Did People Read This Article - Struggling to Make Ends Meet at $215k !

tik tok on 08/10/2018 - 10:29

What do peops here think about this article :
https://www.themercury.com.au/lifestyle/cash-confessions-on-…

Out of my observations, I find making decent savings a tad difficult - Unless you are in a roaring business or are accepting income/trades in cash only (vs POS/invoices). Or are smart enough to shop everything via ozb. So basically, unless you are committing fraud or a crime its very very difficult to have significant savings.

So,
on one hand, if one works hard and is gainfully occupied then mostly, s/he receives absolutely no benefits pays a fair bit of tax and will have no savings.
On the other hand, someone living on the dole doesn't get himself to a job, will receive most gov benefits will pay almost nothing in tax and will have no savings.
Net result is both of these people will probably end up with a very small difference in their savings. Then whats the point of busting nuts in a job and getting stressed for nothing ?
And if the above is applied in the case of the article, if the man and his wife were on the dole, they'd get a housing commission house, money per child and some allowances to live comfortably - I don't even know why they are working so hard. Idiots !

Although this is a topic for another time, but we have also turned into a society that encourages people to fail. There is no incentive to succeed where as there is plentiful if you fail. How can such a society prosper ? I think we are slowly forgetting ours was supposed to be a land of the fair go. Sigh.

Financial

Comments

  • Nugs on 08/10/2018 - 10:32
    +9

    "$38,000 on a Hyundai i40"

    tossers

    .

  • Quantumcat on 08/10/2018 - 10:35
    +1

    There's really not anything plentiful if you fail. Could you live on $250 a week?

  • Hybroid on 08/10/2018 - 10:37
    +7

    Then whats the point of busting nuts in a job and getting stressed for nothing ?

    Standard of living is very very very different.

  • HighAndDry on 08/10/2018 - 10:39
    +14

    Unless you are in a roaring business or are accepting income/trades in cash only (vs POS/invoices). Or are smart enough to shop everything via ozb. So basically, unless you are committing fraud or a crime its very very difficult to have significant savings.

    I hope you're quoting from the article and this isn't your own thoughts OP, because that's a ridiculous take. If you're making more than around $50,000 and you didn't stupidly have 2+ kids on that income, you can save. The only reason you might think you can't save is if you somehow think that having a nice car, nice property (rented or mortgage), eating out/etc are necessities instead of the luxuries they actually are.

    Though on this point:

    And if the above is applied in the case of the article, if the man and his wife were on the dole, they'd get a housing commission house, money per child and some allowances to live comfortably

    Yeah I'm totally in favour of cutting back on these benefits, though please don't be under any illusions that they'd be living "comfortably" in any way similar to someone with an actual income (and also a 0% savings rate).

  • hawkeye on 08/10/2018 - 10:40
    +2

    Liars they added the car loans twice the $140 a month penist lessons must be paying off.

    • captaincabinets on 08/10/2018 - 11:30
      +6

      Man where do I sign up for these penist lessons, my wife is unsatisfied.

      • owli on 08/10/2018 - 13:41
        +1

        Yeah, it cost more, but I had to find a short teacher as my wife is not used to having a large pianist in the home.

  • stirlo on 08/10/2018 - 10:48
    +12

    $100,000 personal loan will help you waste money like these guys. Add in $1000 per month for "entertainment" and living in a 5 bedroom house with a pool on golf course and I don't feel sorry for them one bit.

  • o53djz7qTPY4der on 08/10/2018 - 10:54
    +17

    This is not about benefits/dole versus working (working hard). This is about piss-poor money management. If they did not have the loan they'd probably be fine. They spent that loan on cars, holidays, and A PIANO!! Nobody 'needs' a piano, especially if you can't afford it.

    • bbourke85 on 08/10/2018 - 11:05
      +7

      Speak for yourself. I need a piano.

      • [Deactivated] on 08/10/2018 - 14:02
        +4

        if it's posted on ozbargain as a deal, then yes you definitely need one.

    • FunkyHoratio on 08/10/2018 - 20:38

      If you look around there are plenty of beautiful old pianos around, for free! You just need to get 3 mates to come and help move them! We got a pianola for free and it was still largely in tune!

