have its concerns. We saw a lot of the typical events that you would expect to see. For example, we witnessed a police car chase in a residential street, regular thieving and stealing at the local shopping centres, and the occasional violence. We were always on our toes, trying to keep as safe and secure as possible.

Having said that, I am totally convinced that the majority of Frankston North residents are everyday people trying to make ends meet. I wonder if how long before Frankston North begin to move up the scale, if it ever will?

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How to keep cool in a heat wave.

2008-03-18T12:37:00.001+01:00

Today is the first day where the night time temperature has dropped below 25 degC. The last few days in Melbourne has the day time temperatures in the high 30s. I think it peaked at around 40 degC yesterday. The nights have been quite unpleasant.

Apart from giving more money to the utility company by using the electricity to run the air conditioner or the fan, I was trying to think of what we can do to keep ourselves cool, in a frugal manner. These measures need to be immediate effect, so things like checking that the insulation in the roof is adequate is out of the question as it cost too much and it doesn't happen overnight.

A visit to the beach - When the sun has gone down, visiting the beach to lap up the evening sea breeze has to be one of the best way and cheapest way of cooling down, not to mention the evening sunset is always nice to look at.
Closing all the blinds on the sun side of the house, and opening the windows on the shadow side of the house - This was the effect of shielding the direct heat source (the sun) from heating up the house. The open windows will allow any cool air from shadowed side to enter the house.
Drink plenty of fluid - Keeping the body hydrate also allows the you sweat. As the moisture evaporates from your skin, it has a cooling effect.
Wear light clothing - This is a obvious one. Allow the the body to expend as much heat as possible by not insulating it with any thick clothing.
Avoid drinking coffee - Caffeinated drinks like coffee dehydrate the body (this could be a myth, as by googling was able to provide a conclusive answer)
Visit the local shopping centre - The local shopping centre is usually air condifiioned. The kids can played at the local indoor play ground. However, be careful not to be tempted by the shops around!
Visit the local library - The library is also usually conditioned. The books and activities are also educational and functional as well.

What else would you do during the many days of high heat? I would love to hear anyone from Adelaide where it recently endure 15 days of temperature of 35 degC or more. It peaked at 40.5 degC.

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To be sure at the CoPF, to be sure...

2008-03-18T10:56:00.001+01:00

I could almost brew a keg of green beer after being included in the St. Patrick's edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance #144 over at beingfrugal.net. Lynnae did a fantastic job collating all the blog posts and hosting them.

Some of my favourites are

Know The Ledge - 10 ways to find more money. I especially like the wise and 'fun' advice in tip#10.
The Dough Roller - 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards: The 10 Commandments of Responsible Borrowing.
Online Savings Blog - How to Get a Raise at Your Job

Thanks to Lynnae for including my post on How will my financials change when No.2 arrives.

Other than those articles mentioned, there are plenty more quality articles at the carnival.

If you are a PF blogger, consider submitting an article into the carnival at Carnival of Personal Finance.

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Carnival of Personal Finance #140 - Prison Break Edition

The upside of rising interest rates.

2008-03-12T13:07:00.001+01:00

While I was doing some on-line banking the other night, I thought I looked at what the interest rate is on our BankWest account. It paid 7%, which I thought was pretty good. Hmm, I better check out their other products. Their rates on their personal accounts makes interest reading. Here are some highlights

Kids bonus saver account - 10%
Regular saver account - 9%
Children savings account - 6%

10% is an amazing interest rate. This account has bonus interest rates associated with it, but it has some conditions. $25 - $250 needs to be deposited on a monthly basis, and no withdrawal is allow. If either of these two conditions are broken, the interest rates drops to 0.01%. Oh, this account must be linked to a Bankwest Children Savings Account as well.

My home bank, ANZ, also has similar interest rates for their saving accounts, although not as impressive. Some ANZ's highlights are

ANZ Online Call Account - 7.75% for balances of $2000+
ANZ Youth Account - 4.50%

While I was looking through ANZ's interest rates, I noticed that the interest rate on their 4-year interest rate for home loans has increased to a whopping 9.4%. Their home loan variable rate has gone past double digits to 10.7%. Ouch! I think that we were very lucky to lock our interest rate when we did.

The interest rates in Australia has been consecutively increased since the first increase on 8 May 2002. The current cash rate as set by the RBA is 7.25%, starting from a low 4.25% in 5 Dec 2001. While I wish that interest rate would be on a downward trend, I am also glad that the banking folks also provide a balance by increasing their saving accounts, sort of.

photo credit: svilen murad
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First PPP post

2008-03-11T12:40:00.008+01:00

This is my first sponsored PayPerPost post. After looking through the list of opportunities available to me, this is the only one available. What I like about it is that it doesn't mind if the post has a positive comments or negative comments.

So what this post is about is tell the world that I have signed up for PPP, what my initial thoughts were, what I am going to do with the money etc.

Well, the one thing that I like about it is that there are opportunities available that allows negative comments as well as positive comments. I would prefer these opportunities rather than the ones that are specifically looking for positive comments.

The other thing I am surprised about the opportunities is the sponsored prices. There are some opportunities worth more than $100, however these opportunities are only available to blogs with high google page ranking.

The things that I don't really like about PPP is that depending how you write it, the articles could look like paid advertisements. This is definitely not something that I want to head towards. (one of the reasons why I am only going for opportunities that allow negative comments). I also want to write the articles in such manner that it does not detract the current readership.

It also has a blog for those who wants to keep up with what is going on behind the scenes at payperpost.

What am I going to do with the money? We I am going to use it to pay for those annoying weekend surcharges at the local ice-cream stores. (thanks Andy :-).

So far, it is too early to tell if PPP will work out for me, however, even though it is sponsored, I won't let it get in the way of an unbiased opinion.

Be careful of the public holiday surcharge!

2008-03-10T13:05:00.001+01:00

Today was the Labour day holiday in Melbourne, and the Melbourne Motor Show was on as well. So this morning, when we decided on to do, we decided to visit the motor show and spend the day in the city. The weather was nice, and warm. My son had a terrific day at the motor show, he wanted to jump into every car he saw and drive it away! He has a great imagination for a two year old.

To finish the day, we bought some ice-cream. When I am paying for it, I fail to notice the sign indicating that a 10% surcharge is applicable because of the public holiday at this ice cream shop. At first I was a bit annoyed that I did not notice this sign, but paid for the ice cream and enjoyed it with my family along the Yarra River. I also noticed that not all the shops are applying the public holiday surcharge.

Later today, I thought about it a bit more, I realised what really annoyed me was that the sign on the ice cream store also state that the surcharge is also applicable on weekends as well. I have a real problem with the fact that the cost of an ice cream is cheaper on weekday that it is on a weekend. I wonder how many other ice cream or side street business operate this way?

