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How To Teach Kids How To Read Debate and the Dumbing Down Of Mathematics in NSW

2021-09-06T15:28:00.005-07:00

The state of education is going down the drain in NSW. The Government keeps creating panels and task forces to tackle the growing issue of Australia falling behind in the PISA rankings with our children's abilities declining every single year in the global rankings. The outcome after spending our precious tax money on paying these so called experts... makes me shake my head in despair.

Kids struggling with mathematics and poor performance...their solution is to delay teaching them key concepts like multiplication. If kids are struggling with mathematics and times table, don't delay it, bring it forward, intensify the education on the areas of concern. They won't improve by merely delaying the concepts and letting the kids grow older before they are taught. If kids in other countries can learn math concepts at a young age, why can't Australian children be expected to learn the same concepts at the same age? Language isn't the barrier. It is our lack of expectations and educational support that is the barrier.

Currently the maths curriculum has been under debate between the national curriculum authority and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute(AMSI). AMSI(an organisation of 30 universities and government agencies) in its submission, objected to changes that delayed the teaching of key maths concept until later years. Examples of delays include delaying clock and time concept from year 1 to year 2, pushing back learning times tables and multiplication from year 3 to year 4, learning to solve linear equations in year 8 instead of year 7, removing quadratic equations from year 10 just because some of the concept has been covered in year 9. The proposed draft curriculum emphasised problem solving and inquiry based learning.

The other issue was English and reading abilities. The outcome of these so called experts(and NSW Education Department) and their conclusion was that kids were having trouble learning how to read and because we are falling behind in English compared to our overseas counterparts, then we should focus on teaching kids more synthetic phonics and testing them on their ability to read FAKE words just to determine their phonics ability. That this suggestion was taken seriously means our seniors and 'experts' have all gone insane. There are so many REAL words to learn and test children on, and yet they need to go and create FAKE words for kids to read just in order to test their phonics ability?!! This is why I felt that I must write.

These proponents of synthetic phonics believe students need to learn relationships between letters and sounds, which is fine because phonics is very essential to being able to decode words for reading. However the synthetic phonics proponents created a 20 fake word list(such as 'plood' and 'pove') in order to test children's phonics ability and rule out the words that kids have memorised. If they really wanted to test children whilst also teaching them, there are rarer, less frequently used but REAL English words that could be used for testing instead of using fake words and filling children's head up with irrelevant and fake words.

The whole point of learning how to read is a mix of memorising words by sight (as many words in English fail to follow the phonic sounds) and also applying phonics- this falls under the 'balanced literacy' approach which has historically been the approach taken by educators historically to date. What the proponents of synthetic phonics have failed to tackle is the question of why the historical approach is not as effective anymore.

It's not the teaching style. It's the modern environment and how children are increasingly reading less books. They are exposed to significantly more screen time just like adults. More digital devices. Instead of kids bringing books to read in restaurants and in cars on the way to destinations, parents give their kids the mobile phone, the iPad or play movies in cars that have screens inbuilt into the car seats already. Screen time is up significantly for children. YouTubing, Netflixing and playing digital games. It's all so portable now and easier to calm and pacify children with digital devices when they are out and about as opposed to making them read actual books.

In 2018 the NSW Department of Education offered $50 per kindergarten child for schools to buy decodable readers however many schools declined the offer. Now the NSW Department of Education is forcing these decodable readers onto schools by not giving them a choice and will buy these books and force them onto schools instead. The decodable texts were thought of as "clumsy and contrived". It would have been significantly better if schools were just given these funds to use however they wish on educational materials.

There haven't been any long term studies or results on how effective these decodable readers are but the main beneficiaries for sure are the two publishers who will be receiving approximately $4.3million worth of government money, Little Learners and Decodable Texts Australia. Mem Fox wrote before that school books teaching kids to read were rather nonsensical and boring which is why kids didn't enjoy reading them and didn't seek out those books. I haven't seen these decodable texts but if they're anything like the learn to read PM readers that are already in classrooms, many of the stories have no story behind them, just a bunch of simple words strung together just because they meet simple letter sounds.

According to Damon Thomas, a senior lecturer in English Education at the University of Tasmania, he believes that if children are not interested in reading then it will impact literacy and ultimately the ability to write. He is quoted, "I don't think you can talk about this without touching on the impact of digital technology, and how easy it is for children these days to do other things with their time than sit down and read a book or write a story. This is not a writing in a silo problem. This is a literacy engagement problem. NAPLAN is a bit of a warning sign, but it has far reaching consequences if we have generations coming through who potentially don't have the skills." His comment refers to NAPLAN comparison results of boys and girls in year 3 and year 9 in relation to their performance against the national minimum standard. Over the years, both sexes have deteriorated below the national minimum standard by the time they reach year 9, the boys(20.6%) even more so than the girls(9%).

The director of strategy for reading at Multilit, Jennifer Buckingham says that boys read less frequently than girls and quantity and quality of reading correlated with writing quality. Books that children read influenced their writing ideas. She believes that kids having trouble with spelling will choose to use simpler words in their writing and that spelling impacted on accuracy, fluency and was a factor in determining the extent to which students enjoyed writing.

According to Jenny Atkinson(chief executive of Littlescribe and founder of Co-author program), "The Thematic Review of Writing, commissioned by the NSW Education Standards Authority highlights a lack of teacher knowledge, skill and confidence in the teaching of writing as the key challenge. There are three clear problems: the overuse and misplaced use of technology, a lack of purpose and relevance for students and teachers around support for writing and a lack of skills and resources for teachers. There is an over reliance on technology for teachers to collect data to prove the delivery of what has been taught rather than what has been learnt. Students respond digitally to writing tasks. We have created a copy and paste, auto-correct and regurgitation behaviours rather than students learning how to craft original concepts and draft, edit and rewrite-by hand".

Atkinson also writes that, "...technology is part of the problem. Drawing and writing with a pen taps all parts of the learning brain at once: visual, kinesthetics(the act of doing) and linguistics. This activate more neural pathways as all learning systems are in play. Handwriting layers new knowledge on existing muscle memory, increasing our recall and the ability to glue new concepts together. The overuse of technology has turned off a powerful learning system."

Dr Anabela Malpique from Murdoch University concluded that "handwriting fluency can be used to predict writing quality a year later".

The quality of the students writing was determined by their ability to recognise and use distinct, appropriate writing styles when required in relation to the various subjects such as science, history, health, technology and music for example. As students learn specialised subjects, the writing used in each subject employs different terminology and words, in English, writing tends to evaluate and analyse texts whereas in other subjects it is more factual or persuasive or informative.

These so called experts who are influential in what children learn should have higher expectations for children and not dumb down materials or delay teaching key concepts. If children overseas can learn concepts from a young age, why can't Australian children? If delivery of these concepts and teaching style were fine in the last few decades, then what is the reason for the decline? That should be the first port of call when looking for a reason. I have seen children use laptops and iPads more frequently in their 'studies' and learning program and when the parents aren't around for even a few minutes, the kids are watching YouTube and chatting away on messengers and chatting programs. You can't be distracted like that when you have books and a pen in hand with no connection to the internet. I've seen parents just watching and cruising social media while their kids are reading next to them, half distracted by the sounds.

There should be studies done instead on how digital devices have impacted and detracted from children's learning instead of just concluding that it's the teaching material that is the issue and dumbing down the materials. How is Australia going to produce cutting edge designers and inventors of the future if we dumb down materials and lower expectations on what they are to learn?

On conclusion, I am not sponsored by Reading Eggs but I highly recommend that app for teaching kids how to read. I have seen many kids use that app and can read fluently before Kindergarten even starts. Educators should look at that app. It is amazing.

Source:

The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Schools on board with phonics check' by Jordan Baker, 1-2/08/2020

The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Boys can't keep up with girls in writing results' by Jordan Baker

The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Beyond grammar, context is king' by Yaegan Doran and Sally Humphrey, 18/9/2020

The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Parents should put down phones, help solve writing crisis' by Jenny Atkinson, 16/09/2019

The SMH, 'Teachers to ignore phonics test' by Pallavi Singhal, 18/06/2019

The SMH, 'War over plan to change how maths is taught' by Lisa Visentin and Anna Pyrtz, 9/7/21

SMH, 'NSW asks for revision of reading and maths' by Lisa Visentin, 20/8/21

Writing Again and Creating New Content

2021-08-28T13:43:00.001-07:00


Back before COVID. A trip to Japan for snowboarding. Last leg of trip in Tokyo.

Thanks to all readers who are still visiting this blog to read. I thought Google would have ranked this blog poorly due to the lack of new content and that there would be no more traffic but surprisingly, there are still hundreds of thousands of readers even with no new content in the last three to five years. Thanks Google(Alphabet, ticker GOOGL), this is why I love you and why I invest in you. You show a lot of love for content that is genuine and keep bringing it up in your search results which is why this blog still has traffic in the hundreds of thousands.

I hope you guys are okay and I know life is tough and depressing to some extent due to the coronavirus pandemic, but I believe in our strength and our ability to overcome this pandemic and come out stronger on the other side. It's all a bit frustrating to have no deadlines and see no end to this tragedy but being constantly frustrated isn't good for our health so we all need to try and see the positives given this current state of the world.

I haven't blogged in a long time due to several factors. Life has been really busy and hectic with so many events and functions. With COVID and lock downs, all those events are pretty much all cancelled, so now I find the time and freedom to actually do other things that I haven't had time for such as writing, reading, trying out new food recipes, practicing piano and bingeing on TV shows and movies. It's strange to think that I now have freedom to do what I want when in reality the physical freedom to go anywhere and do anything has been curtailed severely due to restrictions and lock downs. Socialising is great but I'm also such a homebody at heart. I can be completely and overly entertained just being at home and will never run out of things to do while being home. Especially if I have books, computers, devices and an internet connection.

I have also been working on other e-content(unrelated to finance) and was also hoping to register a domain for personal finance blogging instead of using blogger as it will be a lot of work migrating the content out of the blogger infrastructure and having to work on all my back links and tagging. Even though I barely blogged in the past five years, I have so much content and thoughts on finance.

The investment landscape has changed significantly over these five years. There are so many new companies, new unicorns, new green technologies, new speculative investments and derivatives(cryptocurrencies and the multitude of trading platforms, listed funds trading on the cryptocurrencies and tokens etc).

Personal finance, finance and economics, investing and property are all still very exciting for me even though I have been immersed in this landscape and this context for over two decades now. I feel that all my investment goals have been achieved and it wasn't overnight. It was a steady process of setting goals, working towards them daily and yearly and then suddenly upon reflection, realising that I had achieved everything that I had always wanted, that the early retirement was now possible and that I could pretty much bum around and spend my life chasing the winter ski seasons or sit on a beach sipping coconut juice for the rest of my life without working and be fine. I can't tell you how exciting that was. The icing on top would be to buy a ski chalet and then I'd be completely aimless haha.

Luckily I still enjoy working and the topic of finance is still just as fresh and intriguing to me as it was from so long ago. I still remember the feelings I had when my Mum taught me about term deposits and interest rates and returns back when I was 13 years old, when at kickboxing classes, I met a guy working at the Reserve Bank of Australia at 15 years old(thanks Dave) and he told me he was an economist and it inspired me, it introduced me to a whole new world to be passionate and obsess over. I was living in this small world until then and when he taught me about economics and spoke about his work, it broadened my horizon so much that I would count that as a turning point. Like a fish trapped in a fish bowl that has been turned out into the ocean and discovers a huge and exciting new world. It has consumed me for so long, the world of finance and economics is so intricate and endless, there are so many inter dependencies, inter related issues due to globalisation and also the advent of new products and new technologies have also meant that investing has changed significantly every single day and every single year.

New stock apps have enabled a broader population to engage with the stock markets, new technology have enabled hedge funds and investment banks to beat the ordinary folks with their cutting edge programs able to scan through financial reports within seconds and start executing trades while the ordinary folks are still scratching their heads over the reports and trying to decide what they will do. This field of finance and economics is dynamic and that is why it will never get old and boring.

Anyway, get ready for new content coming!

Opposing the Wallacia Cemetery DA and Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust

2018-03-05T18:11:00.003-08:00

The world in Sydney has gone mad. I haven't written for a long time due to the demands of life however, I felt that I had to put pen to paper, figuratively speaking.

Councils are designed to look after the local area and ensure developments are benefiting the local community. Then the state government changed the planning laws so that they could approve developments which can over ride the wishes of council and the community.

This is what is happening with the Catholic Cemeteries and Crematoria(CCC), Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust(CMCT) plans. They bought the Wallacia Golf Club off Panthers and hope to build a cemetery and crematorium right in the MIDDLE, HEART and TOWN CENTRE of Wallacia. 45 hectares(Footnote1) of land right in the heart of the town. That the DA has gotten this far is what confounds me. These are plans to kill the town. The words would be a humourous pun if it wasn't so ludicrous.

Imagine the uproar if CMCT was building a cemetery right in the heart of the Sydney CBD. It's easier to subjugate a smaller town where residents are dispersed and widely spaced out. David and Goliath. It's ironic that it's the Catholic Cemetery too. The irony.

Come on Sydney, wake up to what is happening. You are reliant on drinking water from Warragamba Dam and you eat prawns, oysters and fish from the Nepean/Hawkesbury River. The site for the proposed cemetery/crematorium is on a flood prone land containing watercourses that flow to creeks and this flows to the Nepean/Hawkesbury River. You swim and enjoy recreational activities on this river. You risk this river being contaminated from cemetery leaches. Don't allow this to happen. There is a saying that applies to this situation, "Don't shit in your own backyard."

