Fragrant Red Wine

I dont know much about wine. I know the basic fact that it's made of grapes, and apparently the older the wine is, the fancier! I don't often drink wine and when I do, it's seldom alone. I'm ignorant on the subject of wine. I don't know what a good blend is, I don't know what a sauvignon blanc is and how it differs to a cabernet.

Frankly, to me, a full bodied red wine tastes like the inside of the wooden cask it was kept in (thats probably the only taste I'm able to identify, after "grape juice". I have a suspicion that this however is a characteristic of the wine). If I am drinking wine, I prefer the cheap, sweet variety - I don't have any particular prefernce. By now, I'm sure it's evident that I'm not a regular wine drinker.

What I do like neverthless about the whole drinking experience, the single event which I enjoy the most, the simple thing which entices me - is the smell of the wine. I love to whirl the glass beneath my nose, while I inhale deeply and smell the rich, velvet sweetness of the grapes. I imagine the barrel that the wine had been kept in and the trees that grew closeby. I can taste the nuts and smell the oak.

A memory about a taste

Remembering the taste of strawberries

I'm sure that before this memory, I had tasted a strawberry, but no previous memory comes to mind when trying to remember the first experience of a strawberry.

At the age of five, my grandparents and I went to visit my grandfather's sister, brother in-law and her family in a small town called Vreiheid. They lived on a small holding, in a house made of red bricks. Kobus was their youngest son, closet to me in age, older was his sister Lizette, who wore thick coke bottle spectacles, and her older brother Freddy, he was cool with a blue BMX which had no brakes.

I liked Freddy the most. No one in the family noticed that my granny and I were brown or that we didn't speak the same language. It was ok, Freddy was able to translate it into that fla flum fla.

One day, behind the house, we were playing in the garden. Freddy and Kobus said that we could pick strawberries. I had never seen them in their original form and so, was very excited. We crawled in the rich red soil looking under the strawberry patch, looking for the red fruit. I found one and tasted it, and experienced a strawberry for the very first time.

Back in Action?

I'm not sure if I'm back in action or not. I've been suffering a sever case of bloggers block. I had some posts pre-created, yet I didn't ever post them, due to a slight anxiety.

My point for now however is this, I'm brave enough to expose myself once again and I hope that I continue to post every now and then.

About that time...

Almost the end of a year, almost the start of a new one - looking back, I try to see what I've achieved, based on a list of 'Things I need to Achieve' in the beginning of the year.

I set myself some personal goals, health and well being, personal fitness, etc. being fairly high up on there. Education; registering with UNISA to study a Science degree part time

The fitness aspect has been ok I guess. I started kick boxing earlier in the year, it's kept me very motivated and I'm enjoying it. Cycling however has really come to a standstill though I want to start on that in the beginning of 2009.

Education - I completely missed the open period in which to register, so that didn't happen at all.I want to take a short course in creative writing, guess what, that didn't happen either. I had intentions of learning a new language (from a CD kit) but this also didn't materialise.


I won't say that it's been a bad year, however, I think I could have done a bit more.

Why Stubborn-Delon?

Started thinking, why did I actually name my blog 'stubborn-delon'.

To be completely honest I think I named it that, due to a sheer lack of creativity. My right-side neurons were not firing, I knew I wanted to create a blog, but to name it 'stubborn-delon'... What was I thinking...?

Yes, I am stubborn, but that does not define me altogether. What else could I have called my blog? What other word could I have used to define my 'web presence'?

'Geek-Delon' perhaps - (initially my blog was going to be dedicated to technology)

Maybe something that doesn't contain my name at all - 'Empty and Alone', but that sounds too sad and kinda implies that I'm suicidal.

'Exploits of a Boy Genius' - I've always considered myself a genius, but without the extremely high IQ, kinda like 'Powder' but without the ability to summon electricity and use his other super powers.

