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Browsing tag: money

  • September 27, 2011

    Tuesday Three

    • This is the future of banking and personal finance. Now, when are you coming to New Zealand?!
    • And this might be the future of term deposits. Investit lets you input how much you have to invest, then emails you the best options from either banks, non-bank providers, or both, depending on what you prefer. If any bids catch your fancy, you can then apply via the website (if supported) or else it will link you to the financial institution’s own site. Takes all the hard work out of it.

    • Result: I now have $10k in a 4.4% term deposit, another $2-3k in other deposits, and the rest of my cash in online savings accounts. My main concern was finding somewhere to park my travel fund, as it won’t be touched for a minimum for six months – and more likely much, much longer – and I got a sweet 5-month rate. Oddly enough, some of the shorter term deposits were offering higher returns than the longer ones, which no doubt has something to do with lending at the other end but that I don’t see enough reason to research right now.

    All in all, finances have me pretty psyched this week. Will it last?

  • September 26, 2011

    Are coupons harmful to a brand’s value?

    Let's Deal, Swedish Daily Deals Kickstarts By ...

    Image by paulamarttila via Flickr

    A coupon culture isn’t something we have much of here. While in the US crazy couponers get their own show and savvy bloggers get groceries and pharmaceuticals for mere cents, we don’t have ANY of that. There literally are no coupons to be had. Unless you manage to find something worthwhile on ezycoupons.co.nz or vouchermate.co.nz – which is pretty unlikely – most likely any vouchers or discounts available to you will be through something like the Entertainment Book or daily deal sites.

    I don’t really understand why people are still rabbiting on and debating about daily deals, to be frank. It’s pretty simple. Use your head.

    • Use those vouchers straight away or make notes in your calendar to do so.
    • Buy deals that you will actually use.

    Now, I like saving money. I think I’m a pretty successful voucher user, to the extent that I’ve dipped my foot in the water. The Entertainment Book is great because it means I can try new restaurants that I was already interested  in, but wouldn’t want to pay full price for. It means on the rare occasion we go out to weekend brunch (every couple of months) there’s no need to pay $20 for a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and hashbrowns each, because we have our pick of excellent cafes with 25 or 50 percent discounts. It means saving moolah at the cinema, the driving range and the video store (although when will we ever learn that that’s NOT a good idea? We never manage to return DVDs on time, hence why we pay for Sky Movies).

    In terms of daily deals, I have much the same MO for dining offers – places I know and love, or have piqued my interest, or other offers I know will get used (see above about movies, etc). Because I don’t have back problems, I don’t need massages or therapy – but they’re nice every once in a while. And thanks to the dozens of deal sites available to us, I’ll never pay full price for them. (And they’re a pretty awesome, relaxing gift to myself and T on occasions like our anniversary instead of trinkets.) I have wasted one deal to date (I think it cost about $20 or 30), and that was some kind of spinal examination for T, who wimped out and decided he’d rather not be prodded and is happy barrelling along not knowing exactly how bad his back is.

    But as much as I like saving dosh, I get awful coupon guilt. It seems a little bit … tacky? It’s all just a little bit awkward, or so it feels – especially with those hideous A4 web printouts you get, handing those over and walking away because it’s all been pre-paid. Anyone else ever feel that way?

    Coming at it from the other side of the fence, it seems that aside from all the other potentially negative effects  for a business – losing money on a deal, being swamped with customers and unable to give them the usual level of service – it can also diminish their brand value.

    Spa and beauty therapy places, in particular, seem to all be busy undercutting each other in a race to the bottom. As a consumer, I don’t care – I just want the best deal. But that seems unsustainable. Surely that service industry can’t survive long-term doing that.

    A lot of the vendors (and really I’m just talking restaurants here, as that’s more my area) I have huge respect for would never get involved, because they’re just such niche ethnic eateries – and they’re usually popular enough not to need to. And you’ll never see the haute cuisine establishments stooping to that level. But how would you feel if somewhere you regularly frequented started putting out cutthroat daily deals? Would you think less of them? Feel cheated?

     

  • September 9, 2011

    What we spent: August 2011

    As you might recall, August was to be the month of Austerity.

    More or less.

