Not much has happened in the last month of note.

Moved out into our own place.
Feels good to not feel we are being slowly worn down by a cult.

Work is the same.
Still saving away.
Tax office froze my refund until we 'work out' A few errors.

My tax agent is a saint.
She even filled in my business activity statements on her own time.
She's clearly a bit of a cougar and Im more then happy to play bleating cub as long as she helps me out with the tax department.

She got them to waive over $4000.00 in fines so far and she feels confident she can get the rest done. :P

Also I have relised the motto "buying quality never costs" is very true as a few cheap mobile phones have failed me of late.

Still wrestling with Australian immergration. The are the immovable force that doesnt reconise human as a condition on application.

Will up date infrequantly lol.

Till then

Master Lewis

Time for a rant. It's gonna be a long one.
This is almost 1 year and 9 months in the making.

Where to begin. Lets see.
Chris and Tim.
My two best friends of 10 years. Went through high school, beginning work years, apprenticeships, loves, losses and everything else friendship takes you on.
How ever, events of the last few months and new information has had me re-evaluating my criteria of friends.

Let's start with Chris.
Mr chris:
Finished school and did nothing for 6 years. I'm not talking worked miniumum wage - I mean LITERALLY sat at home every day for 6 years and played video games.

His parents eventually kicked him out and he moved to the big city.

We both got jobs in the same places and earned the same coin. This was in my days of terrible money habits and I had some equally bad debts.

It was about 1 year after we began our work in the city when I decided to get my financial education.
Both Tim and Chris were along for the ride.
We read all the same 40+ books as each other. We talked about the same behavioural corrections we needed and helped each other.

Chris and I even ran a business together that made some great profit.
But as time wore on, it was clear having the knowledge and using it were two differant things.
As I worked my way from the darkness of debt and into the light others did not.
Chris began working part time and struggling month after month.
For a period of 3 months I even bought him his weekly groceries.

Eventually he got a great job getting $2800.00 per week AFTER tax.
He moved into a nice home and after the first week was completely debt free.

Before leaving Australia to go marry my wife, I stayed with him and his partner for about 4 days.
At this point, he had a reliable vehicle, no debts, $3000.00 in the bank and guaranteed high income for 5 months.

I left and came back 5 months and three weeks later to find:

Chris is broke, $5000.00 in debt, not one house hold appliance extra, a terrible car and a worse attitude.

Now when I left for overseas certain deals were made.

One: My stuff would be stored in his shed.

Two: He would purchase my prized road bike for a pitiful sum of $2500.00. He would ride and maintain it and upon my return I would then repurchase it for $3000.00. The market value for it is at least $8000.00 and I had owned it for 5 years.

Three: Final deal was we could reside with him until we had secured ourselves enough to stand on our own.

How did that turn out?
Well, after blowing all his money, he sold my bike for $1800.00. It totally broke my heart.
When this money ran out he then sold some of my personal items.
And after staying with him for only a week and a half, we were asked to leave because his partner disliked my wife.

And we arrived back on a sunday, the next day he recieved a tax check for $5500.00 and by thursday he was broke.

We have not spoken since but he has joined the army, left his partner and is trying to get back in my life.
I do not have room or time for fair weather friends.

Tim, however, is a great friend. Now while he educated himself finacially, he is still terrible and cannot save. However, my problem is not with him - but his parents.

We have moved into his home and since this time got to know them on a whole new level.

Where do I begin?
Religion: Now I am NOT religious. However I do not hold bias or judgement for those who are.
But, since being here, all my boundaries have been pushed.
I'm talking extremist Crusade Christains.
The mother actually believes she is a prophet.
Yes, you read right. Like Jesus and Mohammed.
She was actually asked to leave several churches because she was trying to tell them God wanted them to invest in some real estate plan of hers.
She is very controlling.
My wife is of Lebanese descent and looks very middle eastern.
They constantly preach about the "evil Muslims" (she is not religious).

They even went as far to say because my wife's father is muslim (he is not, this is a presumption because he is middle eastern) then he has the curse of evil on him,so my wife cannot have a relationship with our son because the curse will be passed down through generations.
You couldn't make this stuff up!
They have even said if a jew murders an arab, they will stand by the Jew because as Christians, that's their place.

They do weekly exorcisms and faith healings.
It's ridiculous.
They are the very extremists they try warn the world about.
Financially, the mother is the worst human alive.
When she met her husband, he was 50, and owned two homes (no easy feat in Australia). She was 35.
She borrowed against his homes to start a business.
The business failed.
They lost everything including their retirement savings.

Fast forward.
After getting out of the 7 year bankruptcy only 4 years ago, she is a monster.
During the bankruptcy, my friend Tim began his apprenticeship and recieved a $13 000.00 loan for his first car.
However, because he was only 17, the money went into his mothers account.
She spent it all. And NOT on the bankrupcy. Today he is still paying off this loan.
With their now ruined credit rating, they get a self managed super fund that the fathers, Tim's and another family friends (Kieth) super money went into.
Sadly, even though she contributed nothing, she still held a 25% stake in its shares.
They then used the trust to get a mortgage on some land. They planned to subdivide the title and sell one.
It took three years but it sold. they used the money to pay off the mortgage on the remaining land and all taxes.
Said and done they ended up with a cool $231 000.00
This was to build their dream home on the remaining property.
First order of business?
Blow out $25 000.00 holiday for 4 weeks to America. But to a church. Morning star.

