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Lady Lunchalot — who has an awesome foodblog, and who is also participating in the Blogathon right now — submitted a story about the woeful state of Australian personal finance.
One in seven Australians are banking on winning the lottery to deliver them financial security.
A new poll, released to coincide with a campaign to boost Australians’ financial literacy, has also found 8 per cent of people think the best place to put their savings is in a jam jar under the bed.
The Federal Government today will launch its campaign that is aimed at making Australians more aware of the importance of knowing how to manage their money.
Personal finance education is an issue everywhere, not just the U.S.
[Financial plan: win lottery, stash under bed — Don't try this at home.]
This article is about Funny Money Saturday, 29th July 2006 (by J.D. Roth)
July 29th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Is “oy!” an appropriate comment? Good. That is about all my bloggin’ brain can handle right now.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:24 am
The same is true (if not worse) in New Zealand. Low wages across the board, high-cost of living plus very low financial understanding.
Also, as we don’t have capital gains tax (yet), owning a property or two is often seen as the only means of supplementing a Superannuation payout for retirement.
As a result, most Kiwis have been priced out of the home ownership market when the real estate market was long overdue for a bust.
October 16th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
This is little different to the average US person, too
October 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am
and here I was thinking that was the perfect plan- a big pile of lottery winning under my bed would make it so nice and soft…. ;D
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:07 am
Not quite.
Australia has had compulsory superannuation since 1992. All employers must make superannuation contributions to the employees’ designated superannuation fund - a minimum of 9% of the employees salary. They cannot touch this money until they retire.
So every person in Australia is saving AT LEAST 9% of their salary for retirement.
So Australians have one of the highest savings rates in the world. Pre 1992 it was one of the lowest, and the Prime Minister (Keating) at the time realized that the Government would not be able to pay for old age pensions (much like UK and US now) so introduced compulsory superannuation.