Fwd: From Uni dropouts to software magnates

(ASHER MOSES July 15, 2010)

An Australian company which started in a Sydney garage on a $10,000 credit card debt has just raised $US60 million after selling a minority stake to a large US venture capital firm.


Atlassian, which sells software used by many of the world's largest companies, is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars and its young founders, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, are bathing in riches.

The pair formed the company in 2002 when they were both 22, after meeting at the University of New South Wales while studying science/IT degrees.
 
Both dropped out of university to join the start-up world, a risk that has clearly paid off as the company now has 225 employees based in Sydney, San Francisco and Amsterdam.


Last year its revenue was $US58 million and in 2006 Ernst & Young awarded Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes the Entrepreneur of the Year prize.

The $60 million investment from Accel Partners is significant because the firm has a history of picking winners. It was an early investor in Facebook and mobile advertising company AdMob, which last year sold to Google for $US750 million.

Amazingly, Atlassian has never had to raise any money since its initial $10,000 investment from the founders, as it has been profitable from day one. The amount raised from Accel is almost unheard of for an Australian ICT company.

"We built the first version of our product while working in the garage before we even had our first office," said Farquar in a phone interview.

"We want to grow it to a billion dollars and be the first Australian software company to do that."

The team are well on their way to that goal, with 20,000 business customers in 134 countries. Farquar said he would soon attempt to take the company public and planned to hire another 100 engineers within the next two years.

Atlassian's products are aimed at streamlining product development, with various pieces of software allowing businesses to manage tasks and workflow, track bugs and collaborate on projects. It also makes a range of tools specifically for software developers.

All of the world's top 10 software companies - including Microsoft and Oracle - use its products, as do seven of the 10 largest global companies, including Shell and Toyota. Other customers include major universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale and MIT; telco giants including Nokia Verizon and AT&T; and major online retailers like Amazon and BestBuy.

"Our original goal as founders for the company was just to earn as much money as our friends were earning working for soul destroying consulting companies like IBM or PriceWaterhouseCoopers - they all got great jobs earning $50,000 a year," said Farquhar.

"[Now] our goal is to be known as an Australian success story, as a company that everyone in Australia knows and can point to and say, wow, those guys have done a really good job and we're really proud of them."

But it wasn't an easy road - for the first three years Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes pumped all earnings into the business and were surviving off their university scholarship money of about $300 a week. Now, they can afford to devote 1 per cent of employee time and revenue to philanthropic activities.

Atlassian has learned from Google that keeping staff happy with a fun culture and perks is critical to a successful business. Each Friday the Sydney team knocks off at 1pm for a poker tournament, and with Accel's investment, each employee will get a share of the wealth through stock options.

Every year, the company stages an elaborate Christmas party for staff. Past efforts include an "amazing race"-type event around Sydney, a circus day (staff learned how to trapeze, juggle, unicycle, etc) and a Robin Hood event where the team learned archery and rock climbing.

"We just want to make a place that's great to come to work because people just spend so much time at work, we just wanted to make an awesome environment," said Farquhar.

Ian Birks, chief executive of the AIIA, Australia's peak ICT industry association, said Atlassian was a great case study of how an aspiring ICT company based in Australia could achieve global success.

"Despite the less favourable business ecosystem that exists in Australia for entrepreneurial software R&D compared to other parts of the world, it is great to see outstanding role models like Atlassian continuing to thrive," he said.
 
(Source: Syndey Morning Herald)

No market for risk as investors lose faith in sharemarket

MANY individual investors were tiptoeing back into stocks last year. Now, they're running for cover again.

Karen and Roger Potyk, a comfortably retired couple in San Antonio, Texas, had clung to some stock mutual funds despite their anxiety following the financial crisis of 2008. But the renewed market volatility following the “flash crash” of May 6 proved too much to bear.

“We just didn't want to put up with it any more,” says Karen Potyk. She and her husband sold the last of their stock holdings on May 20, moving the money to bonds, certificates of deposit and bond-like annuities.

