Category Archives: Grumpy Old Lady Stuff

A letter to Noel Whittaker “(financial adviser and international best-selling author”) in the Money section of the Age Wednesday September 11, 2013

My husband is 61 and retired.  I plan to retire when I reach 60 this year. We live in an apartment worth $1.7 million with an outstanding loan of $350,000. Our combined super is $1.2 million.  Do we have to draw on our super to pay off the loan so we qualify for the aged pension when we turn 65?

Well, obviously even Noel Whittaker (“financial adviser and international best-selling author”) found this a bit rich… (groan for bad pun):

Your assets are at a level where you’re almost (my emphasis) over the threshold for pension eligibility; therefore I certainly agree you should use $350,000 of your superannuation to pay off the home loan.  Just keep in mind that you are four years off pension age and even when you make the withdrawal from super, it is possible that good returns over the next four years will push you back over the asset-test threshold.  That’s a good problem to have because it puts you in the top 1 per cent of Australians in a financial sense.

I hope that this letter writer and her husband and in your sights for the ‘sense of entitlement’, Joe Hockey.

I don’t get my cash from a “hole in the wall”.  Instead I go to the “money box”:  a squat little stand-alone unit that stands inside the hideous shopping mall that I use. But when I went to the money box last week my card was returned with the ominous message that my card was declined and to contact my bank.  There must be something wrong with the money box, I surmised, and  trotted off to the supermarket , intending to EFTPOS my cash when I got to the register.  But – oh dear- the card was declined again and once again I was told to contact my bank, which I promptly did after scraping together enough cash to buy my groceries.

My card had been compromised, the voice in the call centre said.  There had been a suspicious attempted withdrawal of 56 cents from “Melbourne Mobile Services” or something, and so they had closed my card down.  If desperate, I could go back to the money box, call them on my mobile and they would lift the ban for five minutes while I stood there withdrawing my cash, then reinstate it instantly.  No thank you, I thought, envisaging my pre-paid phone balance leaking away with each recitation of “Our customer service officers are busy at the moment….”  I could wait until Monday to withdraw cash in person from the bank, and I would patiently wait for my new debit card within 5-6 working days.

You might note that it is a debit card, not a credit card.  I am a rather old-school bank customer.  In the wake of the breakdown of my first marriage, panicked by the tightness of my budget in paying a mortgage on just one wage, I started withdrawing a set amount of money every fortnight and using only that money for food and pocket money while paying bills and mortgage from the account and through BPay.   Once my allowance of “spending money” cash is gone, it’s gone and I do without.  I haven’t had to change the amount in ten years, probably because my children have either left home or pay for their own food now, so it’s just me. And I admit that  I now have to use the card for petrol instead of paying it from “housekeeping”, and I sometimes have to withdraw extra cash for large one off purchases, clothes and haircuts.  But in general, I pay myself a cash allowance and use that.  I have never had a credit card, only debit.  I B-pay everything, and have only one direct debit which was unavoidable.  I’ve never understood automatic debits- I wouldn’t dream of opening my purse to Telstra, the council, electricity etc. and saying “Here, help yourself once a month”, relying on them to take notice of me when I might say someway down the track “That’s enough- stop taking it now, please”.  I am uneasy when I send off my credit card details to pay through the mail- how do I know that it’s not going to fall into someone elses hands? How do I know that they’re only going to make that one withdrawal?  I’ve never had any trouble with this, but it still seems a remarkably lax system.  Likewise when I use my debit card- why don’t I have to sign AND pin?  Often I sign when my card has been given back to me and my signature is never checked.  Why are the banks encouraging this?

So, given my old school proclivities, I was horrified to find that my new debit card arrived with Paypass technology.  No need to sign or pin- just wave it in front of the console beside the register and away I go with up to $100.00 of purchases. Or maybe it’s someone else waving it in front of the console and going away with $100.00 purchases on my card without my knowledge.  I didn’t ask for this.  How ironic that the alert on my card was triggered by a small purchase, and yet this technology encourages a string of small purchases, all of which would be so small that I doubt that I would notice them.  No worries- says the bank- you’re covered against fraud as long as you comply with the terms and conditions on the website.  But  I can imagine a whole number of scenarios where this could be abused- the sulky teenage child who slips the odd purchase here or there (not that MY children would do that!), the elderly neighbour who asks someone to pop down to the shop, or an opportunistic use of a card in a wallet left carelessly.   I can’t understand why this is the default provision- given to everyone whether they want it or not.

