But wait... there's less!

Suddenly we're spending a lot more time at home. Sometimes we're unsure what to do with our time. We didn't choose for this to happen, but we can choose how we deal with it. Shutdown Schedule Here's my daily planner template. It's flexible so feel free to move things around and put other things in. The main idea is that it gives you a default activity to be doing at any given time. Click the image for a larger version to download, and see below for more details. Key Actions I've designed this to give us the things we'll miss while being at home all the time. Purpose Find a project that you want to work on. Time will pass quicker if you're working towards a goal. There are some suggestions in the planner. You may have some of your own. Joy Events and activities have been cancelled, but we can make our own fun. I've included some time for playing (or listening to) music, playing games (I still love Uno) or watching a movie. You might choose

To stimulate the economy during these strange times the Australian government is allowing people to raid their superannuation accounts. They'll let eligible people take out $10,000 this financial year (before 30 June) and a second $10,000 after 1 July. Why "early super access" is a bad idea While there may be an incredibly small number of people who could benefit from this, for the vast majority it seems to me to be a terrible idea. Here's why... 1. You'll pay a 37% "desperation tax" Superannuation money is invested in the sharemarket (among other things). For some it's 100% in the shares, for others it's a bit less. This morning the Australian sharemarket was at 4,564. Back on 20 Feb it was 7255. That's a drop of 37.1%. Basically, shares are going cheap. So if you own shares (and you do, through your superannuation) this is a terrible time to cash them in because you'll get a rather low amount of cash for them. If you've

It's 2169 and people are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. Time has replaced money as a currency. Each person has a clock on their arm that counts down the minutes they have left to live. Why would I watch this? I'm not watching for the action scenes, or for Justin Timberlake, or Johnny Galecki. I'm watching because in my view the premise is not too far from reality (except the genetic engineering bit). How so? We do all have a certain number of hours on this planet - though we don't know how many. We do spend these hours to buy things, or status; or at least to get cash to buy things and status. In the movie and in life time ticks away. How do we spend it? What would we do if we had more of it? What would we do if we had more than we could possibly use for ourself? Where can I see it For Australians, it will be on Channel 93 (Go!) at 7.30 tonight. Tomorrow I'll write again - once I've actually seen it.

Electricity is one of those bills that just keeps coming. Or is it? We've just received our first $0 monthly bill. So how did we do it? Low usage and good prices Even as a couple we use a bit less than the average 1-person household. Also we're with Powershop who have pretty good prices. This month would have been $80, except... Special offer When we signed up, the offer included a few monthly $25 discounts. This one took our bill down to $55. Extra bonuses Instead of spending big money on TV ads, Powershop gets new customers by offering sign-up discounts. When someone signs up through our special link they get $75 of credit and so do we. Last month my cousin took up this great offer. $75 for her, $75 for us. That took our bill to zero, with some extra credits left over to reduce next month's bill.