Happy Commonwealth Day
Yes, it's true. The Queen has ordained a day for celebration of the continuing creation of the Commonwealth of England. Over 1.6 billion people are contained in this, so I thought I would give it it's due.
Spoke to Chris, my best (male) friend late last night. He and his
girlfriend, May Ling, are buying a house!
Congrats and
kudos to you my friend - hope you can afford it!
The conversation went something like this:
Chris: "Hey Kev, big news. Guess what May Ling and I are doing..."
Me: (laughter in my voice) "OH MY GOD - May Ling is pregnant! CONGRATULATIONS! Ha Ha Ha - oh wait - it's not true is it?"
Chris: "Hehe, no, she's not pregnant. But almost as big..."
Me: "You bought a house - that flat - the one in the city with the windows didn't you?!"
Chris: "Yep! We signed the documents an hour ago! We are going to own nice property in the middle of the CBD!"
Me: "Wow! That's great! How much, if I can ask...?"
Chris: "Title is for $345,000"
Ok, the thing is, Chris is 21. 21 years old. May Ling is 20. 20 years old! And they are buying a fucking house! Not
renting one, not yet totally finished their
university degrees, both
living at home with their
parents, never lived away from home, not really capable of managing a rental property and they ARE BUYING A BLOODY HOUSE!
Good luck to them!
Me: (in joking
sexist voice, very unlike me and thus funny) "Wow! Hey Chris, let me put it this way - your '
duty' if she was pregnant lasts 9 months, but if you buy a house together it can last 10 or 20 years!"
Chris: "Hahahahahaha..." (relays the joke to May Ling) "She says that is pretty funny - and true."
The remainder of the
conversation was based on how they are going to
pay for the flat, where they are going to get the money, who is going to live there and how soon they can move in.
Basically, they already have a new tenant lined up - the old owner, a nice 40-ish woman, organised for it - and the rental management company has given them an 18 month guarantee of tenancy valued at $650 per week - basically if it isn't let, they get paid anyway. So after that 18 month period, they are probably going to move in there themselves. Just the two of them in a $1000 per week rental property.
The rub was that they want to get as much capital as possible to reduce the amount borrowed in the mortgage. They said "Can we borrow $5000 off your credit card, pay you the interest and repay you in a few weeks?" NO WAY
Decisions, decisions.
Budgets (see
here) were
scrutinised today. The accounts manager asked "Whats going to be
capital expenditure, and what is general?" I explained that all of the
equipment costs were capital and everything else was general. Then she turned around and said "No, you are wrong, since they are going in to existing
projects." I explained to her there ARE NO existing projects, and we
toussled verbally for 15 minutes. I was right, and she ignored me in the end. Ahh well.
I finally paid off an
errant mobile phone bill - oh, just $250 or so. Nothing too big. It was the "We will cancel your credit cards and take your house and blacken your name and write rude words on your car with
spray paint and laugh publically at you" letter that made me do it - maybe because I DON'T LIVE AT MY OLD ADDRESS AND YOU DIDN'T UPDATE MY DETAILS WHEN I TOLD YOU could they give me a little
leverage and
compassion?
Blerg.
It also rained like all buggery today. And I forgot my umbrella. *sigh*