In the future, I am going to be more wary of the what I am really paying for, in particular of the surcharges. By the way, if the surcharges are not displayed, the shop could be applying the surcharges in an illegal manner.

I have just been accepted by PPP

2008-03-09T03:27:00.001+01:00

Just got an email that I was accepted by PPP. I recently blogged that I was rejected by PPP for some superficial reasons. I was stumped and was about to give up investigating it more. The next few days, Andy from Finance Viewpoint left the following comment.

PPP does work, sometimes it takes a while. Install the tools they say and re-apply after a week.

I am an Aussie blogger and here is a referral link others have used to sign-up : http://tinyurl.com/2995wq

I have 2 blogs on this program and it earns me about $30 p/month. Have to be careful with the sponsored posts as most of the advertisers are American.

I thought, what the heck, I just spent a small amount of time and do what Andy suggested. Lo and behold, I received an email from the PPP that my blog has been accepted a few days ago. The only thing that I changed was to install the tools.

I guess my next step is to decide which items I want to write about. Stay posted.

By the way, you are welcome to use Andy's referral or my referral, http://tinyurl.com/2bxo7b

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I have just been rejected by PPP.

Public Housing and the homeless

2008-03-06T13:16:00.002+01:00

My recent participation in the CoPF #142, which has a homeless theme, has caused me to think about what kind of homes are available for the homeless.

To me, homeless means a few thing, but it boils down to not having a place where my family and I can feel safe and secure. The difficulty is obtaining that place, either buying or renting a house. The rental market in Melbourne is red hot, and the affordability of buying a house is at record low.

The Victorian government tries to ease the situation by provide public housing. Public housing is not free housing. Essentially, it is houses that are the Victorian government rents out the public. The differences between public housing and private housing is the criteria which the house are rented.

If you want to rent a house privately, prove to your landlord that you can afford to pay the rent, and not damage the property while you are renting, and the property is yours. The rental rate is set by the landlord. The rental market is so competitive that I have heard of landlord auctioning off the leases.

With public housing, you will need to meet the following criteria to be on the waiting list for a suitable housing to be available. According to this pdf document, there are close to 35,000 people on the list!

not exceed the current general public housing income and asset eligibility limits.
live in Victoria.
not own or part own a house, unit or flat.
have Australian citizenship or permanent residency status.
repay any money that you still owe from a previous public housing tenancy or Bond Loan.

If your situation is extreme, you can be apply for early housing where, if suitable housing is available, your application will have a higher priority. These situation includes recurring homelessness, supported housing and special housing needs.

The key thing is that the rent rate is set at either market rate or rebated rate, whichever one is lower. Market rate is the going rate for a similar property in the private rental market. Rebated rate is calculated at 25% of the combined household income.

The Victorian Government's Office of Housing has a great website that has a lot of detail information.

My closest experience with homeless was when I sold up and went traveling around Australia about 5 years ago. I know that what I did was not even 5% of what a homeless person would experience because being homeless is not just a physical thing, it is also a mental state and also an emotional state. As I traveled around the country, I met many others in makeshift shelters, transient accommodations and hostels. It provided me with an opportunity allow me to talk and to get an indication of their lives. In some ways, I feel encouraged that they are able to survive on a day-to-day basis, given their extreme conditions. On the other hand, I also felt angry and disappointed that in this country that we are not able to do more for the homeless.

Photo credit: Piotr Ciuchta
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Homeless at the carnival
Would you miss a meal to pay your rent?

Homeless at the carnival.

2008-03-04T13:26:00.001+01:00

CoPF #142 is up over at The Bag Lady. The bag lady chose a very tough theme, the homeless.

Some of my childhood was spent growing up in Malaysia. Back then, Malaysia was a third world country pretending to be a country in the same company as Australia or England, pseudo wealthy. One of the most striking images while I was growing up was seeing the many homeless people on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Typically, when my parents drove through the city at night on our way home from the market, I would frequently see many people bedding down to sleep in cardboard boxes as their makeshift homes. I would also see many people begging in the streets, searching for food among the street rubbish bins or trying to keep dry during the monsoonal rain storms. Those images has certainly stayed with me for many years, and always reminded how fortunate I am to have the life that I am living.

Some picks from the among the many good articles from the carnival are:

Canadian Dream asks How Can A Person be 'Debt Free' with a 300K mortgage? I sort of agree with this article, but only if the discussion is limited to mortgages. There is such a thing as good debt, just ask any business starting up.

DebtBeater talks about his moment of truth in My Financial Epiphany. It is a great article and reminds us of a time when we thought that things will never go bad.

The Digerati Life gives some wise warnings in They Want To Make Money Fast.

A big thanks to The Bag Lady for including my discussion article on Would you miss a meal to pay your rent?

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Carnival of Personal Finance #140 - Prison Break Edition

How will my financials change when No.2 arrives?

2008-03-01T13:06:00.003+01:00

Preparation for your first child is not a task to be take lightly. Amount the physical needs of the child, their emotional needs as well as their financial needs must be catered for.

Is the preparation for the second or the third child any different from the first child? Trent at the The Simple Dollar has some nice advice on how to prepare for the second arrival in a frugal manner.

For one thing, the on-going family expenses will be increasing. Therefore, planning on to the deal the change is key. Apart from the obvious items such as the medical bills, clothing etc, it is worthwhile to investigate the other part of your life that will need to be change and how much that will cost to change it.

If your car is not of the right size, you may need a purchase a larger car. It is also true that the current house you are in may not be larger house enough.
One of the parents being a full-time home maker. This will affect the household income. Being a full time home maker is a very personal decision, but sometimes the key reason may be due to financial reasoning. EG, unable to afford to put that many child in child care.
The work hours of the bread winner may have to be reduced to give more support to the full time home maker.
Increase in your life or income protection insurance, this usually means an increase in the insurance premiums. I believe that this particularly important as the number of family members has increased and the new addition's welfare must be looked after.
Ensure that your emergency fund is changed to ensure that it covers the new arrivals.

Photo credit: Joe Zlomek
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Educational opportunities, class mobility and nomadic chinese

What are you really saving for?

Carnival of Personal Finance #140 - Prison Break Edition

2008-02-27T13:30:00.001+01:00

Oops, it appears I totally forgot that the Carnival of Personal Finance #140 went up over at The Financial Blogger

Some of my picks are

Move-to-Portugal is talking about Re-mortgaging

The Great Money Challenge provides the top 10 things to he does to save money

Finance Blog gives a list of 10 Financial products to avoid.

I was fortunate enough for The Financial Blogger to include my update on fixing the home loan interest rate.

Share your support and visit The Financial Blogger for more fantastic PF articles.

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Carnival of Personal Finance, #139 - Valentine's edition
Carnival of Personal Finance, #121

Would you miss a meal to pay your rent?

2008-02-25T13:35:00.002+01:00

The Age newspaper reported that some people are forgoing some of life necessities to pay their rent, in some extreme case, missing meals.

