Uncategorized | NZ Muse

February 3, 2013

Link love (powered by nail-biting and long walks)

Less than an hour north of Auckland is a stunning marine reserve. Tawharanui has a campground that always seems to be booked up, so I decided a day trip would be the best way to tackle it. And with a long weekend (Auckland Anniversary weekend) last week, with the sun beating down on us (the funny thing about beaches is they’re a really good place to cool off, even if you don’t swim, because you just don’t get that kind of breeze in the city) and T’s new tattoo nearly healed up, I declared Monday the day we would visit.

T had been dragging his heels (“All that way for a really average beach!”) bemoaning its shortcomings, as judged by the week he spent there for school PE camp nearly 10 years ago. But since then Tawharanui has been revitalised, cleaned up, with new plants and wildlife introduced. The parkland is lush, the white sand pristine, and the water is exactly the pure, clear shade of aquamarine you’d expect of a marine reserve. Signs warn you to keep off the large boulders to avoid disturbing the dotterel, tiny black mussels cling firmly to the rocks all along the shore, and if you’re so inclined (we were not) there are trails to walk that let you explore more of the land.

There’s also a neat little lake, where they apparently learned to windsurf back during camp:

Birds resting on the shore…

By the end of it, he had to admit it was worth the trip. All in all, I’m glad I dragged him out. It’s far too easy to sit at home all the time. Reading is great, movies are great, saving money is great … but so is getting out and making the most of your environment once in a while.

Also? Guys. LISTEN to your partners. We always know best.

Good reads this week:

WORK

Alexandra Franzen, like me, hates the “what would you do for free?” career schtick.

Freelancing has made Cordelia/Kelly a better budgeter.

Dollars and Deadlines on the best new markets for a freelancer to tackle.

On that note, Wealth Informatics has a gigantic post on using your skills to profitably freelance.

Discussion on Get Rich Slowly about putting in more effort than you’re paid for – overdelivering to get ahead.

Does your resume say “let’s be friends”? Tough talk over at Life After College.

MONEY

Spend your money where you spend the most time, says Fabulously Broke.

Budget and the Beach on the financial pros and cons of getting older.

LIFE

Red Lips and Academics shares some awesome resources to jumpstart your goals.

Here is a lovely conversation with Cheryl Strayed, via the woman she advised to “write like a motherfucker”.

Truths about Twitter, via Jeff Bullas.

FOOD

Stonesoup’s four steps to curing refrigerator blindness are super helpful.

TRAVEL

Everyday Minimalist offers an honest view of what it’s like to visit China.

Alexis Grant on getting back into the swing of travelling after time off.

How to boost productivity while travelling, via Dumb Little Man.

Carnivals, etc

I had a few posts make it into various carnivals this week:

On recommending friends for jobs (Carnival of personal finance)

On internships – the good, bad and ugly (Yakezie carnival, Carnival of money reasons, Carnival of young adults’ finance)

Eat of the week: Cazador (Lifestyle carnival)

Finally, I’m mentoring Debt and the Girl as part of Bloggers Helping Bloggers, so go check her site out!

February 2, 2013

Guest post: How lump sum payments can get you out of debt fast

This is a post by Katie, who writes for numerous daily news websites and blogs about personal finance and saving money. For more information on dealing with debt and advice on saving money, Katie recommends visiting the Fox Symes blog.

Debt is one of those things in life that you know you’d simply be better off without, so if it’s already looming over your head you’re probably wishing there was a faster and more effective way to get rid of it. Lump sum payments are a beneficial approach to clearing debt faster – here’s how it works.

Reducing the Term

By paying lump sum payments you’ll be reducing the time it takes you to pay off your debt. The larger the lump sum amount, the smaller the remaining debt, so each time you make a lump sum repayment you’re taking time off your loan, not just money.

Reducing Interest

The interest on a loan is calculated based on the remaining amount. Each time you make a lump sum payment you’re reducing the remaining amount and, therefore, reducing the calculated interest. This means you’re actually reducing the amount of interest you’ll be paying overall, and consequently shrinking the end amount you’ll have paid.