Yes, the golf club is struggling financially. The better option for a struggling golf club would be to build playgrounds for kids, some public facilities, gyms, swimming pool, shops, good quality eateries so that it can pull in customers and revenue. After all, this is how Westfield Shopping centres survive the slaughter from online shopping. And it would be more in line with the typical development and progress that you would EXPECT for a town centre. Now that would be an array of amazing community facilities that local residents can enjoy and be proud of. I wold love to go for a swim or catchup at a local playground. I would love to eat delicious food in the area and have culinary choices to choose from. I would love to be able to meet friends at those sort of facilities and spend my money.

Also, on another point, there is an airport that is due to be built about ten minutes drive away. Economic benefits will flow to Wallacia in many forms in future. It's valuable land that will be close to the new airport and the new industry in the surrounding regions as jobs and businesses relocate and build themselves in the area. By virtue of Wallacia, Mulgoa and Silverdale being within such proximity to the new proposed airport, there will undoubtedly be increased tourism and patronage of local businesses from the surrounding populated areas and from travellers.

CMCT are deluded if they think that they are the only ones with the best plans and have the interest of the community at stake by developing a cemetery in the town centre. Wallacia and Mulgoa are already tourist destinations with the river nearby, Warragamba Dam, beautiful tree lined roads and the natural bush lands which are catchments for Sydney's drinking water.

With an airport that is due to be built within the vicinity, this will deliver economic benefits to Wallacia and Mulgoa without even trying. Wallacia and Mulgoa will definitely be enjoying a boost in traffic from tourists and new residents in surrounding areas who are happy to spend money in the local area with day outings, camping near the river on the campground at Wallacia.

Such benefits could include patronage to shops/retailers, petrol stations, hair salons, eateries, fishing and camping etc. With the increase of economic and business activities at Badgery's Creek which is adjacent to Wallacia and Mulgoa, it would result in more people desiring to live in the area and this would create funds for more schools, improved shops and social facilities. Now these sort of developments would be more aligned to the community and resident's welfare. The increase in tourism and happy people visiting the area would result in more prosperity for locals and better psychological benefits than a cemetery/crematorium.

Mourners and people going to funerals are not going to be enjoying what Wallacia and Mulgoa has to offer. They are sad. They are mourning. They just want to attend the funeral and get out of the area. To go back home. To go cry. I've been to funerals. What happens at funerals is that people mourn and cry. They have no desire to go looking around the suburb or locality of the cemetery/crematorium. Who would want to hang around a cemetery/crematorium? So if the CMCT builds one at Wallacia, who will want to hang around Wallacia?

It's getting ridiculous that we are even forced to consider the idea of CMCT building a huge cemetery in the water catchment regions of Sydney. It's in the catchment region. It's our drinking water! There are residents in the area still drinking tank water and collecting rain water for their personal use. Not by choice but because reticulated water isn't available.

Erosion occurs because of acid pollutants in the air mixing in with rain. How would CMCT feel about a dose of crematorium air pollutants mixed in with harvested rain water for residents to use? It doesn't even matter how efficiently crematorium filters operate because there will always be unavoidable air pollutants that filters cannot eradicate. How is this proposal even under consideration? And there is no reticulated sewerage to many of the properties in the area. This poses health risks.

The CEO for CCC Peter O'Meara was quoted in the westernweekender.com.au saying, "The style of the landscape will complement the surrounds of the area. It's not like the style of Rookwood, but something that children and families can enjoy too." Do they really think that parents will be taking their kids to enjoy a fun day out at a location where there are bodies being cremated underground, burials and people crying above ground? Hearses and coffins going in and out and people in distraught constantly at the town centre?

Imagine fielding the questions from children..."What are those cars carrying...?"..."Why are people always crying there?"..."Why are all the people wearing black?"..."Why are the people there so sad all the time?", "What is in that box that people are always carrying?".... So no, families are not going to want to bring their kids to play at the cemetery or whatever sort of community centre that CMCT intends on building to try pacifying the community. It's absurd to think that community members and residents will wish to celebrate special happy events in a centre that is in the cemetery.

There was a quote from a local mother saying, "My kids can't ride their bikes around here, if we want to go for a ride, we have to drive somewhere else." Which parent is going to take their kids for a bike ride or a play date in a cemetery? Or even a community facility in a cemetery? Imagine anyone with kids saying, "Let's have a playdate. The kids can ride their bikes and scooters around at the park at the cemetery/crematorium." There's already beautiful bicycle and walking lanes at the park alongside the Nepean river all the way up to Penrith.

If Sydney is so in need of cemeteries and graveyards then why are they clearing Rookwood cemetery to build a 16 storey, $200 million dollar unit (the stocktontimes.com)? If anything, the cleared cemetery an be re-used for the same purpose it was designed for, instead of constructing homes there.

The dailytelegraph.com.au(Footnote 2) wrote that the Wallacia club was the first in the country to allow women to join as associates and that the club historically opened in 1933. This is history folks. History for women. History for Wallacia, Penrith and Australia. Irreplaceable history.

Peter O'Meara was interviewed on radio recently on 6th March 2018, and O'Meara sounds confounded that (you can hear it in the tone of his voice), "...strangely enough, the opposition seems to be coming from people who actually aren't members of the golf course..."

How is it strange that the residents oppose a cemetery/crematorium in their town centre? There's a retirement home directly opposite the site. There's a primary school opposite the site. There's no denying that there will be air and water contaminants and leachates. Or that all the roads in the area and leading to the area are rural single lane roads that have had mortality from car accidents due to dangerous over taking. It's not just the welfare of golf club members at stake.

We all know that Sydney is in need of more burial spaces. No one is denying that. However, the search for appropriate land must go on. The land that Wallacia Golf Club currently resides on is not the appropriate land. Why are we even debating the idea of this. Premier Gladys BereJiklian, the future of Wallacia is in your hands. Is your government going to support the residents and assist in opposing the CMCT DA or are you going to go against community wishes?

Follow up on what is happening via the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Save-Wallacia-Golf-Club-from-becoming-the-DEAD-centre-of-town-341548232970088/

Footnote 1: DA papers lodged by CMCT
Footnote 2: Dailytelegraph.com.au, 'Cemetery headed to Wallacia Golf Course'

Environmental Rubbish Driven By Modern Behaviour

2018-03-05T16:02:00.001-08:00

It's been definitely far too long between my blog post. Happy 2018 and I hope this year brings happiness, love, good health... and good investing outcomes -this is after all a personal finance blog =)

What have you been up to recently? Saved a decent amount yet? Paid off the debts yet? Investing yet? Did you set new years resolution to get healthier, fitter, smarter, richer, promoted and for luxurious holidays?

After years of paying down the mortgage and not sinking much money into the stock market because it wasn't performing like real estate, about two years ago I finally decided to divert some funds into the U.S stock market. Best decision ever.

The Aussie share market has been so painful to watch as it dithers and dallies. Unfortunately because it's only around 2% of the global stock market, it's a follower, not a trend maker nor a leader. So two years ago, I started diverting funds into Apple (aapl) and Google Alphabet (googl) and it has delivered phenomenally.

Real estate in Sydney is rather static and if anything, on a slight downward inclination in some areas. If you can afford to buy, it's always good to buy and don't bother with speculating because the big money can move very fast. When the market goes on another upswing, the big and smart money moves fast and it's harder for the lesser off to compete due to fear and indecision.

With that in mind, I really want to do some land banking while fear of a property slump is in the Sydney air. There are areas in Sydney destined for greater changes with infrastructure and development. Much as I love green environments, I have to look at the stark reality that population growth brings with it - increased rubbish, construction and loss of green fields due to urbanisation and new housing lots.

Anyway, after being indecisive for so long about buying land, my friend has pointed out a few stocks that took his fancy and thought I may be interested in for the moment: Netflix and Match.

I was reading seekingalpha.com's article on Match when I thought that modern behaviour and spending is getting ridiculous. Almost every modern change with technology and delivery is killing our environment. From the article, 'Match Group: Time to Sell' :

"Shortly after Tinder Gold launched, we put out a bullish note on MTCH. The thesis was pretty simple. Tinder is a natural component of the currently in-favor at-home economy. Consumers don't go to movies as much anymore. They watch Netflix (NFLX). Consumers don't eat out as much anymore. They order food through GrubHub (GRUB). Consumers don't shop in-store as much anymore. They go to Amazon.com (AMZN)."

The growth of ordering take away food is growing insanely but do people ever think about how bad take away food is for this world? All the packaging and disposables that is single use, and then forever to spend its life in landfill. In Sydney, Uber Eats and Deliveroo is growing its market share so quickly, but along with that growth is the growth in disposable rubbish.

Amazon is also growing quickly along with online shopping. Again, online shopping and having parcels delivered is so environmentally unfriendly. The purchases get wrapped up with plastic, foam and bubble wraps, then goes into a box that is taped to death, and then gets transported. A few people I know will order two sizes or colours and then using the free refund policy, send the one they don't want back by another box. Again, generating twice the rubbish.

The more traditional method of eating in at a restaurant would mean using stainless steal and ceramic cutlery so no disposable rubbish. The act of visiting a store to buy goods would mean a plastic bag and occasionally some extra packaging, but this is nothing compared to online shopping and the rubbish that accompanies it.

The green trend is failing. People talk about how to be more environmentally friendly but then I see mandarins and oranges peeled and repackaged into plastic containers for the time poor. I see people shopping for groceries with their re-usable bags but then in their trolleys, countless carrier bags from clothing stores that will go into the bin once they get home. Why can't people use re-usable bags too when they go shoe or clothes shopping? Is it a cool thing to look like a shopper? If you have ever shopped in Bread Top, they put every single bun into its own little bag, and then all the little bags go into a big bag.

Modern behaviour is rather selfish. It doesn't consider the world that we leave to the next generation and the generations following our generation.

If I were to invest ethically based on companies with greener foot prints or more sustainable foot prints, I'd miss out on these companies that are pretty much disrupting the older businesses and devouring market share at a ridiculous pace. I'm at a point where I don't know what to do. Pursue the growth companies which are environmentally unsustainable or miss out on the growth companies that modern behaviour is driving?

What to do? What to do?

How To Write A Public Submission Responding to Development Applications

2017-01-16T22:55:00.001-08:00

A development application(commonly referred to as DA) is a formal application to council or the Department of Planning and Environment, by a person/owner/builder wishing to build or alter a building and or land and its usage. A submission in general is a method of submitting your response to a proposal.

There may come a point in your life when you feel worked up about a development application that will impact how you live your life that you want to and should write a submission so that your views are formally considered. You can make a submission alone or as a joint submission with others who share your views.

If your submission is lengthy, utilise a table of content or headings and paragraphs or bullet points.

Here are some ideas that you can cover when you are composing your submission in response to the DA. By the way, council and the Department of Planning and Environment aren't really interested at all on how the DA will positively or negatively affect your property prices. They are more interested in issues that you can cover below:

* Traffic and car parking impacts, call for a road safety audit if the proposed development is near an intersection or roundabout

* Inappropriate height of proposed development possibly setting precedence, the height could be visually bulky and out of context with neighbouring development, it could dominate the skyline

* Adverse increase in density affecting quality of life

* Unjustified reductions in community centre sizes or open public spaces

* Adverse impact on social infrastructures/services such as park, public transport, bus facilities and local roads

* Lack of open spaces/green spaces which are beneficial to people's long term mental health and happiness

* Noise and nuisance during construction

* Adverse environmental impacts on such things as trees, landscape, ground water, contamination

* Overshadowing and overlooking

* Inadequate public transport

* Obscuring private views

* Increase in crime

* Failing to accord with Council's strategy for the area

* Non compliance with Council's Development Control Plan (DCP) for the area/suburb

* Local schools are at capacity or over capacity and overcrowded being unable to cope with increased density and population

* Refer to data, any legislation or laws that are applicable, refer to any relevant policies

Helen Mirren on Financial Independence

2016-10-17T21:41:00.002-07:00

Helen Mirren, yes *the* Hollywood actress Helen Mirren, actually was quoted giving financial advice. She learnt how to manage money from her parents:

"I think, really, the most important thing to me is financial independence. Don't spend your money on handbags, put it into a savings account. I know it's sensible. But if you want a new handbag, go to H&M, don't go online to Net-a-Porter. Don't feel you have to have a Prada handbag. Prada will hate me for saying this, but you know what I mean. When you're young, you can't afford it. If, later on, you can afford it, then great. But just try and get as far as you possibly can to be financially independent. And never imagine that it's all going to be all right because in the end you'll find a man and he'll pay for everything... What I think they(sic: her parents) would have been most proud of is my financial independence. I think the fact that I've earned my own living my whole life. I've bought my own house - it's my house, it's nobody else's house -and I've earned enough money to help my family if they need it. Also the fact that my sister and I are still extremely close. We see each other a lot and we're each other's best friends, I would say, and I think they would be immensely proud of that relationship, which they created."

Are You A Credit Risk? How You Can Check Your Credit Score Now

2016-09-19T20:33:00.001-07:00

It's been a few years since I checked my credit score. Have you checked yours recently? If you want to borrow money, it's a good idea to go take a look at your credit score first. You don't want to keep applying for loans or accounts and get a lot of rejections as that could result in further deterioration of your credit score.

