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

[huggyrei.livejournal.com]

We bought because after a careful look into the type of places we wanted to live, it turned out to be just as expensive per month to rent as it would be to pay the mortgage, so we figured we might as well buy and actually have something to show for it later!

It's also probably a good idea to own somewhere by the time I retire, so I don't lose all my pension to accomodation costs, especially given problems with pension black holes and the ageing population and such.

Re: TMI

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Here, I'm paying 750/month on a place whose clone down the road went for £230,000, which is a lot better than any conceivable mortgage deal could produce.

If you're making purchases now based on needing to do something before retirement, you're asserting that house prices are going to grow faster than wages for the next forty years; I'd be wary of putting a fiver on that bet, let alone my worldly wealth plus a 30% lien on my income unto death.

Re: TMI

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

I'd bet that such a house price growth would be symptom resulting from overpopulation though, as cities stop wanting to sprawl into their water catchment areas and viable residential land becomes harder to find. If we are approaching that world population peak supposedly around 10 billion (but not there yet), then that probably means we are going to be in this regime for a little while longer before population densities and land prices start plateuing.

Now that I'm finally making money, I reckon if prices don't start improving in 5 years, I might have to start considering buying then.

Re: TMI

[scat0324.livejournal.com]

I'd bet that such a house price growth would be symptom resulting from overpopulation though

It's not as simple as that. The cost of houses is a supply-and-demand thing, but the demand isn't just an increase in population - it's a change in aspirations meaning people don't want to share properties in the way they used to (mostly as families). With a downturn in the economy, I suspect people would go back to deciding to share in one way or the other, and demand for property would fall without a matching reduction in the overall population.

Re: TMI

[huggyrei.livejournal.com]

If house prices decrease and I want a better house, I'll sell this one and buy one really cheaply. If house prices increase, I'll get more money for this one when I sell. If I don't want to move, I'll be happy enough to stay here.

All I'm really betting on is that rent prices won't become significantly cheaper than mortgages so as to outweigh the benefits of completely owning a house and owing nothing after 25 years and the rights I have over my own place for owning rather than renting.