Earning Interest vs Paying Interest

Saving all of your money rather than using at least a portion of it to make lump sum payments on your debts is usually the less favourable option in terms of interest. In most cases, the interest you’ll be earning by keeping the money in a savings account will be much less than the interest you’re being charged on your debts. It may be tempting to hold on to the money in savings, but it’s costing you much more to keep it.

Removing the Temptation to Spend

By paying lump sum amounts on your loan you’re removing the temptation to spend that money on other things. Once it’s been paid back to your debtor you can’t spend it, so it’s getting you out of debt rather than helping keep you there.

Beating the Interest Free Periods

It’s particularly beneficial to pay in lump sum amounts if your debt relates to a credit card, loan or purchase boasting an interest free period. Generally this is a tactic to draw in customers who are often unprepared for the high interest once this interest free period expires. By paying off your debt in lump sum before the interest free period is up, you could be saving yourself a huge amount in interest and fees, and paying much less overall for your purchases.

Debt Consolidation

Taking out a loan for debt is another way of paying off owed amounts in lump sum. Through debt consolidation all of your smaller personal debts are paid off by a new loan. If your loan for debt is through a reputable provider like Fox Symes, for example, ideally you will be able to benefit from a lower interest rate and perhaps more favourable terms.

Voluntary Repayment Bonus

If your debt is a student loan, the Australian government offers a voluntary repayment bonus for students and/or graduates making lump sum payments on their HECS-HELP loans. This means a bonus of 5% is offered for repayments of $500 or more, credit 5% of the payment back to the student’s account. This is a great way to clear your student debt much faster and reduce the end amount paid. (Ed: The IRD offers a 10% bonus on extra voluntary repayments you make on your NZ student loan.)

It’s pretty simple really; the more you pay, the less you owe. Lump sum payments are the best way to manage debt, and while you may feel the sting of larger payments now they’ll save you much more money in the long run.

February 1, 2013

Friday Five: Must-have WordPress plugins

Editorial Calendar

Confession: I heard about WP Editorial Calendar a long time ago but didn’t get around to installing it until Leslie mentioned it in a comment this month. You know how WordPress makes it a bit of a pain to manage scheduled posts (and likes to fail to publish them about 25% of the time)? This plugin creates a visual calendar so you can review your planned posts at a glance, and move them around just by dragging and dropping. If you blog like me, writing out posts in batches, this is awesome.

WordPress SEO by Yoast

I started out using All In One SEO Pack, but later got turned on to the new version of Yoast when I was searching for a separate plugin to automatically append content at the bottom of posts in my RSS feed. WordPress SEO is a powerhouse of a plugin. Amp up your SEO on your post editing page (here’s the box that appears below the text input box) by writing separate titles and meta descriptions for search engine purposes. (I’d already done this on some posts with All In One, and Yoast allowed me to import those changes easily.) There’s even a visual preview of the snippet that will show on the search engine result page. If you’re so inclined, you can enter your focus keywords and get the plugin to check your content and generate a score based on how well you’ve optimised for it.

Also, Yoast allows you to add text to the bottom of your posts with RSS ender, add breadcrumbs to your site if your theme is compatible, and automatically takes care of XML site mapping for you. Yay.

One Click child theme

For relative newbies who want to customise their themes on their own, one way to tweak your theme is by creating a child theme. And of course, there’s a plugin for that, to make it even easier. Using a child theme minimises fuss in the back end and keeps things clean and tidy. It functions separately from your parent theme, but draws on those stylesheets – code you use in your child theme overrides that. If you download an updated version of your theme you can then retain your changes using the child theme. Most importantly, it minimises the chance of breaking anything in your code, which is a risk if you’re going to be playing around with your CSS. This plugin generates a child them you can then edit under Appearance > Editor in your WordPress back end. And of course, you can access those child theme files in your FTP.

Nrelate

There are a handful of plugins out there that automatically add a list of recommended posts for further reading to the end of every blog post. It’s a good way to keep readers on your site for longer, increasing engagement and reducing bounce rate. Yet Another Related Post plugin is a popular one, but I use Nrelate (largely on a recommendation from Geek in Heels) and am really happy with it. Even if you don’t have thumbnails on your old posts, it will generate images for you. And you can monetise by enabling Nrelate to link to external content as well as your own.

