New Windows Backup Tool - a trial.

Ouch!

I hope I didn’t come across as ungrateful. We are extremely fortunate but the Govt and companies are smashing us. So, for the point, let’s say I need AU$200.00 a year for OneDrive, it’s something that I would have to balance. Or I could archive. Which is something a smart person would probably do?

My wife and I are both heavy users of Microsoft Word, Excel, OneNote, and OneDrive. The Microsoft 365 Family plan subscription is $99/year or just $50 individually. For the $50 we each get all of Premium Office and we each get our own individual 1TB of OneDrive. That's an absolutely incredible bargain! Microsoft 365 is on autopay and renews automatically every year.

antspants said:

Compared to the USA, our wages are quite high. I’ve read some shocking comparisons with trades people, sales staff etc. Huge margin. But everything here pretty much costs more. Basic health insurance for my wife and my son and I is AU$400 a month. Utilities are through the roof. Even being conservative, I am paying 700/800 every 4 months for electricity. House rates for the GOV is about $900 every 4 months, water is about 500 to 600 for the same period.

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I'm sorry to learn that you're struggling on the beautiful Gold Coast.
I love that place.

Stigg said:

I'm sorry to learn that you're struggling on the beautiful Gold Coast.
I love that place.

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Thanks, Stigg. I wouldn’t say struggling. It’s just not nice watching your (my wife's) money flutter away on nothing extravagant. Plus it was entirely our fault for getting such a ridiculous mortgage, which I will add is going from a fixed rate after two years, which was 2.something percent, to something ridiculous in Jan (The bank said for us, nearly an extra 2 to 300 a week)
Also, I didn’t factor in my earnings, which I can’t really do because of an NDA. It would be just my luck to be read in here.

The Gold Coast get’s meh after 30 years. It’s no Melbourne or Sydney. The music scene doesn’t in any way compare to Melbourne, where my heart is.

antspants said:

Plus it was entirely our fault for getting such a ridiculous mortgage, which I will add is going from a fixed rate after two years, which was 2.something percent, to something ridiculous in Jan (The bank said for us, nearly an extra 2 to 300 a week)

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Ouch, yeah those adjustable rate mortgages are real killers. If it makes you feel any better, my wife and I bought our first house in the US in 2000, and the market was booming. We got a 30 year adjustable rate mortgage that started at 8.75% for the first year and was adjustable thereafter. At about the 18 month mark we refinanced to 6.25% for 15 years. Our payment went up only about $20 and took off 180 payments. We were literally saving more in interest (about 1.5x) than the loan we took out. We only intended to stay in that house about 5-7 years, but then the market tanked, foreclosures skyrocketed and our house value plummeted almost 60%. We stayed in the house 19 years, but had it paid off.

On the new house we bought in 2019, we financed at 30 years at 4.75%, then did a refi to 3.375%, and a short while later got a 15 year at 2.25%. I encourage everybody to do whatever you possibly can to get into these shorter term mortgages. You save an absolutely incredible amount of money that way.

@antspants : I worked for an Australian company for about 8 years here in their US office. From 2008 to 2016.

The US has some mind-boggling history regarding finance. I’ve watched some incredible documentaries.

antspants said:

The US has some mind-boggling history regarding finance. I’ve watched some incredible documentaries.

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Going back some 56 years, my husband and I bought a "used" house with an FHA rate of 12%. After we'd had it for a few years, a huge sinkhole (were they even called that back then?) opened up in the back yard. Needless to say, we lost our butts when we had to walk away from it; no insurance coverage because such had never been heard of . . .

Wynona said:

Going back some 56 years, my husband and I bought a "used" house with an FHA rate of 12%. After we'd had it for a few years, a huge sinkhole (were they even called that back then?) opened up in the back yard. Needless to say, we lost our butts when we had to walk away from it; no insurance coverage because such had never been heard of . . .

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That’s incredible, and very horrible for you. We have them here, not so much as in America. I’m not even sure if one could be covered for that here, it probably falls under an act of nature.