How Do You Do Pocket Money?

March 14, 2013 in Children, Finance, Lifestyle, Money, Parenting

Way back in the Christmas holidays, I started pondering the subject of pocket money. I have two boys, 5 and 8, and the subject of pocket money had come up now and then, but never seriously. As my youngest was about to start school for the first time, and my older child got old enough to be able to save for things, I resolved to make a decision on the subject before school started. I thought I’d share my thinking process with you all, as some of my friends found it helpful to think about too. I opened up the [...]

Wealth Distribution, Inequality and Sadness

March 8, 2013 in Current Affairs, Finance, Home, Human Rights, Lifestyle, Money, News, People, Politics, Self, Society, Work

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about money. I hate money. I hate it with an absolute passion. As a child I wanted to be rich, purely because I didn’t ever want to have to think about money. I just wanted it to be there when I wanted it and never have to worry about it again. I’ve reached a point now where even that would not be enough. I would need to be completely, totally, stinking rich, so not only could I not think about money but I could give most of it away to others without it mattering [...]

8 Tips for Living Below Your Means

January 14, 2013 in Finance, Lifestyle, Money

Recently I received a comment referring to a post I ran on Confessions about a year ago about living below your means. The comment said: Hi Miss T…about a year ago you wrote a piece about living below your means. I liked this bit of advice very much and I wanted to share with you that from then till now I have managed to save $14,000. I know !!!! $14,000. I opened an account that is joined to my everyday account but I can’t withdraw money from it or I miss out on the interest that it pays, which really [...]

I Don’t Want To Keep Up with the Joneses

September 28, 2012 in Finance, Home, Lifestyle, Money, People, Self, Society, Technology

It amazes me what people class as necessity.  Society hammers us with the concept that the more you have, the better you are- the bigger display of wealth, the higher social standing. Most people have flat screen TVs- surround sound home theatre systems, Blu-ray and an array of pricey gaming consoles. I have my faithful PSP 3 and a boxy older TV. Sure, I can afford a new flat screen telly but I would rather spend my money on other things. It’s simply not a priority. I’ve been car shopping for a while now, and am doing so on a [...]

Has iTunes Killed Music Stores?

August 29, 2012 in Entertainment, Finance, Music, Technology

I remember the first time I entered a music shop – Vinyl everywhere, plus cassettes. I grew up in a home where records played almost constantly.  When I finally made a purchase with my own money, I was excited. I browsed the cassettes and ended up choosing Eric Clapton. I took it to the counter, handed over my pocket money and got an appreciative nod from the older male owner: “Good choice, kiddo!” I went home and played my cassette. I loved it. And there began my love affair with purchasing music. Over time, the format has changed. Where once [...]

Materialistic? Drowning in Fashion Excess?

August 8, 2012 in Fashion, Finance, Human Rights, Lifestyle, Money, News, People, Self, Society, Style

Are you materialistic? Drowning in fashion excess? Here lies the cure. I have stayed in touch with some of my former students after they have left school. I have done this with the aid of Facebook, and recently noticed something that interested me . One of these students, a bright and thoughtful young woman was taking part in an activity called ‘Project 333’.  I was intrigued and through chatting with her, I found out that ‘Project 333’ is exactly the kind of experiment our society needs. For 3 months, you may wear 33 pieces of clothing, which includes shoes, hats, [...]

I Love EOFYS!

July 16, 2012 in Current Affairs, Finance, Lifestyle, Money, News

Today’s guest post by Mazi Gray: With the End of the Financial year just passed, my thoughts turn to the accountant and my tax return. I love it when the calendar page is torn away from June 30th to July 1st, for one simple reason: I love the end of the Financial year. I call it EOFYS, (end of the financial year sale) because it’s a lot easier to say than END OF THE FINANCIAL YEAR, and thanks to Foxtel’s sale campaign having such a catchy jingle, all my friends know what I mean… even when there is no sale. [...]

How’s Your Economy?

June 14, 2012 in Current Affairs, Finance

So, how do you think the Australian economy is going? Have no idea? I’m not surprised…there are so many conflicting opinions at the moment. Every night we see news of doom and gloom from Europe. The US economy is recovering slowly, but you probably wouldn’t know that from the news. In Australia we see stories about redundancies, and yet the unemployment rate is stable. There are stories about the cost of living going through the roof, and yet the inflation rate is low and stable, and salaries are rising, contradicting that whole notion. The Australian economy is undergoing an amazing restructure at [...]

Skilled Foreign Workers: Good Thing Or Bad Thing?

May 29, 2012 in Current Affairs, Finance, News, Politics

It’s been difficult not to miss all the argy-bargy over the Enterprise Migration Agreements (EMAs) in the media recently. On one side of the argument you have the Mining Companies arguing that because of the current skills shortage (economist speak for “we can’t find enough people to work for us”) that they need EMAs to be able to bring “on-line” new and important mining infrastructure. On the other side you have the Union movement crying foul and claiming that the Mining Companies are simply using the scheme to employ cheap labour…”Dederker Jerbz!” Of course, then there’s the whole two-speed economy thing. There’s [...]

Are you worried about a recession? What about a depression?

May 22, 2012 in Current Affairs, Finance

There was an interesting opinion piece from John Birmingham in today’s Sydney Morning Herald about the consequences of an economic depression. In it he asked the question “How will we – the softest, most materialist culture in Western history – cope when it all goes horribly wrong?” He described some of the consequences of the last depression in Australia where “thousands of houses and apartments stood empty in Sydney and Melbourne while tens of thousands of people lived rough on the edge of the cities.” While this is all true, I think it paints an overly bleak and unrealistic portrait of [...]