Small investors' faith in stocks, which surged in the 1990s, has collapsed since the technology-stock debacle and the Enron and WorldCom scandals of 2000-02. The 2007-09 financial crisis only made things worse. Now, the pullback among ordinary investors means they are a declining force in a market that is increasingly dominated by professionals.

Some were tantalised by equities during the 70 per cent rally that began in March 2009 and ran through April. But mutual-fund data and other clues suggest that that brief infatuation has ended.

In 2002, investors withdrew more money from mutual funds that invest in US stocks than they put in. From 2007 through 2009, they withdrew money for three consecutive years. That marked the first three-year period of withdrawals since 1979-1981, according to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual-fund trade group. This year, US-stock funds saw inflows in January, March and April, but net withdrawals resumed in May.

Investors talk of a growing disillusionment with big institutions, including corporations, government, banks and political parties - as well as fears about the nation's heavy debt. Some people's confidence in stocks was seriously shaken by the volatility that returned in May. They worry that the May 6 flash crash, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 700 points in eight minutes before rebounding, is a sign that ordinary people are increasingly at the mercy of anonymous companies that trade with powerful computers.

Individual investors were important market pillars in the 1990s, but their flight from stocks is changing the market dynamic. By adding money to mutual funds, individuals helped push stocks higher in the 1990s and to a lesser extent from 2003 through 2006. Now they are moving money out again on balance, making them a drag on the market.

Ordinary investors are returning to the cautious mentality they developed during the 1970s. That was the last extended period of stock weakness, after which it took many people a decade or more to get comfortable with stocks again.

“I feel like the tail of the dog that is being wagged by institutional investors who are taking a lot of risk, playing a lot of games and just have these computerised orders that affect me a lot,” says Simeon Thibeaux, a semi-retired businessman from Louisiana.

History suggests that individuals eventually will return to stocks, as they did in the 1980s and, even more strongly, in the 1990s. But rebuilding their confidence could take time, says Brian Reid, chief economist of the Investment Company Institute. Historically, it has taken an extended period of stock success to lure individuals back after long periods of disaffection.

Rebounding after a two-month slump, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 511 points, or 5 per cent, to 10198.03 last week, its biggest weekly gain in almost a year, although it remains down 9 per cent since topping out on April 26.

“We have gone through two of the worst bear markets since the Great Depression, and it has given investors a better sense of the risks and dangers of investing” in stocks, Mr Reid says, referring to the bear markets of 2000-02 and 2007-09.

The gradual dissipation of investor confidence can be seen in mutual-fund investing patterns.

After getting hurt in the 2000 tech-stock crunch, individuals came back to US stock funds in 2003, as stocks were entering a new bull market, ICI data shows. But the buying proved tepid and turned to net selling in the latter part of 2006, even before the bull market ended in 2007. Despite occasional periods of inflows to US stock funds, the selling trend has continued since then. Individuals removed a net $US7 billion ($8bn) from stock funds in the seven days ending May 12 and $US13bn two weeks later, eclipsing the deposits from earlier in the year.

Recent volatility has certainly shaken the Potyks' confidence. Mr Potyk, a 68-year-old pharmacist, spent 25 years as an army officer and 11 years with Pfizer before retiring. His wife, 63, is a retired real-estate broker.

The Potyks stuck with their stocks through the tech wreck, the September 11 attacks and Enron. They were willing to take risks to get stock-market returns. By 2006, he and his financial adviser say, the Potyks' portfolio was 50 per cent stocks and 50 per cent bonds and other fixed-income investments.

The big blow to their confidence was the 2008 collapse of brokerage-firm Lehman Brothers, in which they lost $US75,000 on a Lehman bond. Although it was a bond that hurt them, the Potyks' faith in all potentially risky investments was shattered.

“In the military, you learn that you want people you can respect, trust - who have integrity,” Mr Potyk says. “Over the last five years or so, I find that our financial institutions have no shred of the character I describe.”

The last straw was the May market volatility, accompanied by widespread fears about European government debt. On May 20, the Potyks asked their financial adviser to sell the last of their stock mutual funds.

