王盈方醫師瘋狂之旅 Dr Yvonne Wang's Blabberings

I've never done any accounting or economics as a school student. Under the caring wing of my mother, I never had to worry a thing about finances! Now I've got a lot of catching up to do!

1) Calculating my net income for 2007
Salary before tax: $48,025,
Salary after tax: approx $33,868
Living expense: $18,000 (as I will still be living with my mom, I just have to pay this amount to her, which covers rent, food, electricity, internet etc, and this is considered cheap)
University debt: $3,600 (I have to pay back this amount per year to my parents… this will go on for 22 years as I will need to pay back $80,000 in total, on top of all my living expenses etc… so I will need to pay back at a faster rate as I start earning more money)
Total savings: $12,266/year

2) Money eating bank
Bank issues are always so freaking annoying. Commonwealth and Westpac Banks kept charging me monthly accounts even though they're not supposed to! Only started paying more attention to this issue now since I’m about to go out into the society and need to manage my finances! I thought they would refund me fully, but what money eaters they are: they refused! Commonwealth only refunded $15 when they've charged me $5/month over the last 1.5 year! Westpac has charged me for 3 years and refused to refund anything! But at least Westpac won’t charge monthly fees if my balance is above $2500 – and I shall do that soon!

3) The real estate agent/landlord’s mind games
We've been renting the same place since 2003. Our price is pretty good compared to the other units in the same building. Just about every year, we were told by the real estate agent that the landlord wanted to raise the rent by $20-30 per week. Every year, my mom threatened them that she will move out if the price rises that much. So the price ended up increasing by $10 per week each year instead. Last year, my mom told the agent that it was alright to increase $10 on the condition that the land lord promise that they will not increase the price in 2007.
So what trick did these people have up their sleeves this year? On Jan 4, we received a letter from the agent saying the landlord want to take back the unit for their own occupancy and we needed to evacuate the unit on Jan 25! That got us all worried and we looked up the net for units for rent. The following day my mom called the agent and asked if they’d reconsider the issue if she pays a higher rent. Within 5 minutes, the agent called back and said the landlord no longer wanted to take the unit back if a higher rent is paid! We wonder if he even talked to the landlord – it could be all his own doings and he just blames it all on the landlord! After all, agents get more money with higher rents it seems! So the rent ended up increasing by $60 per week! And then, they only allowed us to sign a 1-year contract…. We wanted a longer contract like 1-2 years and they simply refused – so they can play more tricks again next year! We then found another place on Sussex St that’s much bigger and quieter and has a nicer view for the same price! We wanted to move there and my mom asked if they’d let her sign a 1.5 year contract, and they agreed…. Then the next day when my mom was about to pay the deposit, they told her the contract is for half a year only…. So we decided not to move because the agent/landlord of this unit isn’t any less tricky than our agent/landlord. Unfortunately, all of these tricky agents/landlords are of Asians…

Year of the pig… my 24th bday's coming up soon! Hope it will be a lucky year for the pigs… since I really need a lot of luck! Time to think of ways to make more money too! Doctors earn too little!