You can get a free online credit report check instantly from www.getcreditscore.com.au or by mail from veda.com.au

Why is your credit score so important? It can influence your application for utility or new loans by being declined, being approved but as high risk and thus higher interest rate, or as a good risk and offered cheaper loan rates. It roughly tells creditors how 'financially responsible' you are.

Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon had a reader write in to ask about how she could fix her "below average" credit score of 230 (out of 1200). She advised that if you have a poor credit score, contact those that you owe money to, pay them back in full and request that they update your file as "fully paid". The details will unfortunately be on your file for 5 years from the date that you incurred the debt. So the faster you act, the better.

Out of curiosity, I checked mine and what a relief it was that it was nothing funky (I'll settle for ordinary and that's what I got)

And what does it mean?

So my credit score is 927 out of 1200. On the upper tier so that is a relief, but nothing special. A range of factors affect your rating. I wonder what it takes to achieve a credit score of 1200? Having absolutely no mortgage or personal loans? No credit cards? Doing nothing financially risky?

When It Rains, It Pours: Weather and Hard Disk Drive Failing

2016-06-14T18:35:00.001-07:00

You know those days, when bills upon bills just rain down, and then literally for us, when it rained, it poured.

Those end of financial year enticements have been luring us for years and now, the sum of all those parts have really come home to roost into a huge consolidated sum once those bills are all paid.

Sydney had a massive, drenching rain last weekend which resulted in three deaths and homes flooded, with some coastal houses lost to the ocean. For us, it meant a leaking roof/ceiling and a few more thousand dollars worth of impending repairs. The joys of home ownership.

After about four years of use, my Macbook started playing up and it turns out the hard disk drive was failing and lucky I had backed up everything in time before it died. Now it's a slow process of re-installing a few applications, recovering bookmarks etc. Fortunately, all files are safe and sound.

This is probably one of the most adhoc post I've ever written, so apologies for that. It shows the state of my mind, which is currently all over the place. I have my fingers in way too many pies presently. I'm hoping that over the next two years, it will all be sorted and falling into a routine.

It's been an incredible ride these last handful of years.

I was on TV(briefly haha) and looks like I may be published in an industry magazine. An offer of more TV appearances but I'm not sure I want to pursue that path. That opportunity arose many years ago which I declined as well. Life is really strange. These are such random opportunities which just fell into the lap. Some try so hard and actively to pursue TV fame and opportunities but here I am, consistently declining the offers.

Financially (seeing as this is a personal finance blog!!), it's also been incredible. We reached a huge milestone a few years ago, so these last few years simply amplified that.

I will be back writing about being on the hunt for acreage and land banking versus buying a blue chip property in an established suburb. Our friends are also doing exciting things with their properties, some are demolishing and rebuilding, some are looking at $4 million houses to buy. Some have just got a foot hold into property while some are renting. It's amazing how we all pretty much started out at similar junctions in our life.

From being friends at University, the choices that we individually made over the years is now starkly apparent and the differences between all of us diverges more dramatically every single year. Some are holding stellar careers and lifestyles. Some are still struggling. Some are living the golden life, while some are just surviving day to day. What differentiates the stellar achievers versus more ordinary achievements? I would hazard a guess and say that the stellar achievers have planned a lot more in their life for the long term horizon as opposed to short to medium term planning only. And they're type A personalities. Really great organisational skills to boot.

So what do you want from your life? What are you doing to achieve those plans? Are you all talk and no action? Or are you talk plus action? Are you going to look back in ten years time and wish you had done something?

The Power of Saying Yes and No

2016-04-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

Have any of you heard about the power of saying yes or no? It's suppose to be a life changing concept to apply. Saying yes or no to people. Its power includes opening up new doors, unlimited opportunities and new experiences.

Some say that saying yes is very powerful, while some argue that saying no is more powerful. Unfortunately life doesn't come with a manual to teach you when you should say no and when you should say yes. And knowing the difference of when to apply which, is what changes your life positively.

I think the best way to approach this is what I read from James Altucher. He wrote:

"I started saying “No” to people who weren’t right for me. I started saying “No” to everything I didn’t want to do.I started saying “No” to mindless meetings, mindless events, mindless people who were bad for me, mindless food or alcohol, mindless anger and regret. Mindless TV and news.I started saying “No” to colonoscopies and other things related to painful medical experiments. I listed all the things I could say “No” to and I still do.When you have a tiny tiny piece of shit in the soup it doesn’t matter how much more water you pour in and how many more spices you put on top. There’s shit in the soup.I had been saying YES to the wrong things for 20 years.Within six months my life was completely different. I met Claudia. I moved out of hotels. I was working on ideas that actually made money. And I needed fewer and fewer things to make me happy. That’s the Power of No. That’s true minimalism."

I've been thinking about the concept lately because recently I have had difficulty finding the strength to say "no" to people. I've been saying yes, yes and more yes. Instead, I am bending over backwards trying to help people from all walks of life. It feels draining. Instead of being uplifting and generating the happiness buzz, it feels draining.

Questions like, "Can you help me get a job? Can you ask so and so if they have work? Can you call so and so for me? Can I borrow blah? Do you know how to do this or that? Can you help me do blah? Can you etc etc etc." These are people who work for people I know, or people who I come into contact with weekly, but aren't immediate colleagues or friends. Just friendly people that I come into contact with. I could help them, that's a certainty (and I have) but I find that more and more people are leaning for help and it's starting to burn up serious time.

So, it's time to work up the courage to say no. To admit that I am time poor and I'm sorry but I can't help. Is that selfish? I don't know. Is it selfish to try to protect ones free time? I don't know. What Altucher wrote is what I was able to practice for many years and it made me happy to be able to do that. I said no to crap TV, no to watching miserable news. No to really bad food. No to those who simply wanted to use me emotionally or materially. Somehow, over the recent years, I simply stopped saying no and just started saying yes again to everyone. And saying yes to everything is NOT powerful.

What is powerful, is the ability to say no to the crap, bad things or people that drain you and to say yes to the opportunities or the people who lift you and the people that make you happy.

Appillionaires Secrets from Developers Who Struck It Rich on the App Store by Chris Stevens

2016-03-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

Appillionaires by Chris Stevens
(developer of Alice for the iPad and Alice in New York)

This book illustrates the story of some of the app world's successful developers and how they arrived at their point of global app fame. The road is long and not easy even though the media makes it look like instant fame hit.

Stevens wrote that most indie developers struggle to get attention for their apps due to lack of marketing clout and their reliance on top placement in the App Store. For indie developers, being featured by Apple or advertised in an iTunes banner ad is the largest road to being noticed. After finding fame with a successful app, app developers find themselves constantly being pitched app ideas. Stevens write that few Appillionaires were overnight successes. The book has chapters based on specific apps such as Doodle Jump, StickWars, Harbor Master, Angry Birds and Pocket God. I'll go through them more thoroughly on the next blog post.

Mills from Angry Birds says, "People say it was an overnight success. Well, yes, it was an overnight success after 52 other failed attempts."

Max Slade from Johnny Two Shoes recalls that, "We actually unplugged our phone because we were getting so many calls from VCs saying, "We want to give you some money; let's give you some money. Here, have some money. Money. Money!"

To be in the app game, it cost $99 to join up as an Apple developer. The expense is your time and or paying people for work. The official Software Development Kit (SDK) is a free download from apple that allows anyone to try programming for the iPhone.

"Free apps accounted for 65-70 percent of the software installed on iPhones in 2009, which meant than an impressive proportion were paid apps, with 99 cents already established as the most popular price. By the end of 2009, Apple had supplied over 2 billion apps to iPhone and iPod Touch users in 77 different countries, netting developers over $900 million. Customers were downloading an average of 11 apps each per month and a mind-boggling 8,500 new apps were being submitted to Apple by programmers every week."

"The masses wanted cheap, straightforward games they could dip in and out of during a bored moment on the train. They didn't necessarily want a virtual film experience with layered plots and an advanced control system; they just wanted the next Tetris."

Stevens write that, "Almost as soon as Alice hit the number one spot I was fielding calls from The New York Times, giving interviews to Japanese television stations, and advising major print publishers on how to make digital books. Alice was literally programmed in a bedroom- a phenomena that the App Store had made possible...What few people saw were the months of near insanity that led up to the success of Alice. The confusion and self-doubt as app after app that we attempted to sell on the App Store failed to turn a profit. Alice was the culmination of almost a year of repeated failures."

"The store has become a magnet for the overly optimistic with money to spend on getting their app built. I've sat in meeting after meeting with recent university graduates who have scraped together thousands of pounds from friends and family with the intention of making a fortune on the App Store. Almost without fail, their ideas have been vague, or based on gut instinct, rather than the commercial realities of the world's most competitive software market."

Peter Pashley was quoted in the book saying, "It was the first time that a distribution channel existed for a single creative to distribute their work to tens of millions of people. If you're a musician that never really happens-unless you have a label. If you're an author that rarely happens- unless you have a publisher. People are actively looking for apps all the time and, if you make something good, it has the potential to spread like wildfire. Books and CDs never had that."

What can we take away from Steven's book? He quoted Castelnuovo (creator of Pocket God) as saying, "I think that success in the entertainment industry has a lot to do with luck: the reception of the audience. You can't really quantify or second guess that easily. It's like a lottery ticket. The strategy was to keep it small, stay in the game for a long time, and keep working on projects until something stuck... People see that a lot of people are making money, and that a lot of people have these devices. They think they could come up with an idea. But having an idea is 5 percent of the thing. Implementation counts for a lot."

Castelnuovo believes that the buying public enjoyed Pocket God's app updates and new game mechanics. "The best strategy is keep your costs down, and support your app like crazy. Be laser-focused in getting it out there. You can't just do something, watch and see if it takes off. You have to put everything behind it. Get a sense if the audience is receptive to your idea. If they're not, then cut your losses and work on a new game. But if there is enthusiasm, get behind it."

John Hartzog, creator of the game StickWars advice was, "I hit a momentum and realised that, if I kept updating the app every three weeks, I could accelerate the rise... Work independently. That's what I did at the start. Focus on making a fantastic game and worry about money later. First, make a great product."

A simple app is estimated to cost between $15,000 to $50,000 to produce (not inclusive of marketing). Stevens created some simple interactive book apps which cost $60,000.

"Bedroom programmers can eliminate much of these costs by doing all the coding and design work themselves- the first Alice app, for example, cost nothing except time. Increasingly, young entrepreneurs with no programming experience are now choosing to employ outside help to build their iPhone app ideas, making the projects extremely expensive. The unfortunate truth of the market is that most of these entrepreneurs will never recoup their investments. Ever. The most cynical estimate is that the median app makes $682 per year for its developer on the App Store."

It's an easy book to read. Interesting in the way that it delved into the history of the programmers and how their interest in game design originated from a young age and Apple's App Store was the perfect vehicle for indie and small developers to release and distribute their work to the global marketplace.

Hollywood Entrepreneurs Series: Jessica Alba

2016-03-21T16:18:00.005-07:00

Fame can be fleeting. The new generation of sport, music and movie stars have to multi-task and become entrepreneurs if they want to survive life post fame. They don't know when the public will stop buying their music, stop watching their movies or injury forces an exit from the world of competitive sport.

There are so many fascinating entrepreneurial artists that I thought I'd write about some that have intrigued me due to their meticulous control of their brand and their many businesses. Along with their gorgeous looks of course.

1. Jessica Alba and The Honest Company

34 year old Alba owns reportedly 15-20 per cent of The Honest Company, a company that is rumoured to be worth 1.7 billion dollars. Her share has been estimated by Forbes to be worth roughly $200 million. If you watch some of her interviews on YouTube, you will see how eloquent, passionate and intelligent she is. She built a business that focuses on organic and natural products used in everyday life.

Honest employs roughly 500 staff*. Honest now has over 135 products ranging from toothpaste to detergent and diapers. The products were initially sold online but is now available both online and in 4,400 retail stores.

The acting world is as competitive as the commercial world. Alba auditioned and won against 1,000 actresses for the role in James Cameron's tv show, Dark Angel. That led to 86 hour work weeks in Vancouver. Following on from Dark Angel, she won roles in Sin City, Fantastic Four, Little Fockers and Honey. When she tried to crossover into ecommerce she was subjected to disinterest from Silicon Valley. So her success emphasises that the naysayers aren't always right. Don't let them stop you from doing what you want to do.

She revealed in some interviews that she would work 16 hour days, training for movies and shows. Some memorable quotes that I like are:

*"You have to have a vision of where you want to go in order to get there, so I absolutely had a vision that it was going to become something massive. If you want to effect real change in the world you have to be a real competitor, and in order to take market share from, you know, people who have been in the business usually for a long time." (Vogue Australia, February 2016)

* On juggling work and family: "Multitasking, it's a struggle." (Extra TV interview, 04/08/2014)

* "You'll never know if something is going to succeed if you don't try. Put yourself out there and try it." (Women's Innovation Panel with Susan Wojcicki, Jessica Alba and Gayle King)

* "I learned a lot when I was acting... I learned a lot about marketing...I learned a lot about selling different types of products to different demographics...I took in all that knowledge that I collected along the way from marketing to a teenage boy demographic versus marketing to a young girl in a movie called Honey that I did and then marketing to a really broad family audience with The Fantastic Four movies and then doing campaigns with Loreal and Revlon and understanding the millenial woman...it was just about understanding the demographics at that time and understanding what they want and how to market to them to get the best outcome in what you're selling.