      • purplelady on 09/10/2018 - 08:41
        +1

        yeah I got my organ for free too!

        • jonnochen on 09/10/2018 - 09:11
          +1

          All of us get organs for free at birth. Don't think you're special.

    • MrBear on 09/10/2018 - 11:10

      Look on Gumtree. People are literally giving away pianos for $0 because no one will buy them and they are a pain to get rid of because they are so heavy. No one needs to buy one.

  • Some Human on 08/10/2018 - 10:55
    +8

    Anyone else notice they said they don’t take big holidays, then proceed to say they borrowed 100k, some of which went on holidays?

  • geek001 on 08/10/2018 - 11:03
    +9

    It is worrying that the guy is a finance manager but not very savvy with money. If he is paying so much in rent + their personal loan, wouldn't it make more sense for them to just buy a house in Townsville and roll the personal loan into the mortgage to get a lower rate on their personal loan? They would be paying the same amount but at least they will own a house at the end of the loan.

    • HighAndDry on 08/10/2018 - 11:07

      It's just completely skewed expectations. Being a finance manager, and so working around a lot of people with far more money, likely doesn't help.

      So similar to how everyone apparently thinks owning a house with a backyard that's at most an hour from the CBD is now a "necessity", the people in the article probably think that having a giant-ass house and taking regular holidays and their level of spending is also a "necessity".

      • captaincabinets on 08/10/2018 - 11:34
        +1

        Hahah the 'giant-ass house' is on point. Until a few years ago we had the largest average house sizes in the world, 247m2.

      • geek001 on 08/10/2018 - 11:45
        +1

        It's just completely skewed expectations. Being a finance manager, and so working around a lot of people with far more money, likely doesn't help.

        That's why I didn't comment on their entertainment + schooling + clothing expenses.

        I think it is okay to be used to a certain level of comfort. It is however better if you can do more with the money you already have, hence hanging around OzBargain. :)

        Also, they live in Townsville. I bet you can drive from one end of town to the other in less than an hour. Lol.

        • FiDad on 08/10/2018 - 12:05

          Yes Townsville is not that big. I was there a few years ago for 2 weeks for work and I was able to walk to most places. Also, correct me if I am wrong but I think there has a property crash in Townsville for last few years so it would not be very hard or expensive to buy. There is a bit of crime problem there due to high rate of unemployment but its nowhere as bad as the guy is making it sound in the article

  • redpump on 08/10/2018 - 11:36
    +1

    Don't need to commit fraud or a crime to save money. Paid extra on top of my taxes this financial year and we still save 60% of our take home income a year. Loans are the worse, we don't buy anything (except property, which we don't have yet) unless we have the money in the bank.

    • HighAndDry on 08/10/2018 - 11:41
      +2

      Paid extra on top of my taxes this financial year

      I hope you're not paying extra tax you don't have to…. I mean, just from:

      we don't buy anything […] unless we have the money in the bank.

      You almost certainly can make better use of that money, even donating it to charity, than the govt could or would.

  • RandomNinja on 08/10/2018 - 11:42
    +7

    ~$1200/mth on Groceries and ~$1100/mth on Entertainment that includes takeaways/restaurants. How much food do 2 adults and 1 kid need?

  • captaincabinets on 08/10/2018 - 11:54
    +8

    The people in the article are terrible with money, that person shouldn't be a finance adviser.

    As for your rant about people on the dole, in the budget 'Assistance to the unemployed and the sick' accounts for 2% of the overall $488 billion. Your rant smacks of the 'Just world hypothesis' - i.e. if people require the dole they must have done something to deserve it. Some people are lazy sure, but many have terrible life circumstances.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

    It's not that hard to save money. Most Australians waste their money unnecessarily then cry poor.
    https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/managing-your-money/budgeting/…

    A perfect example is private schooling, which is apparently the greatest expense in the article. Australians have the 4th highest private expenditure on private schools in the OECD:
    https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/private-spending-on-educat…

    /End rant

  • tsunamisurfer on 08/10/2018 - 12:44
    +5

    Toby and his wife say they don’t live outside their means

    Umm…Yes you do Toby. See Below.

