davetapson

So @Intern, as someone who is playing the covid wave, what is your stab as to when a good time to start looking for property? I'm figuring that we need to wait for the subsidies to stop, the mortgage holiday to stop, Christmas to eat up the last drops in the tank and Jan/Feb will tell us the future. You got a view on this? I'm thinking your view is longer term, probably closer to a year or two in the future?

It does cross my mind tho, if you are making monthly payments (which I am) then you avoid the fx commissions if you are paying to Blackrock or Vanguard in the US, so SS makes sense. Unless you can buy B or V funds in NZ..? Note to self: check.

In a previous life when I was single and liquid (cash wise), about 2000 or so, if any of yous is old enough to remember back that far, tech stocks were flying. I had some cash in the bank and some time on my hands - so I figured, 'hey drop half your cash into some of these tech stocks, take the rest, buy a round-the-world ticket, you can monitor them on-line, what could go wrong?' So did that. About Cambodia time, where internet speeds were so slow that logging on to websites was a time consuming and frustrating affair, I thought 'Fk it' and left them be. They all looked fine. Couple of months later, after making a pit stop to see the folks in SA, I rock back to the UK, log on... strange, I'm sure that the companies were called "Blah" and "Blah2" (and...) Can't seem to find them, maybe I'm misremembering the stock codes. This was in the day when they sent you stock certificates when you bought stock, went dug them out, nope, the stock codes were right. They were gone. Just gone. Closed down, keep your cert, have fun. Was a bit of an eye opener. So had to sell the ones that had done well (as in still existed!) to get liquid again. Still got the certs, somewhere. Magic Moments (yes) was one of them I think, a gaming company if I remember right.

But if you looking for access to NZ index funds, they're not a bad option.

I currently use Smart Shares, but in an unsmart way, because I'm dof. Gets you cheap access to index funds, NZ and overseas. I wanted access to robotics and health funds, so got then via SS. I then did some reading, because always check after you've dropped the dosh, not before, because that would be dumb, and found they're just rebadging Vanguard or Blackrock funds - probably be cheaper to go direct. The thing that had me incensed was that they take your dosh on the 20th, sit on it till the 3rd, when they have a guy with a side rule do all the calcs and assign you your units. Someone needs to tell them about realtime transactions and calculators. Maybe even computers and spreadsheets and things. But hey, NZ.

Ah, at last. I was feeling left out... $52. I need to buy a more expensive car. Or more toys. Or both. Hi David, Great news Back in April, we announced that we had received fewer motor claims during the COVID-19 lockdown and would be providing a rebate to our motor customers. Now that we have a clearer picture of the impact on our claim costs, we’re pleased to be doing just that! Maybe they got some guy in a back room typing these emails out by hand and only got to the 'T's now...

Wiseasses..!! I put in a 'me-too' post reply to Rocketboy and then re-thought my career prospects.

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At the risk of peeing y'all off... Scott Pape again: “Get out now.” That’s the advice the CEO of NAB has given to homeowners who are struggling to make their repayments. Yes, in his quarterly trading update last week, NAB’s new-ish chief, Ross McEwan, warned: “There will be some circumstances where people are better off selling out early and taking some equity out of their homes, or keeping some equity, before it disappears.” While most of the media didn’t give his words much attention, there are two good reasons that you and I should: First, because in all the years I’ve been doing this column I’ve never heard a bank boss speak so candidly. Bank bosses are basically politicians: they get parachuted into the top job, stay there for five years, and rocket out with $40 million. Their main job is to stick to the script: “keep lending”. (And we’ve all witnessed how bad things go when bank bosses go off script, like getting into wealth management.) So why is NAB’s CEO sticking his neck out? Well, that brings me to my second point: he obviously doesn’t like what he sees on the horizon. And know this: McEwan isn’t peering into a cloudy crystal ball. Over the years NAB has invested billions into tracking its customers’ every financial move. In fact, all the banks have incredibly detailed customer analytics that tell them what people are doing — or not doing — with their money, in real time. Now, according to the banking regulator, APRA, roughly 1 in 10 mortgages in Australia are paused. Which gets me thinking ... On one side, how long can the banks cop 10% of their customers not paying? On the other, when will customers who are really struggling finally bite the bullet? It’s a grim situation. My hunch is that the banks are betting that the overwhelming majority of their customers will get through this. Yet they also know a small number of their customers won’t, and so they (well at least Ross McEwan) are turning up the heat on them. My advice? Please don’t misquote me: I am not saying you should sell your home. What I am saying is don’t be a frog … if you were in hot water before COVID hit, don’t just sit there bubbling away. We’re still early on in this crisis, and you have more options than you think. And if you want someone independent (and free!) to walk beside you and carefully lay out your options, call the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007 and speak to a financial counsellor (like me) immediately. The last word goes to McEwan: “We’ve seen in other crises around the world, when people try to hold on they end up walking away with nothing.”

Yeah, maybe, nah. If you lock down properly, it works. NZ and China have done it already once. If you don't do it properly, don't bother, wasting your time, apart from maybe flattening the curve and taking some stress off the medical community (which is all we were originally trying to do, until the lockdown worked, covid disappeared and everybody became a bit confused as to what to do next, because nobody else, apart from the Chinese have done it properly.) Of course in China it took welding folk into their buildings, in NZ societal pressure about the same thing... Although with the amount of folk wondering around without masks, I think they're getting a bit over it.

L3. They squeaking it out week by week...