With all these possible names however, nothing that I write ever seems to relate to my stubbornness, my boy genius ability, my geekiness or my aloness - so, this depresses me some.

I am unable to define myself - eish, know what i mean?

The Bond – a 'hands on' approach

A bond is the negotiated amount that the bank will give you, the period of the loan and the interest rate. Like the name suggests, it’s a contract between you and the bank. A bank is less likely to grant you a bond if you have a bad credit rating or no credit history. They want to know that they will be able to receive your payments regularly. If they do grant you a bond despite your negative rating, it will be at an interest rate that is not favourable to you, i.e. several percent above the prime lending rate of the Reserve Bank (prime +). This may be your situation if you have been out of the country for a while or haven’t paid any loan or account on time or regularly, or had no clothing accounts(Clothing accounts are important to have to build a good credit rating).

For you to get a good interest rate, you will have to have a regular income, some form of a favourable credit history (credit card, loan) and a reflection that you are a prompt payer.

A standard bond is 20 years which is exactly 240 months (12 months x 20 years). Without getting too technical, let me try my best to explain how to ‘make’ money on your bond. Bear in mind though, that ‘making’ money on a bond is actually ‘saving’ money in the long term.

Let me first point out the important factors which a home owner will need to know, n, i, pv, pmt. (some important terminology)

n is the number of months of your bond, the term of the loan.

i is the interest rate, which is possibly the most important factor to any home-, property-, or vehicle owner.

pv is the principal value – also the purchase value (or the value of the loan)

pmt is the amount you will be paying per period, ie., the monthly repayment

Again, saving on a bond does not provide you with immediate cash in your pocket; it’s not a way of earning an extra income, but a way to save money. The money you will make with this technique is realized when the property is sold or when you pay off the property in less time than anticipated and have that much extra cash per month to spare.

Because this is an equation, each ‘term’ bears influence on the others. However, PV is normally going to remain the same.

The quicker you pay the bond off, the more money you will make when you sell it. One way of doing this is to increase the value of ‘pmt’.

For example:

If your bond is for R500 000 (pv), with i=15% and n = 240, your pmt will need to be R6583.95. I would like to show the equation here, but I wont, due to font restrictions.

If you were to pay 10% more than required that is R6583.95 + R659 = R7242.95 your can reduce your period from 240 months to just 160, which is 13 years.

Do I have your attention yet?

Further to the above example, and for illustration purposes, if you were to double the monthly installment, your bond will be paid off in less than 5 years (52 months to be exact)

Ok, so that’s what happens when we vary the value of pmt.

Next, let’s look at how the interest rate influences your bond term (n) With the values as above, we know that i=15% means that n=240. It would be nice to show the equation with all of these values punched in.

However, if i were reduced from 15 to 14.5… n drops from 240 to 208, which is about 17 years.

We’ve saved ourselves three years by negotiating a better interest rate! If i were further reduced to 14%, n ends up around 15 years or so!

In all bond and loan repayments there is a principal portion (used to pay the bond) and an interest portion - The banks make their money on the interest portion of course.

When we make a payment to the bank, pmt = R6583.95, using the same values as above, in the first month, the value that eats into principal amount is R333.95. The value that is interest is R6250.

Let me expound on this. Your property is owned by the bank until you’ve paid it up completely. In your first month, all that you contributed to the R500 000 house is R333.95. The rest is all interest and goes straight to the bank.

In percentage terms 95% of your first bond installment is contributing to the banks share price on the JSE and a measly 5% is a contribution towards your house.

Now, this mechanism that the bank has does not work in your favour. The first time that the principal portion starts exceeding the interest portion is… wait for it… somewhere between year 15 and 16, that is ¾ down the line. For almost the entire period of your bond, most of what you had being paying was contributing to interest.