    “The loan includes the cars, piano and some holidays.”

    A finance manager who manages the family finances into a $100k Personal Loan @ 13%? WTF….he should lose whatever financial accreditation that has been wrongly bestowed upon him.

    There are just so many holes in this story that it is basically clickbait title to encourage outrage.

    • MrBear on 09/10/2018 - 11:17

      There are just so many holes in this story that it is basically clickbait title to encourage outrage.

      Yes I agree, it is a troll article. This sort of thing happens regularly in newspapers and I'm sure it is done to make most people feel good/superior about themselves compared to the people in the article.

  • rambutann on 08/10/2018 - 13:00
    +5

    This is the most cooked article i've ever read. Are we sure this wasn't intended to be put on the Betoota Advocate?

  • twww on 08/10/2018 - 13:34
    +4

    Clickbait garbage. I was enraged when I read it. A finance manager?!

  • Ughhh on 08/10/2018 - 13:36
    +4

    If Bill gates spent all his money on $1b toys and chose to live on the moon, he would be struggling and crying poor too.

    No sympathy for this family. Quite an insult to people earning less but actually making an effort to help themselves.

  • Marty-69 on 08/10/2018 - 13:40
    +2

    Scary, that guy is a financial manager. A debt for a piano and holidays, yeah nah…. And on top of that, they also need two brand new cars? Do you really need a new all-wheel-drive station to drop off your kid? Oh yeah, it's a private school… And a new car to drive to and from work? Their household can't function with one car, but I'm sure it can with two second-hand ones. Lots of money wasted on status, they deserve to go bankrupt and get real.

    • [Deactivated] on 08/10/2018 - 14:04

      but if they go bankrupt doesn't that cancel out their debts so they can do it all over again?

      they need to lose their job, have all items and house repossessed and force to live an average life.

      • HighAndDry on 08/10/2018 - 14:27

        Well in their case - guy's going to lose his job because bankruptcy automatically means you can't hold (basically ever) any kind of financial advisory licence, and they're renting so they'll also lose that in a bankruptcy.

        • [Deactivated] on 08/10/2018 - 14:39

          sounds good! i enjoy hearing of other peoples impending misery

          i also give nothing to homeless people or charities for this same reason.

  • brownsound on 08/10/2018 - 13:59

    "This includes paying off $46,000 on a Subaru Forrester bought in 2016, and $38,000 on a Hyundai i40"

    I love my second hand $25k 70kkm top spec 2014 Forester.

    • HighAndDry on 08/10/2018 - 14:03
      +2

      But can you imagine the shame their kid would feel been dropped off at the fancy private school in a used (gasp shock horror) car?

  • Diji1 on 08/10/2018 - 14:39
    +2

    Australia is a plutocracy.

    This means that the government is controlled by the super wealthy to benefit the super wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Expense means your wealth.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-26/frijters-foster-battle…

    The media plays it's part in the plutocracy by inventing fictional tales like this using deceptive figures like average income of $65,000 (median income is actually 45K) leaving the consumer of media worse off because they've been decieved.

  • try2bhelpful on 08/10/2018 - 15:21

    Sounds like another media beat up so that people will be outraged by the poor rather than the super wealthy. If you have access the right people, including the right tax lawyers, you can get away with paying, relatively, little tax. You then add in offshore tax havens, dodgy inter company loans, family trusts, etc and it becomes almost non existent. Rupert, and his mates, use their media influence to say “look at the shiny thing over there” to hide what they are doing and the sort of people who listen to shock jocks swallow it hook, line and sinker. Even when it is shown these shock jocks are taking money for comments they still don’t say “wait a minute”. People really need to engage their brains when they read these articles and consider what is the agenda of the source material.

    The reason that the abuse of children went on for so long was that the people involved were being protected by people with influence and/or power. The said children were lying or they were wicked and the abusers blamed the abused so they thought they deserved it. I don’t agree with dole cheats but I am more concerned with the tax avoidance of the wealthy, just so they have more money, than the genuinely poor who are struggling.

