My late Uncle Mick was the laziest organism in our solar system. Slugs worked harder. Faced with choices, he always took the easiest option. Mick had a saying for dealing with problems. “Package it up nicely, Bruce … and pass it to someone else. Then make yourself scarce!” One day, a machine on his factory […]

Let me start calling out some spades. The world-wide market crashes that preceded the GFC are the most recent exam sat by investors. Who failed and who passed? Gen Y: “DNS” – Did Not Sit. With rare exceptions, you don’t have any money and barely any super. That’s okay, you’re not supposed to. You should […]

Thankfully, my little DebtBoy can’t read yet. Because if he could, Mr Editor, I’d be giving you a good old-fashioned clip over the ears! Today, my great fear is he’s going to choke on chocolate. There is simply no need to bring the red-suited fat bloke into his line of vision! The other columnists have […]

“What we’ve got here is (a) failure to communicate.” Depending on what generation you’re from, you’ll remember that as either Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman, or the opening line to Civil War from Guns N’ Roses … and you’re waiting for Axl to start whistling. Essentially, spending too much and not earning enough. But […]

Seriously? What sort of a dumb question is that? Has to be a Gen Y suggestion! Like ALL of my fellow Gen Xers, I know everything. As our parents will attest, Gen X has known everything since we turned 13. Maybe since we were eight. But certainly no later than 1979, when Pink Floyd declared […]

I feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall. Please don’t make me remember. I don’t want to remember! Nooooooo! Rewind back to 1979, when I was about nine. My parents gave us two boys a few bucks each to go to the school fete. The money, of course, was supposed to be for chips, drinks […]

Thankfully, the national standard for divvying up share-plate restaurant meals is NOT according to volume consumed. One of my parents’ nicknames for me in my youth was “Garbage Disposal Unit”. Whenever we went out for dinner with friends at one of Canberra’s Chinese restaurants in the 70s and 80s – there wasn’t much choice there […]

URRGHACKACK! Know what sound that is? That’s the sound Bart Simpson makes when Homer is choking him. It’s the same sound I made as I read this question. Everything in cash? For Gen Xers? You cannot be serious! Listen carefully. You can’t save your way to a fortune. You’d have to put away about 20 […]

Mmmm. Most expensive habit? What’s the definition of “most expensive”? The one that has cost you the most money? Or the guilty pleasure that derives no economic benefit. Kids? We’ve only collected two, DebtBoy and DebtGirl. Creche fees, nappies, DVDs, clothes, toys, child-raising paraphernalia … The boy is nearly four and hasn’t even played his […]