It could have been a television show, it could have been a product, it could have been a film, marketers pretty much go about all of those things the same way so when I had this idea of wanting to create this company that was honest and transparent, that made effective products so that people could live a healthy life, I really had to understand the consumer...I feel a lot of what I do and how I went about it was to prepare myself for that consumer so I did some market research on myself at the time and this was about seven and half years ago and I was really heavy into 18-25 year old males shockingly...

I wanted to get the 25-35 year old millenial mum, so I had to come from an authentic place and change the dialogue in how people saw me and so that's how I got onto Twitter with my first social media platform and then Facebook and now Instagram and Pinterest. Not Snapchat yet. I'm late to the game. Understanding those platforms. Creating content for those platforms... opened the door for me to create this company.

So I understood my marketplace and then I know what the consumer wants and then it's about creating and going after it. So I did all that prep work before I even found my partners, before I even honed in on the business model and before we did our seed funding. That took about three years... It took me about three years to figure out how to turn a 55 page deck of this idea and a really long explaination of what the idea was to a 10 page deck and an elevator pitch.

There have been over 80,000 new chemicals introduced in the marketplace and used in these everyday products that have not been tested for safety. Now in Europe, there are over 1200 chemicals that are banned in personal care alone because they're not safe for human health. In the United States, we only ban 11...The company was Love and Honour. It sounded like a bridal company, so everyone that I pitched it to, they were like, "Oh that sounds really nice, but cleaning products?", they didn't get it. I was like, "What about The Honest Company. A company that is honest, and transparent about their practices. They have effective products that are beautifully designed, affordable and easy to get. And they were like, 'Oh that makes sense. Doesn't a company like that already exist. And that's when I knew I had a great idea. When everyone says, 'Doesn't that company already exist?'.

And then when they got into the nitty gritty of how the hell are you going to do it? And it seems really complicated, then I knew I needed to find the right partner...My approach was to really start with the human health mission and work backwards from there. The early days were tough because we had to setup a warehouse and we had to create front end and back end technology that actually worked together. And we had to setup a credit card system that actually charged credit cards, which it didn't for the first six weeks...

Everything from the UI and UX design to ...our first shipment... The flow of the website, it had to be simple and easy to training my customer service which I still do, knowing that they are really the heart of the company. All the marketing. I push my partners heavily on going into social media, having a blog and really, empowering people with education and a choice and telling them the difference between this and that... I'm developing packaging, design and product around two new verticals that we're launching this year...

The reason why we get such talented people is that people love that we have a social goodness aspect to our company and that we give back... I always feel like I'm compromising something. I haven't figured out work life balance.But my kids are my priority... I feel that Facebook is the best platform for our demographic, but pinterest is also really strong, Instagram and Twitter has it's place, but it's more of an international platform.

What advice would I give myself?...When I was younger up until recently, I always felt like I wasn't enough, like I wasn't enough to be a successful actress or I wasn't enough to start a company and I definitely had a lot of moments where I had a ton of self doubt and I was lucky enough to have a Mum who would just kick me in the ass and tell me to just go for it and to stop being ridiculous... I think common sense is so valuable and creative thinking is so valuable. And don't take no for an answer in whatever it is that you are going for."

"You have to not take criticism personally. I think you have to look at it as being constructive and I think you have to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you... If you can put together a team that can execute on your idea, that's going to be the strongest thing you can do when you're going to raise money... You can't be too married to your ideas...You have to really understand your marketplace through and through. I pitched my ideas to really smart people that had all kinds of different businesses... having smart people that you respect poke holes at the business idea. You never want to be in a room and not know how to answer three questions. (Jessica Alba at USC 2015)

*"If it was easy, everyone would do it. You have to be a little bit crazy; you have to have gumption and tenacity. A lot of people give up at the first roadblock. But, for entrepreneurs, if there isn't another road, we create it. We break concrete; we throw dynamite; we figure it out."

She is occasionally plagued by insecurity, remembering in 2006 whilst walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards, thinking, "If I talk to anyone for too long they're going to know I don't belong here". *

Sources:
* Vanity Fair, Holiday 2015/2016
* YouTube interviews
* Vogue
* Image from Stylebistro.com

Wall Street High Speed Trading: Flash Boys and Michael Lewis

2016-03-14T23:39:00.000-07:00

Michael Lewis wrote an article for April 2015 Vanity Fair, 'Wall Street's Flash Mob', which I found to be reflection of the changing times that we live in. Those with better trading platforms, faster technology and more advanced trading algorithms along with more money to pay to certain stock exchanges, profit at the expense of ordinary investors. High frequency trades(HFT) have been a problem in the U.S and also in Australia.

You may have heard of Michael Lewis, he is the author of Moneyball. Moneyball created a sensation in the baseball community. His book 'Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt' created a storm in the U.S stock broking industry. Unfair trading leads to erosion of investor confidence and allows one party to benefit at the expense of others. HFT has enabled unfair trades to be executed according to Michael Lewis, Brad Katsuyama and Eric Scott Hunsader.

Advancement in technology has brought sweeping changes to the investment industry. Not only can you trade from home 24/7 across any stocks on any stock exchange due to the availability of internet and online trading platforms, you can pretty much buy and sell anything you want 24/7 globally. Electronic trading enables some companies to acquire market information milliseconds faster than competitors which gives them an advantage of millions of dollars.

The trading market has changed significantly since I also first traded. There is significantly more volatility across global markets and this is attributable to trades being automated and executed by algorithms and in widespread significant quantities. Those with faster access to data and trade executions profit at our expense. Other problems include flooding the market with automated orders causing crashes, layering, wash trades and spoofing.

Brad Katsuyama was a 35 year old trader at the Royal Bank of Canada who spilled the beans on the industry along with a few others. The complexity of the financial markets due to regulations meant that financial intermediaries stood to benefit more than the investors and corporations (the ultimate stakeholders of a stock exchange). Katsuyama founded the IEX trading platform along with other venture capitalists and asset managers to level the playing field. IEX has a 350 microsecond delay before executing trades. Goldman Sachs is also using IEX for their trades now. Eric Scott Hunsader, a gifted programmer says that the data indicates that IEX has the highest percentage of trades filled at the midpoint between the bid and ask of any exchange and this resulted in fairness.***

High frequency trades were being executed with computer algorithms at fast speed across roughly 60 private and public stock exchanges in the United States. Lewis writes:

"The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced it had opened 170 cases into "abusive algorithms" and also filed a complaint against a brokerage firm called Wedbush Securities for allowing its high-frequency-trading customers from January 2008 through August 2013 "to flood U.S exchanges with thousands of potentially manipulative wash trades(trader acting as buyer and seller of a stock to create the illusion of volume) and other potentially manipulative trades, including manipulative layering and spoofing." Layering and spoofing are off-market orders designed to trick the rest of the market into thinking there are buyers or sellers of a stock waiting in the wings, in an attempt to nudge the stock price one way or the other."

Athena Capital Research was fined for manipulating "the closing prices of thousands of NASDAQ listed stocks over a six month period". Lewis writes about banks creating secret orders for high frequency traders to enable exploitation of investors inside private dark pools. After an investor class action suit against some banks, some banks closed their high frequency trading operations and some closed their dark pools.

The problems resulted from various stock exchanges selling retail stock market orders to high frequency traders. Also, high frequency traders were sold faster images of the stock market than the images that investors received.

In Australia, the cost of high frequency trading is approximately one basis point, resulting in $110 million to $180 million in revenue across 12 months to March 2015** Dark pools account for about 25 to 30 percent of activity in Australian trading markets and exist to facilitate large trades. ASIC has been reviewing the industries due to concerns over conflicts of interest between how clients were being managed.

Definitions:

Dark Pool - Private exchanges for trading securities which are not accessible by the investing public. It is non-exchange trading, dedicated to large investors.

High Frequency Trading- Powerful PCs transacting large orders using a trading platform at high speeds. Algorithmic trading with complex formulas.

Source:

* Vanity Fair April 2015, Michael Lewis 'Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt'

** Financial Review October 2015, 'High frequency traders shift to futures markets'

*** www.marketwatch.com, 17th February 2016, 'This man wants to upend the world of high frequency trading'

Steve Jobs: Apple, NeXT Inc and Pixar Animation

2016-02-24T18:06:00.002-08:00

Who would you love to meet?

I wish I could have met and known Steve Jobs. He is fiercely inspiring, creative and intelligent. The way he also talks about design, technology, love and passion is incredible.

These are some quotes from the speeches that he has given throughout his life. This is probably my longest post yet and is a compilation from around the web which I spent several days working on compiling. I would listen to each YouTube interviews at least twice to know which golden nuggets of wisdom that I wanted to type up (yes it was painfully slow having to replay again and again just to type up the quotes accurately).

His thoughts and speeches are astoundingly insightful. It's worth spending the time to read this completely and even visit the original sites and videos to watch the full collection of videos and articles. Especially if you are compelled to know how a brilliant entrepreneur's mind works.

I hope they inspire you too:

"People say that you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing. And it's totally true, the reason is because it's so hard that if you don't, any rational personal would have given up. And it's really hard. You have to do it over a sustained period of time. If you don't love it, if you're not having fun doing it, you don't really love it, you're going to give up. And that's what happens to most people actually. If you look at the ones who ended up being successful in the eyes of society and the ones who didn't, oftentimes it is that the one that is successful loved what they did so they could persevere when it got really tough. And the ones that didn't love it, quit. Because they're sane. Who would want to put up with this stuff if they don't love it. "

"The greatest people are self managing. They don't need to be managed. Once they know what to do, they'll go figure out how to do it. They don't need to be managed at all. What they need is a common vision. And that's what leadership is. What leadership is, is having a vision, being able to articulate that so the people around you can understand it. And getting a consensus on a common vision. We wanted people that were insanely great at what they did."

"If you're a great person. Why would you want to work for someone you can't learn anything from?... The best managers are the great individual contributors who never ever wanted to be a manager but decided they had to be a manager because no-one else is going to be able to do a job as good as them."

"Some mistakes will be made along the way. That's good. Cause at least some decisions will be made along the way. And we'll find the mistakes. We'll fix them."

On being fired by Apple and then founding NeXT and Pixar Animation. A speech given at University:

"Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only that kept me going was that I loved what I did, you've got to find what you love. And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle."

Bill Gates on being asked what did Steve Jobs have that he wished he had:

"His sense of design. That everything had to fit a certain aesthetic, the fact that he with as little engineering background that he had, it shows that design can lead you in a good direction. And so phenomenal products came out of it. He knew about brand and ...he had an intuitive sense for marketing, it was amazing."

Steve Jobs in an interview for TV in 1990:

"It made a big impression on me that we humans are tool builders, and that we can fashion tools that amplify these inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitude. To me, a computer has always been a bicycle of the mind. Something that takes us far beyond our inherent abilities. "

"The first explosion was the spreadsheet, the second major explosion that was driven was the desktop industry...desktop publishing. Happened in 1985 with the Macintosh computer...The third one is let's do for human to human communication what spreadsheet did for financial planning and what desktop publishing did for desktop publishing...We cannot change our management heirarchy very fast...we also can't change our geographic location very fast, but we can change our electronic organisation... In the 1980s we did personal computing, and now we're going to extend that as we network these things to interpersonal computing."

"What we're finding is that time to market is very important. And quality is very important. And the way we can make tremendous increase in quality and reduction in time to market is through automation. So the automation isn't there to lower the cost, although it does do that. It's really there to increase the quality and decrease the time it gets us to get our new product for example to market. Which is very important in a technology based marketplace."

"The older people all want to know how it does what it does, but the younger people just want to know what it can do."

"The way our industry works is that, you create this platform software first, and then you go out and get people to write new applications on top of it. The height that these new applications can soar is enabled or limited by the platform software."

"My observation is the doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker doer in one person and if we really go back and we examine, did Leonardo have a guy off to the side that was thinking in five years out to the future what he was painting, the technology that he would use for painting, of course not. Leonardo was the artist but he also mixed his own paints. He also was a fairly good chemist. He knew about pigments. He knew about human anatomy and combining all of those skills together, the art and the science, the thinking and the doing was what resulted in the exceptional result. And there is no difference in our industry. The people who really made a contribution have been the thinkers and the doers...it's very easy to take credit for the thinking. The doing is more concrete. It's very easy for somebody to say, 'Oh I thought of this three years ago.' But usually when you dig a little deeper, you find the people that really did it, were also the people that really worked through the hard intellectual problems as well."

"It was our observation that for every hardware hobbyists...there were a thousand potential software hobbyists. And if they didn't have to do anything with the hardware except use it, at that time it meant write their own programs, still there was a large group of people who could take advantage of this, and we wanted to reach them. And that was the real breakthrough in the Apple Two."

"He told us to go away about four or five times, but eventually he agreed to help us out..." Tenacity.

"The problem is that market research can tell you what your customers think of something you show them, or it can tell you what your customers want as an incremental improvement on what you have. But very rarely can your customers predict something if they don't even know quite what they want yet."

"Once you have made that jump, possibly before the product is on the market, or even after is a great time to go check your instincts with the market place and verify that you're on the right track. And usually when you show people something, they'll go, 'Oh my God that is fantastic' or you know give you some feedback along the lines."