Missing meals is pretty extreme, and I am the first person to admit that for some people, the situation is extreme and it does call for sacrifices such as missing meals. I am very fortunate that I am not in that situation.

However, I try to imagine myself in an extreme situation such as that, and imagine what I would do. Firstly, determine if I am actually in trouble.

I would draw up a very detail map of where our spending is. Currently, we have a pretty good idea of where our money are going but we don't have a precise knowledge of where they are. By having a very precise view, we are counting the very last cent and accounting for its spending. The tools to accomplish an notebook to take a note of all your spending, and strict discipline to ensure that a log of the spending is kept. Every cent has to be accounted for!
From the detail plan, I would classify which of the spending are "must have", "should have" and "nice to have". Food, rental and utility bills falls into "must have". Newspaper and the morning coffee at Gloria Jeans are "nice to have".
Evaluate the items in the "must have" to ensure that it is actually a "must have".
Work out what income we have to pay for the "must have" expenses.
If the income coming in does not cover the expenses, we are in deep trouble.

Once we have establish that we are in trouble, we need a plan. Perhaps the following would work.

Inform the creditors that we are having problem paying the bills as early as possible, and attempt to negotiate a better deal. This is a definite must for the creditors providing the "must have" products and services.
Inform the family that there are going to be some tough time ahead, and prepare themselves for the tough times. However, tell them that there is a plan in place and I am committed to meeting the plan.
Looking into supplementing the current income, probably with a second job.
Over the recovery period, keep evaluating the items under the "must have". If the items ever get classified as a "should have" or a "nice to have", we are going to stop doing it.
The most important part, have a time frame which you can get out of trouble. An open ended plan is difficult to achieve as there isn't any targets to aim for.

At the end of the day, I can not begin to even appreciate the situations some of the families are going through and coming to a decision that they are going to miss a meals here and there.

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What to tell the kids if your family is in financial hardship?

20th Teddy Bear's Picnic

2008-02-21T12:06:00.002+01:00

If you from the Frankston area, or are thinking about visiting the Mornington Peninsula this Sunday, consider visiting the 20th annual Teddy Bear's Picnic. It is conducted by the Frankston Toy Library. The library service is something my family uses quite a bit and wholesomely support. It is a great day, and your kids will guarantee to have a great day.

The details of the picnic is

Date: Sunday, 24 February, from 11:00am-4:00pm
Location: Frankston's George Pentland Botanic Gardens, corner Foot and Williams
Cost: Entry is $2.50 each with children under 18 months free
Map: here

If you wish to give some support to the wonderful services that the Frankston Toy Library has provided for over 30 years, consider attending the picnic.

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Frankston Toy Library, a wonderful service

Interest rate fixed

2008-02-20T13:30:00.001+01:00

Today was day where a load just came off my shoulders. We made a decision to fix our home loan interest rates for four years.

The way we see it, over that four years, we know exactly what our repayments are going to be and we will also be protected against the any interest rate increases. However, we will also miss out on any interest rate decreases as well, but with the current economic situation, I don't think that interest will be returning to the 5% mark in the short term.

The current interest rate of our current home loan is 8.42% and the fix interest rate what we should be on is 8.54%. This small increase of 0.12% is certain to be smaller than any interest rate increase that the RBA is going to impose.

We also decided to stay with the same bank as changing banks will incurred too much renegotiation fees. By breaking our current mortgage and going to another bank, we are essentially borrowing on another home loan to pay off our current home loan. Some of the major renegotiation fees components are:

Mortgage insurance as we will be borrowing more than 80% of the value of the property. - a couple of thousand dollars
Establishing fee with the new bank - usually about $700
Legals - $200
Contract breaking penalty with the old bank - about $700

We estimate that it would cost at least $3000 in fees.

By staying with the same bank and switching our home loan from its current terms and conditions to a fix interest home loan, we only had to pay a renegotiation fee of $200. The only part of the loan that change is interest rate. The term of the loan did not change.

I read today that RBA was actually considering that this month's interest rate should be increasing by 50 basis points instead of the 25 basis points. With news like that, I shall sleep a lot better now that our home loan interest rates are fixed.

I have just been rejected by PPP.

2008-02-19T12:54:00.004+01:00

After reading how krystalatwork is back on the PPP bandwagon, and how PPP is working out for her. I thought I sign up and give it a go. It seems like a good opportunity to write a couple of articles and earn some money doing it. So I signed up via krystalatwork's referral.

PPP is PayPerPost. I essentially write a sponsored post about the sponsor's product.

Well, my blog was rejected. At first, I was rather disappointed, so I read the reject letter. This is what it had to say.

In order to be accepted to the PPP Marketplace, you blog must be at least 30 days old with 10 pre-existing posts written within those 30 days.

My first article on the blog was on the 16 April 2007. Since then, it has an average of 11 articles per month. Jan and Feb has seen 21 articles so far.

In addition, your posts must be dated and your blog must be written in clear, understandable english with a readily available and easily navigated chronological archives.

All of my post are dated as it is the standard blogger behavior. I believe that the english that I use is clear enough. The archives are also standard blogger behaviour, displayed in an easy manner.

Blogs must be made up primarily of posts that are at least 3-5 sentences of original content. We do not accept blogs with non-original content, blogs that have content primarily reposted from other sources such as recipes, jokes, poems, song lyrics or product reviews , vlogs, listing directories, blogs kept solely for pay, or blogs with mature content or excessive foul language.

My blog could be in breach of this as I do share the link love around, however I doubt if my blog is consistently doing the link or repost of non-original material.

Although your blog isn't eligible for the Marketplace opportunities, you can still receive offers directly from advertisers by installing the PPP Tools and PPP Direct badge on your blog.

I guess I should be grateful for this opportunity.

I get the feeling that because my blog does not have high traffic, they have restricted the marketplace opportunities from me.

In someways, PPP may not be the right direction to go on this anyway as it may show bias on the products, can anyone say "cash for comment?"

photo credit: Martyna Adamczyk

Link building meme....

2008-02-19T11:54:00.002+01:00

I just got tagged in a link building meme Diet Debter.

Simple but strangely addictive. I tagged 5 randomly chosen blogs, write an article about it. If you are one of the five that I tagged, I hope that you shall on-tagged five more randomly chosen blogs, writing an article, and so on and so on. I think you get the idea.

However, in your article you have to include all the links here and add to the five blogs that you were part of.