PhotoDropper

When I was on wordpress.com, I used Zemanta when I wanted to add photos to my blog posts. This is not built in with self hosted WordPress, so I scouted around for an alternative and landed on PhotoDropper. Once installed, it adds a button to your post editing page to the right of the Add Media button. Click on it to bring up the dialogue box. From there, you can search Creative Commons and select a picture that suits. This is then uploaded into your own media gallery, and a credit automatically appended to your post after you click insert.

What are some of your favourite WordPress plugins? Fellow blogger Manda swears by Revision Control and Footnotes (though I’m not sure which version).

January 30, 2013

My fear of commitment

Confession: I have a fear of commitment.

I refuse to commit to consumer contracts. I chose Orcon as our ISP partly for the prices and partly because they had no 12-month fixed term minimum contracts. Until I got a work phone, I was always on prepay, partly for the prices, and partly because there were no contracts involved.

I reluctantly committed to a contract with Sky TV at the boy’s request, and to a fixed lease on this house because it’s getting increasingly hard to rent anywhere on an open-ended basis.

My fear of commitment extends to, well, almost everything. I was a somewhat lax attender of quiz night with colleagues at my old job. At work, several sports teams have been formed, but even if any were sports I enjoy (which are few and far between) I balk at the thought of committing one evening a week to organised ongoing activity.

I haven’t committed to any regular organised extracurriculars since high school.

It’s also a factor in the rest of my life. This house is temporary. I don’t care about decor. I like white walls. I don’t give two figs about having Young House Love-esque surroundings. I genuinely don’t understand why people paint accent walls – or why anyone would want a purple, green, or yellow room.

But you know one thing I would like? Decent appliances – a fridge, a washing machine – and cookware.

I don’t want to commit to nice things until we buy a house of our own. Moving is a pain, and flatmates have wrecked too many of my belongings in the past (we live alone now but who knows what the future will bring).

But it would be amazing to have a decent frypan, a fridge that doesn’t freeze all vegetables within it, a freezer that’s not 40% icicles, and a washing machine that doesn’t sound like it’s about to explode on the spin cycle and works in cold water mode.

January 28, 2013

Three reasons why I want to buy a house (and reasons why I won’t)

Settling down/making it your own

I don’t give two hoots about decorating, but I would dearly love to settle in with permanent furniture, appliances, and most of all, insulation. Sadly, this is the exception rather than the norm in NZ houses. I’d be happy to pay to insulate my own home, but not while renting. In the meantime, we suffer on…

T also wants a dog something chronic. I’m not an animal person AT ALL, so renting has been a good way to shut that down. But I’m willing to compromise when we have a place on our own, particularly if there’s any security benefit to be had (we’ve been burgled too many times).

Putting money into your own pocket

I don’t see property as an investment, nor do I believe rent is dead money. But given housing is our biggest expense, it sure would be nice to be funneling that into an asset of our own – and mortgage rates right now are reasonably low, with home loans in the 5% bracket.

I don’t want to be renting when we have a family

Kids are in the 5-10 year plan. Still a while away, but wouldn’t you want to enjoy your first house for a while before they arrive? And with us getting married this year, this is only intensified. I always thought I’d get married closer to 30 and we’d be in a position to buy a house straight after, but things won’t be happening that way.

Alas, buying a house is not on the cards right now. Why not? Let me count the ways…

The moolah factor

Houses in Auckland are pricey. (For New Zealand as a whole, the median household income is just shy of $80,000 and the median house price is $389,000 – in Auckland, that would be barely entry level. Affordability as judged by the house-price-to-income ratio is nearly 5x, more so for Auckland average house prices – over $600,000 for the city area and $450,000 for the western suburbs, where we’d probably be forced out to.) We definitely don’t have anywhere near enough for a down payment yet. And let’s not get started on property rates, or the fact that we would have to buy a house further out, forcing us to get a second car. $$$$$$ all over the show. It’s a huge financial undertaking we’re just not equipped to make right now.

Flexibility is key right now

We might want to move away for a while or go travelling. T is still figuring out a career. Basically, it’s still too early to settle down and commit to a mortgage.

How stable are our jobs anyway?

T is an hourly worker and his income often varies. And working in publishing, I can’t say I’ll ever really feel secure in my job.

