What’s happening with NZ interest rates?
Filed under: Banks, Cost of living, Economics, General Budgeting, Interest Rates, Credit Cards & Mortgages in NZ
Well, the short version is: they are going up!
The longer version is that it looks like we are the only sodding country whose central bank seems to want to increase base interest rates!
If you pop onto the HiFX website, they keep a running sidebar of Base interest rate announcements around the world. Not only do we still seem to have nearly the highest rates (other than Australia lol) but ours is going up when the others are holding.
Incidentally, thats also the page that tells you how bad the exchange rate is right now. Sorry.
There is some sort of good news in the papers today, it seems that Bollard – the governor of the Reserve Bank, may actually be stopping with these silly rises, because – guess what – the economy isn’t actually picking up as well as it needs to (well Helloooo! My Mortgage is getting more expensive – where the hell do you think Ive got any money to go out and buy stuff with!). And apparently – the employment figures here were supposed to improve , and they actually worsened. Now, Mr Bollard hasn’t actually said himself that he wont be raising interest rates – the “economists” have said that they think the chance is now 25% instead of 75% that he will raise them. But that’s the way it works – economists blather on for weeks before an announcement is due, telling us what the Governor is going to say, which always makes me wonder why the governor bothers with the announcements in the first place.
Theres a wonderfully obtuse piece of prose in the article which I just had to share:
“If the economy pushes along at near-potential rates of growth, the cash rate must head back towards neutral. Neutral is not 3 per cent,” said BNZ head of research Stephen Topliss.
I have absolutely no idea what the hell that means lol. What on earth is a “near-potential rate of growth”?
So what’s the bottom line?
Well, mortgages are more expensive. Floating rates are around the 6.15% – 6.75% range, up from about 5.5%. 2 years rates are around 6.75% and 5 year rates are around 7.75% for standard mortgages. The 5 year rates seem to be fairly steady at the moment, but the floating and 2 year rates have increased with the 2 rate rises.
Even if Mr Bollard doesn’t increase the OCR on the 16th September – I would be looking at factoring in some more rises if you are looking at needing to buy a home in New Zealand in the near future. He still seems intent of costing us a small fortune in interest and refusing to let us get ahead financially.
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Should you be forced to save?
Filed under: Banks, Cost of living, Economics, Property & General Investing, Retirement, Pensions and Kiwisaver
Forced savings – in the form of compulsory superannuation (or – shudders – compulsory Kiwisaver) is back on the agenda in new Zealand. Because apparently, not enough of us are doing as we are told and opening up Kiwisaver accounts. So we need to be made to do it.
This comes out of the Tax Working Group, now we have to pay some more academics to sit around and tell us how we need to save for retirement and how we need to do it. I hope they get different people from the ones that just beat the living crap out of any Kiwi that was using Property to try and fund their retirement. Apparently that doesn’t count as retirement planning, cos it’s not shares or managed funds.
So when they talk about “Forced Savings” just be aware that what they really mean is “Forced Stock Market Investments”.
I’m not impressed – if you couldn’t tell. 
I personally believe that forcing people in a low wage economy like this to give up at least 2% of their after tax salary is just not on. The “theory” is that if we all do this – then it will cause investment in businesses (through the sale of shares) to increase, and those businesses will then be able to pay the staff more.
Anyone actually think your wages are gonna go up?
Because heres the thing (speaking as a complete non-economist here of course):
Buying shares on the stock market does not actually put money into the business. It puts money into the pocket of the guy selling those shares. If that just happens to be the company floating shares – then yeah – you just invested money in that company. Otherwise, some guy on the street sold some shares and you bought them.
BTW, we recently found out that if you work for one of the banks, which just happens to be a “Default Provider” of Kiwisaver (where you money sits if you don’t bother to actively choose a fund), they take their “Employer contributions” out of you salary. So basically, they don’t actually contribute to their own staff’s Kiwisaver fund.
Why is this not illegal, and why is it still being allowed? And how the hell does such a company get to run a default fund???
So regretfully – still not a fan of Kiwisaver, and would still like the government to keep its grubby little paws of my money thank you very much!
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Grabbed One.
Filed under: Avalon's Money Thread, Cost of living, General Budgeting
Theres a new (ish if you are in Auckland) money saving website thats come to New Zealand, and so far – looks good. Its called Grab One, and I found it via Facebook (fount of all things time wasting) via some friends.
So what’s the deal?