    It didn’t *quite* work out that way.

    We had that planned trip to Wellington (which was cheap as flights and hotel were paid for earlier, so this was just transport and food/drinks). Our car got some much needed, well overdue work done. And the big one: T replaced his stolen bike with a fully legal, fully running, lean mean machine. It is registered, insured, and quite pretty. And now he owes me big. As in, that motorbike cost almost as much as I’m hoping to spend on our wedding.

    But in terms of eating out, groceries, clothing and regular spending, we ran a pretty tight ship.

    Some highlights:

    Car maintenance – New brake pads and radiator.

    Dining out – Squeaking in under that $160 mark!

    Fees – a couple of ATM withdrawals (T…) and credit card fees (repaid with points, so really I shouldn’t even count them on here).

    Groceries – I am super stoked especially as this was for five weeks!

    Holidays – Food, drinks and transport for Wellington.

    Insurance – For the bike.

    Motorbike – The bike itself cost just under $4200, plus we got a bit of work done on it, and other bits and bobs – petrol, a backpack for T to carry stuff around, bike lock, those things that go on the ends of the handlebars for balance, etc.

    T fun – On par, perhaps at the high end. He’s started playing poker with friends (games are on AT LEAST three times a week, it’s ridiculous – but he knows he can’t afford to play that often).

    Utilities – Nothing exciting to report there.

    Vehicle – Still costing $80-90 to fill up every week. Hoping this will be reduced with the help of our two-wheeled friend. Our distances travelled are only increasing, though – I need to get to more meetings for work, he visits friends all over the place all the time, goes to the gym multiple times a week, wrestling shows every other week, and if he gets into the league, he’ll be going to training God only knows where and how often.

  • August 4, 2011

    July 2011: What we spent

    ** Click here for more info on my monthly spending roundups.**

    Clothes – T needed shorts and shirts for Rarotonga (also, the gym – see below). I bought a dress and cardigan.

    Dining – A little higher than budgeted; we tried one restaurant off my list, and again some eating out with friends, but it was definitely a case of the little things adding up this month.

    Groceries – Whoa – they’re low because we were away for a week, and because my Visa grocery transaction on the 31st didn’t clear until the next day.

    Entertainment – $22 for one Food Show ticket (my media pass was free). $22 for two Harry Potter tickets. $280 for Foo Fighters tickets. $178 for Guitar Hero (x2). Yikes.

    Health – T  joined a gym! That $89 is for a 3-month special on GrabOne.

    Holidays – I took out $500 spending cash. But we ended up spending $800 in total, with $140 for our lagoon cruise, $97 on meals and drinks at the resort and another $60 on food. Add to that $110 for departure tax (something I failed to research), $43 for the taxi home at 4am and $62 on duty free whiskey.

    Insurance – Contents for the quarter.

    Rent – A three-fortnight month. Plus a rent increase. Boo.

    Savings – may in fact have been marginally higher.  But probably not very much. See entertainment expenditure above…

    T fun – Almost 200 more than usual thanks to a couple of game purchases and other electronics guff.

    In July I was also gifted $230 in birthday money and made $855 in side income, all of which I saved. Huzzah. And a bloody good thing, seeing as anything I saved from my regular income last month was negligible.

    So, to August! We’re tightening up ship around here, with groceries and dining out and I’m hoping to make August a bare-bones month, our Wellington trip aside. Let’s see how that goes.

  • August 1, 2011

    Slash and burn: Cost-cutting

    I’ve been thinking about minimum living costs lately. As in, that threshold below which it’s very hard to cut costs any further. (If I made $60k a year, I could easily save half of that; if I made $40k, I’d be lucky to save 10 percent, because beyond a certain point, it’s impossible to escape the realities of rent, transport costs, food and the other necessities.) For us, a realistic threshold is $2500 – but that number is about to go up.

    That’s right. Rent is going up! Boo. It’s increasing from $250 to $280 a week, to be precise. (Gosh, we’ve been here 18 months already!) That means $560 a fortnight, and with my income slightly down, we really should tighten the belt.