What, if anything, is holding you back from buying a place? Or if you own your own house, how did you know it was time?

January 26, 2013

Link love (Powered by bare naturals and email drama)

On a normal day, my beauty routine consists of two things: moisturiser and a swipe of lippy.

Lipstick is a must, because I need a little colour in my face. Maybe a dash of powder on my nose to hide my elephantine pores, though it’s a terrible waste – it invariably wears off quick smart due to sweat or blowing my nose (if I don’t have a cold, then I have hayfever. Year round).

The thing about makeup, for me, is that one thing invariably leads to another. Since starting to wear contacts again, I basically have to wear a bit of eyeliner to look presentable. This leads to some up close and personal time with my bathroom mirror, and far too much time spent scrutinising every detail of my entire face. I start to agonise over every flaw. My wide, flat nose. My blotchy cheeks. My hateful, stubby, stubbornly straight Chinese lashes (however, I hate mascara and you will never find me wearing it). Then this opens up the door to all sorts of criticism – my toes, my feet, my hands and nails. I start thinking about all the things I could (SHOULD!) be doing to better my appearance. None of which I really want to, and none of which you can convince me is so vital that I should be doing on a daily basis. My skin is happiest when I do as little as possible to it, and I’m far too lazy to do much anyway. (This made my year of no shopping pretty easy.)

I’ve come to realise I use my glasses as a sort of shield. The strong frames draw focus away from the rest of my face.

I once read that you should focus on your eyes, too, when looking at your reflection. When people talk to you, that’s where they’re concentrating. This helped immensely during my younger and more self-conscious days – realising that others (probably) don’t pick me apart like I pick myself apart. Because I used to be the kind of girl afraid to be seen without her ‘face’ on. I was terrified of anyone seeing me un-made up. If I was going to be out overnight, I would pray for my makeup to stay well and truly on until the morning. Thankfully, none of that applies today.

Weirdly, I think I often look at my best in the morning. Bare faced, au naturel. Skin plump and full after a night’s sleep. Hair (usually limp and lifeless) with a bit of body to it.

A little housekeeping and shoutouts

Kelly nominated me for a blog award, and I’m in good company! Hopefully I’ll get around to doing my bit to pass it on soon.

I’m in the carnival of money pros explaining why your website needs a price list

I’m also in the lifestyle carnival with my recipe for sweet chicken stirfy

To the links!

MONEY

Amanda ponders the ethics of holiday spending (I too would rather support local businesses than big chains)

Heh. Our Freaking Budget lists a bunch of things you couldn’t pay them to do

TeacHer Finance on the value of maintaining your status quo

FOOD

$120 Challenge has a simple recipe for lamb koftas and tzatziki

At Smitten Kitchen: Lentil, chard and garlic soup

And a pad thai inspired soup from Kevin at Closet Cooking

LIFE

Wealth Informatics lists 9 reasons you’re not making more money

Suburban Sweetheart talks body image and societal norms

Pushing Thirtyy on age gaps and the changing nature of friendships

As StacFace writes, it’s weird when your online and offline worlds collide and the digital one closes in on you

What is the point of goals, asks Stacking Pennies?

Some good reasons to consider eloping via the PoPs, over at Mo Money Mo Houses

Finally, I absolutely loved Dinner: A Love Story’s rules of blogging. A must read.

January 25, 2013

Can we all realistically expect to love our jobs?

Modified from CC image, original by Flickr user Andi Licious

It is a great thing to work in the creative industries. While it has its downsides (see my post on this at Budget and the Beach) for me the positives continue to weigh in its favour. I’ve always worked with amazing, talented and pleasant people. I’ve always had reasonably fulfilling, autonomous work. This is genuinely what I a) love and b) am good at.

But we don’t all have this first world luxury, and quite frankly, I don’t think it’s anywhere near possible. The numbers don’t stack up. The work that makes the world go round isn’t generally bursting with the fun factor – banking, freight, insurance, food production, retail, farming, tech support, cleaning. No doubt there are specific roles within those sectors that lend themselves to passion, but by and large the stuff we need to keep the cogs turning is fairly dull stuff. And passion jobs often require sacrifices in almost every other aspect aside from enjoyment/satisfaction – compensation, hours, work-life balance, etc.

