13 Things I Have Learnt This Week

1. It’s not actually possible for your head to explode.  You may want it to, but that’s another story.
2. I’m ridiculously in love with my big girl.  She has been so worried about me being sick and she’s been adorable, cleaning, playing with her little sister and a pleasure to be around.
3. The little one can sleep for 5 hours straight.  Several other nights there’s been a lot of crying, but that one gives us hope.
4. I’ve never had sinusitis before.  I thought I had, but a dull ache above and below the eyes is nothing to the drill/knife/jackhammer that’s been active this week.  My entire eye socket and even my teeth hurt.
5. There are actually about 15 trains a day from Rome to Venice, but for some reason I can’t get tickets after the 12th of December.  Later ones had better become available in the next couple of weeks.
6. There is a Charlie and Lola live show in London on the 23rd of December.  My girls are going to LOVE it.
7. I’ve worked out how to put together a yoked jacket with a lined hood and bodice with minimal instructions.  Now I just need time to finish the hems and buttons and for baby girl to actually try it on.
8. It’s ok to let something go.  I always over-commit myself ridiculously and stepping back from something has changed my stress levels enormously.
9. There is a local woman who does clothing alterations/repairs who put a new zip in my favourite jeans.  Now I just need to lose the weight so they’re comfortable again.
10. It’s much less painful if you don’t look at everything as you sort it.  Two big boxes of baby clothes ready to go to playgroup and be passed on.
11. I should have left the corn on the cob for both girls.  They ended up hijacking ours and we ate the kernels I’d cut off for them.
12. I love my husband.  He’s helping deal with baby girl at night, doing his normal job and painting our new investment property after work.  And he’s been looking after me while I was sick.
13. Between 1 and 2 is such a happy, loving, exciting, adventurous age.

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Wordless Wednesday- Waiting for Daddy…

Waiting for Daddy...

 

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MONDAY MONEY – INVESTMENTS Paying off Debt and Investing for the Future.

My strongest recommendation is to pay off the debt you have, and then plan further investments for the future. Many of us have debt, usually 2 or 3 loans, ranging from short term to long term. With all the loans there are fees and interest that we are paying. It is worth doing a few calculations to see how much you are paying back on all the loans. Once you have done this you will realise how much money you have for future investments.

Starting with the loan (credit card included) with the highest interest rate, how much is the monthly repayment on this account. If it is a credit card then there needs to be a plan not to make any more purchases using the card, the aim is a zero balance and then to get rid of it altogether. Pay the minimum on all other loans and put everything into getting rid of the highest interest.  Once this is achieved, using the monthly payments from the loan you have just paid out, add these to the next highest interest rate loan and pay it out. Adding the 2 amounts together will reduce the loan in next to no time and save you a huge amount in fees and charges. Keep doing this until you have no more loans left.

This sounds so simple, so why is it that we don’t do it? A big reason is discipline! We are not good organisers and really do not handle our finances as well as we would like to. There is always something more important than getting ourselves out of the financial mess we are in from week to week.

I think a fairly new product on the banking scene is the Offset Account. I know more and more people are finding this and starting to use it. I certainly did and it made a difference to my situation. Basically it is an account you have your savings or pay go into. Any interest on the funds is used against a nominated loan account. It is worth talking to your bank about how it all works. They should be able to explain it clearly. The interest that I saved on my loan I added to the repayments and I was able to reduce the loan faster, and in turn save more money.

There is a fine line between investing for the future and paying off debt. I strongly believe that we should be investing for our futures, and those people who make money from having us put money into their funds would agree with me. But I would say that we need to be a little cautious in this area, as we try and sort out what is sound advice and what is perhaps helping keep others employed.

It is all the harder when interest rates are low, there is a real chance to build some savings as I don’t have to pay as much in interest each month. Another way to look at this would be to say, here is a great opportunity to reduce the loan faster and reduce my debt! How many people have looked at this and kept paying the larger amounts into the loan, or have they gone ‘whew’ less strain on the budget and used the money elsewhere. I would hazard a guess to say lots of people have done the latter! I know what I have done in the past, lessen the strain on the budget is usually the path people take.

So how do I plan to make some real changes in my financial situation? My starting point was to look at all my expenses, then my income. From there I developed a budget. 3 simple steps. Making sure that my income was greater than my expenses each fortnight, including payments for loans. Once I had this information I was able to establish what amount I had per fortnight over and above my expenses, and what I could reasonably add to one of the loans I had. With this in place I made sure that I stuck with paying out the first loan. Next as I said before, adding the first payment to the second loan and paying it out. Not long before debt is being reduced very rapidly.