From the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association videos, 14th November 1994 interview:

"That's why you need to start it young. That's why when we started Apple, we said, you know, we have absolutely nothing to lose. I was 20 years old at the time, Woz was 24/25(yo), we had nothing to lose, no family, no children, no houses, Woz had an old car, I had an old Volkswagon van, I mean all we had to lose were our cars and the shirts off our backs. We had nothing to lose and we had everything to gain. And we figured, even if we crashed and burned, and lose everything, the experience will have been worth ten times the cost. So what was there to lose? There was no risk."

"Hewlett Packett was the genesis of not just the concept of starting your own company... It was also the ethical basis of how you wanted to build your company. A company that was based on values, not based on just making money. And HP had the HP Way and it had a list of their values. And the first one was we need to make a profit or else we can't keep this company going. But after that, they got into how they wanted to treat individuals and conduct their corporate life. And it's very idealistic in my opinion. So we were very much influenced by that. And the second thing that made us very typical was that we were building a produce that we ourselves were customers for."

"Some people say, 'Well you could have gone to college and been a lawyer.' Well, you're right. But you can go to college and be a lawyer when you're 25. There's nothing that stops you from doing that. The only thing you really have in your life is time. And, if you invest that time in yourself to have great experiences that are going to enrich you, then you can't possibly lose. So I always advise people, don't wait. Do something when you're young. When you have nothing to lose and keep that in mind."

"I called up Bill Hewlett when I was 12 years old. And his number was on the phone book. And he answered the phone himself. I said, 'Hi, I'm Steve Jobs. I'm 12 years old. I'm a student in High School and I want to build a frequency counter and I was wondering if you had any spare parts that I could have.' And he laughed and he gave me the spare parts to build a frequency counter and he gave me a job that summer at Hewlett Packet ... and I was in heaven."

"The power of ideas. The power of understanding that if you can build this box(Blue Box), you can control hundreds and millions of dollars worth of telephone infrastructure around the world. That's a powerful thing. And that if we hadn't made blue boxes, there wouldn't have been no Apple... it took us six months discovery of how to build it. We also had the sense of magic that we could sort of influence the world... if you want to know what's going to happen in the world, you don't look at the mainstream, you look at the fringe."

"We went and talked to the venture capitalists and none of them would give us any money. And one of them referred to me as a renegade from the human race cause I had longer hair then."

"I've never found anyone who said no or hung up the phone when I called. I just asked. And when people ask me, I try to be as responsive to pay that debt of gratitude back. Most people never pick up the phone and call and most people never ask. And that's what separates sometimes, the people that do things and the people that just dreams about it. You've got to act. And you've got to be willing to fail. You've got to be willing to crash and burn. You know, with people on the phone, with starting a company, with whatever. If you're afraid of failing, you won't get very far."

"The Beehive Effect. You've got a lot of extraordinary talented people... When you want to start a company, you need to hire some experienced people. You just can't hire people out of school most of the time. So you have to hire some experienced talent, well, you're going to ask somebody to leave a job, maybe they have a family and come to your company to work..."

"When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside your world and try not to bash the walls too much and try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. But that's a very limited life. Once you discover one simple fact. That everything around you called life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life and that something will pop out the other side, you can change, you can mould it. That's maybe the most important thing. To shake off the erroneous notion that life is there, and that you're going to live in it. Embrace it, change it, improve it. Make your mark upon it."

An interviewee:

"From a disruptive standpoint, Steve Jobs is the epitome of it because he got fired for being too innovative. And they brought him back, and he was still too innovative. And it just turned out, he was right. He was right all along. They should have listened to him. But it was so innovative that it was disruptive to the organisation. And finally he came back to a nearly bankrupt company and it didn't matter how disruptive he was to the organisation. He might not be the gentlest, kindest manager, it just didn't matter. He's right 75-80% of the time and when he's right, he's right big."

Another commentator:

"He made calls that everybody said, 'Steve you can't do this and Steve, you can't do that.' He still did it anyway. And he was right... He has a sense of design taste, a sense of perfection and a sense of the customer."

Larry Ellison, Founder of Oracle Corporation:

"Steve Jobs is the most gifted person in our business in terms of vision and leadership. He really is the father of the Personal Computer. He really did popularise graphical user interface. He really has a passion for great technology."

Steve Jobs brainstorms with the NeXT team in 1985, video posted by EverySteveJobsVideo:

"I forgot how much work it actually is to start a company, it's a lot of work and you've got to do everything, you've got to come up with a name, you've got to come up with a logo. In addition to designing the product you gotta figure out what to design, you gotta figure out how you're gonna get it to the markeplace, you've gotta do a part number system, you've got to get bank accounts, you gotta setup charts, general ledger, get a management information system, get a little kitchen setup, get a coffee maker, all this stuff."

"What hit me about it was that here was this machine, that a very few people designed, about four in the case of the Apple II. And then they gave it to some people that didn't know how to design it but they knew how to make it to manufacture it, make a whole bunch of them. Then they gave it to some people that didn't know how to design or manufacture it but they knew how to distribute it, and then they gave it to some people that didn't know how to design or to manufacture or distribute it, but they knew how to write software for it. And gradually this sort of inverse pyramid grew and when it finally got into the hands of a lot of people, it blossomed out of this tiny little seed and it seemed like an incredible amount of leverage. And it all started with just an idea and here was this idea taken through all of these stages resulting in a class room full of kids growing upwith some insights and some fundamentally different experiences which I thought might be very beneficial for their lives because of this germ of an idea a few years ago. And that's an incredible feeling to know that you had something to do with it A. And B, to know that it can be done, to know that you can plant something in the world and it'll grow and change the world ever so slightly."

"Most people think it's about how they look, but it's not really about how they look, it's about how they work... everyone says, you know I wanna make a great product, I wanna make a great movie or whatever they're doing, so there's no difference there. But there's a big difference in the outcomes... You know, we're willing to throw something away because it's not great and try again when all of the pressures of commerce are at your back saying no, you can't do that..."

From Bloomberg Business YouTube channel:

Michael Moritz, Venture Capitalist of Sequoia Capital on Steve Jobs:

"A very remarkable man. An extremely smart, spell binding, mesmerising leader of people... the knee jerk reaction of conventional people is to elbow what they see as disruptive forces aside and Steve, the co founder of Apple was unchivalrously ushered to the exit (by Sculley and the board in the 1980s)... the iPod went from concept to market in about eight months."

Steve Jobs:

"The penalty for failure for going and trying to start a company in this valley is non existent. There really isn't a penalty for failure, either pyschologically or economically. In the sense that if you have a good idea and you go out to start your own company, and even if you fail, you're generally considered worth more to the company you left because you gained all these valuable experiences in many discipline..."

From Steve Denning's article at Forbes.com, from 'The Lost Interview: Steve Jobs Tells Us What Really Matters':

"I was worth over a million dollars when I was 23. And over ten million dollars when I was 24, and over a hundred million dollars when I was 25. And you know, it wasn’t that important, because I never did it for the money. I think money is a wonderful thing, because it enables you to do things. It enables you to invest in ideas that don’t have a short-term payback. At that time in my life, it was not the most important thing. The most important thing was the company, the people, the products we were making. And what we were going to enable people to do with these products. So I didn’t think about the money a great deal. I never sold any stock. I just believed that the company would do very well over the long term."

From Computerworld.com and the article, 'Steve Jobs interview: One on One in 1985':

"To make step-function changes, revolutionary changes, it takes that combination of technical acumen and business and marketing — and a culture that can somehow match up the reason you developed your product and the reason people will want to buy it. I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I've done that sort of thing in my life, but I've always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don't know why. Because they're harder. They're much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you've completely failed.

I always considered part of my job was to keep the quality level of people in the organizations I work with very high. That's what I consider one of the few things I actually can contribute individually -- to really try to instill in the organization the goal of only having 'A' players. Because in this field, like in a lot of fields, the difference between the worst taxi cab driver and the best taxi cab driver to get you crosstown Manhattan might be two to one. The best one will get you there in fifteen minutes, the worst one will get you there in a half an hour. Or the best cook and the worst cook, maybe it's three to one. Pick something like that.

In the field that I'm in the difference between the best person and the worst person is about a hundred to one or more. The difference between a good software person and a great software person is fifty to one, twenty-five to fifty to one, huge dynamic range. Therefore, I have found, not just in software, but in everything I've done it really pays to go after the best people in the world.

If you study these people a little bit more what you'll find is that in this particular time, in the 70's and the 80's the best people in computers would have normally been poets and writers and musicians. Almost all of them were musicians. A lot of them were poets on the side. They went into computers because it was so compelling. It was fresh and new. It was a new medium of expression for their creative talents. The feelings and the passion that people put into it were completely indistinguishable from a poet or a painter. Many of the people were introspective, inward people who expressed how they felt about other people or the rest of humanity in general into their work, work that other people would use. People put a lot of love into these products, and a lot of expression of their appreciation came to these things."

About John Sculley, his greed and corruption spreading like slime at the top level of management:

"What ruined Apple was values. John Sculley ruined Apple and he ruined it by bringing a set of values to the top of Apple which were corrupt and corrupted some of the top people who were there, drove out some of the ones who were not corruptible, and brought in more corrupt ones and paid themselves collectively tens of millions of dollars and cared more about their own glory and wealth than they did about what built Apple in the first place -- which was making great computers for people to use.

They didn't care about that anymore. They didn't have a clue about how to do it and they didn't take any time to find out because that's not what they cared about. They cared about making a lot of money. So they had this wonderful thing that a lot of brilliant people made called the Macintosh and they got very greedy. And instead of following the original trajectory of the original vision -- which was to make this thing an appliance, to get this out there to as many people as possible -- they went for profits and they made outlandish profits for about four years. Apple was one of the most profitable companies in America for about four years. What that cost them was the future. What they should have been doing was making reasonable profits and going for market share, which was what we always tried to do.

The problem is this: No one at Apple has a clue as to how to create the next Macintosh because no one running any part of Apple was there when the Macintosh was made -- or any other product at Apple. They've just been living off that one thing now for over a decade and the last attempt was the Newton and you know what happened to that."

Generous donations to the educational facilities:

"We gave away ten thousand computers in the State of California. We got a whole bunch of the software companies to give away software. We trained teachers for free and monitored this thing over the next few years. It was phenomenal. One of my great experiences and one of my biggest regrets was that really tried to do this on a national level and got so close."

About the NeXT Computer being the original of the shut down procedures in computers(besides perfecting and bringing to market great design and innovations such as GUI, object oriented programming) :

"Simple things like soft power on and off. A trivial little thing but as you know one, of the biggest reasons people lose information on computers is they turn them off at the wrong time. And when you get into a multi-tasking network system, that could have much more severe consequences. So we were the first people to do that and some of the only people who do that, where you push a button and you request the computer to turn off. It figures out what it needs to do to shut down gracefully and then turns itself off. "

Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas(Star Wars fame) and what eventuated from Lucas's desire for technical perfection in developing film and Job's buyout of Pixar was Toys Story and many more groundbreaking, fully animated films:

"George being the perfectionist he was, said "I'd like to do it perfectly," do it digitally; and nobody had ever done that before. He hired some very smart people and they figured out how to do it for him, digitally with no noise artifacts. They developed software and actually built some specialized hardware at the time. George had at some point decided that this is costing him several million dollars a year and decided that he didn't want to fund it anymore, so I bought this group from George Lucas and I incorporated it as Pixar and we set about revolutionizing high-end computer graphics.

If you look at the ten most important revolutions in high-end graphics, in the last ten years, eight of them have come out of Pixar. All of the software that was used to make Terminator, for example -- to actually construct the images that you saw on the screen -- or Jurassic Park with all the dinosaurs, was Pixar Software. Industrial Light and Magic uses it as the base for all of their stuff.

But Pixar had another vision. Pixar's vision was to tell stories. To make real films. Our vision was to make the world's first animated feature film -- completely computer synthetic, sets, characters, everything. After ten years, we have done exactly that. We have developed tools, all proprietary, to do this, to manage the production of this thing as well as the drawing of this thing, computer synthetic drawing. We are finishing up making the world's first computer animated feature film. Pixar has written it, directed it, producing it. The Walt Disney Corporation is distributing it and it's coming out this year as Walt Disney's Christmas Picture. It's coming out November 11, I believe, and it's called "Toy Story." You will hear a lot about it because I think its going to be the most successful film of this year... Pixar's got by far and away the best computer graphics talent in the entire world and it now has the best animation and artistic talent in the whole world to do these kinds of film. We have the second largest group of animators in the world outside of Disney and we think the most talented in the world working side by side with these computer scientists, the best graphics people in the world. There's really no one else in the world who could do this stuff. It's really phenomenal."

Advice for wannabe and would be entrepreneurs:

"A lot of people come to me and say "I want to be an entrepreneur." And I go "Oh that's great, what's your idea?"And they say "I don't have one yet." And I say "I think you should go get a job as a busboy or something until you find something you're really passionate about because it's a lot of work."

I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don't blame them. It's really tough and it consumes your life. If you've got a family and you're in the early days of a company, I can't imagine how one could do it. I'm sure it's been done but it's rough. It's pretty much an eighteen hour day job, seven days a week for awhile. Unless you have a lot of passion about this, you're not going to survive. You're going to give it up. So you've got to have an idea, or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you're passionate about, otherwise you're not going to have the perseverance to stick it through"

And that concludes another mammoth post and I hope you enjoyed it. I am going to try and compile many more posts on entrepreneurial people and their insights into work and life.

