Enoughwealth's Personal Finance Blog

An article in the NYT discusses the costs of being overweight - not just on your health but in cold, hard cash. For example, an extra 36 grams of fat tissue is estimated to add to future medical costs in the order of $6.64 for an obese man and $3.46 for an obese woman.

Moreover, research has shown that employers discriminate against overweight people - probably because they do not want to be burdened with higher health insurance costs, or possibly just because they believe the obese are lazy, weak-willed or considered too unattractive to interact with customers. Reaerch by John H. Cawley, of Cornell University, found that a weight increase of 64 pounds above the average for white women was associated with 9 percent lower wages.

The obese accumulate only about half the assets of the normal-size American - for every one-point increase in BMI index, net worth dropped by $1,000. The typical female baby boomer earns $313.70 less annually for every one-point increase in her B.M.I., while the typical male earns $161.30 less for every point.

So, another reason for me to reach my goal of achieving an "ideal" BMI of between 21 and 24.

Yes, I'm officially a tightwad.

My eldest son (6) was excited that I've noticed and picked up a 5c coin twice this week (the money goes into his money box). I'm a bit worried though, that he wasn't impressed that it was "only" a 5c coin, and that it would take 20 of them to make $1. Stopping to pick up small change must run in our family though, because he told me that his Grandpa and done the same thing the other day.

And then, yesterday, I spent an hour in the city walking around two of the large uni campuses sticking up notices on the student notice boards - I'd printed out some info on how to open an account with EasyStreet.com.au and get a $20 "member-get-member" bonus (if they used the referral details provided). I'll get $20 each time someone opens an account this way - I'll let you all know if anything turns up in my bank account. Anyhow, I'd gotten $20 bonus when my mom opened an account, so I know it could work (in theory).

Meanwhile I rationlise it as a brisk one hour walk which was good for my health, and provided some cheap entertainment (otherwise I'd have gone to the mall, bought some junk food and browsed the bookshops).

My stock portfolio ended up 7.25% this month. $6000 of my Telstra Installment Warrant purchase has appeared in my Leveraged Equities Margin Loan account, the other $4000 worth ended up being issuer sponsored (I had expected them to be part of my Comsec Margin Loan account) - I should have looked more closely at the "personalised" offer documentation I filled in for this allocation. It doesn't really matter - I have low gearing level on my comsec account, so the extra equity isn't required. If I transferred this allotment to my Comsec account I would lose out on the 10c discount on the second payment (due in 2008) and the 1:25 "loyalty" bonus share issue. So I'll leave this allotment as issuer sponsored until after the final payment and bonus share allotment is completed.

Current holdings:
Leveraged Equities Account (loan balance $155,585.68, value $287,540.31)
AAN Alinta Mergeco Ltd 295 $10.220 $3,014.90 70% $2,110.43 1%
AEO Austereo 1,405 $2.150 $3,020.75 65% $1,963.49 1%
AGK AGL Energy Limited 510 $15.500 $7,905.00 70% $5,533.50 3%
AMP AMP 720 $9.450 $6,804.00 75% $5,103.00 2%
ANN Ansell 480 $11.300 $5,424.00 70% $3,796.80 2%
ANZ ANZ Bank 1,107 $28.100 $31,106.70 75% $23,330.03 11%
BHP BHP Billiton 748 $25.930 $19,395.64 75% $14,546.73 7%
BSL Bluescope Steel 781 $8.130 $6,349.53 70% $4,444.67 2%
CASH Adelaide Bank CMT 14 $1.000 $14.94 100% $14.94 0%
CDF C/wealth Divers Fund 6,700 $1.750 $11,725.00 70% $8,207.50 4%
CHB Coca Cola Hellenic 118 $44.250 $5,221.50 65% $3,393.98 2%
DJS David Jones 2,000 $3.770 $7,540.00 65% $4,901.00 3%
FGL Foster's Group 3,751 $6.550 $24,569.05 75% $18,426.79 9%
LLC Lend Lease Corp 481 $17.300 $8,321.30 70% $5,824.91 3%
MYP Mayne Pharma Ltd 2,778 $4.120 $11,445.36 70% $8,011.75 4%
NAB National Aust Bank 309 $38.600 $11,927.40 75% $8,945.55 4%
QAN QANTAS Airways 2,175 $5.060 $11,005.50 70% $7,703.85 4%
QBE QBE Insurance 966 $25.250 $24,391.50 75% $18,293.63 8%
SGM Sims Gp Limited. 830 $19.600 $16,268.00 70% $11,387.60 6%
SUN Suncorp-Metway 850 $20.170 $17,144.50 75% $12,858.38 6%
SYB Symbion Health 2,848 $3.510 $9,996.48 70% $6,997.54 3%
TLS Telstra Corp 5,000 $3.730 $18,650.00 80% $14,920.00 6%
TLSCA Telstra (T3) 3,000 $2.300 $6,900.00 80% $5,520.00 2%
VRL Village Roadshow 1,500 $2.900 $4,350.00 60% $2,610.00 2%
WDC Westfield Group 783 $19.220 $15,049.26 75% $11,286.95 5%