Once you have paid off the loan/s or repaid the money to someone else, you can start to seriously look at your future savings. Over the life of a 30 year home loan, you will have paid back in interest about the same amount as you borrowed. So it stands to reason that if you can repay the money sooner then you will pay less, and therefore start to save sooner.

I really do hope this is understandable as I have had a deal of difficulty putting it together. The main point is to not be paying interest on loans to banks as you try to save for the future, look at paying off your debt and then build a positive investment.

13 insane catastrophes

1. If I have a bath with baby when no-one is at home and I slip with her in my arms and hit my neck or become unconscious she might drown!
2. I shouldn’t leave that can of spray on it’s side – what if it explodes and shoots around the room and hits someone in their temple?
3. Train derailments while waiting at the boom gates.
4. Prams without brakes near water
5. Walking with a knife from one side of the kitchen to the other… If I trip…
6. Walking with a glass in the kitchen … must swap glasses for plastic.
7. Wet feet in the hallway after a shower… what if I have to run?
8. Being alone in the house… madmen attack
9. Plane trips – have convinced myself the day I don’t think about a crash is when it will happen.
10. Husband working in the mines on large machinery – need I say more?
11. What if she’s allergic to something we haven’t come across yet?
12. Suffocating blankets/pillows/teddy bears/fluff
13. Cords and buttons on children’s clothing

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Wordless Wednesday

MONDAY MONEY – Debt

I started putting this as part of another topic and decided it needs more consideration. It was going to be part of a topic on Investments and whilst it still is, I think it better to take a look at Debt on its own before exploring other areas.

What is Debt?

Stop and think about this question before answering it. What does Debt mean to you? Perhaps it is worth stopping here and writing your answer down, make a comparison to what I am suggesting. I have spoken with many people and there appear to be many differing views on what Debt really is. I’ll save my answer for later!

Not all Debt is a bad thing. We go into Debt to buy a house to live in. Some people also use it to buy a car. These debts are not all that bad really when you look at it. Who can afford to buy these things outright in the first place? Surely it is better to have a house you are buying than paying off someone else’s loan as you rent? Almost always the answer is yes, this is a good idea. For many people these things are not being in Debt, they are part of our daily lives, an expectation.

I have a son who has just bought into his first home at the age of 24, he bought in with a friend. Between them the maximum they could afford to borrow was $500,000. How much did they borrow? Yes, $500,000. Both have reasonable jobs and a good income. With the first home buyers they have been able to buy a few things they need to make the place comfortable, you know, the flat screen plasma, new leather lounge and bedroom suite, all new and the better quality!  To me, this is a bad debt because they have left themselves with no reserves.

When investigating the possible loans online, all the loan calculators give you a figure of what the maximum is you can afford to borrow, therefore what you can manage to repay. How many people look at the figure and then look for something less than the amount you can borrow? Check with your friends on what they did? What did you do? Did you look for something cheaper, in an area that you perhaps didn’t want to live in or something run down, or did you borrow the maximum and then struggle with the Debt.

Our venture into the housing market came at a time when prices were going up very rapidly, if we didn’t get into the market soon, it might have been impossible, or at the very least, difficult. So we organised our finances and started to research what was available. We looked in a number of areas and locations, finally making the decision to buy something on a fairly major road. The prices of other houses in the same area but not on such a busy street were considerably more. It got us into the market and we have kept pace with houses in the area, something we couldn’t have done by simply saving. It is by no means the perfect house but we have developed some attachments to the place. We have been able to pay it off quickly because it was well within our affordable range. We now have considerable equity in the house, and could sell and upgrade any time we want to.

I spoke with a young chap about his plans for the future, he wants a house, was paying off the car, planning his wedding etc. His plan was to move into a suburb that was going to stretch his finances. We spoke about what other options he could possibly look at, perhaps a smaller house or another suburb that was more affordable. All good options, yet he stuck with his plan and is probably going to struggle for many years. This isn’t just a financial burden but can also put stress on a young family and limit other options. Why not get into the market with something more affordable and pay a larger amount off, or as much as you can afford, then use it as a stepping stone for the place you really want to be in. Instead he’s struggling, so this is definitely what I would call a bad debt!