2016 Resolutions

2016-02-17T17:38:00.000-08:00

It's February, I know. Happy New Year 2016 anyway! I hope you all formed resolutions and are working on them.

After only 19 posts in 2015 and 20 posts in 2014, SMG is getting approximately 5000 visits each month still, despite the lack of fresh posts. I have tons of material to write up and comment on, an incredible amount of material also resides in my head which I'd love to write and reflect on.

What have you got in store for yourself this year? I hope you formed some sort of resolution ranging from social, personal, professional and health to financial goals!

I'm starting a business (businesses!), finally. The past few years have been overwhelming in terms of work, personal life, personal finance, social commitments and trying to cram as much as I could in 24/7. I found myself a little behind in progressing some of my projects in 2015 because I was simply exhausted. After long days at work, social and personal commitments, I'd just fall into bed and sleep instead of going into the home office and sit at the laptop for more hours of work and even blogging.

I had ideas just bouncing off the walls and it was time to make the time and take the leap. What is the difference and why now? After spending many years learning, gaining experience and knowledge, saving up and all that jazz, I finally feel that we have the resources. That we have a substantial amount of assets and savings, that we have skills and experience that will see us through the challenges. That I have the knowledge and skills to take me through to a new level. I acknowledge that I don't know everything but I know that I can recruit and outsource intelligent and skilled people in areas where I'm deficient.

Work has been crushing in terms of how much it chewed up work and personal time. I have been working hard to implement and incorporate technology, applications and process changes to bring about efficiency and time savings. The personal and finance side of life has also been chewing up my time with respect to reviewing paperwork, correspondences, financial reports and also meetings with real estate agents, bankers and lenders. I have one more major project on the work front and once that is set up, it will be just maintenance, rather than having 1.5 years backlog of work to bring up to date.

The most difficult thing that I know is in store for me this year, will be finding the time to work on developing my side projects, which is developing two smartphone app ideas. I know very little about how to get an app off the ground and into the app stores. I only know that it will be an expensive gamble that could pay off or could burn money like the scene where Jesse is throwing money out the window in the last season of Breaking Bad. Saving $50,000 or $200,000 is no simple feat. I could be using the funds to pay off the mortgage etc. Burning through the funds on side projects that may or may not take off is something that I know that I have to do because it has been stuck in my head for so long.

I do hope that you stay with me on this journey. I hope to illustrate the challenges, knowledge and experience that I gain through starting up my own business and also on working on app development.

2016 will be exceptionally busier than all the others of course! Thanks for reading and I hope you achieve all your goals and resolutions too =)

The Time Sink House: Weeding and Gardening

2015-10-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

The effort it takes to maintain the house is getting ridiculous.

Before when I ignored the garden for the most part (except for my veggie patch), it wasn't too bad. Sure, it takes an hour to water my veggie patch and fifty pots of plants but that was somewhat relaxing. Plus, getting to reap the harvest of passion fruit, herbs, pumpkin, celery and raspberries is pretty delicious:

Veggie patch of rhubarb, Thai basil, mint, thyme and green onions:

Passionfruit is one of the best thing you can plant and enjoy all Summer long. I'm looking forward to enjoying this Summer's batch of passion fruit again:

Vacuuming, dusting, cleaning and other house work duties duly took its time however it wasn't consuming outrageous hours of spare time.

Now that work has settled somewhat for a breather, I finally had a bit of time to really look around these past two weeks. Our weedy lawn has deteriorated so badly after two years of neglect. Mr SMG had seriously given up on the lawn and had plans to rip out the entire thing and replace it with new lawn. Gardening isn't something he enjoys anyway so I'm sure given half the chance, he'd be content to change the lawn every few years.

But I'm not the sort to give up and I was adamant that we would not be defeated by weeds. Like everything in life, allocating regular time and dedication to any task is like an avalanche collecting snow along the way down. The results will happen, it's only a matter of time. To-do lists really work. Sometimes I find an old list from years ago with tasks and goals that I thought I would probably not end up accomplishing due to the challenge, difficulties or time restraint, but I have and every single task was ultimately achieved. Now, I put everything I want to achieve, experience or to accomplish on my list and I just know that I'll get there in time.

Every single day, I have spent about thirty to sixty minutes of weeding.The goal is to get rid of at least one wheelbarrow of weed every single day. It's really amazing that the lawn is starting to finally show the effects of being a time sink. Dandelions, bindis and onion weeds are starting to tremble in fear :p

There's a childhood story about the King and the grain of rice. There was a guy that wanted to marry the King's daughter after doing him a favour (something like that) however the King declined. So the King in gratitude, said he would give the guy anything he desired. The guy said, a grain of rice, doubled every single day. The King scoffed at what he thought was an easy, humble request to meet.

So on day one, one grain, day two, two grains, day three, four grains, day four, eight grains, day five, sixteen grains and so forth.

Ultimately, within a few weeks, the King was unable to meet the request, which wasn't so easy after all, and so gave his permission to the guy to marry his daughter.

I guess I might have messed up the finer details of the story, but the moral of the story was the power of compounding and how it can really snowball with great effect.

The practical application of that concept really is phenomenal in every way and every aspect of our life. Even with regards to weeding!! :p

Medallion Signature Guarantee and our Apple Stock Saga

2015-10-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

No wonder people buy foreign stocks and leave it under the custody of their financial institution or broker. Computershare lodged all the Apple stocks in our names incorrectly and it has been a long saga trying to correct the mistake.

We are still receiving correspondence from the U.S. by post. Snail mail, in this technological world. I contact our broker, our broker contacts Computershare in the U.S. and then we wait four to eight weeks before we get our documents in Sydney. It's a long protracted and torturous process. It would be easy to leave it under the custody of our broker but then having to read sixty pages of fine print from the broker is also a long and arduous process of due diligence.

I thought it was prudent to register the Apple stocks that we bought under our direct name rather than custody of the financial brokerage institution after the financial crises of 2008 resulted in many banks and brokers collapsing. Those who had margin loans collateralised to their stock portfolio in Australia, meant that they lost all their stocks including the ones that were fully owned when the brokerage company collapsed. It's really important that everyone reads the fine print and the terms and conditions.

To transfer the stock to different owners, we needed to
1. Complete the transfer request form and have the signatures authorised with a Medallion Signature Guarantee
2. Complete the Form W-9 for tax certification(to prevent backup withholding tax)
3. Post the documents to Computershare in the U.S.

What is a Medallion Signature Guarantee?

Computershare's definition is, 'A Medallion Signature Guarantee is a special stamp provided by a bank, broker or credit union (guarantor institutions) that indicates that the individual signing a form is legally authorised to conduct the requested transaction. The guarantor institution should verify the medallion stamp is sufficient to cover the value of assets being transacted upon.'

The Medallion Signature Guarantee can be provided by a qualified financial institution such as a 'commercial bank, savings bank, savings and loan, US stockbroker and security dealer, or credit union, that is participating in an approved Medallion Signature Guarantee Program'.

Residents of the United States who own less than $10,000 in total account value can utilise the Medallion Waiver option. For us, those waiver options are not applicable.

What is the purpose of the Medallion Signature Guarantee?

It's designed to protect shareholders by making it difficult for people to take assets by signature forgery on security certificates for related transfers or sales documents.

Who can provide a Medallion Signature Guarantee in Australia?

Good question >.< After researching on the net, I know plenty of institutions DON'T provide the Medallion Signature Guarantee in Sydney. From the US Embassy in Canberra, 'U.S. Consular Officers are not authorised to provide signature guarantee/medallion stamp guarantee service. Only a financial institution participating in the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) medallion signature guarantee program is authorised to affix a medallion imprint.'

Computershare Australia supposedly offers the Medallion Signature Guarantee service but currently I don't know because I have rang their contact line twice only to be greeted with an automated voice service which diverted my call only to disconnect my call twice. A poster on the AussieStockForum posted that Computershare Australia offers the service for a small admin fee.

The posters in that forum wrote in 2014 that they tried asking U.S. branches of credit unions and banks to no avail.

Further research led to P&G shareholders requiring Medallion Signature Guarantees and they were advised to seek a local financial institution that has a correspondent replationship with a U.S. Medallion Program member with whom the investor has a business relationship as that firm may be a source of a Medallion Signature Guarantee

If Medallion Signature Guarantees Can't be Obtained

If Medallion Guarantees couldn't be obtained, Computershare was also accepting signature guarantees from:

* The U.S. Consulate
* A Non-U.S. Bank when it has one of the following:
- A New York Correspondent bank referenced in the foreign bank's guarantee stamp
- An overseas branch of a United States Bank or a member firm of the New York Stock Exchange referenced in the foreign bank's guarantee stamp
- A correspondent branch in the United States, which is referenced in the foreign bank's guarantee stamp
* A Computershare office located in either the UK or Australia accompanying the appropriate Computershare transfer form and a valid passport as long as the value of the transaction is less than $100,000 USD

Seeing as it has been a drama, I hope this helps some poor soul in Australia from having to go through the same process of having to research the web only to find a smattering of the above same information scattered across several web pages and assorted links. I have now compiled it all in one post for you.

20 PF Life Hacks From Melissa Browne

2015-10-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

Melissa Browne is an accountant and author who writes really simple stuff in the paper. I would like to see her writing more gritty articles for us to read. When she writes about the meatier subjects, I do enjoy reading her work.

She wrote about personal finance life hacks that I thought readers might find to be of interest:

1. Remove the credit cards from the wallet

2. Annually review your loan rates for the best competitive offer

3. Pay yourself first, automate it if you have weak will power

4. Put all excess funds and savings in your offset account

5. Pay for deductible expenses on your credit card so that lost receipts can be backed up with credit card statements as proof of expenditure

6. If you have credit card debts incurring interest charge, setup zero interest credit cards and roll the balances over, pay them off completely before the interest free period ends

7. Buy property in an SMSF (I think this is more applicable for the over 50s. The under 50s have uncontrollable and unpredictable expenses such as kids/education, single income households, unknown health issues etc and super is a long way off being accessible for emergencies. My friend's aunties had cancer and even when very sick and couldn't work, super was not accessible under the hardship provisions)

8. Unsubscribe from online shopping sites and remove your credit card information which reduces impulse buys

9. Try going through 30 days of no spending, coined as 'financial detox'

10. Pay down bad debts which are non-deductible

11. Cook, "more time in the kitchen means less time at the doctors, dentists and therapists"

12. Shop with a grocery list

13. Share and rent items that are not going to appreciate in value over time

14. Teach your kids about money and say no to them

15. Use the cloud for free and cheap software and applications

16. Renegotiate monthly payments and if not necessary,cancel them

17. Buy a quantity surveyor report for your investment property

18. Travel in the off season

19. Build multiple streams of income such as through shares, properties, online businesses, consulting, blogging, importing, exporting and selling products

20. Manage electricity costs such as switching off unused appliances, energy efficient light bulbs, air dry clothes (For us we use blinds, curtains, drapes to keep the room warm in Winter and block sunlight in Summer, door snakes to stop winter drafts and rugs for warmth)

Other life hacks that I can think of to add to her comprehensive list is:

1. Mulch your garden to reduce moisture evaporation and watering needs

2. Switch all your loans to interest only with offset accounts attached. Divert all rental income, dividends, salary, savings and funds into your PPOR's(main residence) offset account to minimise your non-deductible loan interest

3. Stock staples in your pantry such as tinned tomatoes, corn, beans, rice, tuna, flour etc so that you can knock up something to eat when you are ravenously hungry or tired without having to resort to take away and junk food

4. Before you buy more 'stuff', stop and think, is that just ultimately contributing to landfill and will the item contribute benefits to your life

5. Grow plants and herbs, it will inspire you to cook more often

6. Compost, it makes free fertiliser and reduces land fill

7. During council clean up collection, go for a walk and see if you can salvage anything of use from going to landfill(do not hoard by any means =) )

8. Get income, trauma and TPD insurance, you are the asset so protect your income earning abilities!

8. Read all my other blog posts =)

APRA Tightens Investor Loan Market: Will Property Prices Dive?

2015-09-30T22:12:00.001-07:00

The Sydney median house price is currently at a whopping $1,017,000.

Speculation is always rife regarding property with many campers on both sides of the coin, the ones that believe property will be resilient and appreciate in time and the ones holding out and waiting for the 30-40% market 'correction'. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has been tightening up the investment loan market by restricting financing in many ways.

These APRA changes will surely impact the market in the short to medium term however, banks have intelligent and crafty people working for them who will always find a way to mitigate the APRA controls. They'll discover ways to circumvent the regulation changes and find ways to increase financing while complying with laws.

More recently, banks have been issuing notes and participating in capital raising to meet the APRA requirements of higher capital adequacy ratios.

What sort of changes has APRA implemented and in what ways have the banks reacted?