Comsec Account (loan balance $94,108.28, value $191,706.31)
AGK AGL ENERGY LIMITED 240 15.560 $3,734.40 70.00 % $2,614.08
AAN ALINTA LIMITED 139 10.220 $1,420.58 70.00 % $994.41
APAR AUSTRALIAN PIPELINE TRUST 1,032 0.410 $423.12 0.00 % $0.00
APA AUSTRALIAN PIPELINE TRUST 3,612 4.160 $15,025.92 70.00 % $10,518.14
ASX AUSTRALIAN STOCK EXCHANGE 200 36.130 $7,226.00 70.00 % $5,058.20
CBA COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA. 130 47.120 $6,125.60 75.00 % $4,594.20
CDF COMMONWEALTH DIVERSIFIED FUND 43,997 1.752 $77,082.74 70.00 % $53,957.92
IPEO ING PRIVATE EQUITY ACCESS OPT. 54,000 0.075 $4,050.00 0.00 % $0.00
IPE ING PRIVATE EQUITY ACCESS 8,000 0.970 $7,760.00 60.00 % $4,656.00
IFL IOOF HOLDINGS LIMITED 1,300 10.230 $13,299.00 50.00 % $6,649.50
NCM NEWCREST MINING LIMITED 300 25.670 $7,701.00 60.00 % $4,620.60
OST ONESTEEL LIMITED 2,000 4.500 $9,000.00 60.00 % $5,400.00
QBE QBE INSURANCE GROUP LIMITED 607 25.250 $15,326.75 75.00 % $11,495.06
RIO RIO TINTO LIMITED 60 74.520 $4,471.20 75.00 % $3,353.40
THG THAKRAL HOLDINGS GROUP 4,000 0.910 $3,640.00 50.00 % $1,820.00
WBC WESTPAC BANKING CORPORATION 300 23.900 $7,170.00 75.00 % $5,377.50
WPL WOODSIDE PETROLEUM LIMITED 220 37.500 $8,250.00 75.00 % $6,187.50


stocks

I received a thick wad of information in the post yesterday about a 2 for 7 renounceable rights issue from Australian Pipeline Trust. The rights are to purchase additional APA shares at $3.75 (a discount of around 15% to the current share price). Sounds OK, doesn't it? Well, yes, for most investors it's OK, even if not the windfall some may think. (As the new shares issued at this reduced price tend to make the share price drop for your current holding, so it all generally averages out - the only real benefit is that the company is getting funding at a better rate than it could get elsewhere).

However, while I'm OK with having to fork out around $3,800 to take up the rights issue (in fact I sent it on to my margin lender today, so the amount will simply be added on to my margin loan balance, so it won't affect my cashflow), some smaller shareholders may find themselves losing out. If they do not take up the offer, then the rights expire with no value, and the underwriter will, in effect, purchase the relevant number of shares that would have been issued. In this case the small shareholder will get no immediate benefit from the rights issue, and will suffer from having the share holding interest in the company diluted by the new shares issued to other shareholders and the underwriter.

Theoretically any shareholders who don't want to take up the rights issue can sell their rights on the market and get a benefit that way. But there are a couple of obstacles facing the smaller shareholders:
* the trading of the rights ends on Monday, and the offer document only arrived in the post yesterday. Any small shareholders who are unsure what to do, or don't currently have a relationship with a broker, doesn't have much time to take action.
* A small shareholder with, for example, $1000 worth of APA shares (around 235 shares) would have received rights to purchase an additional 67 shares at $3.75 - a cost of $251.25. But, if they didn't want to buy more APA shares, then they'd have rights worth AT MOST $33.50. Even at discount brokerage rates it would be hard to sell such a parcel for more than the brokerage costs!

