Lending, Peer to Peer

I forayed into the peer-to-peer lending arena about 6 months ago now. Initially, I put in $500 to test it out (I think that was their minimum point of entry). I wanted to see what all the hype was about, plus I am really annoyed that I am only getting about 2.1% p.a. in interest in my NZ savings account.

I've covered this topic before, but I'm legally banned from contributing to my US retirement accounts. I can't open a non-retirement stock market account here in NZ because I am honestly not sure what the tax implications are, and every time I ask a financial person, they cringe and tell me they don't know either--so I am not daring to risk it. At best, it would likely require some sort of daily calculation of tax loss and gain to report, done by a professional. Several years ago, tax preparation consultancies quoted me a cost of $550 PER FUND to fill out the US tax forms. And that's ON TOP of whatever tax is owed AND a fee of $575 for the rest of my return. That all makes it really difficult to save in accounts, like stocks, that may net me high returns.

If taxes weren't an issue, I'd keep an Emergency Fund of $10K and some short-term, small cash funds (US travel funds to use each year, digital SLR fund, e.g.) in cash savings. The rest of my $70K+ fortune, divided into medium-term, 5+ year savings funds (e.g. house downpayment fund, Europe travel fund) would be invested in a mix of index funds and high interest CDs. Since that option is all but taken away from me, I'm stuck holding nearly $100K in cash in a very low-interest savings account. And that makes me VERY GRUMPY.

So far, I've made an 11.2% return. I have invested in 12 loans total--4 have been paid in full already and the cash re-invested, and I have 8 more loans out (approx $550's worth) in the world.

For that first $500, I tried to choose a mix of A1 to B1 rated loans, erring towards A1. Everything is working OK and I've gotten used to how the website and loans and payments work. Therefore, in the interest (haha) of diversifying risk, I feel OK investing in riskier, high interest rate loans that are rated B2's, in order to chase after those high returns. Currently, I have:

• two A1 loans at 8.42%
• one A2 loan at 10.96%
• two B1 loans at 14.79%
• one B1 loan at 15.39%
• one B2 loan at 18.74%
• one B2 loan at 19.10%

all at amounts between $50 and $150.

My average return rate is far far higher than what I can properly invest in in the stock market. The taxes are also going to be quite simple--the returns/NZ taxes paid are clear-cut and tabulated by the lending site. No tax preparer for me, thank you very much!

Since everything is going OK, and I have a large, secure, liquid stockpile of cash to draw from if things go south, I'm going to up the ante and invest several thousand more $$ in peer to peer lending over the coming months. I'm hoping this is my replacement/silver bullet in lieu of stock market investing and its higher returns for my medium-term funds. The more loans I invest in, the more diversified I will be--more loans and $$ will offer an increasing amount of protection.

ReMuNeration...e.g. A Raise!

That's right, it's spelled 'remuneration,' not reNumeration, like I'd always thought. More deets on that here.

I work on a specific project for a commercial arm of a college, and because of that, I am not on a permanent contract. Rather, my contract has to be renewed each year and is dependent on the funding of my project being renewed. It is a pain but is business as usual here in NZ. Permanent contracts are not all that common, in any case.

My contracts tend to renew in July when my project funding renewal occurs. My boss usually gives me a very small raise each year, which is great. But apparently, the commercial arm of the University also gives 'remunerations.' These are permanent salary rises that they decide on based on the returns of the commercial arm each year, from what I can gather.

I just got a notice that they are back-dating a salary raise of $1K to January 2018! That is fantastic. It ends up being a raise of about 1.6%, but I'm part time, meaning the raise is 0.8% ish. My salary rises by $500 per year--$30,750 to $31,250 per year (minus taxes, of course).

Still, it all counts! And it is great because they match 3% of my Kiwisaver contributions, and that $$ will back-date to January, too. :)

Treading Water for 10 Years

It's been almost a decade since I wrote this post, but I still have the exact same problem.

I can't believe I've been in limbo for this long. It's not ideal, but I've gotten around the retirement thing by saving money in a very low interest savings account and in the NZ version of a retirement fund. Things are coming to a head, though--my mom was diagnosed with some health issues recently (skin cancer) and needs minor surgery. My dad's health continues to decline. I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop and force my hand!

Racist Taste Buds & Hating Mac n Cheese

How do you make good mac 'n' cheese in New Zealand? Or spell it, for that matter?

