Another fun weekend planned

Another fun weekend of study in front of me. I mentioned back at the start of the month that I had 7 assignments and 2 exams in May. I've completed both exams and have handed in 4 of the 7 assignments. Have two more assignments due Monday and my final one on Wednesday. Then, have 3 weeks of freedom from assessments before having 2 final exams in mid to late June.

The only good thing about having to spend the weekend studying is that it means I'm not out spending money - as long as I can resist fast food. (Which I seem to eat an awful lot of when studying). Going to cook a bit stir fry tonight which should do for a lot of the week.

Warning: This post will be a bit of a rant!

I mentioned back in March that I wanted to study a Masters of Tax in the US, and that doing so would cost about $100K AU. Well, after spending the last hour trying to decipher some US Tax Regulations, I'm realising that maybe studying tax in the US wouldn't be as fun as just going on holidays there!

I'm sure in reality US tax is no more confusing that Australian tax, but when it's almost 10pm at night; there is no one I can talk to about it (and even if it wasn't almost 10pm at night there is really no one I work with who is a specialist in US tax law); and the US tax textbooks I have are pretty useless (note to self, never buy US tax textbooks again unless I can look at them first!), I wonder why on earth I had a desire to study it!

I'm working on a very annoying research paper comparing certain provisions of Australian and American tax law. I would prefer to be at home, but considering it's due Monday I really need to keep working on it!

Rant over.

Free entertainment on the web

One of the most important things to do if you are trying to save money is work out ways to have fun for free.

I have mixed feelings on the internet in general. On the one hand it's a wonderful invention, allowing people to access abundant masses of knowledge from the comfort of their own home, but on the other hand there is a lot of crap out there. I for one know I waste a whole lot of time on the net.

But it is great in terms of free entertainment - there are a lot of sites I visit to give me a laugh.

One of my favourite sites is The Daily Puppy. I love dogs (and cats, and bunnies, and pretty much anything fluffy). I have actually never had a dog, where I live at the moment I can't have one, and considering the costs associated with them that's probably a good thing. But I love visiting this site to see the "puppy of the day". They are so cute! :) So if you are a dog lover who hasn't seen this site before - enjoy. If you don't like dogs - well, there isn't really much point in you visiting.

Credit card increases & status

I received another offer to increase one of my credit card limits. So much for the credit crunch. So far this year I've recevied:

• An offer to increase a $12,500 credit card to $19,000
• An offer to increase a $10,000 credit card to $13,000

In addition, a couple of months ago I received an offer to ugrade to a gold credit card (no increase in credit limit). Let's look at the Pros and Cons of the gold credit card, compared to the one I did have with the bank:

Pros

• It was "Gold"
• Balance transfer offer of 3.9%

Cons

• Higher standard interest rate
• High annual fee

I did accept the offer for the Gold card because I made use of the 3.9% balance transfer offer. But if I hadn't needed/wanted the balance transfer offer, the only advantage would be that it was "gold" and this got me thinking about credit card "colours" and status.

Is a gold card really any superior to a normal/standard card? I actually have a "platinum" card, and I certainly don't have a platinum level of income!

Now I'm aware that some cards, such as the Centurion Card (aka a Black Amex), provide exclusive benefits, and that probably is a card where if you use it people go "whoa". (But with an AU $4,300 annual fee it would want to provide exclusive benefits!) But in terms of Gold/Platinum cards, they seem to be more and more common. I certainly don't think I'm served any differently if I use a Gold Card.

Extra salary / salary sacrificing etc

I mentioned a while ago that I had spent most of a weekend doing some extra work - marking assignments (such a joyful job!) I got paid for it last week - came in with my normal salary.

Basically, I did an extra 13 or so hours extra work, for $488.74, which is great. However, 45.9% was taken out for tax, so the extra cash I received in my pay was $264.74. Obviously I'm still happy for the extra pay, but I will be looking forward to doing my tax this year because I think I will be due a large refund.

I looked up the salary sacrifice policy for laptops, filled out the form and sent off my receipt, so hopefully that will be processed and I will get the money refunded in my next pay or so. I have enough in my short-term savings to pay for the laptop I bought (well, all bar $50), but it would be nice to be able to pay for my laptop, keep some in short-term savings and be able to put the rest to a credit card.

I think the next couple of months will be better financially - I'm continuing to do extra marking, and it looks like my work will pay for part of my Masters, so should get $2,000 mid year. (But until it is actually in my bank account I'm not counting on it!) Then hopefully I'll get my tax refund around August.

House valuation

As I've mentioned previously, I own an investment property with my brother, which we purchased in March 2007. We had a valuer come today to re-value it. Even those recently house prices seem to have dropped, they still look like they have increased a lot since we we bought the property.

We aren't planning on selling/refinancing anytime soon, but it would be nice knowing we had more equity in the house.

When we bought it, it had been originally listed for $449K, dropped to $429K and we ended up paying $420K. I'm hoping that at a minimum, the valuation comes back above $450K.

Completely random post

1. I'm using my new laptop! :) Loving the laptop, hating Microsoft Vista. As much as I hate 2007 Office. What was wrong with XP and Office 2003?