The Strategist Notebook ~ Link Addiction ~ Ardour of the Heart ~ When Life Becomes a Book ~ The Malaysian Life ~ Yogatta.com ~ What goes under the sun ~ Roshidan's Cyber Station ~ Sasha says ~ Arts of Physics ~ And the legend lives ~ My View, My Life ~ A Simple Life ~ Juliana RW ~ Mom Knows Everything ~ Beth & Cory's Mom ~ A Mind Forever Voyaging~ enjoying the ride ~ Jennifer's thoughts ~ Mom of 3 Girls ~ Amanda ~ Don't Make Me Get The Flying Monkeys ~ ExPat Mom ~ Just Jessie ~ Wilson Six ~Krisitn ~ Nuttier Than You ~ Shonnte ~ Summer's Nook ~ Laura Williams Musings ~ Melissa's Idea Garden ~ Confessions of an Everyday Housewife ~ Blah Blah Blog ~ Stop the Ride! ~Soap, Blings & Girly Things ~ It's All for the Best ~ Keeping Feet ~ Junky Love in Freehand ~ Getting Out of Debt ~ Free From Broke ~ Money Matters ~ Arohan's Investing Life ~ My Investing Blog ~ Finance and Fat ~ Iowahippiechick ~ MakingMoneyJournal ~ Cathlawson.com ~ Life Liberty & The Pursuit Of Money ~ Making Cents Of Debt ~ DebtDiet ~ My Journey to Eliminate Debt ~ Ugly Debty ~ Last In Line ~ Give Me Back My Five Bucks ~ Cheap As Chips

I feel like I am part of the chain tag, sort of using something evil for the something good!

All right, I am going to tag the following blogs

Quick hot Sunday night post

2008-02-17T13:21:00.001+01:00

Just a quick sunday night post to give a shout out to Louise at My Journey to Eliminate Debt where she is running a contest to write the winner a kick-ass resume and a job-wining cover letter. (OK, those were my adjectives not Louise's).

So if you are currently looking for a job and have posted on Louise's blog previously, do yourself a favour by reading her excellent Successful Job Application series of articles, and enter her competition.

Don't lock in your rates!

2008-02-14T11:50:00.001+01:00

As I was doing research on whether fixing my home interest rate is a good idea or not, (as in this post and this post), I came across this article on www.domain.com.au which has a 5 point attach on the rising interest rates.

I particularly unimpressed with their point #2, which says.

If you are tempted to lock in your rate - don't; it's too late. The time to fix is when rates are on their way up, not when they have already increased 11 times. While rates may go up once or twice more, by the end of the year slowing global growth on the back of the subprime crisis should force them downwards again. What's more, at the very time borrowers might feel panicked into fixing, banks have been quietly putting up these rates such that for the first time in years the average fix is higher than the variable rate. Cynical indeed.

Those whose finances really couldn't cope with one or two additional rises could consider fixing for a maximum of one year - but lock in for longer and you risk being stuck for years paying more than you need to.

I am truly amaze that it is advising people to not fix their interest rate as it is already too late. For some it may be too late, but rather than just give a blanket advice of not fixing the interest rate for more than one year, it should have provide some advice on doing the calculations to determine if fixing the interest rate is going to work out for you.

It is also pure speculation that the interest rates will increase twice more by the end of the year and it is predicting that the interest rates will be going down again in about a year's time. This goes against the forecast by RBA, as reported by this The Age's article.

For me, if after doing the sums, I am able to save some money or remain status quo, then it is worth while for me. Who knows when the interest rate will be decreasing, and more importantly, how many more increases will the interest go up by?

The other four points are worth considering.

Update on fixing the home loan interest rate

2008-02-13T12:42:00.003+01:00

We visited our bank today to discuss about fixing our home loan interests, and the discussion brought up some interesting points. These items will have to be taken into consideration when deciding if it is worthwhile to switch our home loan. Some of these points are

If we fix all our home loan, we are able to pay extra into our home loan but only up to $5000 per year without being penalised.
If we are to just switch our current home loan from its current package to a standard home loan package, the cost is only $200. However, if we have opted for a split loan where a portion of it is fixed and the other is variable, it will be considered as a new loan and all paperwork will have to be re-submitted. This also means that a new set of fees will be applicable as well, including that bug bear mortgage insurance!
The point which mortgage insurance is needed is based upon the value of your property and the amount of loan. This is important as the value of your property may have change. This may not be applicable for us as our property value has increased since we moved in.
The current fix interest rate is 8.54% and 8.44% (depending upon the term of the loan), which is only 0.02% more than our current home loan interest rate. So if we lock it in now, we will probably not notice any affects on our repayments.
The actual interest rate on your fixed interest rate home loan is the rate at the time of execution of the loan by the bank. What this means is that if the fixed interest rate changes from when you signed the papers to when bank accept and counter signed your signature, the new interest rate will be applicable to your home loan.
Our bank has effectively discontinue our home loan offset account as we need a minimum balance of $5000 for it to be offset against. In some ways, this is like having $5000 earning 8% interest but we don't have $5000 sitting around, so this is not a good option for us. This also caused us to investigate fixing the home loan.
The banks may not change its fixed interest rates as the RBA changes its interest rates. The fixed interest rates are does not enjoy a high profile a such as their variable counterparts, so we don't hear much about it in the media when it changes.

Our next step is to talk to a mortgage broker such as Aussie Home Loans, and see what they have to offer. We have had good service from our current bank in the past, but at this moment and the current economic climate, we have to look at our bottom line and bank loyalty will have to take a back seat. If we have to change bank, we will do it.

In a prequel article to this, Sarah pointed to an article on www.domain.com.au that talks about how the banks plays with the fixed interest rate. Many thanks to Sarah

photo credit: Jan Stastny

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Carnival of Personal Finance, #139 - Valentine's edition

2008-02-12T04:47:00.001+01:00

The CoPF #139 is up and having a jolly good time over at My Dollar Plan. The theme of St. Valentine's Day was nicely worked into the list of great articles as well.

I was fortunate enough that my article on interest free period was chosen.

One Girl's Quest has a nice spin on setting goals and how to work towards reaching the goals.
Chance Favors talks about early termination of mobile phones.
Moolanomy has a great article on how to deal when a goal is missed.

These are my top 3 articles from the compilations, but there many more articles available on a variety of money subjects. Go check it out!

Fixing our home loan interest rate.

2008-02-11T12:51:00.001+01:00

With the RBA increasing its policy interest rate to 7%, and the flow on effect on the major banks increasing their interest rate by 0.30% ( which is 0.05% more than the RBA's increase), it is time for us seriously investigate fixing our home loan rate. As this table of previous rates shows, it has increased eleven times over the last six years. The article in the The Age also predicts that the interest rates is due for an increase on another four future occasions, so we are really preparing ourselves for the worsening conditions.

With the loan package that we are currently on, we are currently enjoying a 0.6% discount on the normal variable interest rate, which is below the current Fix interest rate. however the beauty of a fix interest rate is that it is fixed and won't increase in line with the predicted RBA's increases.

What factors do I need to make sure that switching over to a fix interest rate is the better way to go.