For the duration of my cooking project, I have, at various junctures, attempted to make mac'n'cheese. It has been about a year and a half now, and I still haven't mastered it!!

It is different from the other dishes I've tried to make and failed to like, mostly because the combination of cheese and, well, anything, is not easily messed up. I KNOW I like mac and cheese. I have made really GREAT mac N cheese before.

I've usually been able to blame my taste buds for many of the other dishes I've made and really disliked lately. Indian curry or soy-sesame chicken, for example. Those are dishes I feel like I should like, as an adventurous (ha!) expat living abroad and as a citizen of the world. Yet, I do not like them. It is definitely the ingredients that I do not like, or maybe the combination of the ingredients. It has nothing to do with my cooking skills and everything to do with my stupid, Southern, racist taste buds. (Yeah, I'll admit it; my taste buds are horrible people who probably voted for 45).

But Mac&Cheese? That should be a no-brainer for my fat-loving, all-American tongue-buds. In all forms, it should be really delicious.

But it's not. I'll admit some fault--somehow I don't cover all the noodles and they burn, but mostly I think it is the NZ cheese's fault. I can spend $50 on high quality cheese, or $10 on plastic cheese, and it ends up the same: gross tasting cheese sauce covering some bland noodles. It is at once bland and offensive (haha! just like my taste buds). Ugh.

On a brighter, and related, note, I have mastered mashed potatoes finally!! Apparently, my usual method of researching recipes and combining them however I like doesn't work with simple dishes like mashed potatoes. I read some article that was supposedly going to help me make the best taters ever. For whatever reason, I guess you are not supposed to do ALL of the tricks at once?? (How was I to know?!) I ended up with a huge bowl of mashed potato soup that tasted nasty.

In the case of mashed potatoes, simpler is better. Take 3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut up in quarters, plopped into boiling water til they're soft. Drain. Add a pat of butter, salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of milk that has been warmed up on the stove or in the microwave. Mash with a fork...DONE--delicious mashed potatoes for a week!

I still don't know what to do about my mac n cheese dilemma, though.

Struggles & MIA

All the sorries for being MIA. I have started and scrapped a ton of posts, mostly because they were overly negative and I'm actively trying to change my mindset to a more positive one.

Lately, I am really struggling not to extrapolate and wrap my super-tiny first world problems into my larger existential ones. For example, the fact that I seem to always chip my nail polish within a day of doing them perfectly somehow becomes symbolic of my inability to take care of myself the way I'd like to, which I then link to the consequence of the lack of male interest in me, which becomes a reminder that I am destined to spend the rest of my life as a lonely sack of a person, eating sad desk lunches. The Downward Spiral of Awful Thoughts.

Going to two close friends' beautiful weddings in the last two weeks, on top of recently ending a very close friendship that I thought was going to turn into more, on top of a few family members' healths declining, hasn't helped much on the "Everything always changes & everyone always leaves, erego I'm going to be alone forever" train of thought. As my 40th birthday looms, those thoughts have started to become all-consuming. (Now that the weddings are done with, I am also going to remove all nail polish and stop painting my nails!! :) )

It's stupid and I'm over myself doing this, but I keep getting tearful of nowhere about dumb stuff like that. I REALLY want to snap out of it and pull myself out of whatever rut this is! It's an endless cycle: tiny thing happens, it reminds me of something larger I feel is wrong/missing in my life, I get depressed and sad and cry, I hole up in my house and self-soothe with activities that make me numb to the pain of that thought (e.g. reading, sleeping, watching TV, organising my room, gardening, meditating), I remind myself of all the awesome, fantastic things I DO have in life, and I pull myself out of it and put on a brave face to the world for work or a social event I've committed to. Life is briefly OK again, and then I chip a nail (metaphorically :)). Ad nauseum. It is just a passing phase--I know this--but when you are in the middle of a rut cycle, it can feel like you are endlessly pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. Pretty soon my bootstraps are going to be over my head.


It would be really easy to keep going in this vein, but I would have to scrap this post, too, and I really don't want to do that again.

So. Why am I writing? I guess just to prove to myself that I can, I guess. To see if I can try to explain why I have been MIA in a productive, objective way.











(Yes, I am seeking help for all of this. I have a therapist who helped me work through a lot of my PhD anxieties last year, so I am hopeful that we can do the same with these issues. I just saw her last Tuesday for a long-needed catch-up and have another appointment next week.)