    Our power bill is also way up, and that’s because our usage is up compared to the same months last year. It’s certainly not due to heating because this winter has been one of the mildest in a long time. I’m guessing it’s down to a) gadgets being plugged in all the time – MySky, computer, etc and b) cooking and baking more, including use of the oven and crockpot. I can’t, or won’t, do much about the latter, but I’m definitely cracking down on turning switches off at the wall. That includes our outdoor sensor light, even though it’s nice to get home and not have to fiddle with the lock in the pitch dark; T puts it on when he leaves at 5am and I turn it off when I leave after 8am.

    Our phone bill is down, thanks to a new internet package. On the other hand, while my cellphone is now paid for by work, T’s smartphone plan costs more than his prepaid one, so it probably evens out.

    Could we give up Sky TV? I guess we could, at least once our 12-month contract is up. T loves it almost as much as he loves me, though, and it’s also relatively cheap entertainment. I can’t tell you how much we used to waste on late DVD fees (and no, we don’t have Netflix or the like here). In dire straits, I’d cut this without a thought, but we aren’t there yet.

    Where I reckon I could further cut costs is clothing. I really don’t need anything else, and the good thing is that I don’t walk past clothing shops (including my favourite secondhand store) everyday anymore. I mean, you’ve probably noticed I wasn’t big into retail therapy anyway, so removing the temptation has hardly fazed me. So unless I come across a charcoal cardi, or tops in deep purple or red, the plan is to not buy any clothes until next year (Fabulously Broke and Krystal have done shopping bans; so can I!)

    And we can get stricter about our eating out and grocery budgets; while I still budget weekly, looking at our monthly spending is a better way to gauge how we’re doing, and my online banking makes that really easy to do. And I might reinstate weekly grocery recaps to help keep us under budget. (I’ll try to make them somewhat interesting…maybe menu plans to accompany them? I don’t know if I can manage to photograph our haul all beautifully stacked like some of you do, though; once we bring the bags in from the car, it’s a matter of getting the unpleasant task of stowing it all away done as quickly as possible.)

    I also think it’s time to repeat November’s challenge, although I’ll have to set aside travel expenses in August because we’re off to Wellington for a weekend.

    What’s your living threshold number, or when was your last rent hike?

  • July 22, 2011

    What we spent: June 2011

    Gosh, how is it already the end of July?! Somehow I never got around to our June roundup. It’s spendy, I warn you, and July’s won’t be looking much better.

    ** Click here for more info on my monthly spending roundups.**

    Bus: Right on track. I’ve only just realised it’s actually two stages to work (ridiculous!) not one. Occasionally T picks me up, or I get a lift home from coworkers going my way. And I try to walk there once a week or so if it’s fine outside. If I could be more organised in the morning, I could walk partway and cut that down – but if I’m going to do that, I figure I may as well walk the whole way. I will probably start driving once T replaces his motorbike – I think it will work out cheaper, and I’ll likely have to leave the office for various appointments from time to time as I settle in further.

    Debt: T paid that nasty bill to clear his record. Goodbye, savings. Hopefully sis does set up an AP to repay him. Poor money management = cash disappears almost immediately.

    Dining out: Kinda blew the budget there, but I don’t regret it – had some great catchups with friends and tried a few new eateries I’d been dying to visit but just couldn’t with our previously opposite schedules…

    Groceries: Is high, and I can’t remember why we went to the supermarket twice in the first week. Argh, so long ago.

    Holidays: Booked flights to Wellington next month (I loved our first visit so much) and hotel.

    Home expenses: Bought new bedsheets and a food processor. It was half price, plus I had some Westfield vouchers which I used to reduce the cost even more.

    Insurance: Car insurance for the year.

    Medical: Contact lenses, etc.

    T fun: Mostly his iPhone.

    Vehicle: Five weeks of petrol. Nearly $2.10 a litre *cries*

    I also netted an extra 40 in tutoring, and was reimbursed $75 for a mystery shopping assignment. Free meals and drinks FTW. As for savings, that was high as I was paid out my leave from my old job, bringing me so close to my first $10k travel goal.

    I now get paid on the 20th of every month, so I’m not quite sure how I’m going to calculate my savings for the calendar month. Any ideas?