2. I'm very short - usually don't mind too much, but my light bulb blew in my room on the weekend. Even standing on a chair, neither my flatmate (who is only slightly taller than me) or I can reach to change the stupid thing! My brother was meant to come over last night to fix it but was busy, and now he is sick (called me today and he sounded terrible, and obviously his health is more important than a light globe, but it's still annoying!) Maybe I should start making friends with some tall neighbours? (I live in an apartment building).

3. I'm hungry, and the orange poppyseed cake I have in the oven isn't exactly a suitable dinner! (Taking it in to work tomorrow). In one of those, "I just won't eat because I don't know what I want and can't be bothered cooking anything" moods.

Keeping track of things

When I posted my April summary, a reader asked how I kept such good track of my expenses etc.

Well to be honest, this month I've been incredibly slack with keeping track of what I'm been spending.

But in terms of what I try to do:

I keep a separate diary for keeping track of money - instead of writing appointments etc each day I write expenses/income. I keep all my receipts - I just put them in a plastic container until the end of the month.

At the end of the month I go through my receipts and check off all of them to make sure I put them in my money diary. I then go online and look at my bank statements etc to keep track of interest, bank fees, any direct debits, and will ocassionally pick something up I used EFTPOS for but didn't have a receipt.

Then I put it all into Excel and voila!

The problem is when I spend cash (usually on junk food!) that I don't keep track of. So I'm the first to admit that my monthly summaries will not always been to the cent accurate. I sometimes will put in a round figure if I remember buying something but can't remember exactly what.

I generally try to pay for things with EFTPOS, and even if I pay with cash try to get a receipt.

I have an accounting degree, in theory I should be able to reconcile everything each month so I know what is missing (or at least the amount), but I'd probably end up tearing my hair out! This way, it may not always be 100% accurate, but it's pretty close, and I'm more likely to keep doing it.

A very big spending day

Surprisingly, weekends for me are often my "better" spending days (ie. I spend less). A lot of the time during the week I waste a lot of money on buying lunches, snacks, etc. Obviously there are times when I have plans for the weekend, but often I am at home studying. (Dreaming of what my life will be like when I have finished my post-grad courses and have weekends to myself!)

This weekend wasn't one of them. Saturday was fine, I bought a loaf of bread but that was it, but yesterday.....
I BOUGHT A NEW LAPTOP!

I've mentioned quite a few times on my blog that I needed a new computer. As much as I loved my old one, he turns seven next month - which is above and beyond the life expectancy of a laptop!

With the $900 bonus from the government, I had $1,200 in a "short-term" savings account which I had allocated in my head to a new laptop.

I saw what I thought was a decent one, my brother (who is much more computer savvy than me) agreed, so I bit the bullet and bought it.

It was $1,297 - aToshiba Satellite L300/0WC Notebook, and came with bonus Microsoft Home and Student 2007.

I'm still using my old computer to write this, I had so many assignments to do over the weekend, and spent a couple of hours going to buy the computer, so didn't have time to start playing with it.

I'm personally not a fan of Vista or Office 2007 - I prefer XP and Office 2003 - but I guess I need to keep up with the times.

So it was about what I was looking at spending, and when I get into work today (which I should be leaving for in about 7 minutes), I'm going to look at the salary sacrifice plan - apparently you can just fill in a form, take your receipt for the computer in, and they will refund the amount and then start deducting it from your salary. If I can't do that it's not a big deal because I had saved the money up, but if I could do it, it will be nice to still have money in my savings account!

Progress Bars

I've started making progress bars for my blog. It is great to visually see how much you have paid off/saved. EG: I've been thinking I've barely made a dent in my credit card debt, but I have paid off almost 14%. That isn't to be sneezed at.

A huge thanks to Stacking Pennies, who posted a blog entry on how to make the progress bars. (I'm pretty incompetent when it comes to html!)

Swine flu

Unless you been living under a rock for the last week, you will have heard of Swine Flu, which from what I understand from watching Sixty Minutes last night, it is combination of a pig (swine) virus; a bird virus; has been passed from pigs to humans and now can be passed from human to human.

It is officially known as Influenza A(H1N1) and more information can be found on the World Health Organisation website.

Obviously any new disease is a concern, particularly when there is no vaccine. But this is a time when I think the news is doing more harm than good in terms of causing panic.

According to the WHO, as at 06:00GMT 4 May 2009, 20 countries have reported 985 cases. There have been 25 deaths, all in Mexico. There haven’t been any deaths in any other countries.

Obviously it’s upsetting that people have died, but in the grand scheme of things – and this will sound callous - but 25 people really isn't that many. My hearts go out to the families of the people who have died, but the way it is being discussed on the news/current affairs, you would think there are people lying dead in the streets worldwide.

In 2006 there was Bird Flu; and in 2004 there was SARS – and yet we have survived.

In the last week signs have gone up in all the toilets at the uni I work at, saying protect yourself from Flu by covering your mouth when you cough; using tissues; disposing of tissues properly; and washing your hands. Shouldn’t people be doing that anyway? I mean, I work at a university – if people are university students and don’t know to wash their hands and to use tissues – heaven help us.