If what you’re doing isn’t lighting your fire – and you have the option of walking away – at what point do you quit? A friend once told me about a fellow med student who dropped out after five years (one more and he would have qualified). Another person I know pulled out of a Big 4 graduate programme just a few months in after realising it was not the life for her. From the outside, it seems a waste to walk away after putting in years to get to that stage.

What price happiness?

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January 23, 2013

Eat of the week: Cazador, Mt Eden

T and I are yin and yang in many aspects, but one thing we share a love of is filling our bellies. Food is always central to our anniversary celebrations, and last month we ventured into Cazador over on Dominion Rd (the southern end of the Mt Eden stretch, just a few minutes from our house in Mt Albert).

After awkwardly navigating through the entrance (the front door opens into a tiny enclosed space where you can presumably shake off rain and pull yourself together before opening another door that takes you into the restaurant) we found ourselves in a cosy little space, the first diners of the night. It’s a rustic place with a homey feel – stuffed deer heads and strings of onions adorning the wall – and earthy food to match.

While the wary eater in me gravitated toward the tried and true (i.e. safe) choices on the menu, I reminded myself that the whole reason we were there was to try the Cazador specialties: game. Sadly, the pheasant was all out, so the two mains we opted for were rabbit and the fish special of the day.

First up: the rabbit. A couple of drumsticks (does that apply to meat aside from chicken?) anchored in a thick red stew with pieces of smoked bacon, vegetables and a bit of spinach on the side was a great introduction to rabbit meat on my part. Every note in this dish matched the others perfectly. Delicious.

We’ve been getting into our fish this summer, and the terakihi on this occasion was simple yet lovely. I was a little dismayed when the plate arrived, I’ll admit – it looked far too plain to be appealing. Sometimes, less really is more, though. I even shoveled down the peas (which I normally shun, but in this case I couldn’t get enough of them – small, soft, fresh). Wasn’t so hot on the unidentified pieces of charred vegetables (resembled bok choy) but T liked the contrast. Winner.

The only letdown was the side salad T chose – charred sweetcorn on a bed of lettuce, accompanied by feta, tomatoes, and capsicum. The mix of textures worked well and it was creamy, not dry, but sadly lacking in flavour (the corn in particular). Bland.

Instead of sharing a single dessert, we ordered two: Baked cheesecake with berry compote (perfection) and baklava (of course). The latter was a little too heavy on the cinnamon for my taste, but not for T’s. The rose water syrup and yoghurt added an interesting touch. Awesome.

Frugal factor: low. Mains are clustered around the $30 mark, but at least portion sizes are decent – the servings are actually enough to fill up on. This is not a cheap eat, but it is a good eat for a special occasion. If you’re not on a budget, carry on!

A shoutout too to the delightful staff – warm and charismatic. Nice hosts make dining out so much more enjoyable! Our waitress was super jovial and not at all pushy.

Cazador
854 Dominion Rd

January 21, 2013

Sometimes we push people away when we need them the most

I never cease to be amused when others call me wise and/or mature. I’m in fact pretty socially awkward and about as far from a people person as you can get, but I have rare moments of clarity when I can understand someone’s motivations by dint of being removed and impartial.

Without going into too many details, one friendship circle has recently been rocked by the equivalent of the BP oil spill. Sudden, devastating, things-may-never-be-the-same-again. This is strange for me, because I have never really experienced much in the way of overt friend conflict. (Some covert conflict, yes, leading me to keep my distance from the people in question. But out and out fights/arguments/strife? Nope.)

T says it’s because I’m a coward who hates conflict and does anything possible to avoid it. (Harsh, but true.)

I think it would be more accurate to say it’s because of the nature of my relationships, however.

It’s true that I tend to be a people pleaser. It’s also true that while I do have friends I can get deep and existential with, by and large our friendships are generally pretty easy going and fun. We may occasionally debate issues, but not in a personal or bitter way. Also, I’d like to think my friends are GOOD TYPES, as a rule, which makes getting along far easier than not. Although surely that’s true for most people?

