Fruit Salad and Mixed Veg

40.3°C/104.5 F outside so I shall blog. Safer than going outside and getting skin cancer!

I don't know if you've heard about it, but the interest rates here in Australia are at a high, therefore many people are having trouble paying off their loans. I found a big article titled 'One family's battle to keep their home' in the Sunday Mail yesterday (9 March p 8, 9) and I feel like writing about it....

The family has a $270,000 loan and they are finding it hard to pay off because the repayments have gone up by $360 per month to $2156 per month.

The whole double spread is just the family complaining about how hard their life is....and there's a picture of them looking sad too.

Their lifestyle used to be: Take away 2 times a week, restaurant once a week, movies once a week and their daughter used to have singing lessons each week. Now, they don't have enough money for any of this, not even the sining lessons for their daughter!

The commerce student in me calculated what they used to spend in a year:
Takeaway, $7 each= $1456 per year
Restaurant, $20 each= $2080 per year
Movies, $10 each= $1040 per year
TOTAL= $4576 per year!!!

That is a lot!! And here they are complaining that they don't have enough money for their daughter's singing lessons! If they previously went without all of this stuff for a year, they could have paid for 5.72 years worth of singing lessons! How selfish are these parents?! My parents went without stuff so I could have music lessons, books, an exchange to Germany and other stuff. Yet this couple 'needs' a mega expensive house and then complains they can't afford anything

So what is the moral of the story?
Don't buy stuff you don't need! And save your money!!

The weirdest thing is, the guy is an account manager...and he is having money problems. So, this blog post has another moral; don't get this guy to do your accounts!