Net Worth Update: November 2009

November saw another significant increase in my net worth, although the 'Dubai announcement' adversely affected the valuations of my stock portfolio and retirement account balance on the last business day. This month the strength in the Sydney property market was augmented by similar gains in the stock market - by 30 November my net worth had risen to $830,832 (up $42,891, or 5.44%). That's still about 30% off my previous 2007 peak in NW.

My retirement account (SMSF) gained $7,598 (+2.46%) to $316,835, recovering most of the last month's loss. The recovery in the stock market was amplified by our modest amount of gearing (8 ASX200 index CFDs, code: IQ). A couple of month's worth of employer superannuation contributions were deposited into our SMSF bank account during November (around $4,000), so the result wasn't as good as it appears on the surface. I expect the December quarter employer contributions will not be deposited until sometime during January (around $6,000). Last Friday I transferred another $5,000 of our cash balance into our Vanguard "High Growth" index fund investment - hopefully the timing of this investment was just right to benefit from the one day dip in stock market indices.

The estimated valuations for my half of our real estate assets (house and investment property) were up substantially this month, by $20,365 (+0.2.53%) to $825,758. The Sydney real estate market still appears to be in an up-trend at the moment, but the winding up of Federal boost to First Home Owners grant and continued monthly rises in official interest rates will probably limit price increases until unemployement has clearly peaked. It appears that first home buyers have disappeared from the market in the past couple of months, which will probably drive down rental vacancy rates during 2010. A recent BIS forecast predicted a 21% rise in rents in Sydney over the next three years.

My stock portfolio gained $14,888 to $52,702 net equity during November (due to the high gearing levels - stock portfolio value is currently around $510,000 with $460,000 of margin and portfolio loans outstanding). The market (ASX200) appears to be consolidating around the 4700 level and I don't expect it to move much higher until company profits see further benefits from the Australian economic recovery in 2010.

I again didn't have any spare cash flow to pay off some mortgage or margin loan debt principal this month, as I continued spending on "home improvement" projects ($750 for a new sand filter for our swimming pool). Cash is likely to remain tight for the next few months as well, as I will have to pay for repairs to my digital SLR camera and the pool salt chlorinator, top-soil and turf for the new play area, and I will also have to find around $7,000 to pay for the ~270 sqm of granite wall cladding I recently bought for use on a new holiday house to be built on my parents' lakeside farm. During 2010 I'll have to finalise my requirements for the holiday house so I can get an estimate of the cost (built to "lock up" stage) and possibly proceed with getting plans drawn up for a development application to be submitted by the end of next year. Depending on how much of the construction (using Hebel or besser blocks) we do ourselves, the basic house structure may cost around $85,000. I've yet to work out how I'll pay for it ;)

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Avoiding 'bank' fees

Although I have many (too many?) different bank accounts, and our biggest 'relationship' with St George bank (our home mortgages, a margin loan account and a portfolio loan account), I've always considered my 'main' bank account to the credit union savings account I opened thirty years ago while at uni. It's always been economical to have my wages paid directly into the credit union account as there is no monthly account keeping fee, and, until recently, there were no fees for writing cheques or making on-line bill payments or transfers. There was a limit to the number of "free" transactions each month, but I had never exceeded the limit.

A few months ago the credit union announced a new, variable monthly transaction fee 'allowance' that is based on the total size of the 'relationship' you have with the credit union each month. As my savings account balance tends to fluctuate between $0 and several thousands of dollars during the month, some months I only have the minimum $25 fee "allowance" and other months I'm allocated a $50 "allowance". As my usual monthly activity (bill payments, transfers, cheques and ATM cash withdrawals) usually adds up to around $25 dollars in notional "fees" some months I've ended up having to pay out $2 or $5 in fees. It was especially annoying when I thought I was just under the monthly limit, only to have a couple of cheques presented on the last business day of the month!