Now that their portfolio consists entirely of fixed-income investments, “I won't make 8 per cent on my money. I will make 4 per cent or 5 per cent, but the money will be there,” says Mr Potyk.

Stocks had developed an almost cult-like following in the 1980s and 1990s, when they were among the best investments available. But in the past decade, big US stocks have had the worst performance of nine major investment classes tracked by investment research firm Morningstar.

The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index has fallen at an annualised rate of 3 per cent a year over the past 10 years, including dividends and controlling for inflation. Long-term treasury bonds show a gain of 5 per cent a year during that same period, after inflation. Gold is up 10 per cent a year and real-estate investment trusts 8 per cent a year. The S&P 500 index itself, without adjusting for inflation and dividends, is stuck today at a level it first reached 12 years ago, meaning it has gone nowhere in more than a decade, scaring a legion of people in the process.

Reflecting their flight from risk, individual investors appear to be losing faith in an investment strategy called buying on the dips. In times of stock strength, people learn to buy stocks after a decline, when they are cheaper, because the stocks have a tendency to recover. Lately, investors have been reversing that behaviour, selling on dips for fear the declines will continue.

The Yale School of Management maintains an index, designed by Professor Robert Shiller, that tracks individuals' willingness to buy on dips, based on a monthly survey of wealthy investors. The index topped out in 2002. While it has moved up and down since then, it has been falling since the start of 2009.

Some investors, haunted by the continuing credit crunch and unemployment fears, are being driven to pull money out of stock funds to make up budget shortfalls.

Also eating away at risk-tolerance is demographics - baby boomers are aging, making them think more about preserving their holdings' value. This is only part of the story, however, as the Investment Company Institute data shows lower risk-tolerance among younger people, too.

In surveys of mutual-fund owners, the ICI found that just 30 per cent said in 2009 that they were willing to take above-average or substantial risk in the stockmarket, down from 37 per cent in 2008. The number willing to take only below-average risk or no risk at all rose to 20 per cent from 14 per cent.

Mr Thibeaux of Alexandria sold one-third of his stock mutual funds late in April at the suggestion of an investment adviser, who warned him that stocks were due for a pullback.

The problem was where to put the cash. A money-market fund at his mutual-fund company or a short-term certificate of deposit at his bank would yield almost nothing, he says. He finally decided simply to pay off the mortgage on a second home, on which he was paying 5 per cent interest.

“I think there is no investment strategy now except to buckle up and hope that you don't get hit too hard,” Mr Thibeaux says.

Long-term investors have been showing a distinct change in behaviour since 2008. Jay Pestrichelli, who monitors client behaviour at online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, has noted a change in the traditional buy-and-hold strategy. “People who once made few changes to their accounts have begun trading more frequently,” he says. He saw the trend especially clearly on May 6, when there was an uptick of selling.

“A higher percentage of our trading was coming from our longer-term investor base,” he says. People who might log into their accounts regularly, but not necessarily trade, were selling heavily that day, he says.

“The next day, those clients were all buying back in,” he says, often losing money on a trade where they had sold low and bought higher. “To see that kind of a move in such a short period of time, it certainly can shake their trust.”

James Rotenstreich, a businessman in Birmingham, Alabama, says the May “flash crash” damaged his confidence in stocks as a store of wealth.

“I was just dumbfounded. The whole thing could have melted down, and I wouldn't have had much to do with it one way or the other,” he says.

Mr Rotenstreich has received offers for some real estate he owns in the Birmingham area, but so far has been reluctant to sell, partly because he doesn't know what he would do with the money. He notes that corporate bonds and other alternatives also suffered severely in the market decline.

Reflecting on his options, he says that if he sold the real estate, “I really think I would put it in the bond market. So maybe I have lost some faith in the future of the stock market.”

Some investment advisers are telling clients that, for long-term investors, this year will turn out to have been a great time to buy stocks on the cheap. So far, not many clients are listening.

 

(Source: The Australian)

Higher interest rates to slow housing sector recovery

A RECENT downtrend in housing activity has shown signs of levelling out after home loan financing rose for the first time since September.


