Justine Davies - Money for Nothing: How to Land the Best Deals on Your Insurances, Loans, Cards, Er, Tax and More

Justine Davies

First published in 2012 by Wrightbooks

an imprint of John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064

Ofce also in Melbourne

Typeset in Palatino 11/13

Justine Davies 2012

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Author:Davies, Justine.

Title:Money for nothing: how to land the best deals on your insurances, loans, cards, super, tax and more /Justine Davies.

ISBN:9780730377627 (pbk.)

Notes:Includes index.

Subjects:Finance, Personal.

Financial literacy.

Dewey Number:332.024

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Cover design by saso content & design pty ltd

Cover image: istockphoto.com/imgendesign

Pages 100, 109: Charts from the Reserve Bank of Australia, Chart Pack, Household Sector, released 3 August 2011, from www.rba.gov.au

Pages 211219: Reproduced by permission of The Treasury www.treasury.gov.au

Australian Taxation Office material Australian Taxation Office. The ATO material included in this publication was current at the time of publishing. Readers should refer to the ATO website www.ato.gov.au for up-to-date ATO information

The CANSTAR material included in this publication was current at the time of publishing. Readers should refer to CANSTARs website www.canstar.com.au for up-to-date information.

Printed in China by Printplus Limited

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Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

Foreword

No-one is born a financial guru. We all come into the world minus the money gene and struggle to learn financial skills as we grow up. I can recall in the not-too-distant past the odd relative or two dismissing acquaintances as either good with money or not. To them it was that simple. Or was it? It seemed to me that those deemed not good with money were condemned to a life of reckless spending, completely oblivious to such sensibilities as providing for family and heaven forbid saving for a rainy day. However, knowledge is indeed power and no-one is above learning sound financial skills.

This is brought home to me every day in my work at CANSTAR. It constantly surprises me how much people genuinely do not know about the financial products they use. Thats because financial products have morphed into highly complex creatures that demand attention or else seek revenge. This usually comes in the form of unnecessary fees, inflated interest rates or any other legal financial torture that can do serious damage to your hip pocket. Everyday financial products have now splintered to appeal to specialist groups in much the same way that milk is available in supermarkets as original full cream or numerous other versions with added or subtracted ingredients for this reason or that.

Too much choice can be mind-boggling. The flipside, however, is that financial products used correctly can give a much better result for a lot less when tailored to your individual circumstances. The key is clarity. Thinking clearly about your own situation, taking responsibility for the money in your life and following a plan to make that money work for your ultimate benefit is not pie-in-the-sky stuff. Its well within reach, as you will discover in the following pages.

Justine Davies will walk you through the tricks and traps of controlling your finances by demystifying financial products for example, what are the differences between the 273 personal credit cards on the market and de-cluttering your finances. Clearing out whats not useful or just taking up space in your money junkyard will get you on track in no time. It doesnt matter how little or how much money you earn either the basic principles apply to all. What appeals to me more than anything is that getting on top of your money, rather than being bamboozled by it, can mean tens of thousands of dollars to you without an extra hours work in your life.

At CANSTAR we applaud any effort to increase financial knowledge and skills, from budgeting and saving to investing and protecting money with the aim of attaining long-term financial security. We certainly understand how overwhelmed people must feel when dealing with their finances because we research and compare the gamut of banking and insurance products. The massive amount of data we collect on any given product sector is way more than most people could or would compare even if they had the time. This makes our research truly valuable, and we have thoroughly enjoyed working with Justine to help you transfer money stresses from the Too Hard basket to the Why Didnt I Do This Before? basket.

This book is bound to become a classic so treat it with the reverence it deserves, as I guarantee you will be consulting it for many years to come.

Andrew Spicer

CEO

CANSTAR

P.S. I have a confession to make about my opening sentence: I secretly do think Justine Davies was born a financial guru!