How I plan to get money back: Discovery Vitality together with FNB currently offers a home loan. This gives you a chance to re-negotiate your interest rate. Also, depending on your Vitality status, you qualify for up to 10% of your monthly bond payment back as cash per month, up to a maximum of R1000. That means that if I was paying R10 000 into my bond, I will get R1000 back to do with as I please – which for me is putting it back into my bond. :)

In Search of Wealth

Being a home owner has made me aware of ways to save money in the home purchasing arena. There are definitely some things I would do differently next time around, some things that the banks don't tell you, some things you figure out as you go along.

My search for wealth is actually a process of eliminating unnecessary costs and trying to overcome credit card and other debt, searching for cheaper car insurance, life cover and the like, using a Discovery Credit card to get money back on my monthly purchases, etc., etc..

Following Amanda's theme of a series of blog posts, I will do the same and try to keep you coming back for more tips on how to save a few rands here and there.

The Bucket List

I've been quiet, I've been busy, stressed, caught up, suffocating, lazy, pre-occupied and far too tired to blog in months.

In the beginning of the year I drew up a list of things I wanted to achieve for this year. Feeble things to others but significant things to me, health and wellness, language, learning, etc.

It's generally going well, though i have not yet got the 6-pack I wanted. Started kick boxing, cycling a little more though not much else -It's halfway through the year, though I need to start picking up and doing more of what I want.

Now in Orlando, FL

My body is confused, jet-lagged, tired, exhausted. I'm not altogether sure how I feel right now, but its evident - from the bags under my eyes, to my lethargy and waking up at 3am, which would equate to around 10am in South African time.

Well - can you blame me? The trip from SA to Frankfurt was some 10 hours long. On my arrival, I had to set my watch back an hour. Even with this reset - the sun didn't come out until around 9am.

Thoughts on the German Pretzel
For the first time yesterday (at least I think it was yesterday - it could have been tomorrow, but I'm not entirely sure what today is...) I had a German pretzel. I walked around Frankfurt Airport for several hours, passed the same preztel stand numerous times and had been enticed - not by its shape, but at it's size. Let me describe the flavour - imagine rough sea salt on fairly dry bread. Or like pretzels that you find at the shops - but saltier. They make you thirsty and thats why Germans have beer!

Thoughts on Starbucks
Ok, ok, I had to try Starbucks coffee! I could not fly 20 hours and not have Starbucks, right. Imagine it like this - The finest coffee beans from Brazil, Costa Rica and Colombia - done to, what coffee beans have done to them - ground, then have hot water passed through them. No Sugar, no milk and really, very hot - lots of caffeine, cause I'm really buzzing at the moment.

Thoughts on Pizza
Pizza Hut right here at the hotel, sell personal pizza. It's a pizza for one, but really deep, lots of cheese with salami on the top. The whole thing is like greasy cheese on a deep oily donut without a hole, topped with salami.

Boiled Eggs and Chopsticks

Boiled eggs and chopsticks seemed like a really nice title for a blog post. Now however, as I put finger to keyboard, good ideas seem to escape me.

Let me speak about the idea for a minute and where it sparked from. I was at the shopping centre the other day and felt a little bit adventurous. I wanted to try some Sushi. I have tried Sushi on a previous occasion, but, I lack the whole Sushi culture thing. I'm a small town coloured boy - and all I've ever known was bunny chows and fried chips. I don't know the names of the sandwich thingies, the seaweed things or even the rolled salmon things. So, being brave I decided to sample a random pre-packed selection of raw-fish Sush goodness. I ran off home, all very excited and hungry too. I dipped the first piece into the soya sauce and very delicately applied some wasabi using the chopsticks provided.

The explosions of flavour were awesome - yet still I couldn't see what all the hype is about - so I faked it!

That should explain the 'chopstick' part of the title.

The following day I thought that I would employ my culinary talents and create some mean boiled eggs. I did so, boiling those eggs to perfection.

I did the whole 'crack the egg open with the teaspoon move' mushed it all up and applied it to some bread. Boiled egg on bread, just like bunny chow, this is what I'm more au fait with. This is the life I know... :)