  • July 13, 2011

    Playing poor

    Free Cash

    Image by FatMandy via Flickr

    Tons of you urged us to pretend to T’s family that we are equally broke following the latest saga with them. I love this in theory and believe me, it’s crossed my mind many times – but it’s impossible.

    For one, T is pathologically honest. Also, he sees his family a lot. As in, pretty much every week, often more than once (I don’t understand it either, seeing as visits are often short and IMO kind of pointless. But I guess that’s the kind of family they are, where facetime and frequency are important). Moving away isn’t something either of us want to do, either! Possibly for a couple of years, but this is our city and where we see ourselves longterm.

    For another, it’s simply not logistically viable. We have a car. We go on the odd holiday (in fact, just returned from our first trip abroad together). We have gadgets (Xbox, smartphones, digital cameras). We even go to concerts from time to time. This is all pretty obvious. If we’re not a total mess, then we are already miles ahead. Trust me when I say the bell curve in this case is rather low.

    And while I’m not flashy, he likes his toys, and he likes to show them off. Thinking back to when he had his motorbike, for example; hiding that would have meant not talking at all about the single biggest most exciting thing in his life and not riding it over to visit his mother/sister/nieces etc.

    So while we definitely live modestly – within our means rather than beyond –  meaning they don’t know the extent of our financial situation, there’s just no way to pretend that we are as broke as any of them. So if we can’t hide it, what to do? I suppose we’re fortunate in that it’s mainly only one family member who tends to need bailing out, and that T now says enough is enough. I honestly do think this is enough for more than just a brief reprieve, but I’m not under the illusion that this will be the end of it.

    Have any of you successfully – and completely – concealed your financial status from relatives?

  • June 30, 2011

    It all started with an iPhone (Or, why mixing family and money only leads to dramas)

    iPhone vs. iPhone 3G

    Image by Ricky Romero via Flickr

    As you may have inferred from this post, among others, T and I are from different sides of the tracks. It became obvious early on that family and money issues would probably be our biggest ones and if any the ones that could break us. (Initially, I wished they were my family. That was shortly after I first moved out and was still not on great terms with my family. But I’ve come to realise that demonstrativeness and liberalness are not more important than security and stability – in fact they might be less so. I am at least grateful to my parents for setting responsible examples and being good providers despite their shortcomings.)

    I will not hesitate to call off the wedding if it becomes apparent that T is bent on a path to financial destruction by continuing to help out family who can’t help themselves. But I have good reason to believe he’s not. He is, to my shame, unabashedly materialistic. Remember when we were robbed (never ever forget to lock up, people)? I didn’t tell anyone because I was so humiliated. He preferred to brag about our new and slightly bigger TV. *rolls eyes*. He wants an iPhone, a motorbike, a project car…he wants all those toys and he wants them NOW. And letting family bleed him dry is not going to help him achieve that.

    We agreed we had to pay this bill, because it’s his name and his credit at stake (there goes about a quarter of his savings). She says she’ll pay him back, but who knows whether that will happen. T says he doesn’t want to have this come between him and his sister…as if her idiotic actions hadn’t already seen to that. I still don’t know where her $450 went; it went to Telecom, but not to the correct account. Who knows, who cares – it’s not worth our time and trouble trying to chase that up or, more accurately, chase her to sort it out. The problem of course is broke people often move around a lot. And if they’re irresponsible, sometimes companies don’t always know their latest address. So all these debt collection letters have been going to the wrong house.

    It was extremely hard for me to deal with from the sidelines. I went from putting my foot down  (“this will NEVER happen again” – to which he said the only person he would ever do this for is his mother – who doesn’t exactly have stellar credit either – because, he says, she at least has a decent head on her shoulders and pays bills on time)  to a more gentle “I hope you’ll talk to me if anyone ever asks you again” to which he said I’ll just say hell no (Much better. ) Like I say, he really has made every financial mistake and I think once in this case is enough, especially given the public humiliation PLUS all the subsequent drama with Vodafone bureaucracy and trying to get the damn iPhone. Which he finally has, along with an assurance the the first month will be waived. (Ironically, I’m still waiting on my work phone).

    T is increasingly getting frustrated with his sister, and has had strong words to her more than once recently, apparently telling her that enough is enough from him after this latest debacle. It is hard when there are kids involved. And of course they will always be taken care of. But ultimately nobody will put us first except, well, us.