Well, you sign up to Grab One, and then when they have a deal – you can choose to accept the deal if its something you like the look of. Now usually, theres going to be a minimum number of people required to sign up for the deal before it becomes “live”, but if you are one of those first people, you will need to give credit card details, and if the deal goes live, you will have bought the deal. After that, if there are still some places left on the deal, you can buy or not as suits you.
Is it worth it?
Well, today was the first day that Grab One had a deal in Wellington, so its the first time i got to try it out.
As we are intending to go to the cinema at least every other week, and as the Embassy Cinema is 5 minutes (slow) walk away – I though this was well worth a try. I mean $3 for a cinema ticket??? Even on Cheap Tuesdays its $10! The downside is that you can only buy one deal per person, but this did allow me to buy a second ticket as a gift – which I thought I had better send to hubby. So that’s 2 tickets to the Embassy for $6, saving us at least $14.
Now there are some conditions: you can’t use it Friday or Saturday evenings, you cant get Platinum seats at the embassy ( those are the bigger leather couch like seats) and you cant use them for deluxe seats at the Lower Hut Cinema (which have reclining backs). But all those conditions were clearly laid out – in normal sized print, and were really easy to understand – so top marks for not trying to hide anything.
So I guess if you can get money off something you were going to buy anyway – this looks absolutely brilliant. But as with all “money saving deals” it only actually saves you money of you were going to buy it anyway. If you start buying things just because they are on offer – then its actually not saving you money – its making you spend it.
How do you find out about the deals?
There are two ways: sign up for email alerts when there’s a deal in your area, or join the Facebook group and get the alerts as posts on your Facebook newsfeed.
This is currently running in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Waikato Region, and looks like they are expanding across New Zealand.
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How Evony isn’t “free forever” – not by a long shot.
You have probably seen the adverts all over the Internet. The “Free” bit caught my budgeting eye when i needed a new game to play. Ive always played computer games – ever since we have had computers. Which in our house means basically as long as computers have been around. My first experience of a computer game was Colossal Caves – the first Adventure Game.
YOU ARE STANDING AT THE END OF A ROAD BEFORE A SMALL BRICK BUILDING.
AROUND YOU IS A FOREST. A SMALL STREAM FLOWS OUT OF THE BUILDING AND
DOWN A GULLY.
I was about 6.
Then about 19 months ago – when I had those sleepless nights dealing with stupid Immigration idiots in London, I started playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. It was quite stress relieving to take out “hits” on rival mafia, rip off the system, and generally have a blast killing things. It would only have been better if one of the jobs was “Take out the entire New Zealand Immigration Department”. But ho hum. I stopped playing that eventually, because all the “upgrades” made it unplayable. But it was free, it was entertaining and it helped.
I then moved on to Farmville. I didn’t last long on that to be honest. Sowing crops really isn’t what you need when you are dealing with Bureaucrats and blithering idiots. You need something a bit more “bloody” i think. I tried Treasure Mania, which again was free, but in the end i just got bored of it. And that was when I decided to give Evony a go.
It’s not exactly Farmville. For a start, while on FB games you do have “Allies”, in Evony you actually play the game in real time with other people. You talk to each other, you join alliances, you fight together against other alliances, and generally have a blast. And spend most of your life doing that as the addictiveness of the game kicks in.
And thats where the whole “free forever” falls down. Like all FB games you can play for free, but clearly you will get further faster if you spend money to buy “In Game Coins” to spend on items which make you stronger, help you build faster, or help you fight. Where it becomes more important in Evony is that you can basically be beaten to a pulp by other players if they are stronger than you. If you want to be one of the strongest players – you need to play a LOT in order to be able to build up without spending money.
So how do they suck you in?
Impressively I have to say. Heres me: always price checking, looking for a bargain, won’t pay more for something than I think it’s worth – and I’m whipping out the credit card – even when its close to its limit. Give Evony credit – they know how to make you spend! It starts off with a good catch – the 250 cents for $5 offer, which even gets you a Quest and Prestige points for buying it. Spend $5 (US$ so be aware – thats about $7.50 NZD) and you get 50 game coins, plus a bonus pack of items for the game worth 200 game coins. Fiendishly simple. So we did that, and then you get a buzz from being able to actually get more items to play with.
