William Chong

Oh dear. I think I’m going to be dipping into savings money this month. It’s not that I’ve been splurging (well at least I hope I’m not), just some unexpected expenses that have popped up:

• A new monitor so I don’t grow a lump over crouching my back like a crazy trying to follow the words on my computer screen
• $132 for a General Manager’s renewal fee
• $156 for a mandatory student loan payment… thanks Gov’t
• PETROL. I wish I could ice skate to work or something to save on costs, seriously.
• I haven’t bought clothes in about a year (especially ones suitable for work), so perhaps that will be even more costs. In no particular order I’m in need of new business shirts, dress pants, a jacket

Some random musings from the streets of Sydney:

There’s more mentally ill people on the streets than in Auckland. I think one reason could be that Sydney is so busy and stressed (compared to NZ) that perhaps people that can’t take it fall by the wayside. You have the regular homeless/bum-types that sleep on the sidewalk against the wall, or huddle in the corner with a hat out in search of pity cash. This is hard to come by since people here usually don’t care. I also happened to watch an irate power-professional female at an intersection enduring some very inadequate window washing (the dude sprayed more soap than he scraped, no chance of any money) and then screech into the distance, leaving the man with a half-furious, half-bemused expression. Sad to see.

Queues are long. Not sure why, they just are. Trains have people, people, people. I’m quite aware that my limited worldview means that I’ll probably think Sydney relaxed when I hit the streets of Manhattan, for example. More people in the same space. Actually it means more food choices – as long as you have the money, you can’t go hungry in Sydney.

There’s an Easyway! *dances* How crazy is it that Easyway can franchise all over the word from Taiwan? In Sydney it’s very Westernised: you can order pearl milk tea as “Top Seller #1″, or as part of a drink and movie deal, or even little snacks. Definitely not a one-man stall in an echoey Meadowlands set-up…

Even in a small company, to do any discussion with more than one person you have to have a meeting. Meetings are held in boardrooms. Very businessy, very new to me.

Transit lanes. I saw them in Brisbane last time I was there as well, but it’s a pretty good idea – a lane on the far left is reserved only for those who carpool. If the road has a T2 lane, then any car driving along it has to have 2 or more people. I also saw T3 lanes, which is totally funky. What a great idea to reduce road congestion (though it invariably clogs up the other two lanes. Bring a friend in to work with you).

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Getting ready for a bear market. Sold a chunk of shares yesterday. Lost money, but would lose more holding on to it all the way through the downturn. Sea of red arrows striking fear into investors’ hearts.

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I lost money by putting shares in a low-priced stock, where a 20-cent fall meant a 10% loss in value. Yep. I think I might stick to term deposits or something… once I recoup my losses of course. If the market value of my share holdings drop a full 10%, I think I’ll cut my losses.

Explained as follows:

$10 worth of shares. If their market value drops down to $9, I’ll sell it all and consider it a loss. I’ll take that money and put it somewhere else instead. But why did it not rise to $11, or $12? Such is the mystery of life.

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Part of the reason why I’m in a panicky mood about finances is because I’m realising that I’ll have completed my degree at the end of this year, and will need to find a job and start working. To get a foot in the property market, you’ll need a deposit lump sum as well as a regular income. Is it possible? Of course. Oh yeah, didn’t help that a sea of red arrows greeted me this morning on the NZX page. It was like, man, Alan Bollard why’d you raise the OCR? That’s not gonna stop stupid people spending. Stupid people buy huge DVD-players and flat-screen TVs and cases of alcohol with benefit money.

Maybe that’s where all our spending is coming from, the government-funded benefits. Yerr… in a roundabout way the government gives me a student loan, and I buy food. So the government is paying for my food. Except I have to pay them back.

Dammit, bring back the barter system. Seven cows for a bag of lollies, anyone?

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