When they return they have bought the sole rights to some company selling religious grape seeds.
I swear, I'm not making this up.
The company was one of those typical pyramid schemes.
Didn't matter what you were selling, it was about getting 5 friends signed up, then they get 5 friends each signed up and you retire a millionaire never having to work again. An army of people peddeling Religous grape seeds for you.

As predicted on, thier previous business acumen failed miserably. She made 0.40 cents.
She was even ripping off the fourth memeber of their trust until he caught her and confronted her. He has since withdrawn from the super fund.

Now the coupe de grace;
the event that has sent me over the edge of my silent endurance.

Tim is a marine engineer. He works away for months at a time and gets great money.

The mother has bad teeth. She priced the dental work here:
$10 000.00
So she shops around and finds that in Thailand she can have the same work done for $3000.00 great savings.
However, she booked 18 days even though it's a one day proceedure, gets a friend and books hotels and tour packages and the trip totals out at $13 000.00.
How about stay and save $3000.00
But her husband wont let her have this money.
So she logs into Tim's accounts and takes the money from him. He returned from sea just a few days ago and he hasn't even $100.00 for his time away.
AND SHE CANT EVEN GET THE PROCEEDURE DONE.
But does she come home early ?
Nope.
Facebook update: "Having cocktails and massages by the pool"
THANK EVERYTHING GOOD IN THIS world she has no control over me or my wife.

She micromanages everything.
AND she has ministries with people who look to her for advice because they truly believe she is a prophet.
She even convinced one girl to quit university because that's what God was telling her.
God instead wants her to work for a knock down hourly rate at the Cafe the church they go to owns.

Financially, this is total INSANITY!
I've been here 9 months and I feel I'm losing it. I feel "are we the only people who think exorcising in tongues over dinner is weird?"

Ontop of all this I stated earlier Tim was a great guy. Until I found out that when I was with my ex partner he and her had their own thing on the side.

Sigh. Are we really who we surround ourselves with?

On a positive note, we move out next weekend into our own place.
Saving away like usual,
excitedly awaiting to start studying.



Master Lewis

Well, I did it.

Finally, after four years, I have gotten my Tax in order.
It was almost as painful as I thought it would be but the tax department let slide a few things I was sure I would be pulled through the wringer for.

One must declare ALL income when running their own business.

So ending result was all interests were waived on fines that were paid in full and I would have been happy to break even but I still manage to pocket a cool $3500.00.

The best thing is my wife and I have just found a school and the course we would like to complete and the price was great for full cash payment. But, alas, this would take 16 weeks to save for.

However, now its only a matter of two weeks before the coin hits the account and we can begin.

Going back to school and changing careers has been one of my biggest dreams for the last year.

I work in the heavy engineering side of things and we are always out in the yards in the 40 degree heat or 5 degree cold.

I know many make the pilgrimage from the office to the hands on industry but I do not want to be swinging spanners in two years time.

I want to be in a nice office.
Weather will not dictate the enjoyment of my day.
My skin will not be punished for some evil chemical I must be submerged in.

Although, between this dream and I lies one year of study and a few thousand dollars.

A small obstacle for a motivated man, I assure you.

I guess my goals for 2010 will be to get a solid foundation down.

First will be to get a good $10 000.00 saved and then get the first course I need out of the way.

These two things would be my biggest goals for the year.

Master Lewis

My first entry.
I guess to know where I'm going it helps to know where I have been.

Up until 5 years ago, I was on the usual path of people who haven't a clue about money. Example:
A load of loans and credit card debts, powerful sports cars, run down home and no tangible assets of any kind.

I remember sitting at the table with bills and bills and bills piled up and thinking I know exactly how much money I have, and then knowing that it was no way near enough.

So where did I begin? I remember I picked up a copy of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad."
One year later it all ended when I found a copy of the "Richest Man in Babylon." Since then, I find that every bit of knowledge or advice concerning money can be found in this book.

For almost two years I have tracked every cent I have spent, saved or lost.
I met the girl of my dreams and chased her across Canada and the Middle East.

All the adventures resulted in us married and standing in an Australian airport with $4.05 in our pocket and a suit case each to call our own.
That was March 22nd, 2009.
It is now the 13th of January 2010 and we are expecting our first son within days; we have gone through the expensive and time costly wringer that is Australian Immigration.
We have a place of our own.
We own a reliable nissan patrol 4x4.
We have over 3 months of food in our cupboards.
We have not even $1.00 of debt.
We own completely everything we eat, drive and wear.
Despite having a pitiful income due to the economy, my wife and I still manage to save $204.00 a week.

I will update regularly as we try to reach our goals for 2010.

- Master Lewis