I have complained to the bank and asked for this feature to be blocked on my card. That’s another irony: being left on hold in order to complain.  After 5 minutes waiting, I sent an email.  I’ll be interested to see what the response is.

I bought myself an I-river Story e-reader on the weekend.  I wanted an e-reader with a qwerty keyboard because particularly when I’m doing “work” reading, I take notes- usually on a piece of A4 scrap paper that I fold in half and insert into the book, adding extra pages as I go.  With a keyboard, I thought, I could take notes as I go- albeit probably shorter than I am used to, as the keyboard is very small- but it would mean that I wouldn’t have scribbled A4 half-pages scattered around the place.  I didn’t want to be tied in Kindle’s publishing format- it seems that EPub is working out as the common format, and I resent that the Kindle doesn’t support it.  I was hoping that I-river would reduce its price in competition with the Kindle, but no such luck.  I made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t buy it until August, in the vain hope of a price-reduction, and last weekend I finally made the purchase.

So far, I’ve been really disappointed- so disappointed that I can hardly bear to look at the thing. The instructions are HOPELESS- barely one paragraph on a fold-out sheet with every other language known to mankind.  There’s a manual on the I-river itself, which is perverse as you need to be able to use it to read the manual.  To be honest, I just don’t get how to use the wretched thing.  The opening screen gives you 2 options: 1. Charge battery  2. Connect removable disk.  What disk? The little card that came with it? Do I need to charge the battery first?  Stuffed if I know.   But I do know that to make your computer recognize it, you have to select “Connect removable disk”.  The I-river is the “removable disk”.  Is it just me, or is this a rather obscure instruction?  Then, about 40 pages into the manual, I learn that I need to download software from the I-river site.  Would it not have been useful to have that information up front? What ever happened to Step 1, Step 2, Step 3.   Sometimes I can get my computer to read it; other times I cannot- is it faulty, or am I faulty?

Along with Tony Abbott (shudder), I am not a tech-head (nor do I aspire to be Prime Minister), but I’m not an absolute dunce with technology either- although I suspect that my children would beg to differ.  I am the only person in the house who can programme the video, for example.  But this I-river has me stumped.  I think I’ve been sold a pup.

I shall let you know if I ever get to like it.

When I was twelve years old and  in grade six at Heidelberg Primary School, a crusty old gentleman from the Independent Order of Rechabites came weekly to instruct us about the evils of alcohol.  There was a statewide exam at the end of it, and I’m rather proud to say that I won the state prize with a score of 91%.  I was awarded a book which I have since lost without regret and a beautiful certificate which I do regret losing because from memory it was a highly ornate document with beautiful copperplate writing.  Prize notwithstanding, I have never been a teetotaller; I  am not one now and I find the whole idea of the Rechabites rather quaint.

But I’ve got to say that I’m finding the emphasis on alcohol over the last few years rather overwhelming.   I know that I’m hypocritical here- looking back I don’t know why we felt we had to drink champagne at our children’s birthday parties and I don’t think I’d do it now.  I am disconcerted that every celebration of a sporting triumph, a career achievement, an opening of some civic building or service etc. needs to be marked with alcohol.  I don’t know why bars and bottleshops  have to stay open all night.  I find the idea of going to work in the morning while the nightclubs are disgorging the last of their patrons quite unnecessary.

I was puzzled to find this advertisement on the label of Spring Valley apple juice.

When a bender begins and when it ends is not an exact science.  However, our not so rigorous testing proves that when the bender has been and gone, it leaves behind a primordial need to consume something of substance, something so angelic and good, it probably grew on a tree- and preferably for that something to be almost like an apple in liquid form.

This is APPLE JUICE, remember…consumed by children, old people, people who are just plain thirsty and not necessarily recovering from a bender. Why does it have to market itself this way to everyone who buys it?

Then in the weekend’s paper there was a rather trite column about “how to decorate a Christmas tree” by Kate Duthie This is the last thing I need to read, given that  I have decorated my Christmas tree three times this year so far after it has fallen down twice this year (or maybe I do need to read that article, particularly the part where it tells you to make sure that the tree is stable before putting anything on it).   But the last paragraph particularly grated:

Whatever you do, make it fun.  Involve your family and friends, pop some champers and make it an event.

An event? Champagne? It’s a CHRISTMAS TREE for Christ’s sake! (I feel I can say that without blasphemy).  Why do you need a drink to put up a Christmas tree?

Bah. Humbug.