With the cost of living increasing significantly in recent times and interest rates hitting Aussie working families hard in the hip pocket, you’d think a nice little top up of the weekly wages would be welcome news.
But experts are warning that Fair Work Australia’s latest offering of a 3.4 per cent pay rise for the 1.4 million odd workers on award wages, along with an expected boost in mining sector wages off the back of the resources boom, could actually cost us all more in the long run.
READ POSTSome would consider it discrimination…and in a way, they’d be right. It seems banks are taking the old adage; “Never work with children or animals” – on board and slashing the amount they’ll lend to couples with children as opposed to childless applicants.
It’s not that the banks don’t like kids, it’s just that new legislation introduced as at January 1st this year dictates that banks must practice “responsible lending”. In other words, they have to do everything in their power to ensure borrowers have the capacity to meet their monthly repayments.
READ POSTWith incessant talk of interest rates in the news on a daily basis and constant speculation as to will they or won’t they go up, if they do – when will it happen and why, what state is the economy in with regard to that all important inflation issue and blah, blah, blah, blah….
Sorry, did I lose you for a minute there? Not surprised really given the findings of a recent report that revealed almost one in three borrowers have no idea what interest rate they are being charged by their lender as they become rate fatigued. Understandably, many have switched off and put this little topic in the too hard basket, or perhaps more aptly, the “Do I really have to think about this?” basket.
READ POSTBorrowers prayers have been answered yet again this month as the Reserve Bank decided to keep the official cash rate on hold at 4.75% – where it’s been since November last year when horror of horrors, it jumped by a quarter of a percentage point.
This increase fueled speculation that soon we would be making enormous monthly repayments as the RBA moved to keep inflation in check in the wake of an impending and unprecedented resources boom, hiking rates up goodness knows how many times between that fated Melbourne Cup Day and Christmas 2011.
READ POST