KILL YOUR MORTGAGE
CHRISTMAS FINANCIAL HANGOVER PREVENTION
44 Business/ Education & Society Oct 2015
Water water everywhere! 2AM SUNDAY MORNING EMERGENCY
I answer all calls, even when they come in at 2am on a Sunday morning. If tenants phone me at this hour it has to be an urgent problem. And yes, it was an emergency: water cascading out of the kitchen ceiling downstairs. Fortunately the tenants were woken by the noise of the gushing water. The tenants went downstairs to discover deep water on the floor and running down the walls from the ceiling like a waterfall. Fortunately by the time they phoned me they had turned the water off at the mains and placed buckets under the drips. That was all that could be done. So, back to bed at 3am and by 7am I was around at the property with an emergency plumber. He cut a hole in the ceiling and the split pipe was found and repaired. Goodness, a six inch piece of pipe with a small slit can do a lot of damage! The drawers and cupboards were full of water, the bench top was soaked and the cascading water flooded onto the floor, then into the dining room and onto the carpet in the lounge. I sent the tenants off to have breakfast on Just Rentals and organised the cleaners for the following day, and the carpet man to suck and dry the carpet. We informed the owners too, as well as the insurance company. A builder was organised to remove the sodden ceiling, as well as a plasterer and painter. Wow! That was quite a start to my week. I caught up on much needed sleep the following night, and felt kind of satisfied in the knowledge that another problem had been sorted. Words: Sylvia Lund Director
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The silly season is almost upon us and it’s a time when many of us start to get nervous about not only what we have to get done but also our finances. Kiwis opened their wallets more than ever last festive season. We smashed all previous records with Paymark processing $263.5 million on its network alone on Christmas Eve, up 10.5% on the previous year! At its peak they processed 156 transactions per second! Here are my top tips for making the most of your finances over this cash intensive time! • Set a budget for the upcoming months, factoring in presents, special food, entertainment, travel etc. along with your normal everyday payments. If there is a deficit, you have to make sacrifices or cut backs. • Make a list of everyone you need to buy for and put a dollar limit by each present. Take the list with you when you shop and try and stick to it. • Cash is powerful. Use it, you’ll spend less. Try to avoid credit cards or store cards. Even if you can pay it back in January, it’s likely you’ll spend more than you wanted to and easily lose track of where you are at with your finances. If you can’t pay it back in full, ask yourself, do you really want to be paying the price of the gift plus 20-30% interest on top of this? The answer should be no. • Start early. Don’t be that person running madly around the mall on Christmas Eve looking stressed and panic buying. The earlier you start, the more likely you’ll be able to get a bargain and find a special present. Special and thoughtful does not have to equate to expensive. • Organise your overseas gifts even earlier! I know how much the express fees sting — you often end up paying more than the gift in postage. Check out https://www.nzpost.co.nz/personal/ sending-within-nz/mailing-dates-times for this year’s deadlines. • Many families have an agreed limit on how much to spend or who they are buying for, for example only buying for the kids or doing a secret Santa. Start negotiating your limits. You’ll find pretty much everyone is in the same boat and relieved to have boundaries! • Whether visiting friends/family or hosting yourself, everyone bringing a plate or pot luck is the way forward. This shares the load, everyone is happy they are contributing and no one person or family is overloaded. Christmas is a special time of year. It is about giving, but most importantly it’s about the people you are with, not spending beyond your means and having to pay for it for the next 12 months or beyond. Planning in advance and sticking to a budget should be about enjoying this time and minimising financial stress and pressure. If you are having trouble getting your finances in order, seek help, it’s never too late. Words: Katie Wesney In the September 2015 issue of Verve, Hannah McQueen was misquoted. This should have stated standard terms of ‘30 years and up to $1m.’ enableMe New Zealand and Verve apologise for this error. Kind Regards Hamish Cowan, General Manager, enableMe New Zealand.