The Hedge Fund Trap

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I love reading about Warren Buffet’s ten year bet against hedge funds. He posted the challenge on Long Bet here (The Long Bet site was founded by Jeff Bezos). What’s interesting was that Buffett was initially met with silence and then only one man – Ted Seides of Protege Partners – stepped up to the […]


Online Account Credentials – Keep em to yourself

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I recently opened up a new trading account and used the SOFORT system to transfer money into the account. This requires you to enter your online banking credentials and then allows you to transfer the money more quickly than a standard BACS transfer. The problems started when I asked my bank about this method of […]


Get a $500 gift from the government

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How you ask? From the superannuation co-contribution. How do I qualify? Earn less than $49,488 Have 10% of your income from employment activities How does it work? The government put in 50c for every $1 you contribute this financial year, up to this maximum of $500. So to get the maximum of $500 per year, […]


Watch out for the not so superratings

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I’ve been perusing Superrating’s top 10 funds as you do on a Sunday afternoon. (Yep, I’m a money geek). I’ve found the results they provide to be at best a little simplistic and at worst misleading. My problem is that they only compare the fees that would be charged on a superannuation balance of $50,000. […]


Beware Paypal Exchange Rates

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It’s usually cheaper to use your credit card (especially if it’s the GE Money 28 Degrees card with 0% currency exchange fee) than to use the default exchange rate provided by Paypal which can be upto 4% From Paypal’s website “PayPal’s exchange rate includes a processing fee above the base rate at which PayPal obtains foreign […]


Get your kids to go Barefoot

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Congratulations to Scott Pape, the Barefoot Investor on his soon to be released new book, The Barefoot Investor for Families available late September.  


Useful Apps – Blinkist

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I’ve been using Blinkist for a few months now and while the mobile had a few teething problems I’m pleased to say they now seem ot have been fixed with the latest release. Blinkist summarises books into easy digestible ‘Blinks’ which can either be read or listnened to via the audio player built into the […]


Dividend Imputation

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Australia has a full dividend imputation system which gives investors an incentive to invest in Australian companies. The nice Australian tax office prevents people being taxed again on dividends that the company has already paid tax on, preventing double taxation. We are lucky, the US does not have dividend imputation and the UK has a […]


Lastpass Emergency Access

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I’ve often wondered what would happen to my online accounts when I die and more importantly how my loved ones would get access to them. Well Lastpass has now solved this problem with Lastpass Emergency Access. In a nutshell – you give someone you trust access to your Lastpass account by nominating them. They then […]


Ethical Superannuation?

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A friend asked me to look at www.australianethical.com.au for your superannuation, I wasn’t very impressed. Maybe ethical for companies, but what about retirees? 1 – Fees are too high MySuper balanced option total fees are (1.134%). The lowest fees are Hostplus – indexed balanced option (0.03%) which works out at about $100,000 less in retirement […]