I had an interesting year, or a little over a year, where we first sold a house with a mortgage and bought a house “further out” when everyone was doing it during covid, then interest rates, electricity prices, and inflation skyrocketed. Since I remember our financial situation, it was easy to calculate how it would have looked if we had stayed – personal bankruptcy is what it’s called, the savings would have been zero after a year or so and then game over.
Then we settled in a new place and were mostly annoyed by the electricity price because there were a hell of a lot of square meters to heat and price inflation. The salary talk at work was “we don’t beat inflation, it has never been the goal” and a five hundred krona raise.
From there, it became a new job abroad and I once again sat down and did the same calculation – sure, one could have managed but there would have been less and less of the fun stuff, the car would probably have been kept but all purchases and entertainments would have had to be weighed carefully.
The point is that a little over two years ago everything was “normal” and now costs have increased to a point where we wouldn’t have managed in a highly mortgaged house and then would have had to tighten the belt in an un-mortgaged house – these are very rapid changes and as a wage slave you have little chance to handle things like this well, right?
09:34
I had an interesting year, or a little over a year, where we first sold a house with a mortgage and bought a house “further out” when everyone was doing it during covid, then interest rates, electricity prices, and inflation skyrocketed. Since I remember our financial situation, it was easy to calculate how it would have looked if we had stayed – personal bankruptcy is what it’s called, the savings would have been zero after a year or so and then game over.
Then we settled in a new place and were mostly annoyed by the electricity price because there were a hell of a lot of square meters to heat and price inflation. The salary talk at work was “we don’t beat inflation, it has never been the goal” and a five hundred krona raise.
From there, it became a new job abroad and I once again sat down and did the same calculation – sure, one could have managed but there would have been less and less of the fun stuff, the car would probably have been kept but all purchases and entertainments would have had to be weighed carefully.
The point is that a little over two years ago everything was “normal” and now costs have increased to a point where we wouldn’t have managed in a highly mortgaged house and then would have had to tighten the belt in an un-mortgaged house – these are very rapid changes and as a wage slave you have little chance to handle things like this well, right?