Then you get into a huge war with someone and need to move your cities – but don’t have the items to do that with – Give up and be slaughtered, or buy some coins???? Or you run out of Speed-ups to build your cities faster and just cant bear to wait 96 hours to build your Town Hall up to level 10. So you decide to buy some coins. You can’t use the pack – you need 90 coins to get an Advanced Teleport, and besides, you can only buy the special offer once. So now you have to spend $30 UD$ which is the lowest multiple you can spend. Thats about $45 NZD. And when you do that – you also send all your allies a “Free Evony Chest” which they can open with a key. How do they get the key? They have to spend $30 to get it in the “bonus pack” that comes with the 300 game coins.
You’re a gonna at this point.
How much exactly did this cost us?
Can I get the “in our defense” bit in first? We started playing just after this last Christmas, and came off the game yesterday, so this is about 7 months of gaming. And for just over the last 4 months, I was Vice Host of the ANZACS alliance on one of the servers. (Every server seems to have an ANZACS alliance fighting for Kiwi and Aussie Pride – and we really don’t give up!) Some days it was like having a full time job, and I felt an enormous responsibility towards the other guys in the alliance. Hubby also played, and we both spent a lot of our “free time” on running the game, and didn’t get as much chance to run our own cities – so game coins helped.
In total we spent $881 NZD.
That’s a helluva lot for a game that was supposed to be free.
Was it worth it?
Mostly yes. Oddly enough – it’s not the monetary cost of the game that made me give it up – it was the cost to my health and sanity having to deal with the odd exceptionally unpleasant player in the game. While $881 sounds a lot of money, that works out at about half our Sanity Allowance that was available over that time. That’s where the Budget comes from for games and entertainment. I imagine if I was brave enough to work out an hourly rate, given the late nights and early mornings I was on there, particularly in the last 2 weeks, it would be a scarily small amount per hour of gameplay.
I started playing to help deal with stress. When the game became the stress, and there was no way of stopping people being morons and crapping all over me – it was time to leave. I don’t begrudge the money – it was fun while it lasted, but when there are arseholes who prevent the game being fun, then I’m not going to waste my money on it anymore.
Do I recommend the game.
Yes and no. As long as you know what your are getting into, and can afford it – no problems. But please don’t play expecting not to spend any money. I did know people who haven’t spent money on the game, but it’s rare. By the time I left, I had over 250 “Evony Chests” waiting to be opened. Which means, above the ones I’d already opened with a key I bought, my alliance had spent $7500 USD on the game. And while we made it nearly to the top of the Alliances, before the constant wingeing of a few players started to break us apart, I’m imagining some alliances spent more than that.
It’s a great game. This is a new version of the game, and relies a lot more on being smart and intelligent rather than brute force and ignorance- something a lot of players just haven’t grasped. So if you are more than a “brute force and ignorance” kind of wargamer – it’s worth a look.
I just wish I had managed to get my prestige to 3,000,000. I was 7000 off that, but in the end the abuse from the few people who have no concept of decent behavior was intolerable. It’s a shame, they are ruining a magnificent Alliance, and a magnificent game. Tossers.
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$5 for a coffee???
This morning started off really well. Last night I finally crashed my Evony (Free forever – don’t you believe it!) account which has been hugely addictive and disruptive. So for the first time in over 4 months this morning, I didn’t have to check on the game and the Alliance I was helping to run, (ANZACS) and could get on with the day with a fresh start.
So I had a lie in. With a cup of coffee. And that’s when the day went to custard.
At about 9.30 there was a loud banging on the door. Now we’ve had this before, and you can’t always tell if it’s our apartment or next door. SO I left it. Next think i know, the door is opening, and I can hear 2 men entering the apartment!
I yell out to them that I’m in Bed and could they please leave (or words to that effect), and had to yell 3 times. The request got less polite each time. They finally left, and I got up and threw some clothes on. Then stormed out and yelled at them – with a bit more confidence than is actually possible when you are hiding in bed with no clothes on hoping desperately that they won’t come in.
Seems they “Have Authority” to enter to do fire inspection, and they left notices in our boxes 3 days ago. Like I give a damn? This is a city pad – we don’t get post here, so we don’t check. Does this in anyway make it OK to scare the crap out of me and barge into my apartment without permission???
Hubby popped home (in less than 3 mins) and got them in to do the Inspection while I refused to deal with the twats. While neither of us wanted them to do it all – at least this way they won’t be able to scare the crap out of me again like that.
So that excitement being over – I decided “sod this – I’m going out for Breakfast”. I decided to pop to Brooklyn Bakery which is actually our closest cafe. Via Moore Wilsons to get some Sugar Free chocolate – because lets face it – you need Chocolate when 2 men have just tried to barge in while you’re in bed! Brooklyn have a sign outside saying Bacon and Eggs with coffee $9.50. So thats what I ordered. Except when it went through the Credit card machine- I was charged $17! Which obviously I queried. “That’s only till 10am” I’m told. The fact that the board is still outside and its 10.30 is lost on them – but I refuse to pay it and leave in disgust.