* Banks potentially delaying finance approvals for buyers of subdivided greenfield lots until preliminary works such as roads have been completed and the land is ready for development. This will hamper developers reliant on presales.
* I've been told by two of the big four banks that rental property income is now only factored into your repayment abilities at 50-60% of the year, it varies with banks. Banks are assuming that your investment property is untenanted for half the year, each year (this reduces your calculated repayment capacity)
* Discount incentives on investment loans have been reduced, for example, CBA raised rates on IP(investment property) mortgages by 0.27% and so has ANZ
* Growth of investment loan book is capped to 10% per annum
* Up to 20% deposits required as opposed to writing higher LVR loans, Westpac requires 20% deposit on investment property loans now
* Repayments can be factored at principal and interests on all loans even if you are taking out or have an interest only loan (this reduces your calculated repayment capacity)
* Banks are required to hold more capital, possibly an extra 200 basis points in capital as per APRA which is approximately an extra $2 billion for each bank. Previously, banks could self-assess the riskiness of their loan and set their own capital requirements. APRA plans to raise capital threshold from 16% to 25% on each home loan
* APRA has requested banks ensure that borrowers can afford to repay the loans on all their properties if mortgage rates reach 7%.

Currently, NAB's investor lending has been growing at 14% per annum, CBA at 9.9% per annum and ANZ at 10.6% per annum.

Thus, I conclude that property prices may take some sort of hit in the short to medium term such as six to twelve months by being discounted or prices being stable, however, it will be on its trajectory up again within the next seven to ten years. There is still an inherent under supply of housing being built and with the tightening of investor loans, building projects will slow down and this will again be the impetus for housing development bottlenecks.

APRA tightening bank loan lending may potentially create a poorer subclass of society. If the investor loan book is restricted to 10% growth, the lenders are more likely to provide preferential investment funding to those with larger deposits and or equity, with higher incomes, those with more savings and those who are generally already, richer and earning good incomes. There would be less incentives for them to take risks with poorer loan applicants.

Sources:
1. The Sun Herald, Domain, 'Affordability the biggest loser' by Shane Oliver
2. Random

Troubleshooting Ezytouch: How To Change SMTP Email Setup Using Different ISPs

2015-09-28T22:10:00.001-07:00

It's been frustrating to see the lack of free, online troubleshooting support for the POS Ezytouch program that I have been working on. I've decided to write some support posts.

WARNING: I am not in technology. Mr SMG is the technology expert. I provide user feedback to help others using Ezytouch software.

If you are using Ezytouch and find that you have problems with emailing invoices and statements from the software when you are using a different ISP then this post is for you. The software is extremely customised and every single software is different and unique after their custom programming. Some features however overlaps and this is what I hope to resolve if you are encountering the same issues.

Problem 1: Ezytouch software emailing problem resulting in sent mails labelled as spam or malicious mail

If you use an email such as abc@gmail.com and wish to email a customer with an @gmail.com domain, then the recipient email server tends to label the incoming email as spam. Lack of a user interface that allows the user to specify the email server and the credentials result in this problem. Because the sender's domain (eg: gmail.com) does not belong to the sending mail server (eg: tpg.com.au).

Problem 2:
Ezytouch software is unable to send software using different ISPs unless you change the codes in the SMTP mail configuration.

If you are using Ezytouch from different locations and therefore different ISPs(they provide portable solid state servers), then you will encounter the inability to email invoices and statements from the different locations unless you change the mail configuration.

How to change the mail configuration:

1. Note that Vodafone ISP doesn't have an SMTP password
2. Note that the SMTP password for TPG is 'password'
3. Contact your ISP if you cannot find the information available on the internet
4. If this doesn't help, you will need to call the technical support guys at Ezytouch

Problem 3:
Emails successfully sent when they have not been sent.

The program lacks the ability to distinguish between emails that have failed to send and emails that have been actually successfully sent. If your mail setup in the config folder is perfect, you will not get any reject nor error messages. Every email will indicate that it has been sent. You will need to setup all emails to be cc'd to yourself so that you can check off which ones have been actually sent.

See the image above. You can insert the programming into the above section as 'cc=youremail@youremaildomain.com' OR you can open up the customer/supplier file, in the section where you input the customer/supplier email, you add your email after a semi colon with no spaces or otherwise your multiple emails will not work due to the programming. For example, sarah@gmail.com;admin@yahoo.com

Planning For Retirement In Your Twenties Is Never Too Early

2015-09-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

When you are in your twenties, setting goals such as saving for retirement is really unfathomable to most. The better goal would be to think that you are saving to give yourself choices and freedom in life.

To enable you to give the finger to any ass* who really disrespects you along the way and not have to faint financially from the repercussions. To be able to travel anywhere at a whim without having to work out a savings plan or put it on the credit card because you are moneybags.

I received an email a while ago from another blogger and personal finance writer, Marianne Ahlmann. It's probably a copy and paste job to many other blogs, however, I thought the questions were interestingly posed:

Good afternoon,

How is your Monday going? I'm Marianne with Personal Capital, a company helping people achieve financial success through technology. I came across Smart Money Guide as I was looking into how young adults can take more control of their money and lives.

Your 20s are typically the perfect time to start planning for retirement, but sometimes life gets in the way. What did you do successfully in your 20s, or if you could go back in time, is there anything you would have done differently to ensure a better financial future sooner in life? In a post on Smart Money Guide, I would love to hear your thoughts on how you built your financial safety net in your 20s--and how young adults can start now if they haven't already.
Let me know if you'd be interested in sharing!

Sincerely,
Marianne Ahlmann Content and Social Media

Thought it would be worth expanding on the financial questions asked. Personally, I would say it's been an amazing investment journey and there has been lots of lessons and strategies evolving over the years. I had a head start considering my educational background in school was heavily weighted into economics, business, maths and English. At 16, I met a super intelligent guy who was an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and he sparked off a life long interest in economics and financial maths.

Upon leaving school, I obtained double degrees in Accounting(B.Accg) and also Applied Finance(B. App Fin). And post University, I finished my CPA. Both Mr SMG and I started saving and investing the moment we left University. We bought into non-performing managed funds. We bought blue chip stocks in the ASX100 which paid dividends twice per year, we bought real estate. We leveraged using the bank's money. We both did that individually until our paths collided and then we combined our assets and the combination of joint finances really took off.

I'm a pragmatic type of person. Every action has its consequences. If you save and invest from your twenties, of course you will have assets and most likely be a millionaire, probably many times over, by the time you retire. If you are a spendthrift and blow everything you earn, of course you are likely to be a pauper, struggling financially and living some sort of financial nightmare.

Based on my own personal experience, let's cover the things I have learnt and what you can do in your twenties to ensure a better financial future:

* Build multiple sources of passive income streams as early as you can. If you're not working, your money is still working hard for you
* Embrace leverage and good debts, borrow more money to invest in more property and shares
* Don't listen to the naysayers and the doom and gloomers, do your own thing and buy when you can afford
* Diversify across asset classes. The various asset classes usually have alternating cycles so when one, such as the stockmarket is in the doldrum, the other such as real estate is experiencing growth. Many investors will pull their funds out from one class and invest into a different asset class. They don't like dumping their funds into bank deposits and cash accounts to earn 0.01% per annum interest. Gross interest of 5% yields 3.5% after tax on the average 30% tax rate and after head line inflation of 2.5-3.5%, your funds have experienced zero growth and zero capital appreciation.
* Save as much as you can and buy assets as early as you can, use leveraging and investment/mortgage loans to grow your wealth faster (only as much as you can afford to borrow and commit to)
* Don't buy managed funds unless you wish to have your funds consumed by the investment banks. The entry, management and exit fees will erode your funds.
* Learn about assets, liabilities, investment terminologies and strategies as early in life as possible
* Read lots of investment books, read financial news, learn financial maths about how to calculate returns, ratios, mortgages, how to compare returns
* Keep learning and building on your knowledge every single day. Do not stagnate. Do not let your knowledge erode
* Do not let swindlers and scamsters take your money and run, if it's too good to be true, it is
* No one cares about your money more than you do. Not the financial adviser, the mortgage lender, the banker, the accountant, the lawyer or solicitor, your friends or your family. Lend only what you can afford to write off and don't expect to be repaid what you have loaned out.
* Embrace technology and use it for investing, for learning, for managing your portfolio.
* Don't overstay at any particular company
* Watch out for fees and charges. As Jack Bogle, the Father of Index Funds has been quoted, the "miracle of compounding returns is overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs"
* Travel slightly more because now commitments are so intense that it's almost impossible to get away (have travelled a couple of times to Cananda, US, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand but wish I could have travelled a bit more, but can't complain)

In 2013, I wrote a post about pro-property enthusiasts posting about regrets and what they would have done ten years ago with what they know now. Here is part of the post below. If you(or we) had bought as much property as possible, we would all have been several more millions better off and closer to financial freedom.

The real estate boom in Sydney from 2013 to now 2015, has been incredible. I wrote in 2013 that our house would have costed $100k more back then, today, our house would cost about $500k-$700k more to buy. And that's just two years. Imagine trying to save up $250k to $350k after tax per year. Here is the extract from my post two years ago which I obtained from Somersoft forumites:

* "buy something, for goodness sake. Get into real estate. Be careful- but not so careful as not to buy...If someone was going to buy another property, I would be suggesting, as Rolf de Roos does, to at least aim to look at 100 properties.I'm not sure about his other figures- but, at least, if you look aim at looking at 100 properties, you'll start to get at some ideas of good vs bad value"

* "Get a real education, a financial education. Read as many books on financial topics as you can...Your borrowing capacity is not a problem (if you know the rights things and speak to the right people)"

* "Educate myself on all things financial, Property, Tax, shares etc...Invest as early as possible as time is the essence of good investing...Do not be suckered into public or media hype or fear...Device a plan and stick to it...Keep all things in perspective...By(sic: buy) all the property you can! "now"!!!!!!!!"

* "If I was to give myself advice for 10 years ago it would probably be to put into practice the principles from the book The Richest Man in Babylon."

* "FINANCIALLY – Educate yourself. Don’t follow the crowd. Take a chance now and then. MORALLY – Stubbornly believe in your abilities and be good to those less fortunate.For one thing I would have hugged and kissed my mum a lot more often and not taken her for granted."

* "1. First, last, foremost: Educate yourself financially, friend. Read some good books, it's not really difficult, get to know the basics and understand how this money stuff works!! Learn, learn, learn so you can work smarter, not harder. 2. Spend less. Those doodads add up. Did you know you can afford a property on what you spend on lunches/coffees/etc? 3. Use 1 and 2 to buy effective investments. Buy property now. Don't wait to 'save up the deposit', don't wait 'to pay off your mortgage'. Use the house equity & buy now. Balance negative geared with positive cashflow."

* " I would have got into property and not share traded or bought into managed funds like I did then!! That is for sure!" [Must have been burnt by the stock market]
* "What I would do differently if I could go back would be to purchase a property as close to the beach or city as possible, take interest only loans for 90% of purchase price (and pay the LMI), wait 6 - 12 months to see the effect on my cashflow and use surplus savings from my income to fund the next purchase....quite a conservative strategy but one that would have me sitting on at least 5 properties that as a group would be putting cash in my pocket and worth substantially more than my purchase costs. I would have my current accountant preparing my tax returns and give me advice on how to structure investments."

* "I wish I had read the book E-Myth by Michael Gerber back then. The best book for business owners I have read... I invest in what I know, which is real estate and I always have a plan "B", my what if it doesn't work plan. I have written goals, a business plan and I let those around me know what they are and try to keep them focused on them also. Being part of a great network is a very big help, I now know the advantage of franchises although I had never before been an advocate."

* "*make sure you are armed with information *develop your strategy and then make a move *don't blindly follow the advise of someone else *don't be complacent, know what's going on at all times *use the rental income to your advantage *do everything possible to avoid selling."

* " 1. Invest whilst you are living at home with your parents. It would seem to be the easiest way to gain a good foothold for achieving financial independence. 2. Buy property that you can rent out, not land. I bought land at the age of 21, with the intent of building my future home on it in X years time. Would have been much smarter to buy a rental property, especially one I could live in later, perhaps. 3. Obtain financial education - not from your parents because more likely than not their "advice" will be ultra-conservative and keep you in the rat race (but you still gotta love your parents). 4. Get into the habit of saving a'la Richest Man in Babylon. Material possessions are not everything. 5. Balance your life and your work, and value your health."

* "Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself...Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young."

* "Keep going with your plan. It works out. Don't get scared as the numbers get bigger."

Anyway, I do love reading the financial and personal advice that the forumites gave and it is true, your family and friends are very precious. Appreciate and love them and let them know. Life is just too brief.

And that concludes this mammoth post. I sincerely hope that this post will help and contribute to someone's life in a beneficial way. I am always forever grateful to the generous community out there posting up and sharing freeware, shareware, widgets, apps and knowledge. I am hoping to do my part too with beneficial contributions.

How To Calculate Return On Investments (ROI)On International Stocks

2015-09-21T19:16:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been keeping track of the Australian dollar for a few reasons. Not because I'm going on a holiday overseas but for more mundane reasons such as investing. We bought Apple shares a few weeks back and have yet to add Google stocks into our portfolio. Travelling overseas more frequently would be nice, of course =)

I've been checking out a site that has a few popular currencies readily converted. As an example, let us use today's AUD foreign currency exchange rate, 1 AUD buys $0.71 USD.

Calculating the return on investment (ROI) on foreign owned stock involves:
1. Calculating the ROI on the actual stock
2. Calculating the ROI on the stock taking into account, the stock price movement and the currency conversion movement

Bear with me as I dislike rounding up or down when doing my calculations. It's a bit confusing to explain because, firstly it involves working out returns as per usual, and then converting the return to your local currency. Let us ignore brokerage fees as it will just complicate this, however note that brokerage fee will reduce your ROI.