The other bad debt is the one to purchase all those things you really can live without but must have anyway. The personal loan or credit card, things you want to have in the house, or items that you should really look at saving up for rather than buying right now. These are ‘wants’ rather than needs. The thing here is to look at what the debt is going to do to you, both short term and long term.

In a previous Monday Money I wrote about Credit Cards, and the money being borrowed. All debt is borrowed money and has to be repaid at some stage. We need to look at ways of changing our purchasing power so we use what is already ours, rather than getting a loan from someone else. The borrowed money needs to be considered as living beyond our means in the first place. Surely if we can afford the item then we can pay cash for it or save the money to buy it.

So what is my definition of Debt? I would like to suggest the term covers any ‘money you have borrowed’ for the purpose of purchasing something you want or need. It is money that you have not yet earned, so belongs to someone else and therefore has conditions attached for its use. These conditions include things like having to repay the money along with interest, fees and charges. In other words it is going to be more to repay than you originally borrowed.

Therefore I would suggest that there are 2 types of Debt. I place these into 2 categories, the good and the bad. The good debt covers the things like a house to live in, something that you can afford to pay off in less than the term of the loan. I would also include a second hand car, something cheap, reliable and affordable, again paid off inside the life of the loan. This should be done without having to stretch the budget, perhaps using the repayment amount for the maximum you could have borrowed, but actually borrowing less to pay it off sooner. Bad debt is any loan, including credit cards, for the items that with disciplined saving you could afford to pay cash for and avoid fees and interest. Or any loan for something you didn’t really need!

I’ll leave you with a question this week. According to my 2 types of debt, which have you got?

We were egged last night

No knocks on the door, no refusal to treat.  Definitely no costumes.  In fact one of the attacks was at midnight, just as I was going to bed.  Welcome to Halloween in a small town in the middle of Australia.

Kids have been getting excited and planning for the past week, but not their costume or their party.  They’ve been discussing who they will vandalise, leaving eggs out in the sun (and it’s 40+ here).  One was spotted buying 5 dozen eggs yesterday.

Something has been lost in translation.

Forget pagan origins, what are they?  And forget the concept that you put some effort into a costume, have a bit of fun, maybe get some chocolate.  It’s even gone past bribery – they don’t even threaten give me some chocolate or I’ll egg you.  It’s just a night when you are allowed to run around and vandalise things.  Isn’t it?

Believe it or not, I’m not all that upset.  Partly that’s because their aim was pretty bad and they hit the wheelie bin, not the car or the house.  But I think it’s a good, or rather worrying, example of how kids in small town Australia are lost.

Where is their culture?  Where are their role models?  I know exactly where many of them get their cultural memes – WWE, World Wresting Entertainment on Austar.  I know because I’ve been teaching many of them and had this discussion.  And it’s not just that the shows are American or unrealistic, there is also a basic lack of understanding.  They don’t understant what the shows are trying to tell them so they latch onto a few things they do understand and construct a worldview based on them.

This is critical literacy.  This is making sense of and analysing a text.

Now think of the internet.  Think of the masses of information that wash over you with the click of a button.  And think how scary it is to see people let loose in there without the ability to tell what is credible and what isn’t.  What is a reliable source and what isn’t.  I’ve just had a swine flu example – someone who should have known better passing on propaganda without even clicking on the link to the source, which would have told them something wasn’t right.  And this is an intelligent, well-educated person.

So we have two problems.  First we have to understand that the world has changed.  We now live in the information age and it is far, far different to the world we grew up in, even those of us who are relatively young.  We have to realise and prepare our children for a whole new world and new set of skills, especially new literacies.

And we need to look to our own skills and make sure we haven’t been left behind.  Because if we don’t, we might not realise we are egging people.

“All Natural!” … So what?

Firstly let me say I’m an evolutionary biologist by training.  So I love nature.  I think nature is amazing, awe-inspiring, incredible, and just about every other superlative.  I do not think nature is good.  In fact, I find the idea incredibly offensive.

Let me explain.  ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are human constructs based on morals.  It is a way of judging things and seeing if they measure up to our personal sense of right and wrong.  In fact I’ll go further and say the whole idea of ‘good’ nature is religious thinking, because it is based on the idea that nature was created for us, to look after us.  This is incredibly limiting.  Nature is bigger than us, and to me it takes a special kind of arrogance to think you can judge nature by human standards or in human terms.