So now I’m left thinking – I have chocolate, I’m miffed, I’ve not had breakfast – and I need coffee. Moore Wilsons sell coffee, but they don’t have Decaff, and I’m already wound up enough without having a shot of caffeine. So I head to the Coffee Cart outside the Telecom office, which is opposite our apartment. Can’t go wrong I thought. It’s also an informal outside office for Telecom from the number of suited blokes hanging round the cart.
I ordered a large Decaff Americano – which is what I normally get. $5! Five Dollars!!! For a shot of espresso with water. There no milk used, so the increase in Price of dairy doesn’t affect it. I mean – it was a nice coffee – but not $5 nice when Starbucks charge $3.80 the the same amount of coffee.
So all in all, not a great morning, but I did get my coffee, ate some breakfast, and ate some chocolate as “pudding”. And next time – I need an emergency coffee – I’m walking the extra 3 minutes to Starbucks and saving $1.20!
I’m now calm.
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Our First “weekend in the Wairarapa”.
Filed under: Beaches in New Zealand, Cost of living, Life in New Zealand
Well, this is it – we are now officially City Dwellers, having taken our first Saturday morning (well, afternoon actually) jaunt out of town for the weekend. So this is how it went.
Friday Night:
We decide at 8.40 pm to go to the 9pm showing of Eclipse at the Reading cinema, and are sat in there by 8.55 with coffee and Diet Cokes. No “ah yes but it’ll take us 90 minutes to drive, 10 minutes to park, then we have to come back home”.
Saturday Morning.
Wake up at 9.30.
Realise we don’t have any eggs for breakfast, so rather than nip across the road to Moore Wilsons, decide that we will use our “eat out” budget to spring for bacon and eggs at Mr Bun’s. (Cheap and cheerful). Throw a few things in a suitcase, and pop off for breakfast.
Finish breakfast at 10.30, head back to the flat and work out how to fit a suitcase, two laptop bags and a handbag in a tiny car. Thankfully, because I couldn’t be bothered to get eggs from MW, I also didn’t pick up a 5.5kg frozen turkey that I was planning on buying to stick in the big chest freezer ready for Christmas.
Leave at about 11.30, feeling that possibly we haven’t really got this who “weekend” concept quite right. We are heading for something more like “Afternooners” or “4pm-ers” at this rate.
We finally made it back home by 1.30pm, and only that by not stopping in Greytown with the other hoards from the city for lunch. Passed a few other convertibles there I can tell you!
So here we are – in the peace and quiet. Not having to listen to the bars and clubs over the weekend. Getting our fix of open countryside and greenery.
Possibly off to the beach tomorrow!
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The problem with buying Leasehold properties
Leasehold properties are cheaper than Freehold properties – which makes them look like a bargain. (Well sometimes – you can see leasehold properties for sale at freehold prices!) But theres a reason for that – you don’t own the land – you just own the building on it. Someone else owns the land, and charges you rent for the privilege of owning the house on it.
Like Hawkes Bay Regional Council, whose leases are coming up for renewal, and so they have hiked the prices up.
One week Niki Willis was paying $27 a week ground rent on her leasehold home in Napier, the next she was paying $172.
Now that’s one helluva hike in your weekly budget. And bear in mind this is on top of any mortgage your may have to pay.
The council, which owns about 1000 residential leasehold properties in Napier with a total book value of $85 million, realises many leaseholders are finding themselves in impossible situations when their ground rent is reviewed at the end of the 21-year term
Thats the bit to be aware of: how long is your lease for, and when are the rent reviews allowed. 999 years with no rent review till the end – possibly worth thinking about, but a rent review every four or five years and you could be in serious trouble.
And the worst thing is: not many people are willing to buy leasehold land. I know I wont touch it with a bargepole – so straight away you cot your chances of selling for a good price. Hey – thats why its cheap if you want to buy it yourself.
Many of the new apartments going up in Wellington along the waterfront are Leasehold.
Added to this in New Zealand is that some of the leases are owned by Maori Iwi and you could possibly have issues with any claims under the Waitangi Agreement. SO if you are thinking of buying Leasehold, especially in New Zealand – please take care. Make sure a lawyer goes through all the ups and downs with a fine toothed comb – then at least you fully know what you are taking on.