1)Calculating your foreign stock purchase:
Buying the foreign stocks:
If you have $10,000 AUD to buy Apple stocks at yesterdays closing price of $115.21 USD, AUD to USD exchange rate is 1 AUD buys $0.71 USD

$10,000 AUD*$0.71= $7,100 USD
$7,100 USD/$115.21 = 61 Apple (AAPL) stocks, rounded down

Total cost of AAPL portfolio is precisely 61*$115.21 USD = $7,027.81 USD
Total cost of $7,027.81 USD = $9,898.32 AUD

So if you have $10,000 AUD to buy AAPL stocks at $115.21 USD, you can afford to buy 61 stocks at $115.21 USD and it will cost you $9,898.32 AUD

A)Calculating the ROI on the actual stock:

If for example next week, AAPL's price appreciated to $120 USD and $1 AUD depreciated to buying only $0.69 USD, let's calculate the ROI:

ROI on AAPL stock without currency movement is 4.157%:

$120 USD-$115.21 USD = $4.79 USD increase per stock
$120 / $115.21 = 4.157% return

B) Calculating the ROI on the stock taking into account, the stock price movement and the currency movement:

So if AAPL price went up to $120 USD and the AUD depreciated to $1 AUD=$0.69 USD, the ROI is 7.176%

Your portfolio in AUD is now worth $10,608.69:

(61 AAPL * $120 USD)= $7,320 USD
$7,320 USD/ $0.69 = $10,608.69 AUD
$10,608.69AUD / $9,898.32 AUD = 7.176% ROI

So the total return on investment after accounting for stock and currency movement is 7.176%

Is It Worth Outsourcing Home Maintenance?

2015-09-16T17:11:00.001-07:00

There have been many days where I have deliberated over whether to hire a house cleaner or a gardener for our garden. Time is valuable right?

A regularly weekly cleaner would cost $100 to $150 per week. A regular gardener would cost $100-$150 per month. A four week month would optimistically cost $500 extra and pessimistically $750 extra on the higher range of fees.

In the end, we've always decided to veto that option and do everything ourselves in our 'spare' time. $500 per month could be better spent elsewhere was our conclusion. What ended up happening was that we have been so busy working and spending our spare time with family and friends that the 'spare' time was never allocated to gardening. We clean the house as a priority but the garden was neglected.

Sure it has been mowed regularly and looks great when freshly mowed and the edges trimmed but after a few weeks, the weeds have popped up in the lawn and we can see how disastrous our lawn is.

Onion weeds are growing prolifically in the garden bed (previous owner didn't lay weed mats underneath the mulch) and the bindi and clover is smothering our lawn. Can't even call that a lawn! Those three set of weeds are collectively the worse to have. The onion weeds grow from a bulb which splits off into piles of little bulbs. the bindi and clovers have adventitious roots that will just spread like pumpkin plants. Wherever the vines touch soil, a root will set.

When we first moved into the house, I wrote a post about big houses and the endless hours of cleaning and gardening. Two years later, nothing has changed haha. I would love to turn the entire weedy lawn into an edible garden, however Mr SMG is into the sculptured garden look (when it has been mowed and the weeds pulled out).

Lately I've had enough so I have spent about 30 minutes on daily gardening! After work, 15 mins. Before sunset, another 15 to 30 minutes. 3.5 hours to 4 hours gardening weekly. Could my time be better spent? Yes but it has its upsides =) Been outside in the warm Spring air and doing a bit of physical activity is relaxing.

Think I'd rather take that $500-$750 per month and spend it elsewhere. And work on convincing Mr SMG to let me convert all our lawn into an edible garden...

Loving our garden in Spring:

Reverse Mortgages Suck: Don't Use a Reverse Mortgage If Other Options Exist

2015-09-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

After seeing the option of reverse mortgages being mentioned in the papers too frequently as an option for 'asset rich retirees who are income poor', I just have to put my thoughts out there for those who are investigating reverse mortgage as an option.

Don't take out a reverse mortgage if you can avoid it.

You have probably spent the past twenty to thirty years paying off your mortgage where the first ten to twenty years was all interest payment and barely any principle. Do you really want the amortisation to work against you again in the last decades of your life when you should be enjoying life?

With reverse mortgages, there are no repayments, loan interest is added onto the principal amount borrowed to be paid off when the property is sold. The debt will grow fast. It will be interest debt compounded with interest charged on interest.

Compound interest works in your favour when you put your savings in the bank. Interest charges compounded year after year will destroy the equity in your home when it's left to accumulate in the typical reverse mortgage structure.

Ever heard of a loan amortisation schedule? I really recommend looking it up if you haven't.

When someone buys a property and takes out a mortgage, the first few years of payments will be almost all interest and barely any principle. Most people's eyes will glaze over when they read about an amortisation schedule and the break down of interest to principle in a monthly repayment. Let me illustrate with an example:

Scenario: Jack and Jill takes out a mortgage for $300,000. Principle and interest. 30 year term. Interest rate of 5%.

1.Principal and interest monthly repayments = $1610.46 ; interest=$1250.00, principal=$360.46

2. After 195 months (just over 16 years!) = P+I monthly repayment =$1610.46; interest=$802.88, principal=$807.59. The monthly repayments will now start eroding your loan principal faster and faster from 195 months

3. After 360 months (30 years)= P+I monthly repayment =$1610.46; interest=$6.68, principal=$1603.78. Loan is finally repaid

With a reverse mortgage, you would replay that scenario backwards! Where the 360 month(30th year) redraw from the mortgage of $1610.46 means $1250.00 is the interest charge and you effectively get only $360.46 to spend out of that $1610.46.

But you don't need that much? But you won't be redrawing for that long? It doesn't matter how much or the time frame of the redraw, the amortisation schedule is an eye opener and you are really giving your future, older self a hard time if you take out a reverse mortgage because the interest charge compounded on interest will erode your equity.

You could live to 100 years old and beyond. You could be homeless. I'm not even being dramatic. It's just the way the maths work. So don't take out a reverse mortgage if you have other options or you can avoid it. Just thought I would analyse that for anyone who is trying to do research because it is such a detrimental option but it is being bandied about in the news as an attractive option with no draw backs mentioned or high lighted.

I haven't come across a single article in mainstream news yet that highlights and objectively analyses the pros and cons of reverse mortgages. Only the benefits are discussed.

Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful

2015-09-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

"Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful" is Warren Buffet's famous quote.

The market is really taking a dive currently due to the woes in China. Mr SMG and I have been accumulating stocks over many years now. I'm rather impervious to the ups and downs of the market emotionally. When it's taking a dive like right now, I just want to buy more stocks. I've been blogging publicly for six years now and all my investing strategies, thoughts and opinion has been there for the public to read and critique. So far, so good, really good.

The huge volatility that we see in the stock market over recent years have been in part due to economic reasons, swing traders, technology such as online trading, the ability to short stocks instantaneously and the average and ordinary Mum and Dad investors out there reacting out of fear. Margin loans and activated stop losses further compound the volatility.

Central Banks, politicians and investors tend to turn the other way when it comes to acknowledging the intrinsic problems such as the US federal deficit and the Japanese deficit ballooning as opposed to shrinking or that most nations are struggling with growth, however, people get richer so there's simply more and more money out there being ploughed into investments.

Over the duration of the GFC subprime crisis I picked up a lot of stocks at ridiculously cheap prices. I haven't had time to follow the news intensely these last two years, so I'm not as well versed this time around in terms of forecasting how long the downturn will be for and when the recovery is expected, however Buffet's adage has worked perfectly to our benefit in the past and I fail to see why it wouldn't apply over the next hundred years. Warren Buffet is the investment version of the economist Adam Smith.

Jessica Irvine published an article in the Sydney Morning Herald where she quoted Roger Montgomery, the private fund manager of $800 million worth of funds. "We've been a net buyer...we purchased some additional shares in Challenger and iSentia. Globally, we purchased some more Apple...When they're on sale, you get a bit more excited. Although you have to be selective- the outlook has deteriorated."

Montgomery is quoted as a follower of the value investor, Benjamin Graham who is famously quoted saying, "choose (sic: stocks) them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume...Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process." That is, don't be driven by emotion but be driven by values and the business/stock fundamentals.

Personally, I really dislike the whole doom and gloom mentality and those who constantly spruik that the sky is falling. If you keep banging on about the crash, doom and gloom happening, eventually you will be right. But meanwhile, miss out on the gains. If you had waited for property to crash 40% like how some economists were forecasting during the GFC, you would have sat on the sidelines while property has been appreciating in value. The Sydney median property price was approximately around $600k during the GFC and now the Sydney median property price is over $1m.

What 40% crash? Short of pulling out that $400k from your back pocket, you could now be renting for life.

Another doom and gloomer quoted by Irvine is Damian McBride, former adviser to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, "Get hard cash in a safe place now-don't assume banks and cash points will be open, or bank cards will work...do you have enough bottled water, tinned goods and other essentials at home to live a month indoors? If not, get shopping." McBride appears to be watching too many seasons of The Walking Dead. One month only? Is there some sort of miraculous recovery after one month? Life goes back to normal after one month? All you'll end up doing is sitting on your boring old cash on the sidelines and when the market bounces up again eventually, you'll end up missing the entry points and back to where you started, over paying for stocks just to enter the market again.

There is substantial difference between the market volatility during the GFC and the market volatility right now triggered by the Chinese stock market and their trading conditions. In the US, the GFC sub prime crisis was triggered by many shifty and dodgy practices such as junk bonds being rated AAA, collapse of investment banks holding these sub prime, poorly rated AAA bonds, pension funds collapsing due to investing in sup prime loans, the ability of US mortgage home owners able to walk away from their mortgages without future repercussions like how the banks in Australia can pursue mortgage debts.

Approximately 1% of Chinese stocks are being held by foreigners. The global economy is affected if the Chinese economy is depressed due to the negative wealth effect on the Chinese population(if people have lost money in the stock market, this will negatively affect consumption which will affect economic growth which will affect the stock prices). If China reduces their demand for raw, mined resources, this will affect the world. However, this will be a gradual process and not instantaneously like investment banks in the US having their portfolio revalued during the sub prime.

Having illustrated all that, does McBride expect banks around the world to collapse simply because Chinese shareholders have lost money? Or that Chinese consumers will spend less? China is a net exporter (unless things have changed since I have been out for these last two years) and thus, their economic growth and GDP is still hugely influenced by worldwide consumption of nations such as the US.

There are so many rich and wealthy investors out there. Can you really see them parking their stash of millions and billions in term deposits and cash for the next decade? They have so much money that ultimately it will find its way back into property and shares.

That's SMG's take on this Chinese stock market crisis. The outlook isn't exactly rosy but it's not at McBride's doom and gloom level either where anyone should be liquidating their stake in everything and pulling their funds out of the bank. His sort of 'advice' is what compounds problems and create liquidity crises and the collapse of banks by creating run on deposits.

Happiness is...

2015-08-27T22:55:00.001-07:00

"You know, you only live once and we really ought to make the most of it and we ought to be happy", says Bill Bryson, the famous author.

He dives into life, "I'm intensely interested in all the things. I pick up the paper and immediately I want to know everything there is to know..." I Just love his attitude to life.

This has nothing to do with PF. It's another random post musing and mulling over life.

Thus far in this life, I have met two people who have been unhappy with their life. Always sad and prone to regret something that they have or haven't done.

Prone to introspection and self reflection, I have thought about why some people are so unhappy with their life to the extent that they are miserable and discontent. I think about the wonderful brevity and transiency of youth being wasted on the young and unappreciated.

We can choose to live our life in contentment and happiness or we can choose to live the very same life that we are given in discontent and unhappiness. Which one will you choose?

I love RAKs. The random acts of kindness from strangers who help you carry heavy items, who give way to you in peak hour traffic, who smile at you, who offer you to proceed ahead of them in check out lines because they have a full trolley. Who get up and stand so that you can sit down. The list is fortunately endless =)

So I thought I'd start my weekend off with what happiness is to me and I hope if you are reading this, you will also start your weekend off with a list of things that make you happy and appreciate the beauty of life =)

1. Spring is coming, cold Winter dreary days are becoming more infrequent. Our garden is bursting into life with Tibouchinas, Daisies, Clivias and Arum Lillies, herbs popping up from seeds and buds of the Hydrangea blooming. Makes me happy:

2. Celebrating the joys of this winter by going on ski trips with family and friends makes me happy (except for the long queue for lifts lol). Check out the beautiful and awesome vista:

3. Being able to find time to cook and indulge in food fantasies makes me happy:
Bean sprout salad:

Pickling baby cucumbers in a sugar, salt vinegar mix and throwing in some chillies and coriander seeds for variation:

Pickling long green chillies:

Madly creating and throwing together variations of salads even though it's winter:

3. Making time to blog again =)

4. Really enjoy the old skool way of charcoal barbecuing compared to just using the gas barbeque all the time =) :

5. Eating an entire box of Krispy Kreme donuts all by myself without giving a single thought to how fatty or cholesterol laden the fatty blobs of goodness are =)

Overall, spending precious time with family and friends makes me happiest. Being able to indulge in interests and hobbies makes me happy. Being able to work as much as I like makes me happy (workaholics can rejoice). Learning something new everyday makes me happy.

I hope this inspires you to think about the things that makes you happy too. I feel so blessed in this life to have such amazing and wonderful family, friends and acquaintances from work and in the wider social context. Life is too short to be grumpy and unhappy =)