Economists said the 1.9 per cent rise in housing finance in May could be the beginning of the end of a precipitous slide in activity brought on by rapidly rising interest rates and the winding back of generous government grants for new home buyers at the end of 2009.

Economists had expected a rise of 1.0 per cent in May.

First home buyers accounted for 16.1 per cent of new home loans in May, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said today, down from 28.5 per cent a year ago in a period that was marked by a frenzy of buying helped by economic stimulus.

UBS chief economist Scott Haslem said: "The most positive news from today's data is that the sharp down cycle post the end of the first home owner incentives appears to have ended, with lending now up over the past couple of months."

Still, recovery in the sector is expected to be slow, with interest rates expected to continue rising through the second half of 2010 and a back drop of shaky global financial markets likely to take a toll on consumer confidence.

Reserve Bank of Australia is likely to welcome a levelling out in the housing sector as it attempts to steer the economy through a mining boom over the next year, one that will crowd out other parts of the economy like retail sales and housing activity, economists said.

The central bank "won't be at all worried" about conditions in housing, said Stephen Roberts, chief economist at Nomura.

With its eye on aggregate demand across the economy, the RBA is mindful that it must "make room" for the mining boom, which is being fuelled by stellar iron ore and coal prices and solid demand from Asian steelmakers and power generators.

The RBA has already raised interest rates six times since October 2009, making it one of the more aggressive central banks globally. It has been sidelined since May, with the cash rate target at 4.50 per cent awaiting second quarter inflation data on July 28.

With data last week showing unrelenting jobs growth in the economy, a high inflation result could well bring the RBA off the sidelines in August.

Mr Roberts said he expects the RBA to hold off until November, when the case for a further rate hike will be clearer.

Helen Kevans, economist at JPMorgan, said sluggish demand for new home loans can still be expected over the remainder of 2010 "with rising interest rates largely to blame".

Rising risk aversion in financial markets, deteriorating home affordability, falling consumer confidence and the expiration of the expanded portion of the first home buyers' boost will drag on housing demand, she said.

"The downtrend trajectory in home loans should, therefore, resume," she added.
 
(source: The Australian)

转帖：浙商闯荡法则

1. 坚持看新闻联播，把握经济大势。
2. 不要轻易相信合约，哪怕合约让律师看过，公证处公证过，甚至钱已汇入也要确认能不能拿出。而合约以外的涉及到利益冲突的任何口头承诺都只是承诺，在对方兑现之前都不要沉湎其中。
3. 一诺千金。一定能够做到的事情才可以承诺，但不要夸大其辞。
4. 赢得起但输不起的生意不做。
5. 在先期不要投入太多，给自己留够底牌。
6. 商人有所为也有所不为。 “毋以善小而不为，毋以恶小而为之”，说的是做人的道理。生意同样如此，不要因为利润少就不去做，也不要因为风险小就去做。
   
7. 慎重选择合作伙伴，好的搭档要做到以下五点，否则合作不会长久。其一，你们在一个战壕里至少共同战斗过一年；其二，他对他说的每一句话都能负责；其三，必须是个实在人；其四，他考虑得更多的是共同的利益；其五，关键时刻没有躲开更没有出卖你。
8. 不要在团队里有家庭成员的影子。
9. 不要给你的女人讲商业细节。
10. 不要偷税漏税但要学会合理避税。
11. 可以利用新闻记者但不要相信记者。
12. 不要摆大，哪怕你真的是老大。
13. 保持中立，不要卷入政治派系纷争。
14. 不要太在乎金钱与利益得失。古训有云，有所得就有所失，而有所失就有所得。天下自然有赚不完的钱，基本上你应该没有时间去计较一时的得失才对，哪怕你有的是时间去品茗赏色。
15. 资本决定发言权，但你不应该轻易让别人知道你有多大的发言权。
16. 总结别人的成败得失，但国外的案例可以不用理会。
17. 不要用黑白道的规矩去解决商业冲突。
18. 在能把握全局的前提下，不要事必躬亲。不要把自己搞的没有时间与朋友交流，最要紧的是不要让自己没有时间放松与思考。所以，在牢牢掌握核心业务的同时，应该学会让别人帮你打点生意。同样，把事情交给别人去做的风险，一定是你能够预防的，不然，你会成为一名忙碌的救火队员。
19. 给自己留条后路，预防众叛亲离。
    

