09:28
I feel that the balance between salary and expenses is completely disregarded now.
It is always a discussion that an average family should manage on an average salary from time to time in the newspapers, but right now there is pressure on groups that absolutely have not “overbought” with an outrageously expensive house.
Then maybe one could argue that electricity, water, and food are luxuries that you only get if you can afford them, but then it feels like we have swept away 80 years of development. In the 1930s, it worked perfectly well with own homes and in the 70s we secured electricity supply. But in 2023, you are lucky if you can take a shower once a week.
09:33
In the area in Bromma where I grew up, everyone talked about the housing ATM in the early 2000s.
Prices increased and they took loans for renovations and a little extra for trips, inflation still ate up the loan.
Then car loans on top of that.
Now that interest rates are going up, many of the older generations are definitely not free from loans as they should be, but now they have probably started selling instead and downsizing so they get by anyway. I have also seen many worse cars in the past year, so quite a few have probably traded in their car and cashed in for a cheap little one instead.
09:24
Considering the electricity prices and the interest rate situation, it might be difficult to get by on one salary for a family with children, I think; maybe everyone has unemployment insurance nowadays, but that is probably lower than a salary?
When we think of those who get hit by the electricity prices, we picture the villa in Bromma and think they have only themselves to blame. But there are countless houses out in the countryside in Sweden and in smaller towns with working parents in some manufacturing and such that is sensitive to economic cycles, both in owned homes and rented ones.
When the factory cuts back but the cost to heat the house skyrockets, it can become unpleasant for quite a few.
I also experience a food inflation that is quite interesting, a package of butter for 70 SEK and I wanted to buy vanilla sauce for freshly baked apple pie – 45 SEK…
You could usually get it at City Gross for 15 SEK when it was on offer.
You can only cut back so much to a certain limit here…