2.5 - Aucklanders go back to work but stay in Auckland. Maybe.

And then, after 5 years of paying more than you need to, when you decide to move to somewhere (now) cheaper - "Oh, let's see what we can do... oh, look, we can give you a 30% discount..." Which means every year you should phone your insurer/s and say "I'm leaving" and see what they stump up.

Having been involved in insurance from a programming point of view, I have an idea of how they see it - which runs something like: Well, you tell us what you want insured and the circumstances involved in insuring that item. We have to take what you say on trust. If we find that the what you told us when we worked out your risk using what you told us as not to be the case, we say you broke trust and act accordingly. But yeah, you'd think they'd inform you if they were going to change your premium and why, so that you have a chance to respond. That is pretty underhand. In fact it's hard to understand how, in NZ, where there are all sorts of protections for the consumer, it's even legal. Edit: got one car on AA and one on some no-name brand (to me) that was suggested by Turners. Maybe time to get it onto AA. Edit edit: DPL Insurance, a wholly owned subsidiary of Turners, interestingly enough.

Just a final comment and I'll shut up. One of the BI things is to have two debit cards, one marked Daily Expenses, and one Splurge. DE pays for the self explanatory, Splurge pays for splurges. You want a flat white? Is there cash in Splurge? Buy it. The nice thing about Splurge is you can... splurge. I buy coffee pods (damn, another contentious subject) from a shop in Rosedale that is more expensive than Countdown options but is like a million times better - just comes straight out of splurge, no issues. Friday night - hey shall we go out and eat? How much is in Splurge? Yep, let's go. Takes away the hard-done-by feeling of being budgeted out of all fun.

Yep, all of that. Yeah, I thought that posting this might be like posting religion. A bad idea. The thing I like about BI (and maybe over Wayne's vesion) is that it's set and forget. If I have a system where I need to adjust anything at the end of a month, I might do it once, second time, never. Doesn't matter how easy. Also pretty much removes marital disputes about what's going where as it pretty much exposes all expenditure. Boats excepted, but a wife needs something to moan about or they are not happy As with most things, it's a matter of finding what works for you. I have to admit, I probably wouldn't be doing this if I was single.

A piece of completely unsolicited advise... We got to NZ, realized that amongst all the upheaval and all else we needed to get our finances in order. The missus brought a book home from one of her colleagues - Scott Pape's The Barefoot Investor. Simple stuff, made the world of difference to us, we're facing Covid risks in pretty good shape because of it. Basically open a set of accounts, stick the right amount into each, do with each what is supposed to be done, stop worrying. https://www.barefootinvestor.com/books Interestingly enough, our financial advisor who comes from a free state farming family was telling us the night before we got the book that his father told him to open an account for every single major thing that money gets spent on (including bikes) and funnel income into them accordingly. You decide how much is going into each account, and that's it. If there is money in the account for bikes, you can spend it as you choose. I don't go that far, but did open a subset of the Barefoot accounts (Utilities/Cars/Insurance/etc) and bung a given amount in that. Come WOF time in Jan (for both cars), there's the cash, sitting in the cars account. Come holiday time, there's the cash, sitting in the holiday ('Smile' in Barefoot terms) account. His weekly newsletter is also pretty entertaining - about the only one of the many that flood my inbox that I regularly open. I just need to get the wife to agree to a boats account now...

Yeh. Wondering what's next...

My missus is busy doing a medical diploma, two years in one as it is nothing she hasn't done before in SA. It is really hard going - chows up all your chill out time, one partner takes over more of the child care stuff, no one really gets much rest. And when you have time to spare, you don't actually want to do anything with it. I've managed to carve out time to do the boat only due to Corona virus taking away weekend stuff. If no corona, there is no spare time. How you feel is how it feels... hang in there, it will end, and the struggle will be worth it.

I bought the dinky one as anything else would be overkill for what I do. But now the decks are on, the boat is rigid and I can move it about with breaking anything so unscrewed some 4" screws I had through a brace made of 2x4's - it did have to think about what it was doing... my first thought being, hmm, I'll have to get a bigger one...

I ordered online from Constellation who phoned me to say they don't have stock but Glenfield do, would I like to go there instead. I said OK, got a mail to say book a pick up time, the first of which was Monday. Then got a call Sunday saying I must pick up within 24 hrs or they will put my order back on the shelves, so I popped down there. You park in a slot, phone them with your order number and parking place number and they bring it out. Pretty efficient really.

It's awesome.

I lied. It does drill 2mm holes, but not 1mm holes. Bought click and collect impact driver (and spare battery - good excuse) from Bunnings for the 70 holes I needed to drill/screw to fit the boat decks. "Pick it up on Monday" they said. So did it all with the drill... [emoji19] Pic from 01:10 this morning. Took a little longer than I thought it might. Edit: Bunnings: "Come and pick it up NOW!!" So it looks like I can use it to break the screws out of the epoxy joints. Just what I need. The battery, which I think is the second smallest available, has over twice the capacity of the batteries that came with the drill.

Yeah, for whatever I say, my Ryobi drill is awesome, 2mm holes aside. I really, really like the clutch as I use pretty light wood/ply, and I can just set the clutch on 1 and drive screws without paying attention... I figure it wouldn't be the same with an impact driver. But I'd better get one to make sure...

I'm going to have to get a Ryobi impact driver... nothing like buying into a line of crap. Edit: That said, I've done a lot with my Ryobi crap over the years, except drill 2mm holes.