Today was a sad and eventful day at work. We watched a documentary on pixar and some of us stayed back to play the Battlestar Galactica board game. I didn’t know how to play at first but then it ended up really fun! Unfortunately I was a human throughout the whole game and when I finally got to be a cylon I had to go!

Ugh, I haven’t been able to find a temp job yet :( Everyone I contact says they need someone who can work over a longer period of time than I am able to. Still keeping fingers crossed for my recruitment companies to find something.

I have been saving and saving for a car for months. It’s been tough as we haven’t been paid in weeks. But my mom has made it very clear to me recently that she wants me to get out of the house and without going into all of the personal details, she also made it pretty clear that I need a car so I can get out now. 

So I sat there and realized that it was time to stop hoping to save more money. I went to drive.com.au and found a car in Bayswater. The very next day, HHRay and his dad and I went to look at it (stopping to see some cars in Vic Park first) and bought it pretty much on the spot. Now my mom will see that I’m actually going somewhere and making progress, despite the fact that I now have like $20 in my bank account. Not that she’ll care about that, she’ll just care that I’m finally getting out step by step.

Anyway, despite the weird trigger of this purchase and the fact that I am now literally broke as all my savings are gone, I am very happy with this car! We got it for $1000 less than it was meant to be because the son of the man who owns the dealership company brought the price down on the internet  listing without asking his dad first. His dad denied that the car was actually $4,900 at first when we came to see him, but after checking the listing admitted that it was his (and his son’s) mistake and said that he’d sell it for that price.

The car is beautiful. It looks like new. No scratches, no dents, perfect interior. It’s a burgundy 2001 Daewoo Lanos with only 68,000km on the odometer. There’s even a CD player even though the ad said it was a radio casette player. And…it’s a manual. So pretty much only HHRay’s dad can drive it. When I get my Ls (that is, when I get enough money to pay for the test) he’ll be able to start teaching me (him and some friends I have who are able to).

And now, photos of the car!!! It is currently at HHRay’s mom’s house and I haven’t taken any of my own, so here are pictures from the internet ad:

Yesterday as I was on my way back from TAFE after finding out it was closed, a middle aged man approached me with some small talk. We started talking about real estate and economics (he’s doing his honors in economics at Murdoch University) and he explained to me that there are tons of great real estate opportunities in the U.S. at the moment. We talked about how banks offered a very low interest rate when people loaned money to buy property for the first few years after the purchase. This allowed people with less money to purchase their own homes. But after those few years, the interest rates went back up and these people were too poor to pay off their loans. The banks were forced to reclaim all of this land because the people couldn’t afford it.

Now, banks don’t want land – they want money, according to this smart man. They are desperate to get rid of all of this property that they suddenly got stuck with. The man said that in a few weeks’ time, he will be going to the U.S. and looking at real estate in Austin, Texas. He will be grabbing land with already built apartment complexes and such on it, hiring a property manager to take care of the leasing and such in the U.S. while he goes back to Australia, and making a nice bulky paycheck off of that land every month!

This was exciting – if I had the existing money to do something like this I’d jump at the opportunity. The man said that this was likely to last for at least the remainder of this year and suggested that I look up information about the whole thing. Web sites like The Goldwasser Team are even offering free articles about how to get your foot in the door when it comes to the real estate market, focusing on real estate in Texas, which is exactly where this man is going.

Our talk made me realize that there are moneymaking opportunities everywhere – we just have to be quick enough to find them.

I’ve decided to try my hand at reselling computer components and other electronics. I’ll have to do plenty of research on the most profitable, relatively inexpensive hardware that I can start out with – I’m not willing to spend lots of money on something I’ve never done before just yet :P

I think the trouble will be finding wholesalers based in Australia that don’t require buying lots of items in bulk. I’ve also decided to buy a domain, build it up to a decent PR, and resell it. Another thing that’s been looming on my mind is that this year, around September, I’ll have to renew my registration with my current host company to keep this domain and blog up and running. I’m hoping to earn enough by this time to not have to take anything out of my current minuscule savings. Might as well start now.

I’ve never really been into horse racing, but I did go to see the trots with a friend a couple of times. His dad trains and races horses and we went to Gloucester Park to watch. To be honest my main problem with thoroughbred racing is the whipping. Yes, yes, I know, there’s laws and they make sure to keep it humane, but that has got to hurt. Anyway, when we went to see the trots I tried my hand at betting. I spent about $20 that night and got back…nothing. Ok so it wasn’t a lucky night for me, but it sure was exciting.