The fee incurred to switch the home loan over to a fix interest rate is smaller than the savings in the interest repayments. I am pretty confident that it will be.
The length of the fix interest loan will need to be carefully considered. If the length of the term is too long, we may miss the drop in th interest rate when it falls down, however i don't this is likely within the next six to seven years. If the length of the term is too short, we risk going into a higher interest rate when we exit the fix loan. We will probably be negotiating for a 3 or 4 year term.
The current fee structure does not change significantly as we quite like it. We get $0 fee on any of our account at our bank, because of the home loan that we have.
We are still able to pay extra into our home loan.

If the interest rate is like to increase another four times, and we are able to stay at the current rate, we are like to save about $200 per month. This is something worth striving/negotiating for.

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Post Sponsor: Looking to refinance your home? The Thrifty Scot can help put you in touch with a qualified broker

My first credit card at 22 years old

2008-02-07T13:26:00.001+01:00

I just read a post over at JosephSangl.com about his first credit card. It caused me to think when I got my first credit card. I think it was just when I graduated university at a ripe old age of 22. It was a Visa card issued by the State Bank of Victoria (it shows how old I am!)

When I got it, the bank must thought I was a high credit risk and put a $500 dollar limit on it. Even with $500, I really thought I have hit the big money! Back then, and as now, $500 at my disposal was a great responsibility. At 22, I was very conscious of how much is being spend on the card, and paid it all at the end of each month. This pattern of usage occurred for next 10 years. I think the ability of paying off every month has caused me to become complacent in recent years. My spending habits was not kept under control and have lost its way.

My credit card limit increased from $500 to a massive $20,500 over those years, and the card status kept increasing. I even managed to be a platinum card holder. It finally maxed out at $20,500 one day and I knew that credit cards are a real problem. Through hard savings and careful budgeting, we have just managed to pay off the credit cards. We have also reduced our credit limit to something more manageable. Having a $20,500 of credit card debt is something I don't ever want again.

Now that I have a son, I wonder when he will apply for his first credit card. Should I give him a secondary credit card with either my wife or I as the primary card holder? This way, we can teach him that it is a privilege to have a credit card. It is a card that is very powerful that can either cause many financial headaches if not used properly or become a very good financial tool if used correctly.

Any thoughts?

Update: I just came across a great guest article at The Digerati Life along similar lines.

Making use of the interest free period

2008-02-05T12:21:00.001+01:00

A number of years ago, when my wife and I are just starting to settle down, we purchased a central heating system into our house. Mainly because the original heating system broke down and was costing us more to continue to use it. Furthermore, it broke down just the start of winter, so we must get something in quickly.

At the time of the purchase, our cash flow situation did not allow us to make a cash purchase. So we entered into a 12 month interest free purchase agreement. It works by having to pay 30% of it in cash, and the 70% is on credit, interest free for 12 months. Over the 12 months, the only overhead is an monthly administration fee charged by the credit company, a flat fee of $2.00.

Initially, I was particularly nervous about this arrangement as it forced us to be discipline with our repayments and we must ensure that we have the money when the repayments are due. The penalties are quite severe if we miss a monthly minimum payment. For example,

overdue fee : $27 to $35
over limit fee: $20 to $30
interest rate: 28.99%

Yep, the interest rate is 28.99%! Once these are incurred, the interest free period is expired.

Our strategy was this...

calculate our monthly repayments by dividing the amount owing by the number of interest free months.
setup an automatic transfer form our bank account to the credit company's account
monthly review to ensure that it is on track to be paid off before the interest free period expires.

In the end, it worked out well as we paid the amount owing before the expiration of the interest free period.

One thing to look out is the month statement from the credit company. The minimum repayment amount in the statement is the minimum repayment amount, which means that if you are only paying the minimum amount, it is highly unlikely that your debt will be paid in full before the interest free period expires. This is why I calculated my own monthly repayment amount.

We study the terms and conditions quite thoroughly before entering into this agreement so a understanding is gain on the penalties.

photo credit: Andrew Beierle

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top 3 referrals

2008-02-03T13:27:00.001+01:00

I have just signed up to Google Analytics, mostly as to see what they are about. My previous way, and very simple way, of analysing any traffic into my blog is via sitemeter, and I initially used sitemeter as a glorify hit counter.

So what has Google Analytics told me. It told me that my top three source of traffic are crazyjimsmith.blogspot.com, eliminate-my-debt.blogspot.com and debtdieter.blogspot.com.

Let's have quick tour of these three sites.

crazyjimsmith.blogspot.com

crazyjimsmith.blogspot.com can best be summed by its by-line on the blog. It quotes...

This blog provides commentary on stocks listed on the ASX, most things to do with investing in the sharemarket, politics, the economy, and anything else that may take my fancy or infuriate me!

This blog has plenty of comment and analysis on various stocks listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Personally, I am not interested in stocks, only as a casual bystander. However, if I was, I would be very active reader and participation of the blog and its accompanying forum.

eliminate-my-debt.blogspot.com

eliminate-my-debt.blogspot.com is a PF blog. The by-line on the blog reads..

My goal is to pay my $152,377 mortgage in 5 years: 30th June 2012. I started this blog to stay motivated and I would love to hear from other pf bloggers out there!

It is certainly provides an insight into an average Australian family on their day-to-day living, particularly from a personal finance perspective. I especially like her articles on money and relationships. Some of her comments are very enlightening.

debtdieter.blogspot.com

debdieter.blogspot.com is a blog about the reduction of a debt, and the juggles of a hectic city lifestyle. The byline of the blog quotes..

Working hard to eliminate $56,722 of consumer debt and become debt free by May 2010...

The series of articles on her work perks are a fantastic read. It definitely shows what, and how work can be used not only to produce an income, but also use to reduce spending. The recent article on work assisted education is a great article, and instigated some thoughts on how my work can assist in my education.

What questions would you ask in a job interview?

2008-01-30T13:50:00.001+01:00

OK, we all have been in job interviews gunning for that dream job, and one of the certain questions that your interviewer will ask you is "Do you have any questions you would like to ask us?". So what do you ask?

If I was looking for a job, not that I am looking for a job, the following would be in my top 5 questions to ask...well, maybe only from a financial perspective anyway.

If there is zero income coming into the business today, how much longer are you able to keep trading before declaring bankruptcy?

By hiring me, how will I help the company's bottom line?

What is the salary ratio between the companies highest paying job and my job?

How will you ensure that my job is secure for the next 2 years?

How high is my welfare on the companies priorities?

These questions are framed from a perspective of job security. One of the worst things that you can do is to join a company that is on a downward slope and you are not in a position to influence it to be come an upward slope. It is like jumping into a sinking ship with a smile...

Most people that I know of go to an job interview to secure an income, so what not ask the questions that would directly affect your personal bottom line.

What are some of your questions?

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GTDing the GTD

2008-01-30T13:06:00.001+01:00

I have been trying to embrace the notion of getting things done (GTD). Although, I don't strictly follow the methods that David Allen's books, there are a number of things that you must do to ensure that it works. This is true no matter what GTD system you are using.