It’s hard to keep making an effort when you think another party isn’t pulling their weight. But sometimes, when we’re hurting, we withdraw. We push people away when we most need them. It’s counterintuitive, I know. I’m not sure why we do this (I’ve done it myself, and I suppose it’s a petty test, really. Push them away and see if they will push back; do they care enough to keep trying?) – only I fear in this case it’s gone much too far.

Friendship seemed a lot easier back in high school. As life gets more complicated, so too do relationships. How do you handle it when dear friends are making terrible decisions? How about when they KNOW they’re making stupid choices, but continue to do so nonetheless? Do you offer support without judgement? Do you offer unsolicited advice? Is there a point at which you throw your hands up and step back from it all? What is helping, vs what is judging, vs what is enabling? My understanding of human psychology only goes so far.

January 19, 2013

Link love (Powered by the Chilis and real chili)

My concert-going life is now complete – I’ve ticked off every single band I wanted to see live, and more.

Also, I’m getting too old for that shit. Big gigs are patience-testing and sanity-trying. The sheer number of absolute knobs who attend, and the extent of their douchebaggery, is astounding. It’s like the capacity for human jerkiness is never-ending, yet never fails to amaze me. I realise that by going general admission, you’re opening yourself up to potential injury on the floor, and I accept my personal space is going to be invaded and I’ll have my feet stood on/my face elbowed/my every side bumped from overzealous hop-n-jumpers. That tubby little teenage girls are going to inexplicably park their barely covered asses in front of me. That there’s always a circle of young idiot guys (the kind who scrawl the band name across their back with marker pen and then take their shirts off once in the crowd) who think it’s their God-given duty to expand their circle and smash into everyone around them. As a slight person, I’m not in much of a position to do anything about it, except wield my insanely bony elbows where I can. With T, I have, quite literally, an immovable rock behind me, luckily. And beware anyone who irritates him (his tolerance is non-existent, when he’s not the one moshing with friends, which led to a couple of tense moments).

We spent the first half of the show in the middle, about a third of the way back. Eventually, we moved further back and out to the side, where not only were we away from all the jerks, and I had room to actually move, dance, and jump, BUT I HAD A BETTER FREAKING VIEW. As I say, my concert-going life is now complete, but if I go to a show again, I’m more than happy to chill out on the outskirts.

I went to my first big live gig in 2010 (not counting the Big Day Out I worked at in, oh, 2008?). Between then and now, I’ve now been to three music festivals – another BDO, Homegrown and Coro Gold – and I think another six concerts, Paramore, Metallica, the Foos, Incubus, Coldplay and of course now the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I paid for all of those but one, and as concert tickets average around $150, if not more, that’s nearly $1500 (and you can basically double that as T came to almost all of those). I also have to spew vitriol at the fact parking last night was jacked up to $15, nearly double the usual rate. Sigh.

In other, more financial news:

T is STILL waiting for his tax refund from the IRD. Apparently it was paid to his bank account, as it was last year, but hasn’t gone through for some reason. So…it’s stuck in some banking no-man’s-land, and who knows who, when, or how we can put an end to the stalemate.

Also, he’s in charge of a stag do (bachelor party) for a friend in the next few weeks. Ouch. I said even though he’s organising this one, he can’t spend as much as he spent on attending the last one (for a different person) – an entire weekend of poorly organised activities that ran each person into the hundreds of dollars.

ALSO, we may have to pay for suits for his groomsmen for our wedding. Apparently, not all of them will necessarily have suits they can wear. It will probably work out cheaper to hire them, but we’ll see.

To the links…

I was in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance!

And Lifestyle Carnival!

Here’s Budget and the Beach on changing your outlook and choosing happiness

Anyone who reads Study Hacks’ Cal Newport will know the concept of passion following competency. Similarly, Afford Anything argues that passion rarely precedes action – do the work and the muse will follow

Straight talk on dream jobs over at Ask A Manager

Young Adult Money shares five lessons learned from freelancing

What it’s really like to organise a conference, by Kommein

Budgets are Sexy reminds us that we’re ALL good at something

A bit of a job searching guide from Grace Boyle

Money After Graduation’s most expensive hobby is FOMO (hell yes)

Mmm. The best foods from around the world, via Untemplater

Finally, Financial Samurai reminds us all of the importance of dreams

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