APA has chosen to restrict the rights offer to Australian and New Zealand shareholders, as it would be too expensive to print relevant documentation for other foreign shareholders, given the different laws and regulations applicable to such an offer in other countries. For FOREIGN shareholders, APA will sell the relevant number of rights on market, and send the proceeds to such foreign shareholders.

If APA had the best interests of small shareholders in mind, they would have used the money obtained from the underwriter for all expired rights to make similar payments to any Australian or New Zealand share holders who didn't sell or accept the rights offer.

A numerical measure that relates dividends to the current share price and puts ordinary dividends on a relative (percentage) rather than an absolute (dollar) basis. This makes it easier to compare the yields of different stocks.

The average dividend yield of the whole market (or a particular segment) is often compared to the typical (long-run) average dividend yield in order to determine if the market (or segment) is over-priced, fair value, or under-priced.

This is only an approximation however, because the dividend yield calculation is based on historic dividends and the current share price to try to predict the future. Some analysts will modify this measure to make use of estimated or "prospective" earnings to decide if current prices are fair value. Of course this is only as accurate as your estimation of prospective earnings.

There have been a many discussions on the pf blogs about how one calculates new worth - should we or shouldn't we include our cars, our stereo, our collection of yo-yos (not so silly: see this recent article about the value of old yo-yos) in our estimation of new worth? I came across some useful information about this which is worth sharing [ref: Annual Review of Sociology: Vol 26, p.502]
* Wealth is commonly identified with net worth and assessed as the difference between the total value of family assets and the amount of debt.
* There are various categories of household assets, with different features, so it is important to distinguish between them. Depending on which assets you include, net worth can be defined [Wolff, 1995] as:

Marketable Wealth - net worth excluding consumer durables such as automobiles, television and household appliances. The rationale being that these have less resale value than their consumption service to the family, so would usually not be sold to raise funds. This exclusion tends to impact poorer households to a greater extent, as consumer durables, especially cars, are the main "asset" of such families.

Financial Wealth - marketable Wealth minus equity in owner-occupied housing. As you need to live somewhere, it is often difficult to convert it into cash in the short term. In places such as Australia where superannuation is "preserved" (unable to be used for any purpose) until retirement age, it may be worth also excluding the value of your retirement account. I do both - my Net Worth tracked with NetWorthIQ is by "Marketable Wealth", and in my daily Net Worth spreadsheet updates I also have a column of Net Worth minus home and super.

Augmented Wealth - this includes some items not normally included in net worth estimates. Specifically, a discounted present value is calculated for any pension and social security retirement benefit.

BTW - while reading this paper I also came upon the following factoid:
"According to the Lampman-Smith_schwartz time series [Committee on Ways and Means 1992, p.1564], the richest 1% of the US population owned 36% of household net worth in 1929, but by 1982 the figure had dropped to 20%" although the data since 1982 is less clear - the decline may have continued or reversed somewhat.

ie. The Rich are getting POORER! This is probably why social commentators have recently started lamenting the income gap between CEO salaries and the average wage, rather than the traditional cry that the wealth gap between rich and poor is widening (although they still raise this topic on occasion - they simply refer the difference between rich and poor increasing in dollar terms, rather than in % terms, which wouldn't support their agenda.

There have been a few posts recently about the new US dollar coins that will be coming out. They probably won't replace paper for a while as the paper notes will remain in circulation. As we've had polymer notes and $1 and $2 coins for many years in Oz, I was wondering if the "paper for dollars" hang-up is specific to the US. So I had a quick search around to find out what paper/coin currency mix other developed countries are using:

Country Coins Both Notes
Australia% 5c,10c,20c,50c,$1,$2 $5^ $10,$20,$50,$100
United Kingdon 1p,2p,5p,10p,20p,50p,£1,£2 - £5,£10,£20,£50*
United States 1c,5c,10c,25c,50c $1^ $1,$2,$5,$10,$20,$50,$100
Eurozone 1c,2c,5c,10c,20c,50c,€1,€2 - €5,€10,€20,€50,€100,€200,€500
Japan ¥1,¥5,¥10,¥50,¥100,¥500 ¥1000,¥2000,¥5000,¥10000

amounts marked with an * are not in common use
amounts marked with a^ are mainly in use as notes
% - Australian also produces a range of silver and gold "legal tender" coins in deominataions such as $3, $10, $100, $200 - but these are issued in proof or uncirculated condition for coin collectors, not general circulation.

