Five-fold Friday: How bread and movies outsprinted inflation; Credit card intoxication; Where's my return?;Top 10 tax tips for Brits in NZ; "Frankenpants"

1) Saving/Spending

I'm a sucker for a catchy headline so when this one landed in my email "Is your bread rising?" I couldn't resist opening it.

I love bread but I've recently stopped buying it because prices, to my thrifty mind, are out of control, at least for what you get. I was ressured to learn that my penny pinching mind isn't playing tricks on me, this time. According to the number crunchers at Stats NZ, bread prices have gone up a whopping 443% since 1981, well beyond CPI.

The bread chronicles published by Statistics NZ date back to 1914 and the analysis makes for interesting reading (really!). Back then it was assumed that a typical household ate seven 2lb loaves a week. How many mouths were they feeding back then? They'd be hard pressed keeping tummies full at today's prices.

Check out the data here . While you're at it, have a look at cinema prices.  Ahhh, $2.50 Tuesdays. The good ole' days.

2) Credit and Debt.

New Zealand's credit card debt and addiction is relatively tame compared to other countries. We have about NZ$5.4 billion on the plastic. Australians by comparison are running close to A$50 billion. Accounting for their bigger population, they spend put about 2.5 times more on credit cards than we do. Interest rates there are said to be at 20-year highs.

Easy credit is a dangerous thing. Look at Brazil where newfound wealth and the push for consumerism has the population hooked.

The Central Bank expects that by the end of the year 28 percent of Brazilians' disposable income will go toward servicing debts, compared to 16 percent in the still-recovering U.S. and single-digit figures in other developing nations.

3) KiwiSaver

Last week I looked at Fidelty Options fund, one of the highest returning KiwiSavers funds on the market since conception. For balance sake I decided to check out the other end of the ranking scale to see what I could find. AMP's Moderate Fund came up number 27th among its moderate peers for three-year performance, not that you'd know that from looking at their published performance figures.

AMP boasts of a 4.9% per annum return over the past three years going back from  March 2011. However, our adjusted performance, which accounts for fees and expenses, knocks it down to 2.5% per year for three years. It's expense ratio may not be one of the highest but neither is it one of the lowest at 1.34%.

AMP has 12 differents KiwiSaver funds under its umbrella and the best performing one by far is the Conservative fund which as an adjusted performance rate of 5.2%

4) Taxes and Death

Moving countries creates all manner of tax trouble that is easy to put off put impossible to avoid, that is unless you're a multi-national. Procrasination won't serve you well in the end. 

For our British born readers now domiciled here, check out the following top 10 tax tips for your kind.

5) Books

I had a touch of job envy after learning that the Observer has a designated ethical living columnist. Staring down on my now fuzzy wool pencil skirt purchased for $10 seven years ago (second-hand) and sandwiched beside a  towering bag of coffee bean grounds from my favourite barista in Auckland, I reckon I could give this job title a try out, for a week maybe.

I haven't done my research but it would seem Ms Lucy Siegle is the genuine article. She's just published a book exposing fashion industry crimes against the environment and other social injustices that run rampant in the textile business. Her own self-styled fashion apparently consists of layers upon layers of hand me downs and seconds.

Fashion snobs will want to give this book a pass. Tales of  "Frankenpants" and abused silkworms look to have given Guardian Weekly reviewer Hephzibah Anderson nightmares.

Frankepants are jeans made of Genetically Modified cotton.

The following has no financial relevance whatsoever. It was just too good not to share. HT the ex.