Sorry — have to add this Star Wars quote:–

Luke Skywalker: “I don’t believe it!!”
Yoda: “That is why you fail.”

Keep Smiling []
Lozza

I have friends that joined up for Omegatrend… To them it was going to be their saviour… they have a little baby and needed to have a business they could run from home.

Unfortunately, after paying the entry fee and buying some of the products, they couldn’t get enough people to sign up so they could move up to the “next level”…

They tried to join us up and we felt bad because we didn’t. They were really inspired and committed to it, but one year later I think they got sick of bugging everybody and gave up.

I feel it’s pretty much like Amway…. the products appear to be treated as “secondary” to the actual pyramid thing (or the circle, as Omegatrend draws it!!)

But good luck if you’ve got the commitment to make it work for you.

Lozza

I also know someone who did all the National Investment Institute stuff…. About a year ago he paid out over $10,000, and told me he’d be a millionaire very shortly with all the stuff he was learning. I told him to invite me around for dinner when he’d made his first million…

I told him I was also looking at investing in property and he gave me tickets to an NII night. Needless to say, we were sceptical and didn’t sign up for anything.

So a year later, every time he comes in I ask how it’s all going. He hasn’t lost his enthusiasm yet. He keeps saying “We’re getting there, we’ll have our first deal any day now….” He was researching the bayside areas of Melbourne. But from what I can see, it’s not working out how he thought, and the deals he’s searching for just aren’t there… even though he spends several days a week on looking for them.

Glad I didn’t take up the offer myself!!

Lozza

Hi Martin,

I actually really loved Steve’s book.

I am certainly no expert in this area (yet), but I’m sure your “average Mum & Dad” would have some equity in their own home that they could also access for deposits…. well, that’s what I’ll be doing, anyway…!

The other option of course might be to be creative and source deposits elsewhere (eg – other investors, or doing a deal with the sellers of the property…)

I agree with you — I printed out a map of Victoria, and started looking at all the towns of “reasonable” size, and there aren’t too many properties within 2 hours drive of Melbourne for under $100k.

Anyone else got any ideas on this?.

Lozza

G’day Allan…

I have to agree with “Luckyone”… the http://www.yourmortgage.com.au/calculators website is one of my favourites. The one I love is the “Repayment Calculator – Advanced”. You can work out the regular minimum repayments. Then you put in extra payments and redraws for specific months, etc. So you can work out what effect it will have if you pay $500 extra per month, make a lump sum payment in month 7 and redraw $2000 in a year from now (for example).

Definitely worth having a look!! []

Lozza

Obviously I’m one of the few that budgets actually work for (well, sort of, anyway)!

Just wanted to add also that I now budget for Christmas as well. Christmas-time used to be the worst time, because it would take till February or March to clear off the credit card. I tried putting a set amount of money per week into an investment account, specially for Xmas. But then I thought, “how silly!” and decided to add it into our mortgage payments instead.

So $30.00 a week isn’t much, but at Christmas I can redraw up to $1500.00 if I need to, to pay for Xmas stuff. I don’t usually take the whole $1500.00 anyway. We have free redraws on our Home Loan anyway.

A budget doesn’t have to be exact…. just rough is better than none.

Lozza

At least that’s one less hassle to worry about

Hi Aussierogue,

I think I’m a lot worse than most…. but then, we do budget for absolutely everything. We put away $400.00 a week into a separate account, and this covers every bill (i.e. including car rego, insurances, phone, gas, rates, everything) plus it also covers groceries, petrol, car repairs plus any medical expenses where we might be out of pocket after the Medicare rebate.

On top of that, we still draw a further $120.00 a week for “general” stuff – eg lunches, bread, entertainment, occasional take-aways, etc.

All that aside, we also manage to put one wage towards the mortgage. This gets taken out as soon as my hubby gets paid, so there’s no confusion there either.

Whatever’s left in the general savings account is ours to spend how we like.

Good luck with the budget!! I think it’s worth the effort.

Lozza