I believe that larger US notes (over $100) are similar - they exist (I think they were initially intended for bank transfers of funds) but are not in general circulation.

It certainly appears that the USA has the smallest denomination folding money still in use.

A measure of non-diversifiable, or market, risk that indicates how the price of a security reacts to market forces.

An very interesting article in the NYT reminded me, again, of the four deadly sins of personal finance:
1. Greed - "just a little bit more" can easily become "too much", whether it be chasing higher investment returns, pinching pennies, or getting "top dollar" when selling or "a bargain" when making a purchase. Remember the old adage that if it "looks too good to be true it probably is". When looking for "overlooked" investment opportunities it's also worth bearing in mind that there are several billion other human beings out there, millions of whom are also looking for the "overlooked".
2. Sloth - most people apparently spend more time planning the annual holiday than they do on planning their finances. Aside from generally financial planning, you also have to put in sufficient effort to analyse each potential investment on its merits. Buy things purely on the say-so of a friend or relative and you will have no-one to blame but yourself if things don't work out.
3. Trust - yes, BLIND trust can be a very bad thing. As they say in auditor-land "trust but verify" - don't take anyone's word for something that you could verify. And if there is nothing to back-up someone's verbal assurance, flag this mentally as having an "unknown amount of risk"
4. Envy - just because every one else seems to be making a fortune investing by in "X" doesn't mean you should try it. It doesn't even mean that they are actually making any money from "X". Not only can appearances be deceiving, I'd say that they usually are deceiving.

personal finance, investing

Yet another Christmas approaches with the usual breaking of the agreement that the adults won't bother exchanging gifts. I've previously tried insisting that I really didn't want anything for Christmas from my parents (aside from watching DS1 opening his presents from his grandparents after the traditional huge family Christmas Eve dinner), but I always ended up getting "something" - usually an electronic knick-knack that I don't really want which then just clutters up the house for several years until it gets thrown out.

So, this year I decided I may as well prepare for the inevitable and ask for something that has an intrinsic value, I'll actually like, and won't take up too much space - silver coins. I already have a coin collection, so a few additions each year won't create any new storage problems. My mum had no idea how to order what I wanted, so I ordered them online and mum will pay me back (apparently adults don't need a Christmas present to be a surprise, but do need a wrapped up present to exchange). As my birthday is a couple of weeks before Christmas I ordered two items - a 2005 1oz costing $30 for my birthday present and a 1999 2 oz 99.9% Silver Kookaburra (Perth Mint Privy Mark, 1933 Shilling) coin costing $75 for Christmas.

The silver content of these coins is worth about 50% of the cost, and the same 2oz proof coin is listed elsewhere and on ebay for $120, so I think it's a good buy at $75.




investing, money, saving

An order to buy or sell securities at the best price available when the order is placed.

Well, aside from child actors - I mean how much can your normal, average kid earn? I've no idea really, but it's been interesting to see how much my son managed to earn doing a couple of casual jobs. DS1 earned about $80 a week doing a paper round for almost two years - he enjoyed the morning walks with his dad and stuffing the folded papers into the letter boxes. As it took 2 hours to deliver the papers, five days a week, this works out at $8 an hour for him - a pretty good hourly rate for a primary school kid. But, this isn't counting dad's time spent supervising and lifting newspaper bundles, or the cost of driving to and from the paper route.

More recently he'd started learning the recorder at school, and enjoyed performing at the school concerts, so I got him a busking licence from the city council. When he was in the city for his Saturday morning music lessons we'd take the opportunity to let him busk for a short while. At his age he gets lots of interest from the passing tourists, especially when he's wearing his medieval jester's cap. He has sometimes earned a surprising amount in a very short time - the exact amount depending mainly on the location chosen. In the main city park there was a lot of passing trade, but very few people stopped to listen. The average amount contributed was also small - around 10c-50c per person from this audience. The return was much higher outside the public art gallery - the pedestrian traffic flow was less, but the audience was more appreciative, included lots more tourists, and the amount contributed was typically higher - some contributions were $1 or more.