To avoid having to pay any fees I now transfer some money from my personal credit union account to the "joint" account DW and I opened after getting married and pay some of my bills out of that account. A transfer between accounts within the credit union has no fee, and while the joint account generally has almost no cash in it, it is still allocated the minimum $25 "fee allowance" each month. By paying some of my bills using the joint account I can effectively double my monthly fee "allowance" to $50, which means I can make around 25 transactions each month without being charged a fee.

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Building a Castle, one stone at a time

I've always been an aficionado of castles, and even made a bid (unsuccessfully) to buy a small Scottish 'castle' (actually a manor house) a few years ago that was an ex-boy's remand school in need of substantial renovation. However, the combination of the UK property price boom and then the GFC makes it unlikely I could ever afford to buy a 'castle' fixer-upper, and DW was never all that keen on the idea of migrating to Scotland! So, I've now decided to build my own 'castle' as a holiday home on my parent's lake-side farm on the mid-north coast, with a view to eventually retiring there.

Not being totally insane, my 'castle' will actually be a modern DIY 'kit home' with some stylistic features reminiscent of medieval European architecture. Although I haven't even settled on a final house plan yet, the key feature will be to clad the exterior walls of the house with real stone panels, such as the 'rock face' granite cladding imported by Cinajus. The RRP for the granite cladding normally ranges from $106.33 per sq. m (white granite) to $136.67 per sq. m (for 'black' granite), and was recently on special for around $80 per sq. m. A few days ago I was checking that the product was still available, and found that Cinajus was having a clearance sale on some small 'remainder' stock for only $25 per sq. m! After much consideration (and two trips to the display yard by my parents to collect samples of the available granite colours) I've bought the stock of about 82 m^2 of white and 87 m^2 of 'black' granite wall panels. This should be just about the right quantity to clad a modest two-storey kit home. The cost of delivery of the 30 tonnes of stone to my parent's farm will add around $20 per sqm to the final cost, but the total cost will still only be around 30% of the normal RRP plus delivery.

Once I've found a few kit-home plans that I like, the next step will be to get an architect to draw up a plan with the features I like, and allows for the exterior to be clad using this stone. I'm not sure that a standard steel house frame will be strong enough to support this cladding, so I may end up building the exterior walls in hebel aerated concrete blocks, or plain old concrete 'besser' blocks. One major advantage of building the house will concrete walls and clad in granite will be a high degree of fire resistance -- very useful given the rear of the farm property adjoins the Wallingat National Park and is therefore at risk from bush fires.



Attaching the stone cladding to the new house will be a major endeavour - even though each 600x300mm piece isn't too hard to handle (weighing around 30kg), the entire consignment consists of around 940 pieces (28 tonnes in total!). Hopefully the finished product will end up looking something like this:

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Astronomical Expenses

I phoned the JCU Centre for Astronomy again today to check that I'd mailed my MAstron application form to the correct address and had included all the required documentation. I didn't want to wait until next January to find out that my application was incomplete or had not arrived at all! I wasn't sure that everything was OK because the instructions printed on the 'one size fits all' post-grad application form had been different to the information provided on the Centre for Astronomy website. After putting me on hold for a while they were able to confirm that everything was in order and my application had, apparently, just been 'signed off' by the Dean. A letter of offer should be mailed out to me in the next week or two. When it arrives I'll then have two weeks to accept the offer, send in certified copies of my uni transcripts and pay the 2010 fees.

I haven't been able to find the originals of my uni transcripts (I think I mis-filed last time I took them our to make copies), so I had to phone UTS, UWS and CSU unis to order certified transcripts from each institution (total cost $65).

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Since applying for the MAstron course I've been browsing through online journals to find out what the 'hot' research topics currently are and checked out the publication lists of the JCU staff. I also browsed through the online catalogues of various US-based telescope retailers, and ended up ordering a Meade Pro II CCD digital camera ($499) to use with my Meade 10" SC telescope. I also ordered a Coronado PST Solar Telescope ($999) for viewing prominences, active regions, filaments, and other surface details of the sun (it has a 'Double Stack' H-Alpha system that provides a bandpass of <0.5 Angstrom) - unfortunately there is a six month wait due to a production back-log.

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