Setanta wrote on Jul 5
th, 2018 at 10:14pm:
freediver wrote on Jul 5
th, 2018 at 10:07pm:
Quote:edit: For example, if I was getting 80k net a year, I could put 30 or 40k away easily if I did not raise my spending to match my income.
Same here. And live very well.
CC interest rates are not too high. I put nearly all my purchases on credit cards. I pay zero interest. If you don't like it, don't get one. The banks have to cover their costs for these small and unreliable loans. If you think they are making too much money, you should get in the money lending business.
Hmmm.. When they give me only 3% for the highest interest for money I can access(not fixed term) and they charge me 18% to borrow, that's not a fair deal. If CC interest was fixed to the interest return on, for example, fixed term deposits, it would be much fairer. I know what they are and can work with that but it is still exorbitant compared with what you get for them using your money, and that is what they are doing.
OOHHH, one of my favourite subjects. You know I had an uncle who fought in WW2, served in the Middle East and Kokoda. Well, when he was getting on, I used to help him a little with shopping and stuff, to keep him in his own home and independent. One day he asked me to take him to the bank, and he brought the wrong passbook with him. It was '89 or '90, abouts, and interest rates were crazy. When we went to fill in a withdrawal slip I saw he had nearly 400k in his passbook. I was so angry I immediately demanded that we see the manager. My uncle had been with this bank his whole life, and while they were lending his money out to others at 18to22%, he was getting the princely return of 2.7%. I asked the manager why he had never been offered any investment advice as to putting his money into anything other than the lowest possible return, passbook accounts. He said people have to ask for that, and they can organise an appointment to discuss it.
I told him that he was a slimey little toad, that this man he was happily exploiting was a hero of our country, and deserved far better treatment than they had given him, and I wanted all my uncles accounts immediately closed, and cheques made up for the money. We then went to a bank down the road, put 20 grand into an everyday saver account, paying 8.5%, and 50k into a six month fixed term getting 15%, and the 350k or so left into a two year term deposit at 15.5 or .75%, I can't remember now, but it was a bit more than the six month rate.
Being from simple, but poor backgrounds, my family had no idea of finance and investment, and trusted the bank manager implicitly to look after their interests. In 1945, when he came home from war, it was true, but by 1990 it was an anachronistic idea, scoffed at as stupid and naive.
Business had adopted the WC Fields philosophy, never give a sucker an even break.
Fek the banks ,fek the corporations, and the fekkers who say they owe nobody but shareholders decent behaviour.