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

[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.