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Spend Now Pay Later
Has anyone noticed how much of a ‘spend now, pay later’ culture our society has become? Everything in our current society pushes us to spend. Glamorous advertisements, enticing sales, special promotions, and even reward credit cards. How can we say no to that ‘to-die-for’ pair of shoes that is now 20% off or that new PS3 that’s coming with every Sony television? We don’t even need to have money in our bank accounts! We can just pay on the credit card (get some reward points while we’re at it) and we can pay it off...
read moreFinancial Freedom Journey 2
Week one of recording my expenses is finishing today. It hasn’t been that bad really although day 2 I lost my money diary. Thankfully I used the picture I posted here last week to get it back up and running. I’m now using a rubber band to attach the diary to my wallet. The hardest thing I’ve found is because I have write my expenses down, I want to change how I spend my money. This apparently is called the “Hawthorne Effect”, where you improve your behaviour in response to the fact that it’s being...
read more4 Behaviours of Low Financial Stress
Generally most stuff that is written is, for lack of a better word, bull. That’s not to say it’s not interesting, it just might not be true. If you want the facts, you need to find a peer reviewed journal article. Most financial writting is opinion, not fact, which is a problem when you’re recomending things to clients. Do they try debt consolidation? Payment Arrangements? Or Debt Agreements? However there is some good research emerging on consumer finance and financial counselling. One excellent study looked at...
read moreBoring Bankruptcy Update
New figures released to day by ITSA (Insolvency & Trustee Service Australia) showed that there were 6,568 new bankrupts in the March 2010 quarter, a decrease of 8.29% against bankruptcy activity in the March 2009 quarter (7,162) and a decrease of 2.98% on bankruptcy activity in the December 2009 quarter (6,770).
read more3 Ways To Improve Your Finances
There’s a lot of info on the web about how to get out of debt; some if it good, most of it terrible. In my previous job, if it wasn’t published in a peer reviewed journel, it didn’t count. So I desided to start seeing if anyone had done any serious research on how to get out of debt. Turns out they have! The general concensus is there are only 3 ways to improve your financial situation: Repay Debt; Adjust Spending; and Save for the Future. They’re the only options. Everything else falls under these 3 concepts. ...
read moreZombie Debt
Occasionally we come across zombie debts, or debts that have come back from the dead. These zombie debts frequently incurred during early life come back to haunt you later in life, generally when you’re in a much different position (wanting to settle down, get married, buy a house, have kids). Sometimes our clients have got a debt consolidation loan and have paid out their debts but haven’t closed the accounts. These accounts start to accrue fees and charges, mainly through having direct debits dishonouring repeatedly on these...
read moreSuperannuation in Bankruptcy
Superannuation is a protected asset in bankruptcy. If you file for bankruptcy, your trustee generally can’t access your super to pay out your creditors. This makes good sense for the majority of bankrupts given that super will be relied upon to fund retirement. However I’m sure you can see this poses a way for creditors to be defrauded by someone deliberately making extra super payments or lump sum payments prior to bankruptcy. Since July 2006, Trustees have been able to void transfers to superannuation. To void a...
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