Archives for August 2012

If you missed part 1 of what my life in Canberra could have been like in the 1970s then go and see it. It saw me moving to Canberra to work in a great job with the Australian government in a secretarial capacity.

Part 2 explored the great things I could do outside of work including shopping in air conditioned malls.

This is the final part of the series.

The wide range of activities continues. One day sees me in an olympic sized pool having a swim, or horse riding, or at one of the many sports clubs available.

Lake Burley Griffin provides a great opportunity for sailing, and it just so happens that friends of mine have a sailing boat. How handy. After a spot of sailing go to the park with my boyfriend and smile sweetly at him while holding a flower.

So are you convinced that moving to Canberra is a good idea? No, not yet? Oh, come on! You can request further information about working in Canberra by writing a letter. Telephones were around but making a call cost a bit too much for an out of work secretary so that wasn’t an option.

And just in case you’ve forgotten what you can do in Canberra if you come to live here, below is a reminder, or you can look back through part 1 and part 2.

Tis not often that I have a picture of myself and even less often that I take one of myself.

I am in a good mood. I feel excited by what’s around the corner even though I have no idea what that is.

And if you didn’t read my oh so helpful post about changing banks then you totally should.

And hi to all the others who do Wordless Wednesday. And I know my contribution nearly always ends up being a bit wordy. Probably because I’m a bit bolshy.

I recently changed banks – something I’d resisted for a few years but caved in and refinanced my existing mortgage and financed a new one. It’s the only reason I changed but there’s things to remember as I’ve outlined below.

The photo above is to remind me to keep calm as I create this because it’s not a breeze to change banks and non-fond memories are being served up but this could be a useful checklist for someone else – hopefully not me again.

Firstly, you find a new bank who will give you a really good deal because you’re a new customer and they marry you to their bank by offering a sweet honeymoon deal. It might cost as much as a wedding by the time you pay discharge fees from your existing mortgage and pay fees for the new one. Well, not quite – unless it’s a cheap wedding.

You ring up the old bank to see if they can match the great deal you’re being offered. You say that you’ve been a loyal customer for years and surely they can match it. You really don’t want to change, but you give them the ultimatum. Lower your fees or I’m leaving.

And you sign that discharge form while you write a list of other things you  have to do as a consequence of changing banks.

Afterall it’s not just a home loan that you’re moving, it’s a savings/offset account and a credit card and there’s lots of automatic things happening in the background you have to rearrange.

Trap number one. Remember to close all accounts at your old bank otherwise you’ll be surprised by a credit card bill that you thought you’d paid off.

It does help to have a mortgage broker because they know the ins and outs of the system. You could do it yourself but every bit of help you can get doesn’t hurt.

You go through old bank statements to find out what’s being directly debited and find a couple of things you’d forgotten about. Even after this process more things will turn up, like automatic web domain and hosting renewals, and computer virus software renewals.

Remember we’re keeping calm. Carry on. Deep breath.

You’ve been approved for your new mortgages and the ball is firmly on the roll.

You start making phone calls and sending emails to change over bank account details. This involves any government benefits like family tax benefit etc. It’s so joyful dealing with bureaucratic government departments to update your details when a simple phone call to a non-government organisation suffices.

One of the first things you do is organise online banking. Of course it’s completely different to what you’re used to. The terminology is different even though they both pretty much do the same thing.

Trap number two. Check your online banking and paper statments religiously the first few months. If you don’t you might realise that your automatic credit card payments are not working and you spend too much time on the phone trying to sort it out. At least they realise you’ve stuffed up and refund you late payment and interest fees – but only this once! You tell them why you ‘stuffed up’ by giving them some feedback about the terminology on their website.

You contact some people whose banking account details you used to have but don’t anymore because you owe them some money.

You sit back for a while, take some more deep breaths and hope like hell everything’s running smoothly now.