Well, first things first. You know a little about my situation, so I
should fill in the gaps and work from there.
In June this year (2011), I'll be 31 years old - much to my annoyance.
I'm working full time (still in the probationary period) with a very
large corporation. I work at the low level at the moment, but the
department itself is less than 3 years old, so I might be moving up as
the department expands. I'm paid around $50,000 (Australian Dollars) a
year, plus the compulsory superannuation (retirement) payments that my
employer needs to pay (in addition 9% of my salary). After I finish my
probationary period, that should go up by another $10,000 a year.
I don't really have any debts as such, but I am also currently helping
my fiancee out with a tax payment due this month. Other than that,
pretty much my only regular outgoings are a $41 travel pass per week
(bought the first day after I get paid). A mobile phone bill (about $70
a month - but I get unlimited calls and data/email usage - I'm a huge
Blackberry addict). Rent for where we live is $235 each a week, and I
obviously pay an share of the bills and food shopping.
I was running a motorcycle and a car prior to the bankruptcy, but due to
financial constraints and restrictions of the value of vehicles owned
they are both no longer in my possession. Getting rid of the bike was
the hardest part for me as riding had become such a huge part of who I
was - the freedom, enjoying going for a ride on days off and never
waiting in a traffic jam are something that grab hold of you and just
don't let go.
So, here's my basic plan for the time being - to be re-examined and
refined as time goes on and things develop. Once that tax bill I
mentioned is out of the way, I intend to work on the following
allocations for my money;
I get paid just over $800 a week (after tax) so I will be sectioning off
$235 of that right away into a high interest account (currently, the one
I have selected has a variable interest rate of 6.51%pa). As my fiancee
is also paid weekly and will be sectioning off her funds too, she will
be paying her half of the rent into that account as well. That way, the
money that would otherwise just be paid to our landlord in rent actually
earns a small bit of interest in the time being between being sent into
their bank account. Sneaky eh?
I also intend to start doing this with any bill payments. I'm hoping to
get a month ahead in my mobile phone account - not paying them a month
in advance, you understand, but instead paying them one month and paying
(at the same time) another month's worth into the high interest savings
account. Then whenever I get a phone bill, I just pay it, but if I'm
ever short for some reason, there's a buffer month's payment earning
interest in the bank. (I'm hoping to do this with the rent payment too,
although that may take a couple of months to sort out).
Other than those allocations - which in an average week (with rent and
travel pass deducted), leaves around $550. Out of that $200 is easy to
live on for a week, meaning around the $350 mark can also go into a high
interest account a week.
Just that alone would give me $18,200 a year in savings (not counting
the wonderful magic of compound interest!). Of course, that's not taking
in to account that I should (all things going to plan) get taken on
properly after my probation. Then, as I'm currently able to live
relatively comfortably on the rates I have currently explained, I can
therefore add another $8,000 (assuming an after tax amount). Now we are
looking at around $26,000 just in pure savings over a 12 month period!
Even putting things into that scenario makes me realise that just saving
can provide a fair amount of money, even before interest payments get
involved. Of course, I have investment plans that I want to develop and
hope to learn more about those ideas and other options as time progresses.
Just leaving money in a savings account (even a higher interest one of
6.51%pa) can provide a return, but the only real advantage to that as
opposed to actually using my money to invest somewhere is that the funds
are pretty much liquid. I intend to keep a portion of my funds in this
liquid state for the time being simply so that if something comes along
in which I wish to invest, I can do just that without having to cash
-out of somewhere else.
So far, my preliminary ideas for the investments are managed funds (good
as, apart from the initial research into the fund and the fund manager,
I don't have to keep a super close eye on the actual stocks and trades
they are investing my money in. Of course, I will check up the fund from
time to time to make sure that my money is working well for me, but
that'll be it really).
Commodities are something that really interest me currently too - gold
and silver seem to always be a safe haven for investors in times of
uncertainty, so there's no reason why I shouldn't track the prices of
those and get into that area when the cost is lower. The thing that has
popped up lately for me (remember, I'm only really learning at present)
is that not only the gold (for example) can be purchased, but also
shares in gold mining companies or similar.
Also, another thing that seems to be being spoke about a lot lately is
the term "ETFs". I know that these mean Electronically Traded Funds, but
other than that, I've really got no idea what they are. I've set up
something to record on the Business channel on TV later today about
ETFs, the basics and what they offer - so I hope that that can answer
some of my questions. Also, I'm going to be enrolling in some free
online courses that the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) offer. If the
resources are there, I'd have to be an idiot not to use them.
I also plan to be investing in some high-dividend paying companies too
(but only when they are affordable, I'm not diving in while their stock
price is sky high), so they should be able to provide a good return.
Currently, I'm thinking that the bigger banks in Australia are a good
investment - the GFC is almost a talked-about event as opposed to one
that we are experiencing, and it seems that they are always producing a
profit (not surprising going off the fees that some of them charge!).
The only thing to consider at the moment is that the Australian
Government are going to be banning early break fees from mortgages at
the start of the next financial year, so I will most likely be waiting
until around that time to invest there as I'm thinking that investors
will be weary and possibly be selling out stock in case of a price fall
(which, seems to always make a price fall occur anyway).
Term deposits are also something that I'll be looking at in the future
as well as somewhere to park money in the short term (no more than 6
months - unless the longer rates are amazing). But that really would
only be if I can't find a better investment for the money in that
timescale. I like to keep in mind that the ASX has given an average
annual rate of return of 11% since it opened. Of course, that doesn't
take into account any massive crashes, or indeed, gains that also occur.
Anyway, that's some of my basic ideas for the moment. I'll talk more in
the next post about property investing and why I'm not going to touch it
with a 10 foot pole.
0 comments:
Post a Comment