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Me and the MX5: part3
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Life in New Zealand
Well, we managed with one car for the first year, sharing it between myself and hubby, mum and dad. The fact that we managed that long without a car each and 3 spares was a minor miracle. Never before has my family coped with so little vehicular choice.
Being countryside dwellers for so long – we are into the habit of having to get around under our own steam. Theres kinda point relying on public transport when theres only one buss a week into town, and the train station is 10 miles away. Its no different here in NZ – public transport doesn’t start till you get to Carterton, and thats 15kms away.
But when mum and dad came back for there second 6 month stay they decided to go buy themselves a car. They went out one day – and came back with an old Jag XJ6 – basically a Tank with bigger comfier seats and a fuel consumption to match. Cheap to buy – small mortgage needed to fill up at the pump.
So we managed for a few years like this, then when they came to stay full time, my brother also bought a car, as he was now going to be living separately from the rest of us, and needed to be able to get about.
It was at this point that I made the comment over of coffee or two that if there were any more cars to be bought by this family – it was damn well going to be mine. Any deviation from this plan would be met with a major Grumpage alert.
At which point the Jag decided to die on us having failed its WoF and being about to cost considerably more to repair than was spent buying it. This was a few weeks ago. So I jumped and suggested that maybe now was the time for me to replace my MX5.
Obviously there are a lot of changes to our lives right now, with Hubby changing jobs and us moving into the city. So I figured that we could use a small car, and mum and dad could keep our big, fast, blacked out car with the big boot. Much more useful for the country life, and lets face it – a small car in the city is much easier to park.
Only problem was – how the hell do we buy a new car when we have little money and a credit card bill we cant pay in full?
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Briscoes: You’ll never buy better?
Filed under: Avalon's Money Thread, Cost of living, General Budgeting
It’s a really annoying jingle and an even more annoying tagline – more so becuase it’s highly dishonest. Briscoes is a chain of homeware stores across New Zealand known for its permanent sales (advertised as “get in quick – 2 days sale”).
The thing with Briscoes is that from what I have seen – the sale price actually brings it in line with the retail price in most stores. We found this when I bought a coffee machine. They had it “on sale” for $499 down from a supposed RRP of $899. Except when i was doing my price checks, I couldnt find any other store that sold it for for more than $499. We ended up buying it at Moore Wilsons.
We have done the same price checks today, and out of 10 separate items, only one of them came out cheaper at Briscoes – a Tefal frying pan which would normally have been the same price as in Moore Wilsons, but had 40% off in Brisoces, and this time Briscoes weren’t exaggerating the price before discounting.
Just be aware of this kind of thing. I have found time and again that “sales” “bulk buys” and “special prices” of all descriptions are a con over here. Why the commerce commission allows it I have no idea – but it really will pay you to check your prices before buying.
Today we saved about $50 on three items where there was a cost difference, and will save another $150 on a few items that I know are cheaper in Wellington stores. Its a start.
Unfortunately I cant actually spend that on coffee!
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Arghhh – having to pay interest on the credit card!
Filed under: Avalon's Money Thread, Cost of living, Interest Rates, Credit Cards & Mortgages in NZ
Well, for the first time in five and half years – I cannot pay off the whole balance on our credit cards, and we will be paying interest.
This is quite depressing.
I guess I should be happy that its only likely to be a few months where we have to pay, and that we have been able to organise our finances so well for so long that we haven’t had to do this thus far while we have lived in New Zealand. But still – its damned annoying.
Especially since the interest rate is a whopping 19.95%
So – from here on in – hard nosed budgeting and spending restrictions to get us back on track as fast as possible.
Why has this happened?
Some really big bills I’m afraid. Despite the emergency fund, which I still have some left of, we have had some really big expenses come through and no income. The emergency fund is coving our living expenses and top ups on the rentals, but it cant cover:
- Some large medical bills.
- Set up costs for Hubby’s contracting business.
- Legal fees
- Buying furniture for an apartment in the city. (and yes – even though we have 2 houses worth of furniture – it still turns out we need a few things – that was a depressing moment!)
Hubby has income coming in now, but almost all of it is paying the setup costs: new computer, travel, phones, internet bills, city pad – it all adds up.
And at least this time I actually know what I’m doing. I know how to work through the budgets, I know how to cut costs, and I know how to stick to the harder decisions. One thing I am sure of – that debt is not going to be there long. Ill be paying money into it as soon and as often as I can.
I’m just not sure how to cut my coffee budget
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