You only want to hear “Come in spinner!” when you’re having a once-a-year flirt with an ANZAC Day two-up school. But every day, people are stalking you, trying to catch you napping financially, or preying on the vulnerable. It’s nothing personal. They’re not after you, just your coin. Are we talking about the ways people […]

How wealthy am I pretending to be? JR Ewing loaded? Mother Theresa poor? Or a mixture of Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy in Trading Places? The point being, if you’re dirt poor, then it won’t matter how much you love ’em, financial “compassion” might not be an option. But handing out money to solve problems […]

There’s always an “it” toy at Christmas – the toy that trendoids simply have to get their children. It was Tickle Me Elmo one year. Inevitably, stores run out. Disappointed and desperate parents, who left it to the last minute but simply “have to buy it” for their kid, will pay anything to get one. […]

I don’t think I’ve made any huge tax-time mistakes. I’m fanatical (my wife says “anal”) about filing receipts. When I started my first full-time job, I hadn’t done my returns for the last few years of uni. Through either laziness or, um … let’s go with laziness, I asked a mate for a recommendation. And […]

Sure, super’s recent performance has been as exciting as Scott Baio’s career since Charles In Charge. But “super” itself isn’t to blame. It’s just a low-tax vehicle, not an investment. For Gen Xers, this question has two prongs. Firstly, what do you do with “unavoidable super”? Secondly, should you contribute extra? Unavoidable super is the […]

While we thankfully continue to embrace capitalist democracies and shun the “nirvana” of communism (don’t forget Animal Farm), the wretched will be attracted to your money like the ants chasing sugar in my kitchen. For mine, there are two types of financial “scams”. The first is generally illegal and has been covered by Aunt Kerrin […]

Hey, it’s June! And June is “grand final” time for personal finances – time to minimise your taxes. And $1000 can give some great tax time rewards. “I hate tax time!” I hear you scream. Shame, I reckon. People who hate tax time usually pay more tax than they have to. That’s a cardinal sin, […]

“Learn the rules. Then play them.” From birth, say my parents, I wanted to know what the rules were, so I knew the boundaries. My brother Dirk, however, liked to know where the boundaries were so he knew what to jump over to get to where the fun started. Every game, every workplace, every relationship, […]

Billy Joel claimed his Boomer generation “didn’t start the fire”. Maybe, but they certainly fuelled it. Gen X will make it worse. And our Gen Y and Z kids will add to it also. Progress has meant that more and more wants can be satisfied immediately. From pay-TV to i-Phones, from digital cameras to the […]

Nothing quite feeds an “us versus them” mentality as voraciously as cutting down tall poppies. It’s as Australian as tax evasion, bagging politicians and drinking cold beer in Bali. And the Henry Review makes all these national past-times related. So let’s tie them all together. Rudd’s tall poppies are very successful small business owners (who […]