Write down all everything - In your list, make sure that you write everything that you want to do. Be as specific as you can. Writing something like, build a toy for my son, is probably not useful as it is too generic. Something like, build a small swing in the back corner of the yard for my son, is probably something that you can aim at.
Prioritise the task - Attach priority to each task that you have. With the priority, you are associating importance to the task. A task like picking your son up from child care this afternoon is more important than remember to buy the milk on the way home from work.
Read your list everyday - At the start of each day, don't just look at your list. Make sure that you read it, and check if you are able to complete any of it.
Simplify the tasks - If some of the tasks on the list has been there for a more than two weeks, it is a good chance that the task is too complex, consider breaking it down to simpler tasks.
Carry your list with you all the time - Having your todo list with you at all times allow quickly jot down that task whenever it pops into you head. For me, I found that if I don't jot it down immediately, I tend to forget about it and it never gets done.

My current system is the todo application my Palm T3 organiser and Outlook at my work desktop PC. Every morning, I synchronised the todo list with Outlook's tasks. I would spend some minutes in the morning and going through the list, perhaps re-prioritise some tasks or add more tasks. I have found that I am ticking off about 10%-15% of the tasks by the end of the week. This well short on meeting my number 1 goal for 2008, but I am making headway.

By the way, David Allen has published a series of free articles which you can conveniently download and read offline.

Planning our meals

2008-01-27T12:51:00.001+01:00

I have been doing some research on meal planning and its affects on money saving. Several PF bloggers such as Nicole Humphrey over at Families.com and Kris over at Simply Us have been some insightful reasons why meal planning is the way to go if we want to save money.

Back in June 2007, one of the articles that I wrote also advocate the planning of meals. Practicing it is a different story. This is our strategy in an attempt to plan our meals better.

We have a lot of food magazine like Super Food Ideas, Delicious and Good Taste, and frequently try the recipes in them. So our idea is to us a display folders with a few empty inserts. We take a recipe from one of these magazines and placed them into one of the empty inserts. We usually just tear the page out from the magazine.

Each of these recipes are for each weekday. Currently, we are only focusing the evening meals, but we are planning to cook that little bit extra so that the left overs can be use for lunch the next day.

Do you plan your meals, and what strategy do you us to keep it interesting and on track?

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ALDI newsletter

2008-01-24T14:02:00.001+01:00

A few post ago, I wrote about how we are going to give ALDI another go. Recently, we have found that the weekly specials that ALDI have are literally running out the door. On the day of the sales, the weekly specials are sold out within two hours! Apart from receiving the ALDI catalogue in your mailbox, it is difficult to know what the specials are.

Searching through the website, I discovered they can email you their weekly specials in a form of a e-letter. I have signed up, and have began to receive regular emails with the weekly specials. Sign up for the newsletter here if you are interested. You can unsubscribe at the same location as well.

cheap on-line photo printing

2008-01-24T13:08:00.000+01:00

One of the family's favourite past time is to snap away at photos. When the digital camera revolution arrived about 4-5 years ago, the number of photos that we took seem to have tripled. Most of them ending up on the PC, and only a small selection of them ever made on to printed media as we have found that it is quite expensive to print out the photos.

We have tried the two popular options, either printing the photo out ourselves, or using one of a photo kiosks.

Printing the photo has its benefits. It gives me some satisfaction that I have hand crafted a photo worth putting in a album, but it also ends to be about $0.45 per print. We did all the frugal things like cutting up an A4 photo paper in a four A6 paper, and also using non-genuine inks. We have never managed to get below $0.30 per print. We even switched to an Epson printer where each colour has its own cartridge so only the empty cartridge is replaced, not the whole cartridge.

The photo kiosks are quite cheap, but they are rather inconvenient. Our closes photo kiosk is a five minute drive away, and using it frustrates my wife endlessly as it is badly designed. She usually get a couple of of the details wrong and the whole batch is ruin. It is something we try to avoid. The cheapest photo kiosk that we have found cost $0.19 per print.

Recently, one of our friends from our ante-natal classes pointed us to www.getdigital.com.au. For standard 10cm x 15cm, it cost $0.10 per print, and there isn't any minimum quantity! You can order 1 print if you wish. They will usually turn your photos around 1 one working day, definitely in two working days. You also have a choice of picking it up at a shop for a service fee of $2.00 or have it delivered to you for $8.50.

We tried it and send across 67 photos to be printed and be picked up at our local pharmacy. The results were pretty good, definitely good enough for putting into a photo album. It cost a total of $8.70 for 67 prints , sweet!

One word of warning, the website does not appear to be compatible with the Firefox browser. However it works pretty well with Internet Explorer. We discovered this after spending 1 hour uploading the photos!

Using www.getdigital.com.au has certainly help us the printing cost of photos and have saved us many dollars since we have discovered them.

photo credit: V Fouche

Don't Panic!

2008-01-22T13:21:00.001+01:00

The current financial crisis that we are experiencing is quite nerve racking. Today, the All Ords feel by about 7% and all the gains, if not more, made over the last 12 months. Today, it closed at 5222 points, down by 408 points. As reported by The Age, this is the one day biggest drop in the share market in the 18 years, and the longest losing streak since January 1982.

Luckily, it does not really impact me significantly as we only own a small parcel of Telstra shares, which was purchased during the T2 offering. However, the real impact to us would be how our superannuation will be performing. Like many other Australians, some part of our superannuation are invested in the local Australian share market. With the investment mix of my superannuation, about 10%-15% is expose to movements of the sharemarkets. The way I view it, superannuation is a long term investment and is not due to mature for another 30 years for me. So I have decided not to panic and leave the investment mix alone to ride the down slide out.

My friend calls this the sleep factor. If the situation is affecting you to an extend that it is disturbing your sleep at night, it is probably time to be less aggressive with the investment mix.

The market did slide down quite significantly when the dot com bubble busted just after the turn of the century and my superannuation net worth actually went down, but it recovered in spectacular fashion.

For some people whom superannuation are about to be accessible in the next few years, these are certainly nervous times. I would say to them to get some profession advice.

measuring dollar economy on the car.

2008-01-20T23:06:00.001+01:00

We have been driving the new car for about a two months, and I was thinking "how do I measure the affect it was having on the household financials?" Since the car is a novated leased car, I need to keep detail record whenever I visited the petrol station and fill it up with petrol. The information that I keep are

Cost of the petrol
The amount of petrol I pumped into the car
The odometer reading when I pumped petrol into the car
Date and time

Fortunately, these information are all on the collected, printed out on the receipt and handed to you by the station attendant. The standard measure is fuel economy which measures how much fuel is used over a set distance. So far, the car's fuel economy is 13.55 ltr per 100km. I felt that this is more a measure of how the car is performing and does not really give you a sense on how it is affecting the wallet.

