Where the money went, 2006

[fivemack]

(SLC is the Student Loans Corporation; I have not suddenly become an inadequately-tithe-paying Mormon)


If you compare with 2004



I'm surprised how consistent my habits have been; housing's more expensive (a whole house in Cambridge costs more to rent than half a house in Cheltenham), I've stopped learning to drive, and, worryingly, I seem to have become about 25% meaner when I look at the 'charity' and 'gift.out' segments; this latter I need to do something about.

I should probably apologise in advance to American readers for the invisible sliver that is medical costs, and to the taxpayers of the future for the absence of 'savings' segments, though income tax and pension contributions come straight out of salary and don't show up in the data I use for these graphs.

Comments

Re: TMI

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

I think the point at which buying becomes a sensible option is when the downsides of renting start to outweigh the financial arguments. The freedom to redecorate and such like, and the freedom from letting agencies' poliicy of doing maintenance that is adequate but nothing more are the two biggest ones for me, and given I'm putting 40% of the my post tax income into the savings account every month, I think I can probably even afford it.

£165K is probably slightly high as a starting price for Cambridge, provided you look around, I know at least one person who got quite a nice rabbit hutch for £155K, though I doubt I could fit my books in there.

Re: TMI

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

My letting agent appears significantly less evil than the average (that is, than Russells), though my interaction so far has been twice to appear in person and say '$MAJOR_APPLIANCE has broken down', a week or so after which a new $MAJOR_APPLIANCE of the cheapest available brand is installed into the house while I'm at work -- the agent lends the installers her key. They've repainted the outside of the house since I've been in it, and the inside of the house before I moved in.

I don't think I've ever felt the urge to redecorate, though I may be the sort of barbarian who sometimes views having more books than bookcases as a reason to get rid of books rather than to buy bookcases.