Yes, nature has given us some amazing systems such as skeletal development, bee colonies and coral reefs.  It has also given us diptheria, tetanus and earthquakes.

Some of the most dangerous things to eat include eggs, fish and nuts – all natural.  And in the long term, fat and sugar are more likely to kill you than BPA.  Heart disease is the most common cause of death in the industrialised world, and the obesity epidemic wasn’t caused by artificial additives.  If you make homemade goodies with the most natural of butters and sugars it doesn’t matter if they are free from artificial preservatives – they are still firmly in the ’sometimes food’ category, not ‘everyday foods’.  It is perfectly possible to be incredibly unhealthy on an ‘all-natural’ diet.

Some of the most important drugs are anti-biotics and pain killers like aspirin and morphine – all natural.  Whole classes of pharmaceuticals are based on natural chemicals from plants and moulds, because nature has been in the business of creating bio-active chemicals for a very, very long time.  But those important drugs also have side effects and can be dangerous, exactly because they work so well.  A side effect is just a biological effect of a drug other than the one we want – and nature created those drugs without worrying about what humans might want.

If you are ever told that something is ‘has no side-effects’ because it is natural then a) they’re lying or b) it doesn’t work.  How can I be so black and white?  Easily.  Natural things are messy and complicated.  They contain many different drugs in different doses, meaning there are more things there to affect your system.  And then there are interactions between drugs, where we have trouble even guessing what might happen.  Even eating fruit changes the way your gut absorbs things and can give you a dangerous overdose of some drugs!  So being natural is actually a guarantee that there will be effects other than the one you are after, which is the definition of a side-effect.  Unless of course it doesn’t have an effect at all.  Because that’s the only way you can guarantee no side-effects – if there is no effect.  Which means it doesn’t work.

As far as nature is concerned, we are one moderately successful species out of the billions that have ever lived.  It doesn’t create anything especially for us.  And the past 10,000 years of human history are largely the story of trying to get away from nature.  Fire, planting our own food, living in one place, sanitation, electric lights, comfortable beds, these are all ways of avoiding nature.  And I like it.  I like being able to stay up past sunset because I have light.  I like being able to have a hot shower and a flush toilet.  I like being able to keep my food fresh in a refrigerator, and get fruit and vegetables that are out of season and don’t grow in this area.  I especially like that my children are not likely to die.  Living to see my grandkids grow up will be another bonus.  All of these things are ‘against nature.’

Like I said, I love nature.  I am fascinated and awed by it.  It has created some amazing things, including planets and ecosystems and even the human brain.  But it is not human so I don’t judge it in human terms.  And I don’t use it to judge other things.  It’s not a way to tell if a food is healthy – it might be, it might not.  It’s not a way to tell if a drug will work and be safe.  It’s not even a way to tell if a parenting practice will be good for my children.  These are complicated questions and lots of factors need to be considered, not just how natural they are.

So if you try to sell me something by telling me it’s “all natural!”  my considered response will be “So what?”

13 Things We Did Today (well, yesterday, I’m writing this Wednesday night)

1. Played in the paddling pool – with warm water!

2. Pretended they were puppy dogs – fetching balls and bringing them back in their mouths.

3. Did the grocery shopping, sans underwear for baby girl because it took so long to get ready I forgot she’d taken them off.

4. Attempted to get baby girl to sleep while big girl was strapped in the highchair (her choice) with extra food and the remote control.

5. Got up to deal with big girl being stuck, gave up on bed and ended up getting baby girl to nap in my arms.

6. Big girl whispered ‘Fox in Socks’ to me and I did the long pages.

7. Collected and filled a million water bottles while both girls ferried them to the fridge and poked them in any gaps they could find.

8. Cooked chocolate cupcakes and decorated them with bright pink icing and sprinkles.

9. Sang nursery rhymes on my bed.

10. Daddy came home!

11. Chopped up chicken while big girl put it in the egg and flour and told me how much she loved having chicken for tea.

12. Counted each mouthful of salad for big girl and coaxed her to eat one tiny piece of chicken because she doesn’t like it.

13. Got out 50 pieces of ice because big girl ran into a pole while trying to sneak up on Daddy and split her lip and baby girl decided that sucking on ice sounded pretty good.

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Wordless Wednesday – Sisters

Ok before anyone says this is really twee, I’d like to point out that my kids choose their own clothes and hairstyles.  If given the chance they pick mine as well, and think that’s even better.

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