Successfully contact your first supplier/wholesaler

You've found a product you'd like to sell. You have the supplier's contact information. You're ready to make the call. But wait! Are you really ready? Chances are if you're new to working with wholesale suppliers, you're not fully prepared.

And being prepared before you contact that new supplier can make all the difference between beginning a successful supplier relationship and making a call that hits a dead end. First impressions count with suppliers, and you'll want to make sure you put your best foot forward when setting up supplier relationships.

Take these five steps now and you can be confident that you'll maximize the results from each and every supplier call.

1. Get your business paperwork in order

Wholesale suppliers require you to have certain things in place before they can set up an account with you, fax over a price list or even send out a product catalog. At the top of the list is being a registered business owner and having your business license/tax ID number. A true wholesaler can only sell products to you at wholesale cost if you are a legal business entity.

Getting your business set up as a legal business is not a difficult process, but because state rules can vary, you'll want to contact your state's Department of Licensing and find out the requirements for becoming a legal business in your state of residence. Most states have a Web site that will give you the information you need to get started.

Before you can purchase inventory, your supplier will also likely ask you to provide a resale certificate. A resale certificate is a standard business form that you'll fill out and give to your supplier. Its purpose is to confirm that you are a legal business and that the goods you are purchasing are for resale. This is a standard form issued by your state's Department of Revenue.

Most states will supply a resale certificate form, but as with obtaining a business license, procedures vary from state to state. For more information on obtaining a resale certificate form in your state, contact your state's Department of Revenue.

Contacting a supplier before you have these things in place will only waste your time and the supplier's. So don't make your first supplier call until your business is legal.

2. Convey a professional business presence

“Investing in a business e-mail address helps suggest to suppliers that your business is here to stay”

When contacting wholesale suppliers, you are representing a very important company—yours. Presenting a professional business image is as important as having your legal business paperwork, although it is frequently overlooked.

One of the most important things to do before contacting a supplier is to set up a business e-mail address using the domain name that you have purchased for your company. For example: yourname@yourcompanydomainname.com.

Don't use your personal Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail accounts to contact suppliers. While these addresses are great for personal communications, they are not appropriate for representing your company. (When's the last time you received an e-mail from Barnes & Noble with a Yahoo e-mail address?)

Your suppliers want to know that you are a serious, stable business entity. Investing in a business e-mail address helps suggest to suppliers that your business is here to stay.

You'll also want to brand your business with a logo. Many new businesses skip this step. A professionally designed logo should appear on your business cards, your letterhead, even the fax cover sheet you use to fax information to your supplier.

The way you package your business and represent it contributes significantly to your success in working with a new supplier.

3. Research the company

Learning as much as you can about a supplier before you make your first call is the key to making a successful supplier connection. Finding out as much as possible about your potential supplier can give you a huge advantage over someone who calls "cold" with no knowledge.

Rather than asking the supplier to explain their business and product line, find out as much as you can ahead of time. This allows you to have an informed conversation with the supplier rep and ask the right questions. And asking the right questions is important.

If your supplier has a Web site, spend time on the site reading as much as you can about them. Look over their "About Us" page, learn about the company's history and review their policy pages. Get a good feel for who they are, what types of products they deal in and what kinds of retailers they work with.

If your supplier doesn't have a Web site, you can research the Web to find out what other companies carry their brands. This will give you some idea of the type of company you are dealing with.

This knowledge will make you sound like a seasoned professional even if you are new to selling online.

4. Create supplier note cards

“It's human nature to forget things when we're nervous and making supplier phone calls is no exception”

No matter how well prepared you think you are, you never know how your first supplier call will go until you're on the phone having the conversation.