My son enjoyed busking for short periods - after 10 minutes he'd lose interest and need a break (a quick tour through the art gallery was always fun). Then, after a second 5-10 minute session he'd knock off for the day. One time he got carried away and kept playing for 45 minutes! He quite enjoyed earning the money, counting it afterwards, and depositing it into his savings account. Now that he's finished his music lessons in town he probably won't get a chance to do any more busking unless we're in the city anyway to visit a museum, go shopping or take in a movie.

He's been busy learning Christmas carols in his recorder class, so if we go into the city to visit the Maritime museum before Christmas he may get another chance to busk this year.

So far his earnings from busking are:
15 mins $ 2.35 (park)
15 mins $ 6.30
20 mins $ 6.80 (park)
20 mins $12.15
30 mins $10.65
30 mins $19.85
45 mins $49.65
20 mins $10.95

All up, $118.70 for 3.15 hours work = $37.68 an hour!

His annual busking licence cost me $41 and expires next May. (For Sydney City busking details see this) I don't think I'll renew the licence next year as we probably won't be in the city often enough to make it worthwhile (I pay for the licence so it doesn't cut into his earnings, but I'd like him to make more than the licence cost me, otherwise I may as well just increase his allowance and he can spend the time practicing at home). Unfortunately our local council only allows busking in very restricted areas and the licence fee is exhorbitant, so it's really the City or nowhere.

The relationship (theoretical) between risk and return, in which investments with more risk should provide higher returns, and vice versa.

And now for something completely different - guess who Tops Forbes Magazine's Fictional Rich List? I'll give you a hint: Lucius Malfoy comes in at number 12... check out the who's got riches beyond your wildest dreams here.

A Word a Day: "Tax Risk"

What's better than pfblogs.org? Why, the Carnivals and Festivals each week - get all the best posts and none of rest! Enjoy these two already up this week:

20 NOV: Festival of Stocks #11 included my US Shares - “Little Book” Portfolio Update post

20 NOV: Carnival of Personal Finance #75 included my A Very Interesting FREE Home-Study Personal Finance Course post

In yet another example of "off the wall" market timing theories, academics Ilia D. Dichev and Troy D. Janes have postulated that returns in the 15 days around new moon dates are about double the returns in the 15 days around full moon dates. A similar result was reported by Lu Zheng in the paper "Are Investors Moonstruck? Lunar Phases and Stock Returns" which showed that stock returns are lower on the days around a full moon than on the days around a new moon - the magnitude of the return difference is 3% to 5% per annum.

As is often the case in such academic studies, there is little likelihood of creating a profitable active trading strategy out of this information due to the cost of trading 13 times a year compared to the magnitude of expected outperformance (3-5% pa). However, it may be worth bearing the lunar calendar in mind when you are thinking about buying or selling shares in your portfolio, provided that there is no urgency in completing the trade. If you are routinely adding to your portfolio in the week immediately before or after the full moon, and selling within a week of the new moon adds 3-5% to your overall returns (pa?) it could be a worthwhile strategy.

The article in the NYT shows the lunar cycle effect for various markets around the world:



investing

The process of using unrealised gains to partly or fully finance the purchase of additioal securities using a margin loan.

I'm currently enjoying my work and not too stressed out, but I can see a time in 2-3 years when I'll have been working for the same company for ten years, and with my 8 weeks "long service leave" then becoming fully vested, I could consider making another career change.

My first career, straight out of uni, was as a research scientist working on minerals processing equipment (with a bit of computer modelling and computer systems admin thrown in). This made good use of my first degree (in Applied Chem) but I actually found the programming of more interest than the chemistry (although playing around with the analytical equipment was a fun way to make a living).

After ten years my first employer laid off a large portion of the research staff in a cost-cutting drive, so I took the chance to change career into the "real world" of a private business-services company, and make use of my GradDip in Industrial Math & Computing. After taking an initial pay cut to get my foot in the door, I soon was earning more than in my old job, and had opportunity to progress up the "management ladder". But after 8 years I'm thinking of what I want to do for the next 20 years or so.

