Archive for September, 2009

Stretch your salary to breaking point

September 13th, 2009

Are you managing to save something every month?

I got paid last week and for a brief moment I felt rich. I took a walk through the mall and eyed a new pair of jeans and a couple of shirts I don’t need. I cruised through the department store fingering the goods. I had a cup of designer coffee and looked at the idle rich beyond money problems. Then reality set in. A few days later my bank account looks much the same as it did before my salary was deposited. There are ways to plug the leaking cash hole, live a little cheaper and put a little of one’s salary into a savings account. One of the recommended methods is to keep three months’ salary in an instant access savings account to act as a cash cushion.

Tips for changing your lifestyle

According to one expert, if you give up on a few luxuries each month, you could save yourself over $5,000 each year. Take a look at the following:

• Quit smoking.
• Cancel gym membership.
• Cut out morning latte.
• Cut out one takeaway per week.
• Drink two less pints of beer per week.
• Swap a liter of bottled water for tap water.

Depressing, isn’t it?

Alternative savings

Saving money doesn’t only have to involve sacrificing the things you love. Here are some tips to help you boost your savings another way:

Chop your food bill

In the supermarket forego food-brands you know and go for the supermarket’s own label products – you will save money. Check out budget supermarkets as these are generally cheaper than the big supermarkets. Buy only what’s on your list! Haggle

Haggle

. When you’re purchasing a particular item try and haggle the price down. Or ask if you can get some freebies. Many retailers are desperate for custom so you might be surprised how far you can push it! I tried out my haggling skills just last week when I successfully renegotiated by a new mobile phone contract by simply stating how much I was prepared to pay. And I got my request without even having to threaten to go elsewhere! This is my third phone deal and cheapest so far.

Take up the offers

Fancy earning $100 just for opening a new account? Well, that’s exactly what you can do if you take up the bait that some of the new banks and businesses use in their fishing for new customers.

Where to put your spare cash

Hopefully by following the above tips, you’ll be able to put aside some extra cash each month. Where will you put it? The challenge is to find a bank or savings bank that pays of interest. Even if you can only afford to put away a spare $30 or $40 each month, it all adds up. And knowing you’re building up a safety net to protect your future is worth the effort.

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Is the patient out of intensive care?

September 11th, 2009

Is it possible that the recession is ending?

Is it possible that while we were busy squandering wealth on unnecessary luxuries and on defense systems that we will hopefully never use, we unknowingly created a super-strong economy with a built-in anti-virus? According to my scant stock exchange knowledge, things are looking a lot better than they were a few months ago. It seems that an economic recovery is under way. Perhaps I’m being naïve because I don’t really understand what’s going on but my own little portfolio is showing signs of revival. A couple of years ago while on a trip to Canada I looked up an old friend. His wife was very ill and he would not leave her side, so to fill his days he played the stock market. He led into his study with consisted of a long desk and a row of computer screens all flashing with activity.

His profitable pastime

He sat in a chair with castors and zoomed up and down the screens buying and selling shares. I asked where he got his information from and he gave me the name of a share advisory service. He said that they were very accurate and that he followed their advice as long as his budget permitted. “I’m doing excellently, thanks. These advisors are great and the exchange keeps going up and everything’s fine. Except my poor wife, who is dying a little every day.”

I try it.

I returned home enthusiastic at the prospect of making some money. I joined his share advisory service, signed up with a broker, opened an account and started trading, following advice that rolled in every day from the service. My total portfolio was $6,000 and I promised myself that I would not put another penny into it. It worked well, not as dramatically as I had thought but it was a steady climb to $7,000 in the space of 12 months. Not bad, right?

Melt-down

Then came the melt-down. Because I didn’t heed the warnings and because my share advisory service kept telling me what to buy and what to sell, I sat and watched my $7,000 dwindle day by day until it hit about $2,500. I felt sick, stopped watching it and wrote it off as an expensive lesson. One day I saw that shares in the Ford Auto company were down to just $1.50. I bought a hundred with cash in the account and sold them at $2.50 and made a $100. They dropped again and I repeated the procedure making another $100. Doing this with a couple of other cheap shares I got my portfolio up to $3,000. I threw away the mail from the share advisory service.

Recovery?

Last night my portfolio stood at $6,500 and I am excited. I’m back to doing a little trading and things are looking up. The question in my mind is the economy out of intensive care or is it in temporary remission?

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A Strategy Meeting Of The Unemployed

September 10th, 2009

The venue

This month’s strategy meeting of the unemployed over-65s is taking place at Mike’s place, a few acres of exotic fruit farm in the foothills. The six of us who are coming all joined the ranks of the unemployed in the last 6 months. We will need some days to formulate an effective anti-unemployment strategy.

Mike

Mike is a former government employee who took early retirement, moved out of the city, bought a small plot and began growing exotic fruits trees. He has been very successful and his smallholding is flourishing. The hot summer is a time of rapid growth and it’s literally a jungle.

The legal visitors

The attendees are a lawyer from the Ministry of Tourism which went straight down the tubes at the start of the recession. He was an instant casualty. Another lawyer is advisor to a large economic corporation. He’s out of a job as well. The third lawyer represented a huge construction outfit for years, made a pile of stocks in the company and retired. He held onto the shares. Enough said. The construction company is no more, the pile of stocks is as useful as wallpaper and our lawyer-hero went directly from retired to unemployed without even passing “Go”.

The non-lawyers

The non-lawyer members of the club are an unemployed clerk from the Social Services and Welfare Department and myself, an unemployed engineer in the private sector. The clerk is furious: “I devoted my entire working life to helping the less fortunate, the unemployed, the needy and the homeless. I make it all the way to the top of the ladder – head clerk – comes a recession and I’m on my backside in the dust in the first round.”

The engineer

Then there’s me. In the 1990’s I was a manager in an engineering company of about 60 employees. Then came the downturn in 2002. The owner closed the company but kept calling on me to help with odd jobs. He paid me for my time and when things picked up a couple of years later, called me back on a part-time basis and I was very happy with the new situation. Now the work has stopped again and I am back in square 1, unemployed and waiting for him to call me.

The project timetable

He has a couple of engineering projects about but none have made it off the drawing board What’s holding things up is the bank who are reluctant to part with any money. We keep asking about progress but the bank is close-mouthed and the answer is slow in coming. “Maybe in October, perhaps November. Maybe you should plan the work for next year.” Doesn’t the bank understand that they are the only customer in town with a construction budget?

We need a strategy

We need a strong, creative and winning strategy that will cover us all. Is it prayer, optimism or will continuous banging on the door bring back the work?

Posted in Economy, Employment | No Comments »

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