It's human nature to forget things when we're nervous and making supplier phone calls is no exception. A great way to stay on track is to create supplier note cards.

Purchase 3- by 5-inch note cards and make a note of all your pertinent business information, supplier specifics and the points you want to cover during your first call.

Writing down your tax ID number and even your fax number may seem like a simple thing to do, but it will go a long way when it comes to providing a smooth delivery over the phone.

Over the years I've talked with numerous new business owners who, when faced with a supplier call and jangled nerves, have forgotten information as basic as their own business name. Don't leave your supplier calls up to chance. Jotting down your research points will allow you to refer to those notes while talking with your new supplier.

Make a list of the questions you want to ask your new supplier. Then write down their answers next to the question.

By the time you complete the call, you'll have everything you need in one place to determine how you want to proceed with this new supplier connection.

5. Do a dry run

You've found a great supplier, they have the products you want to stock in your store and you're ready to make the call—except for one thing: You're feeling a bit nervous about calling this supplier.

One of the best ways to counteract those pre-call jitters is to do what I call a "supplier dry run." Before making that all-important supplier call, get some practice in by calling a few suppliers you are less invested in doing business with. This enables you to practice talking with suppliers and familiarize yourself with the industry terminology and the type of questions a supplier might ask.

Doing a supplier dry run eases the pressure of calling your most important supplier first. And it can yield some surprising results. Many of our clients who have used this method have established very profitable supplier relationships with companies they originally thought would not be a match for them.

Contacting wholesale suppliers is like everything else you undertake in business. The more experience you have, the better you'll be become at what you do. Following these five steps for supplier preparedness will help shortcut your learning curve, position you well to speak with your first suppliers and give you the confidence you need to know that you're putting your best foot forward.

(Source: auctiva, By: Lisa Suttora)

2009 good time to buy property: broker

January 2, 2009 - 2:08P

Australians could find 2009 an opportune time to buy property, but they should not expect a swift recovery in housing prices.
Loan Market Group executive director John Kolenda says low interest rates and subdued property prices combined with government initiatives have made entering the property market easier, particularly for first home buyers.
Australian policy makers have provided stimulatory measures in the second half of 2008 to boost the domestic economy.
Since September, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has cut the cash rate by three percentage points to a seven-year-low of 4.25 per cent.
In October, the federal government doubled the first home owners grant to $14,000 and increased it to $21,000 for buying or building a new home.
Debt futures markets are pricing the cash rate to be as low as 2.5 per cent in June, while many market economists predict at least another one percentage point cut in total by the central bank.
"Despite the global economic uncertainty, the conditions in Australia for those seeking to enter the property market are ideal," Mr Kolenda said.
"Mortgage holders in the coming year are likely to benefit from the lowest variable interest rates ever offered in Australia as the cash rate could fall to 2.5 per cent."
House prices have been sluggish across the eight capital cities in the past two quarters, down 1.8 per cent in the September quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) said.
This followed a 0.2 per cent drop in the June quarter.
CommSec chief economist Craig James said property prices would rise moderately this year due to an undersupply of housing.
"Overall, national housing prices are tipped to grow by three to five per cent over 2009 with major variations across the regions," Mr James said.
Mr Kolenda said the rise in the grant had stimulated interest in the lower half of the housing market.
"These concessions will continue for the first half of 2009, while we also expect to see home mortgage rates fall further, encouraging a variety of buyers, including Australians returning from overseas," he said.
The peak home building body, the Housing Industry Association (HIA), forecasted a recovery in the property market in the second half of 2009.
"We will be into 2009, possibly some months through, before these lower interest rates translate into a significant stimulus to housing sector expenditure," HIA chief economist Harley Dale said.

(Source: smh.com.au)

Money Magazine's Best of the Best

Money Magazine has found the cheapest deals on everything from mobile phone plans to credit cards, the best home loan package, super funds.
The list goes on and on - all the hard work has been done for you.
So get ready to save a fortune and start thinking about what you're going to do with all that money.
This is a brief summary of the best deals – the full list and all the details can only be found in the November issue of Money magazine.