I'm currently half-way through a Masters in IT by distance ed, and I've just been accepted into a Post-Grad Diploma of Secondary Education course for next year. The plan is to finish of the MIT and the GradDipEd in the next couple of years, and then get put on the waiting list for a High School science teaching position. If I nominate only schools in the area we live (Sydney Northern Beaches) the waiting time for a position will be quite long (although they seem a bit short on Science teachers), so I probably wouldn't get a position immediately.

The plan is to accept a suitable teaching position (which will mean a pay cut of 50% or so), and treat the new job as a sort of "early retirement". The change of career should make the job interesting (at least for a decade or so), and the daily hours and amount of annual leave entitlement should make the hourly rate similar to what I currently earn - sort of like changing to a part-time job

I'm sure any teacher's out there will say that teaching is anything but a part-time job, but, at least on paper, it looks like a good idea.

What do you think?

A recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington reported that while the percentage change in average real household income between 1990 and 2004 was an increase of 57% for the top 1 percent of American taxpaying households (with a annual income of $940,000 in 2004), it was 85% for the top 0.1 percent, and 112% for the top .01 percent. That is, the richest are getting richer almost twice as fast as the rich.

An article in the NYT outlines how this is leading to resentment by the bigger and poorer group, the "lower uppers" which consists largely of professionals (doctors, lawyers, management consultants, most Wall Street execs), for hedge fund managers and some astronomically paid C.E.O.’s who are seen to be undeserving of the huge amounts they receive.

It's difficult to feel sorry for the "merely rich" though - in the same time period the percentage change in average real household income was an increase of 2 percent for the bottom 90 percent of American households.

money, wealth

I take bottled drinking water to work - although Sydney tap water is of good quality, I don't want to drink the tap water in my office because the building is an old converted factory building, and I'm not sure how good the pipes are. Having bought a couple of bottles of drinking water I now rotate the bottles and refill them each night with chilled filtered tap water. The filtered water costs a few cents a bottle, and the quality is just as good as your typical bottled water brand by all accounts.

If you want to impress your workmates you can spend it up on the initial purchase of bottled water and have "exclusive" name brand bottles for your home made bottled water

I usually also pop half a tablet of aspirin into the bottle in the morning - I happen to like the taste of aspirin, don't have any stomach problems, and the 150mg a day of aspirin might be good for my health.

saving

What's better than pfblogs.org? Why, the Carnivals and Festivals each week - get all the best posts and none of rest! Enjoy:

12 NOV: Carnival of Investing Week 48 included my Net Worth - PF Bloggers progress for OCT '06 post

14 NOV: Carnival of Wealth Building Ideas included my A Review of ReviewMe.com post

14 NOV: Festival of Frugality #48 included my Frugal living: Recycling Calendars and Diaries post

14 NOV: Festival of Investing included my A Word a Day: "Gearing" post

The ability of an investment to be converted into cash quickly and with little or no loss in value.

A lot of posts on the Personal Finance blogs have outlined the hows, whys and wherefores of doing a 0% balance transfer Arbitrage to earn interest on OPM. Lots of other blogs deal with those struggling to pay off CC debt, and who could benefit from transferring their current balance to a lower rate CC. But how do you find the best CC available?

I've just had a look at a site which lets you compare the various features of Credit Cards - it even has a page listing cards that have a 0% balance transfer available! All in all this looks like a very useful site for my US readers.

PayPerPost

While asset allocation is probably the most important factor in your long term investment performance, and fees and charges the second mosst significant item, the interest rate you pay on any investment borrowings are also a major consideration. A few percentage points extra can mean the difference between the use of gearing adding to or reducing your ROI. There can be considerable differences in the interest rates charged by different lenders, so it pays to shop around. Also, there may be price breaks from larger loan balances, so this is a time when diversifying between different lenders can be counter-productive. My investment borrowings are a bit of a mish mash, due to changes in investment stratgey over time, and using new lenders (at cheaper rates) for new investments, while keeping the old accounts in order to not realise capital gains just by shifting assets between accounts.