From a dollars and cents perspective, I converted this figure to become dollar economy by multiplying the amount of fuel by the average cost of the fuel. This was calculated to be about $18.5 per 100km. Obviously, this figure will fluctuate with the price of fuel, and that is a good thing as it clearly shows the true value of your fuel usage.

To put that dollar figure into perspective, if we drove to Ballarat to visit the in-laws, the trip would cost about $20 on fuel alone. Plus the $20 for the trip home.

I am gathering a spreadsheet to help perform this calculation quickly. If you are interested in getting a copy of the spreadsheet, send me an email tehn.yit.chin @ gmail . com or leave a message in the comments. The spreadsheet should be available in the next few days.

The economics of using Bunnings

2008-01-15T13:01:00.001+01:00

It is summer here in Melbourne, and we just had a couple of days in a row that reached 40 degC. The nights did not get below 25 degC. It was pretty uncomfortable all around for everybody.

Unfortunately with the orientation of the house, our son's bedroom window gets a lot of the afternoon sun, which is great for the winter days, but not so good for the summer days.

We decide to install a pull down awning outside his window to give it some shielding from the sun in the afternoon. I went off the Bunnings to get the necessary tools and materials. One of the tools I need to buy is a hammer drill. Historically, I would spent quite a bit of money to get the best tool, usually targeting the Makita or Bosch or even Hitachi power tools. However, in the last few years, Bunnings have been selling extremely cheap power tools from China, typically the GMC or Ozito. For a comparison, the hammer drill from Ozito cost me $30. If I had purchased a Makita hammer drill, it would have cost a few hundred dollars. Another time, I purchased a jigsaw for an incredible $5 whereas a Makita jigsaw would also cost a few hundred dollars.

I must say that the Makita or the Bosch tools are extremely robust and reliable, and if I had to make my livelyhood from these tools, I would stick with the Makita or the Bosch tools. However, since I am using in a DIY situation, I may as well save a few dollars and use the cheaper varieties. I am not too sure if the GMC or the Ozito are of the same robustness or reliability.

The good thing about these cheap tools is that they come with a extremely long warranty period. The Ozito hammer drill that I just purchased for $30 comes with a 3 year warranty. So if the drill breaks down within that 3 years, I just go back to Bunnings, along with the receipt and swap it over for another drill or its equivalent.

From my perspective, it is a win situation.

photo credit: Dennis Bos

Public Transport vs Private Transport

2008-01-13T13:03:00.001+01:00

On the weekend, my family and I decided to take a trip into the Melbourne city for the day. We lived about 45 mins to 50 mins drive out of the city, and typically we would take the car. We usually take car as it is more convenient because we can take our two year old home whenever we want rather than to depend on the public transport.

The public transport system in Melbourne is divided into two zones, zone 1 ( which covers the inner city suburbs) and zone 2 ( which covers the outer suburbs). It only just recently that it became two zones, it used to be have a third zone covering the middle suburbs.

On the day of our travel, it cost the family $20.20 for the public transport cost, plus about $2.00 for driving the car to the train station. If we had driven the car into the city, it would have cost $10 for parking, plus about $10.00 for fuel cost of the car. I have neglected the cost of maintenances, insurance etc.

So the cost are $22.20 for public transport vs $20.00 for private transport.

In some ways, it is not extremely compelling for the un-frequent traveling public to use the public transport system given that costing is very similar. In the future, when the cost of fuel increases to something crazy like $3.00 per litre, public transport may be a bit more attractive. However, for the frequent travelers, they have made the switch to public transport already.

Personally, I like traveling on public transport as I know that I am helping with traffic congestion problems and the environment, and it is also much safer than being on driving on the road.

Everyone's situation will be different. Which mode of transport would you prefer, and for what reasons?

photo credit: Benjamin Diehl

Giving Aldi another go

2008-01-10T12:53:00.000+01:00

With all the praises Aldi are getting from many of the Australian PF bloggers, we decide to give them another go. We tried their products about 1.5 years ago but we did not really like their products. I guess that we mainly tried their food, veg tables and fruit. This time, we are going to start with the groceries such as their cleaning products and other household items.

One of the methods we are using to measure how long it takes to finish the product. For example, we bought a bottle of Aldi's equivalent version of Spray'n'Wipe. The previous brand that we purchased was from Pine'o'Clean, and it usually cost around the $4.50 mark and comes in a 500ml bottle. Aldi's version cost $1.89 and comes in a larger 750ml bottle.

My wife got a permanent marker and wrote today's date on it. When it is finish, we can look at the date and calculate how long it took to finish the bottle, under normal usage conditions. The original bottle took about 6 weeks to finish.

We also wrote the date on the other consumables like dish washing liquid, washing machine powder etc.

After my wife finished the shopping this morning at Aldi, she was very surprise how much cheaper it is. We estimated that to purchase the equivalent products at either Coles or Safeway/Woolworths, it would cost at least $35. At Aldi, it cost just a touch less than $15. That's a $20 saving in just one shopping trip. Over a period of a year, the savings are very significant.

renting your stuff out

2008-01-09T13:30:00.001+01:00

While I was browsing GDay World today, I came across an article about an internet startup call rentoid.com. The idea behind it is that it provides a forum it connects the people who have stuff to rents and people who are looking to rent stuff.

For example, I have a lawn mower sitting in the shed that is gathering dust because the drought in Australia is so bad that all my grass has died and I don't have any grass to cut. Now, what if I could rent the lawn mower out to someone that actually has grass to cut. I would advertise this fact on rentoid.com. Some wanting to rent a lawn mower would go to rentoid.com, sees that I have a lawn mower for rent. The connection is made and his grass is nice and tidy!

rentoid.com puts a new spin on an alternative income stream. For someone who may have a lot of things laying around gathering dust, this website may provide an alternative income stream from those items.

Please sure that some of the supporting infrastructure such as insurance for your items, public liability insurance and maintenance are in place before launching yourself into this.

rentoid.com makes it money by taking a percentage of the rental fee, so it is a win-win-win situation for all parties involve.

I am uncertain how successful this venture will be for rentoid.com and for the people with things to rent out, but it is one of the more original ideas that I have come across on the internet.

which GTD system to use?

2008-01-08T14:29:00.001+01:00

In my quest for getting a GTD system up and going, I came across many different types of GTD system, it ranges from a simple todo list using a manilla folder and post-it notes to an elaborate system using a Moleskine notebook.

I started out using an online system backpackit but it doesn't help much if I am not at my computer. with internet access. It is excellent for the lists of items that can be done form a computer, ie sending an email to Jim for this weekend's BBQ or wirte that article on the blog.

I then moved onto to my Palm T3 PDA. I have had a PDA of one sort or another for almost 8 years now but have only really used it for calendaring and address list. I am starting to using the todo list application on it, and coupled it with something like Outlook, it forms a productive tool. However, I have found that the battery life on those things really suck. I take it away over the holidays period and the battery power was down to almost zero after 10 days. I guess the backup todo list is still the pen and paper until I can recharge the battery when I get back to my desk at work.

