The missing penny

The nighttime view from our favorite park!

Well, school has officially started. So far things are going well, but maybe that's just because we haven't had to do anything yet! :o) I'm very pleased with how my orchestra audition went, and I placed co-principal of the Symphony Orchestra. Which, considering how long it's been since I've taken an audition, made me very happy indeed! The faculty gave me good comments from the audition and there weren't any surprises--all the mistakes they heard I heard, too. A good sign :o)

We'll be playing in a chamber trio with a very nice pianist with a great sense of humor, so I hope that will all go well, too. I had a planning session with Alexa (my flute prof) last week and my first lesson today. It has me all fired up and I'm actually EXCITED to practice again! Right away she's fixing my piccolo playing--everyone who has heard my piccolo playing knows that this is a good thing.......

Tuesday was our one year anniversary. I can't believe how much has happened in one year! Get engaged, move to the other side of the world...that's just a cakewalk! Mike took me back to the Harbour Kitchen and Bar, our new favorite restaurant. He's supposed to be writing a food entry at some point but currently has the stomach flu, so I think you'll have to wait for food reviews.

Australian financial matters have kept us entertained these past few weeks. Our first round of bills had to be paid, and our options were to 1.) send a check or money order, 2.) pay the bills with a credit card online, 3.) pay the bills online with a debit card, or 4.) pay them in person with any of the above methods at our local post office. (Great, isn't it??) We knew that #1 was out. Australian banks have a lot of fees, and personal checks cost a lot, so no one uses them. They are so out of use that a regular bank account here is a SAVINGS account, not checking. No checks can be written, but you can use your debit card from this account. (This through us for a loop when we'd hand over our debit card and the salesperson would ask "checking or savings?" We'd say checking, only to have our transactions declined. Scary moments!!)

So checks were out. I moved on to trying to pay our bills online. Some of the utility companies have a setup where you can just have an automatic withdrawal from your bank account, and others will send you an email with your bill enclosed and you can handle it from there. "No worries!" I thought. Online bill pay sounded fabulous. I logged on, created an online account for the gas company and then pulled out my nifty debit card. In the US, our debit cards can be used anywhere that credit cards can be, and since these were MasterCard registered, I thought the same thing applied.

No go! Here, debit cards don't have your name on them so they CAN"T double as credit cards. Your PIN is your everything and your signature can't substitute. Which means we can't use them to order anything online...booo!!! And if you want to use a debit card to pay your bills, you have to register your debit card online. Which invoves creating another account on another website and waiting a day or so until you're approved by your bank.

The next day, I got an email that my request to pay my bills online from the gas company was declined, citing that the name I had used on the online account didn't match the name on the bill statement. Somehow they only included Mike's name on the gas bill and Ruth Ann Ritchie didn't make any sense to them, joint bank account or no.

I've given up all dreams of online banking and now pay my bills at the local post office! It's such a useful place!

The other monetary amusement we've had is the Case of the Missing Penny. Pennies don't exist here and haven't for some time. The smallest coin is the nickel. Also, sales tax is 10% and calculated into the price shown--so if they say your muffin costs $3.50, it really only costs you $3.50. Which is great! I enjoy the what-you-see-is-what-you-get factor.

However, in some stores, mostly grocery stores, I've noticed, things will amazingly be priced for $.67 or $3.99. ?????? The Australians have created this hysterical thing known as the "coin adjustment." If it says $.67, they will actually charge you 70 cents, only because, having no pennies, they can't give you change! Although sometimes it does work in your favor--I was once charged $4.00 for something which rang up at $4.01.

~Ruth Ann