Would I bet again? I think so…the prospect of winning big would keep luring me in. I’ve even been looking into those online casinos. You know the ones – with betting and poker and racing and such. They’re all over the place, but I want to make sure I don’t run into a scam. I’ve found a few that seem legitimate, one of them being betfair. It offers an online casino as well as betting on various sports, including horse racing.

I’m still hesitant, but online betting is too tempting. When I get a stable income, I’ll put aside a bit of money each month just for this purpose. I think the best thing about sites like Betfair is that they offer the results live – as they happen. It’s the thrill of the win…or the devastation of the lose.

I never understood the point of credit cards – if you have money, you buy stuff. If you don’t have money, you don’t buy stuff. But I think I’m finally starting to get it. With a credit card, you can buy stuff now and pay it off later. Now, this can sound risky…and it is. If fees aren’t paid in time you’re stuck with a bad credit rating. So when getting a credit card, one obviously has to be responsible enough to keep up to date with the incoming fees. However, everyone slips up at one time or another. So many people are stuck with a bad credit rating, which then doesn’t allow them to buy a home, a car, and other such necessities. I know if I got a credit card I’d be absolutely terrified of having bad credit. It seems like it just hangs over you forever…and never…goes…away.

But then there’s sites like Bad Credit Offers. It caters especially for those people who have less than perfect credit, focusing on home loans and auto loans. It even puts together a top 10 list of credit cards, allowing the user to choose the best credit card for bad credit. The web site is easy to navigate, which make searching for home loans, auto loans, and personal loans fairly easy. You can even get your credit report from there. There are several available loans for comparison in each section and the site offers an easy way to compare the loans with each other, making it easy to find the one that’s right for you.

Of course, no one should take bad credit lightly. But if you have it, you might as well make the best of it. Bad Credit Offers allows those with bad credit to do just that.

Monday is going to be the longest day of the week for me. The three hour break between classes wasn’t so bad today as some of us went to the city to window shop – I couldn’t resist buying a little purple number and some much needed new flats – the other ones were killing my feet. Literally!

We also stopped by the TAFE gym and I must say, I was impressed. I was even more impressed when I read that the membership fee for one year was $45. Unfortunately it was later revealed to us that the membership fee of $45 is only for the personal assessment and training program that is on offer – the actual visits are rather expensive – $10 a pop or $45 for 10! I don’t know how cheap this is compared to other gyms, but I wasn’t quite ready to fork out that amount – the membership PLUS the actual visit fee. It just makes no sense to me. Why can’t the personal assessment and training program be optional? Or maybe it is…I’ll have to inquire about this tomorrow. Anyway, I might as well just get myself one of those huge gerbil wheels and do a home gerbil workout. I wonder if those have been invented yet. If not, they ought to be.

Also, the thing I was waiting for came in to the post office today. I still can’t tell you what it is, but it’s good. I’m picking it up tomorrow after TAFE.

HHRay and I got into a debate today. We talked about demerit points and fines for getting caught for irresponsible driving of some sort – drunk driving, speeding, etc etc. Something you’re not allowed to do on the road. We started talking about fines and how they impact wealthy and poor people. Say the set fine for some kind of misbehavior is $500. And every person they stop for that misbehavior has to pay $500. Well, some poor person will pay that $500 and not be able to pay his rent next week. A millionaire pays $500 and commits the same thing the next day because $500 out of his pocket, to him, is nothing. So poor people are impacted greatly by that fine and rich people don’t think twice about it. How is that helping? It’s just telling us that rich people can get away with more than poor people can.

I suggested that maybe there should be a fine based on a percentage instead of a static amount of dollars. For example, say the amount the person would have to pay might be 0.08% of his annual income or something (this is just a random figure, used as an example only). This way, the amount of money which people of all types of income will pay would have the same impact instead of seeming like a mountain to one person and a molehill to another. It’ll be fair.

Why wouldn’t this work? HHRay said that rich people would never allow this to happen, that it would be unfair to them. But come on, don’t you think that the way things are set out now is unfair to poor people? My suggested payment amount modification would put everyone on the same level – nobody will have to pay more than they can afford while their rich neighbor pays the same amount and doesn’t even get a dent in his wallet. Yes, wealthy people would have to adjust, but they’d be adjusting to a more fair system than the one that we have now.