My investment loans:
Property
$230,602.65 @ 7.37% - home loan (non-deductible) - variable rate
$118,250.00 @ 7.09% - rental property loan (deductible) - fixed rate (5 yr term)
Shares - AU - three margin lending accounts
$19,474.16 @ 8.85% - St George Margin Lending (St George Bank) - variable rate
$12,042.90 @ 8.90% - Commonwealth Securities (Commonwealth Bank) - variable rate
$82,065.38 @ 7.95% - Commonwealth Securities (Commonwealth Bank) - fixed rate (1 yr term)
$150,000.00 @ 8.25% - Leveraged Equities (Adelaide Bank) - fixed rate (1 yr term)
$5,607.76 @ 9.15% - Leveraged Equities (Adelaide Bank) - variable rate
Shares - US
$59,175.20 @ 7.09% - St George Portfolio loan (secured against property) - variable rate
Other
$ nil @12.99% - Citibank*
* This Line of Credit is used to capitalise margin loan interest prepayment in June, and is then paid off with my tax refund in November.

Overall, the interest rate on my property loans currently averages 7.275%, and the interest rate on my stock portfolio loans currently averages 8.041%. The use of 1-year prepaid interest fixed rate loans helped lower the overall interest rate, as the Reserve Bank has raised rates a couple of times since June. The opportunity cost of prepaying interest for a year can be ignored as prepayment brings forward the tax deduction for the interest payment.

I don't get it - how can W. Gates III still be "the world's richest man" with a NW around US$50b, when this appears to still count the $25b or so he donated to his charitable trust a couple of years ago?. Surely his net worth is now "only" $25b or thereabouts?. Either the money is still his, or else he's donated it to the trust and it isn't "his" anymore (even though he may have legal interest in the assets, they are for the benefit of the trust).

Year NetWorth (Forbes) in Trust (total)
2001 $58,700,000,000 n/a
2002 $52,800,000,000 n/a
2003 $40,700,000,000 $24,000,000,000
2004 $48,000,000,000 $27,000,000,000
2005 $46,500,000,000 $27,000,000,000
2006 $50,000,000,000 $29,000,000,000

A quick look at the Microsoft share price since 2001 shows that his net worth probably dropped from $52.8b in 2002 to $40.7b the following year - so he didn't suddently have an extra $24b to donate into his charitable trust - it must have come out of his net worth.

I must admit that the question of inheritance doesn't take up much of my time - I expect to have enough accumulated to fund my own retirement, and there's a good chance my parents will still be around when I retire - I have a Great Aunt still alive in her 90s, and two of my Grandparents lived to 94. So if I ever inherit anything I'll probably be too old to enjoy it anyhow.

However, for a lot a Baby Boomers who have been "living in the moment" and are only now starting to get concerned about where the money will come from in their retirement, the possibility of an inheritance bailing them out may have been in the back of their mind.

I had read that this hope was misplaced, with the current crop of retirees planning to spend their money, and possibly use a reverse-mortgage to spend the family home as well. So they'd bit little left for the Baby Boomer's to inherit.

But a new Citibank report contradicts this belief. Apparently most retirees are living within their means and around 85% plan on leaving a bequest to their children.

The average amount expected is $427,000, but some are planning on leaving a lot more:
Expected size Proportion of
of Estate Retirees
$900,000 15%

wealth, retirement

The use of borrowed funds to purchase securities. It magnifies returns (losses or gains) by reducing the amount of capital an investor must contribute to the investment.

Inspired by MyMoneyBlog's post of his Net Worth progress since his College days, I decided to dig out some old quarterly Net Worth figures I had sitting around from the mid '90s and plot them out. I also remember that I had saved approx. $10,000 working part-time during Uni Vacations (which was spent on a telescope and accessories), so I know that my Net Worth when I started working after graduation in '84 was around $10K.

"Investing for your future" is a basic investing home-study course available online. The 11-unit home study course was developed by the Cooperative Extension system for beginning investors with small dollar amounts to invest. It is aimed at those who may be investing for the first time or selecting investment products, such as a stock index fund or unit investment trust, that they have not purchased previously.

It has some valuable information and some cute graphics, such as the "investment pyramid" (reminiscent of the "food pyramid"):

And it also has some exotic terminology that I haven't come across before, such as "loanership"!

All in all, a good read for a cold winter's night in front of the PC with a cup of hot chocolate.

personal finance, investing