Money Magazine August 2018

Depending on when you get a chance to read this month’s cover story, I suspect the royal commission inquiry into superannuation may have already kicked off. The hearings are set for August 6 and while no details of who is listed to appear were available at the time of going to the printers it was believed that fund executives and directors (among many other players) were to be grilled on their expenses and how those expenditures benefited members. Why should we care about how much a chief executive spends on cab fares or how much a super fund spends on brand development to win new members? Well, superannuation is a $2.6 trillion honey pot and annual fees have surpassed $30 billion a year. Essentially there are two sets of fees.…

Strange strategy Every day I read news articles or hear people espousing the delights of negative gearing and the tax perks that come with it. Putting it simply: negative gearing means that your “investment” is losing more money than it is making. The reason you pay less tax is because you are losing money. Call me old-fashioned but since when is the intent of investing to lose money? It’s certainly not my financial strategy! Katrina, Qld Buy-and-build dilemma I picked up my first Money mag in my late teens and have been an avid reader (and subscriber) ever since. I recently turned 30 and credit Money with building my financial literary and confidence (particularly in the absence of any financial education at school). However, I am currently navigating an area…

What an inspiring interview with Luke Pearson (June issue)! He has found such a good way to connect and empower Aboriginal people all around the country with his IndigenousX rotating Twitter account. If more and more Aboriginal people can express their views and be heard, we can become a more inclusive nation. The interviewer, Alan Deans, is both respectful and non-judgemental throughout, which makes the interview such a pleasure to read. As a migrant from the Netherlands, I enjoy living in a multicultural country. However, I do feel that we can all do more to combat racism and discrimination, especially when these are directed towards Aboriginal people. More mutual respect, more understanding and more listening to each other will benefit all the different people living in Australia, and make us a…

SUSAN HELY Susan has been a senior writer at Money for more than 10 years. Susan says: “I wanted to teach my 15-year-old daughter about shares. We went halves in $500 worth of shares in a mineral sands company. She was excited when the price went up. But it started to go down and didn’t stop. She lost her money but did learn how shares can go down as well as up.” PETER DOCKRILL Peter is a science and technology journalist and a senior writer at ScienceAlert. Peter says: “I used to save by putting money aside at the end of each pay period. Big mistake. If you proactively deposit your savings on payday instead, your spending habits adapt to the tighter cash flow, and it makes a huge difference.” GRAHAM…

It takes a fair bit to make me really cranky but our credit card lenders have managed to do exactly that. For many years I have been trying to get to the bottom of the true cost of credit cards and the impact on their victims. In particular I have been pushing the point that balance transfer cards are a debt trap. The debt trap was my major theme at a mid-2015 senate hearing but I just could not get the numbers to back up my case. The argument is easy to make. While we all need a profitable and secure financial system, meaning we want lenders to make money, there are fair ways and means to do so. Credit card balance transfers are not fair for the unwary or those…

The 1970s saw the introduction of the modern credit card. Back then, the entire balance had to be repaid every month and limits were small. But today’s cards are a whole lot more dangerous than their ’70s counterparts. This little piece of plastic lives in the wallets of 12.3 million Australians. It does appear that banks have become addicted to selling us expensive credit. The result? Australians are now struggling with over $45 billion in credit card debt. ASIC has just released a report on credit cards that shows some financial institutions continue to impose tricky repayment structures that have been banned since 2012. It found that four credit providers – American Express, Citi, Latitude and Macquarie – are charging their customers “more interest than they should, and their conduct…