By Amanda Morrall
1) Teleco trickery
Some interesting shifts afoot in the telco sector of late. Since the arrival of newcomer Flip NZ, which has been seducing customers with it's offer of $49.95 for a landline and 5GB of broadband, price benchmarks have started to fall. Shortly after Flip arrived on scene, my own provider launched a similar offering dropping its price by $10 a month. Of course, they didn't bother to tell me about this when I was in the process of shifting house. I had to learn about it on-line a week later when I was trying to find out just how far out their packages were from their new competitor.
While I gave up more data, I decided to drop down to 5GB because I'm not a 'heavy user' and reasoned I was paying for something I wasn't using. I was pretty pleased with myself until I got a notice that I was close to blowing my limit and was threatened with the worst punishment an Internet user can face, short of being cut off altogether: dial up speed!
Before I could go on-line to check when my monthly allowance would turn-over, I got another letter in the post saying that my data limit had been extended to 30 GB a month, for free.
Competition is great but ultimately it is up to you and I as consumers to a) pay closer attention to our actual consumption versus what we are sold; b) getting more proactive about finding what the competition is up to; and c) taking it to the next step by switching.
Here's some more pointers on controlling Internet costs for personal and business use from the Globe and Mail. Different market but some lessons to be gleaned.
2) Principled versus predatory capitalism
Tom Clark, writing for the Guardian, looks at moves afoot in the U.K. to address the yawning gap between not only the rich and poor but the super rich and the middle class, which is predicted to be squeezed harder than ever in the coming decade. Well worth a read.
3) 10 reasons why you're still poor
Can the 1% fairly be blamed for stifling wealth creation among the masses? Not entirely. Individuals, for their part, do a lot to sabotage their own success. Invesitwisely.com comes up with 10 good reasons why you are still 'poor.'
4) Behaviour Gap
Carl Richards, author of The Behaviour Gap, shares a similar view. Markets may not perform as we want them to but ultimately, it's our behaviour - what we do and equally what we don't do - that impacts outcomes. Personal finance blogger retireby40.org explains why it's important to have a plan that accords with your own personal goals.
5) Face up to the facts
One thing for certain that will hold you back when it comes to building personal wealth is debt. The hardest part is facing up to it. Manvsdebt.com lays out a plan to get your head out of the sand and get on with the business of digging out.
To read other Take Fives by Amanda Morrall click here. You can also follow Amanda on Twitter @amandamorrall
10 Comments
#5. One of the best things I think you can do is sit down and do a household balance sheet for up to 1 year out, I can see what Ive got and where its going. With CC debt though it helps focus whats its really costing you.
The interesting thing then is on pay day you see what money you are taking away from yourself to pay the creditcard, it starts to p*ss you off big time. Then sit down and look to see how many pay days it will take to get from under it and how much interest its cost you. Then look at how healthy your household account look when you have achieved that.
It also helps de-persuade you from those interest free deals as well....
regards
One thing I find fascinating is the intellectual disconnect between ideas, principles and personal accountability. Think about this headline for a moment:
"Principled capitalism versus predatory capitalism."
Just who is this person capitalism you speak of? Not a person of course but a framework of ideas. But ideas, in anf of themselves, can't be 'predatory' or 'principled'. Someone can use ideas in a predatory or principled way by that would be to use them as verbs which implies an action some person makes.
Am I being pendantic or are we glossing over the core of the issue?
Another interesting thing I took from that Guardian article is this.
Although there are any number of commentators who can identify various and myriad injustices within society the range of solutions seem to narrow down to more regulation. At best this implies even larger government. At worst it's cynical social engineering and telling other how to live.
And yet there doesn't seem any mountain of evidence larger government and greater interference in people's lives produces the justice people are looking for.
Well I dont garee, if you look at say the Victorian era and look into the poor house, and life expectancy Then look at today I would suggest that the Welfare state has significantly improved many ppls lives.
The problem IS the population......just too many of us using up resources thats left.
Now sure you can say that its nothing to do with Govn to restrict me in my life, reproduction and use of resources, in which case within 50 years we will be back to the victorian ere like lives....it may even be a lot sooner.
regards
There are, at the very least, two glaring holes in your assertion:
1. Life expectancy and child mortality increased and decreased respectively in nations who didn't persue the welface state so the suggested correlation can't exist.
2. The largest and most instrusive government model practiced in the last 100 years was communism which didn't deliver either justice or increased life expectancy greater than small government states.
Just about all states today are in effect significantly socialist or welfare states to a greater or lesser degree. For instance we could argue that the US is less so, thats fine as thier life expectancy is the lowest in the OECD yet have some of the most advanced healthcare. Many Americans of course cant afford it and hence die off.
eg Part of the outcome of the welfare state has been more public works that have improved water quality and waste disposal. Part of the improvements in health from medical research can be attributed to the welfare state and these have spun off into less developed nations.
Communism has never existed in its true form, what you have had is various totalitarian states dressed in a red flag.
In terms of life expectancy in the USSR I dont have any data to hand but I'd be surprised if we didnt see an improvemnt in life expectancy over the zxars.
regards
I think you're right. Ultimately, it comes down to self-enlightened individuals to behave responsibly and take into consideration the impact of their actions on other peoples' livess and the environment. Unfortunately, the media doesn't do a great job of highlighting such individuals, so we are in deficit of good role models. As Ghandi once famously said "Be the change you wish to see in the world." In this sense we can address the disconnect that you speak of IMHO. :)
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