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The Down Under Lounge

Probably went with a cheaper recipe.

Like Cadbury did with their chocolate a few years ago and people complained so much that they had to return to the old recipe.
 
Just eating the cheddar ones - as tasty as cardboard.

I like Country Cheese biscuits. I hope they don't change that recipe.
 
I have some country cheese here right now.

But my favorite Arnotts crackers are Sesame Wheat and of course Vitawheats which I eat all the time.
 
So it's been more than 24 hours since I heard about the big news. interesting to see reactions. Here in Melbourne it was on the news, after all the AFL. I think it will be a big talking point on the NRL footy show. I knew the penalty was coming, but I know my Eels can bounce back. A lot of the problems have been forced over the 5 years or more, with bad decisions by the board, with sacking players and coaches.
 
The shapes disaster sounds like New Coke all over again. From a sample of my kids and the people on this board, nobody's happy!

Not totally across the Eels thing. The only losers, as usual, are the fans. That sucks.

The Budget has come and gone. $380 odd billion being taken in tax and still it's $40 billion short of what they're planning to spend. The two main parties, economically are just a red and blue version of each other.

The group that needs to pay serious attention to the budget are people hoping to fund their own retirement. If you're in this boat, good financial planning advice is needed now.

How about this girl who was given, erroneously, an unlimited overdraft from her bank when she was 17. She went and blew --- wait for it -- nearly $5 million, with over a million going on handbags(!). She's been charged and was arrested at the airport attempting to do a runner to Malaysia. An interesting one because one of the charges she faces is knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime. Not sure how this was the case when she just woke up one morning and noticed the stupid bank gave her the overdraft. She also faces a charge of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception. She's absolutely gone here. The law is pretty clear on this one : if you realise its not your money and you spend it, you're screwed. On top of that she'll probably have to repay the overdraft I guess.

Anyone had anything like this happen? I've had a heap stolen from my account by a fraudster, but never had money land in there by accident!
 
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On the budget, my mother is absolutely thrilled about the extra $6 she'll have each week in her bank account. She's going to save it and put it towards my first home purchase. I hope the bank appreciates the extra $300 odd I'm going to come with.
 
Put your $6 a week in the bank at current rates, and you'll have your 10% deposit for the median house in my city in a mere 108 years.

There's never been a better time to be an Australian!
 
I wish there was a chance for an improvement in interest rates.

In November 2011, I put $20,000 in a 5 year fixed term deposit and the interest rate was 6%. It has been nice getting $1200 in interest each year but this November it matures and it isn't worth putting it back into another fixed term deposit. I might just pre-pay my funeral.
 
I wish there was a chance for an improvement in interest rates.

In November 2011, I put $20,000 in a 5 year fixed term deposit and the interest rate was 6%. It has been nice getting $1200 in interest each year but this November it matures and it isn't worth putting it back into another fixed term deposit. I might just pre-pay my funeral.


People complain about the rates in the late 1980s and love to blame Labor for them (forgetting that they had only stopped at 13% under the coalition because they were capped) but don't realise that for investors with money in the bank it was a boom time.

Something else that's been forgotten is the comment from joe hockey soon after become treasure that low interest rates were a sign of a sick economy yet the next RBA meeting could see them drop again.

Meanwhile news scum is spruiking how it's a good time for buying a house (if you can find one that hasn't been snapped up by some turd who's benefiting greatly from negative gearing).
 
I have a pretty bright friend with a good record forecasting this stuff, and he reckons we're heading towards negative interest rates ie : the bank charges you for holding your money.

I really feel sorry for retirees like yourself, savers and people trying to accumulate deposits for houses. I'm in the last category and my parents are in the first. It's bloody tough. No. It's just about futile.

There are tons of retirees who tried to fund their own retirement but got ripped off by scumbags who had them in the wrong investments and they got burned massively. They then kept their money in cash, understandably, out of fear, and have seen their term deposit rates drop every time they try to roll them over. Centrelink is going to be busy in the next few years.
 
People complain about the rates in the late 1980s and love to blame Labor for them (forgetting that they had only stopped at 13% under the coalition because they were capped) but don't realise that for investors with money in the bank it was a boom time.

Something else that's been forgotten is the comment from joe hockey soon after become treasure that low interest rates were a sign of a sick economy yet the next RBA meeting could see them drop again.

Meanwhile news scum is spruiking how it's a good time for buying a house (if you can find one that hasn't been snapped up by some turd who's benefiting greatly from negative gearing).

Rate rises have put a few political careers away. Keating never recovered in 1994 when the RBA whacked them up 1% in a single meeting (could you imagine what would happen if they did this today?!), also the mid campaign rise in 2007 snuffed out Howard's slim chances that year.

The RBA has shown it's prepared to act if required, and did so this week, election campaign or not. I think Marc is right and they'll cut in June as well. Any politician who says this is a good thing in the campaign is insulting your intelligence. At the risk of boring you to tears with econobabble, the RBA has a mandate to ensure prices are kept stable at a certain level. The forecasts they released yesterday showed they're not even close. Expect cuts ahead.
 
I have a pretty bright friend with a good record forecasting this stuff, and he reckons we're heading towards negative interest rates ie : the bank charges you for holding your money.

I really feel sorry for retirees like yourself, savers and people trying to accumulate deposits for houses. I'm in the last category and my parents are in the first. It's bloody tough. No. It's just about futile.

There are tons of retirees who tried to fund their own retirement but got ripped off by scumbags who had them in the wrong investments and they got burned massively. They then kept their money in cash, understandably, out of fear, and have seen their term deposit rates drop every time they try to roll them over. Centrelink is going to be busy in the next few years.

Does seem that people are running into problems despite the low interest rates. My sister has just bought a small unit for around $260,000. She wasn't actually looking to buy but having to move again for the second time in just over 12 months because of an owner with financial issues. Seems the owner of the current unit added two new cars onto the mortgage (might have been hoping to sneaking them so she could write of the costs using Negative Gearing) and got into difficulties (possible got caught out) so is having to sell. Wants $310,000 for the current place which is about $25 - 30k over prices in the area and my sister couldn't afford that.
 
You couldn't buy a toilet in melbourne for 260,000.

Well actually you could buy a studio apt in an absolutely crumbling shithole in a terrible area if you looked really really hard and got lucky.
 
You couldn't buy a toilet in melbourne for 260,000.

Well actually you could buy a studio apt in an absolutely crumbling shithole in a terrible area if you looked really really hard and got lucky.

Guess there are benefits to not living in Melbourne :)
 
You can buy a three bedroom house on Tassie's west coast for $60,000-$80,000 if you were willing to cope with all the rain, the lack of employment and services, and also to put up with the locals.
 
I loathe the bush :lol:

I love big cities and I love public transport. I will never live anywhere I can't live car free.

I don't drive so yeah that's big for me too and I miss the having buses every 15 minutes in Adelaide but I guess that's what happens when you live in a city that's smaller than my mum's council area.

Fortunately I was too little to have to worry about things when we did live in the bush (lived in Wadonga on the Vic/NSW border from 71 til 74).
 
I loathe the bush :lol:

I love big cities and I love public transport. I will never live anywhere I can't live car free.

I feel the same way. The first thing I do before moving is to make sure I am on a good bus route (no trams or passenger trains in Tasmania).
The closest bus service isn't too good but if I walk about 600 meters down to the main road there is a bus every 10 to 15 minutes during a week day.
 
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