Mobile Phones
Money Magazine's Effie Zahos says the first place to cut costs is on your mobile.
"The ones that are advertising with the big marketing budgets, often don't have the best deals," Effie tells ACA.
If you don't use your phone very often, go prepaid with Savvytel:
Effie says the main benefit of this operator is they carry credit on at the end of the month – so your credit never expires.
"This is unique to Savvytel, it's a great plan for seniors or if you have kids and you want to give them that contact," she says.
If you use your phone regularly and send around 150 texts a month - sign up with Go Talk:
Effie's tip: "Now they actually get gold here because for $45, you get $250 worth of calls."
But if you're a continuous caller and send 300 texts a month, switch to TPG.
Cheapest High-Use Mobile Plans
1.)TPG Unlimited All You Can Eat 2.) Virgin Mobile Postpaid $99 Topless
Cheapest Low-Use Mobile Plans (Prepaid)
1.) Savvytel SIM Starter Kit $20 2.) Virgin Mobile Bean Counter

Home Loans
Founder of Money Magazine, Paul Clitheroe, has a simple message:
"A whole bunch of Australians are paying for bells and whistles in their mortgage and mobile phone contract - and most of us don't use the bells and whistles," he tells ACA.
"If you don't need stuff - don't pay for it."
When it comes to home loan packages the Commonwealth Bank and Colonial Bank both win gold.
"Get rid of credit card debt first, the high cost car loan second and then think about getting the mortgage lowered while you can," Paul says.

Credit Cards
If your credit card is already getting a Christmas workout, just remember that come February you'll need to start paying it off.
"There are great cards for the Christmas credit card hangover. If you're looking for a bank, St George or Bank of South Australia pick up gold here," Effie reveals.
"If you want a credit union, a number pick up gold and overall, they're a lot cheaper. For reward points, Westpac pick up gold, while in the non-banking category, Amex are the most rewarding."
Paul Clitheroe says getting rid of credit card debt should be your first stop in getting your finances under control. This year the non-banks offer cheaper credit cards than banks.

Best Value Car
If you're in the market for a car, the Mazda Neo wins gold for best car under $25,000.
And Mazda win again for best car under $35,000.
According to Paul, the best deals on cars should be arriving in 2009. "Next year there are going to be some sensational consumer bargains."

Best Value Broadband
If you spend a lot of time online, the best broadband deal goes to TPG.
"You get 50 gigs on that deal for 49.95 a month – that's a lot of downloads for a very low price."
Cheapest Broadband Plans – High Speed
1.) TPG ADSL2+ Ultimate Medium 2.) Chariot netconnect Explorer ADSL2+

Super Funds
Super funds have had a shocking year - not a rough year but a shocking year. However, according to Paul, their long-term performances are a lot better than their one-year performances.
The best balanced super fund is MTAA. But if you still have a few years left in the workforce, hand your super worries over to the best growth super fund – Hostplus.
"You'd be crazy not to have a look at what's out there - and you may save yourself a fair bit of money," Paul advises.
Depending on how long you have left in the work force, different super options will have different appeals. Balanced super funds, which will suit those looking to retire soon, tend to focus on hedging their bets to keep a pretty standard return. Growth funds, on the other hand, invest mainly in riskier areas like the stock market to try and get a bigger return.
Best Balanced Super Funds
1.)MTAA Super – Balanced 2.) AMIST – Balanced
Best Growth Super Funds
1.) Hostplus – Shares Plus 2.) AustralianSuper – High Growth

Bank Accounts
You could also be making a fair bit of money if you tip your savings into one of the competitive online accounts.
"We looked at the best online savings account in the past two years and the gold winner for that goes to Bankwest," says Effie.
But with rates constantly on the move, the best deal going today is with DragonDirect.
"Spend less than you earn – That's the best tip I can give anyone," says Paul. It's not about winning lotto, it's not about finding a share that doubles or property that doubles. Forget the fancy stuff and get your finances under control," he says.

(Source: current affairs)