So far the WHO hasn’t released any information on the economic impact of Swine Flu, but with the economy the way it is, and even just the flu season in general, I think people will be going to
work even when they are sick.

If you are a casual employee and take a sick day, you don’t get any pay, I’ve already heard of a lot of casuals getting their hours reduced so they won’t want to lose any more.

Even if you get sick leave, if you are concerned about redundancies, you may not want to take any sick days in case your boss thinks you are just “chucking a sickie”.

April Summary

My credit card debt as at 1 May is $22,016.77, meaning I paid off $540.29 in April.

My bank accounts/savings as at 1 May are $5,790.02, an increase of $274.53.

My income for the month was: $4,341.57 (primarily salary, and also the $900 bonus).

My expenses for the month were $2,954.41, consisting of:

Day is getting worse

Well after neglecting my blog for a bit I'm posting up a storm. Of course, most of it is rants!!

I mentioned the Dylan Moran concert tonight in an earlier post. Well, my brother just called and said he can't go because of a work event. I'm p*ssed off, because I bought the tickets a while ago, and he did mention about a month ago that a work event had changed dates and was now on the same night of the concert, but he was not going to go to the work event.

It annoys me, because he's the type of person who when I said what was happening with my study expenses and work, he said, "just demand they pay for it or you will quit". And I'm doing a lecture this week which I'm not getting paid extra for because it's in work hours, even though it's outside my job description, and he said "that's not your job, demand you get paid extra". Yet with something like this, he told work he had a pre-existing engagement (after all, it was his work that changed the date), and now he's turned around, the day of the concert and said to me, "comments were made that I wasn't going and I'm expected to go".

Now I'm the first person to put work ahead of all else. (I'm not saying that's a good thing, and probably do it less now, but in my old job, work was my life). If I had plans and then something came up at work, work would come first. But everyone of my friends and family knew this about me. (Once again, not saying it's a good thing, I certainly neglected friends). But my brother is such a hypocrite. He is so gung-ho about "demanding" this and "demanding" that, and at the end of the day he's as bad as me!!

Textbook frustration

Back at the end of March, I posted about how I spent $311.95US on U.S. Tax Textbooks.

Well now I'm p*ssed off. I bought two books - essentially a "Basic Principles" and a "Comprehensive Topics" book. Well, it turns out that all bar two chapters of the Basic Principles Book (and not two chapters I need) are reproduced EXACTLY in the Comprehensive Topics book. So buying the Basic Principles book was completely unnecessary and a complete waste of money.

And although I work at a university and there is a big market for second hand textbooks, there really isn't a market for U.S. Tax Textbooks.

Very frustrating.

Goals for May

May for me is about 4 things:

1. Studying
2. Working
3. Losing weight
4. Saving money

Studying

• With my Masters & Grad Dip, May is a very busy month. I have 7 assignments and 2 exams. Eep!!

Working

• We are putting out an issue of the Journal I am production editor off. First one I have worked on, so I think it is going to be a steep learning curve.
• I will also have more marking to do (in good news, I put in my time sheet for the other marking I did, is about $470 before tax. Yay! :)
• I have a conference paper to write
• And my normal other 50 million duties!

Losing weight

• This week I went to the gym 3 times, which for me is pretty good! But I haven't been losing weight as often as I would have liked because I keep having bad days in between good days.
• I want to keep up the gym, keep on with the healthy eating and hopefully I will lose around 5 kilos.

Saving money

• I haven't done my April summary yet, but I know it wasn't a good month. I realise that although my finances are in a better state than last year, I'm keeping track of everything I'm spending, paying my credit cards off (slowly!), I'm really not living frugally or living like I'm on a budget. That has to change.
• With May being all about study, work and losing weight - I really shouldn't have much of a chance to spend money!

Weekend things to do

I have a fun-filled weekend of work, study and household chores. Actually, that's a lie, I am going to see a Dylan Moran concert tonight. Love his work. I bought the tickets back in January for myself and a birthday present for my brother, so already paid for. I'm getting a bus to where the show is, and I already have a prepaid 10-trip bus ticket. The concert doesn't start until 8pm so will eat before I go... overall cost should be $0.

But seriously, I have so much to do this weekend.... making a list ....

Study
Prep for trust accounting exam
Sit trust accounting exam (online - must complete between Sunday 9am and Monday 9pm - aim to do it Sunday night)
Catch-up on reading for Commerical Law Practice
Work on Tax Course 1 assignment - mainly reading
Work on Tax Course 2 assignment - reading/notes
Reading for Tax course 2

Work
Prep for lecture next week (my first one ever!!!)

Houshold
Washing/ironing - I hadn't ironed for about 2 weeks. Did a basket this morning but have a load of washing on which will also need ironing.
Quick apartment clean - mop/vaccum/wipe surfaces (shouldn't take too long - times like this I like living in a smallish apartment!)

Other
Gym - body pump class
Dylan Moran concert

Financial
List a minimum of 4 things on Ebay (some things I already have photos for so hopefully won't take too long)
Update blog with April summary/expenses

I think that's it! Don't think I'm going to get through all of it but will see how I go.