I am starting to favour some of the Moleskine hacks around for a GTD systems. They look that they should work OK provided I form a habit of consulting it frequently and make note in it frequently. I think that I like about the Moleskine GTD hacks is the it is accessible all the time and it only relies on having a pen/pencil with it to make a note.

Peter at Getting (Some) Things Done has an interesting spin on the why the Moleskine notebooks. Peter noted that he chose them as then cost a bit more and, psychologically, we will take care of it a bit more because it DOES cost a bit more.

The PigPogPDA is also another popular Moleskine GTD Hack, and it also looks promising.

Converting an Annual Leave Day to Sick Day

2008-01-07T09:38:00.001+01:00

I just returned from work today, and was exchanging my holiday stories with my colleagues. I told them that I got a bout of gastro over the Christmas holidays and was not able to do much over a couple days. He suggested that I get a doctor's certificate for the days that I was sick and submit them to the HR department, essentially converting my Annual Leave Days to Sick Days.

I came home today and though about his suggestion. It does have some merit.

Sick days are stricter to obtained, and needs to be backed up with some documentation like a doctor's certificate.
You have the freedom to do whatever you want on your Annual Leave Days, but on your Sick Days, you are only allow to recover from your illness.
When you depart from your job, your Annual Leave Days are worth more and than your Sick Days, so it is worth more in your pocket.

However, during the days that I was sick, I didn't visit the doctor, so I can't claim or get a doctor's certificate. Maybe next time.

Goals for 2008

2008-01-03T10:35:00.001+01:00

Well, this is the third day into year 2008. After feasting on the ever increasing meals that occur over the festive season, we are at home and just enjoying the last few days of the holidays before returning to normal house life.

In betweens the fits of laughter with my incredibly active son and lovely wife, I had some time to reflect on some of the goals to aim for in 2008. We all have the same goals year in year out, the ones such as trying to attain a happy life or achieve financial independence. These are all well and good, but I think if I focus on some smaller achievable goals, it may help me make some headway. The goals that I am aiming for small goals but has a large impact on my life (hopefully!).

Get a GTD system going and tweak it so that it works. If the system allows me to achieve 85% of the weekly tasks, than I would consider that a working system. Currently, I am using the todo list on my Palm Pilot organiser. It is working so far. Getting a GTD system working will also stop me from making mistakes, delaying things, missing bills etc and it should save me some money along the way. My goal is to complete 85% of all the tasks for the week.
Ensure that the emergency fund is at correctly level. The emergency fund is one area that I have be neglecting in 2007. This year, with all the credit card biils paid off, I want to maintain a good level of emergency fund. My goal is to determine what our emergency fund level needs to be and maintain it at this level.
Seriously starting making a dent into the mortgage. Louise at My Journey to eliminate debt is doing a marvelous job reducing her debt, especially her mortgage. She gives me inspiration, and hopefully I can be as passionate about mortgage reduction as her. My goal is to reduce our mortgage to 10% of what it is today.
Crank out some articles for this blog. I started this blog as a way of exploring some of the financial decisions that I have the make. I know that the number of articles has reduced to a trickle over the last few weeks. My goal is to have 2 articles per week.

As with any new year goals or resolutions, it is largely dependent upon the personal situation and may change as the personal situation changes.

If you have made some goals for 2008, I wish you every positive luck in meeting them.

Christmas 2007

2007-12-20T12:35:00.001+01:00

The holiday season is just around the corner with a few days left to go.

First of all, I wish to thank all the regular readers and to those who have left comments, contributing the on-going discussion of personal finance.

Second of all, I must apologise to the same regular readers for the lack for articles over the last 6 or so weeks. My life getting complicated and blogging must take a back seat for the time being. However, a couple of updates.

We have change over to a new car, purchased on a novated leased agreement. The procees from the sale of our previous car went to paying off all of our credit card debts (~$12K). The remainder was put into an online high interest bearing account.
Reduce our credit card liability by cutting the credit limit on the cards to $1000.
One of the complications was things are not being done, so I am trying to embrace the GTD or similar philosophy . Shall let you know how I go.
Start to think about schooling for our son, so expenses for these are sure to mount up.

Third of all, if you are able to spend some time with your love ones, please do so as they are the things that money can't provide.

Merry Christmas!

How to calculate how much of the house you own?

2007-12-05T02:52:00.001+01:00

The other day, I wrote an article on visualising how much of your house you own. I am currently trying to work this out. The simplest method is take price you paid for the house, minus the mortgage you took from the bank to help you buy the house.

% house own = ( house price - mortgage ) / house price

If I am going to do this correctly, it will tracked over a long period of time, probably in terms of years, so we need to factor two major affects into the calculations.

Appreciation of the house price
The movement of the interest rate on your mortgage.

The appreciation of the house price should be adjusted on a yearly basis. However, if the area of your house changes considerably, like it did in the inner suburbs of Melbourne about 5 years ago when it changed by 20% per year, the adjustment period may need to be smaller, like every 6 months.

Do you know how much of your house you own?

2007-11-27T23:46:00.001+01:00

House mortgage is one of bigger, if not the biggest, debts that most people get into. While reading the other blogs, I came across a chart at JosephSangl.com that shows how much of the house you own. Instead of a charting the amount left to be paid against time, an outline of your house is slowly filled in to indicate how much of it you own. As your payment gets better, the more of the house is filled it.

I am planning to do this as well, use green for bits of the house that we own and red for the house the bank owns.

It certainly put your house payments into perspective! Incredibly motivating.

LPG vs Petrol

2007-11-26T03:19:00.001+01:00

We have chosen our new car, it is the Ford Territory. We test drive it the other day, and my wife loved it! I am unsure if the Ford Territory is sold in only in Australia, but basically it is based upon the Ford Falcon except it has a different body.

The Ford Territory can be fitted with a LPG option. With the current fuel pricing almost hitting the $1.50 per litre mark, having the car on LPG (at about $0.60 per litre) is certainly attractive. We considered it, but after closely looking the maths. It take a while to break even at the cost of it. Lets have a look at the maths.

The differential cost between the fuel and LPG is about $1 per litre.
The cost of the fitting the LPG option is about $3500 and $4800, excluding the government rebate.
The government rebate is $2000, which will being the cost to $1500 to $2800. We would qualify for a $2000, instead of a $1000, as this option is considered as an after market option as Ford does not recommend a LPG unit for the Ford Territory.
We will start to save money after we have used up 1500 litres and 2800 litres of LPG.
The Ford Territory has a fuel economy of about 12 litres / 100km. This works out to be a distance of about 12,500 kilometers or 23,0000 kilometers.

With the way, we drive our car, it will take about 2-3 years to reach that distance, which means that our savings does not really start until year 2009 at the earliest.

So we have made the decision to stay with petrol, and will revisit this option again later on.