    Five years from now it will roll off his record, and in five years we’ll be 28 and probably only just scraping together a down payment in this overpriced city. I’d much rather this have happened now, than later on.

  • June 23, 2011

    Stupid tax

    Talk about amateur hour. First time booking flights – and I manage to book a return flight on the wrong date.

    See, I’d been wanting to go back to Wellington since our March trip. So when Jetstar had a $37 fare sale, I jumped on it immediately. I even paid by bank deposit – not by Visa, despite my love of reward points – because airlines now charge extra fees for paying by credit card.

    When my payment cleared a couple of days earlier, my itinerary was emailed to me. And somehow, I’d managed in my Friday afternoon frenzy to overlook the fact that I’d booked our return flight a week after our departure, not a day later. This had to be an overnight trip. Crap. I know how it happened, too – I was scrolling back and forth between dates, trying to get the best flight times during the sale window, and the Jetstar interface isn’t the most responsive – but I just can’t believe I didn’t notice the date discrepancy while checking out.

    I managed to find $37 seats again, but I had to pay for them once more. Plus a booking fee of $8, because for some reason I couldn’t pay by bank deposit this time. Our cheap seats didn’t end up so cheap after all once that$80 was tacked on! Also, our homebound flight is now a morning one, meaning we arrive Saturday just before noon and check out right after breakfast. We weren’t planning to do tons down there but it would be nice not to be in a rush to leave. I thought our original 24-hour itinerary was nigh on perfect. I can’t help feeling like it’s almost not worth it, but since it’s now paid for, I guess we’re sticking to the plan.

    Paying “stupid taxes” hurts! (Both the wallet and the ego.) Tell me your tales of stupidity!

  • June 16, 2011

    What we spent: May 2011

    ** Click here for more info on my monthly spending roundups.**

    Clothes: Jeez. Well, T got a haircut, and I snapped up some $45 Dickies for him. The rest of it was me, all me. I admit, I did some shopping in anticipation of the new job – tops, skirts, a cardigan, and brown boots. I also got my old black boots resoled; I bought them secondhand, but the leather quality was amazing and I wasn’t ready to give them up.

    Dining: A record low. Enough said 😀

    Entertainment: Here’s how it went. Get a text offering only $2.99 for any new release movie/game at our local store. Snap up the offer. Realise we have $12 in late fees from previously. Ouch. (This is why we pay for Sky TV/movies…) Also included guitar strings, and pliers/wire cutter things to cut them off. And booze for a party.

    Groceries: Hmm. I think it was a five week month, but it’s still a little high. Prices just keep increasing :[ I might do another grocery challenge soon, or weekly shopping recaps.

    Home expenses: Bought a cheapie new cell phone to tide me over til I get my work phone (my old one died a sudden death).

    Insurance: Contents insurance for the quarter. I should really see if I can pay this yearly and get it aligned with our car insurance.

    T fun/lunch: S’okay, I suppose. I definitely feel our financial ship has not been running very tightly, as we actually hardly saw each other at all last month. That’s changed now; and our budgeting is going to get a bit stricter.

    Utilities: Pretty average, power was a little lower than usual as I was still partly in credit.

    Vehicle: Was actually about $100 higher than this, but it was paid on T’s own card due to eftpos issues at that petrol station. Right on target, ouchly.

    Work expenses: I can’t keep up with all the courses/training T has got lined up. Not that it’s a bad thing 🙂

    This month I made an extra $530, mostly from freelancing (should have been another $27 for a mystery shop, but error first on the assigning end, and then at my end, led to no payment. Here’s how it went: Asked for a survey at either one of two very close locations. Was assigned one of them, which I immediately put in my calendar. I was familiar with the retail chain, so only gave my survey a cursory glance before going in on the day. When I entered the results online, I noticed the heading listed the OTHER store location. Emailed the staffer who assigned me the survey, who replied it was fine and it was the same company. So I went ahead and finished filling it out. What do you know – a few days later I get a call about it. And a few days later, a call saying they can’t pay me. While I should have picked up the discrepancy earlier, I’m not at all impressed with the situation).

    How did your May go?

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