    • [Deactivated] on 08/10/2018 - 15:44

      username checks out

  • Illian on 08/10/2018 - 16:06

    Boy that article is dumb, so is he, and a lot of what the OP said was too. Unfortunately, money is generally a subject which does not lend itself to reasonability or rationality in humans.

  • lainey13 on 08/10/2018 - 20:35

    It's definitely not hard to have significant savings. It's just money in versus money out. There are many ways to minimise money out if you can't maximise money in. I just finished watching 'Extreme Cheapskates' on TV… now there's a bunch of tips for those desperate enough…

  • CheapskateQueen on 08/10/2018 - 21:55
    +1

    surely it must be taking the piss….

  • spersephone on 09/10/2018 - 07:26
    +2

    They could easily make choices that would give them back a few thousand per month. However, I would like to point out that being on the dole does not magically give you access to a housing commission house as the OP seems to think.

  • meumax on 09/10/2018 - 10:45
    +1

    The clear intent of this click bait article is to make people feel better about their own situation by poking fun at the obvious stupidity of a family on $215k claiming to find it hard to make ends meet. Majority of people get this.

    Instead the OP sympathises with their "plight" and comes away with the message that they are no better off than a dole bludger. The only explanation is the OP is Toby or in a very similar situation.

  • cwongtech on 09/10/2018 - 11:46

    “Everyone has different circumstances, but we do not live a life of luxury. There’s no big holidays, or boats or houses. Our biggest expenses are education for our son, transportation and our personal loans each month.”

    7 lines later…

    "“The loan includes the cars, piano and some holidays.”

    ….?
    Piano loan? What?

    There is a lot of crime up here, and we wanted to be in a nicer area. So it’s a five-bedroom house with a pool on the golf course.

    Pool on the golf course?

    • purplelady on 10/10/2018 - 09:02

      It's hard life, I know…

  • dayta on 09/10/2018 - 16:50

    These guys are terrible about their finances. I'm confused about their loan payments since they've listed car separately to a loan for 'car', but either way they've taken out a massive personal loan for no good reason. That's pretty much the single reason they're in the shit.

    Those kind of loan payments are what normal people would be spending on a house loan. 2600 rent + 2167 loan + 1100 'car' is enough to service a > $1million mortgage.

    They say they can't afford to buy a house, but their problem is they have no idea how to save money. They might need 2 cars, but they don't need to buy 2 new cars (or any new cars, in fact). They don't need to spend $1000/month on entertainment. They're paying too much rent. If you want to get up, you have to take a hit in the short term.

    Trying to use this to argue that 'you may as well be on the dole' is utter garbage. The dole earner's children aren't going to a 10k/year private school, or getting tennis, piano and recorder lessons. They're not spending 400/month on new clothes, and they sure as hell can't afford 2 new cars and a piano, or to spend 1000/month on entertainment.

    There's plenty of incentives to work. Most people I know on similar incomes to the couple on the article would have hundreds of thousands of dollars 'saved' in the form of house equity. They have that lovely benefit of not having to deal with Centrelink. They get to take typically one good holiday a year (sometimes more). They have nice tvs, and furniture. They can afford to go out pretty much whenever they like.

  • nushydude on 09/10/2018 - 19:14

    What sort of entertainment costs $1000 per month? Go to movies every day?

    How are they managing to save 5950 a year when. They have personal loans? Shouldn't you try to pay it off quickly?

    • purplelady on 10/10/2018 - 09:01

      4x full priced movie tickets = $88
      4x popcorn = $50
      2x champagnes + 2x large coke = $40

      Total of $170 for 1 movie a week. But they might go Gold Class. Please don't quote me on the costs though, as I never pay for full priced movie tickets and I smuggle popcorn and bottled water into movies :|

  • HeWhoKnows on 09/10/2018 - 21:59
    +1

    Very simple approach to savings
    No costings and no assumptions made.
    Everybody has different committments and expenses.
    These are usually matched to ones income.
    So YES perhaps both end up with little savings.
    But the big income earner does it by choice!

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