Aaah, the inconsistency bothers you. Me too man, me too. It’s fine if you make your bed the way you want it, but then you cannot complain if you have to sleep in it.
Of course, you get it in the EV debate as well. There is this meme going: “I saved 20k (USD) by not replacing the battery and buying a petrol car instead!”. No sir… you didn’t. You had to buy petrol, and I had to buy electricity. Add my cost, subtract yours… and maybe you still win, but you didn’t save the whole 20k.
People tend to have this idea of what is “normative” and any idea that departs from that is priced on top, without considering how that which is normative itself is going to change.
1 stays at the university where they have big ol generators far enough that it doesn’t bother him
1 stays in a house with tons of rechargeable gadgets and no solar/generator
One used to have a gennie, but got solar. Now the gennie travels from home to home depending on who has the biggest risk of not getting through the night with extended power cuts.
I definitely have the “I’ll sacrifice a holiday so that things at home are more ideal” type of thinking and I think many of us have. That being said, 1 of the households managed to get solar, a new pool and a bushlapa all in 2 years, so there’s always that.
If you can make that eventually sooner, it really does make life a lot easier. If the house is paid off by the time the kids goes to university… man… you have money left over after paying the tuition fees.
One of the biggest favours you can do yourself, is pay off the bond. Or at least “almost” pay it off. Some people like keeping access to some of the credit.
I wish I had that sort of discipline. I have some. I am always ahead. The current place is about a third paid off after 4 years, which I’m quite proud of. But I also like to enjoy my income at least a little…
Your reply makes me think back of when Covid LD’s hit us … man, did that cause marakas for some.
As in Bank 1 Owners 0. Gone is the nice house, the new car/s, the boat … it was a “bloodbath” for some.
By watching others, lesson I learnt (again), you can plan all you want, but curve balls are coming … better have a plan for that, as best you can.
Hence I try to have plans, they are numbered:
a-z, then aa-zz
Followed by A-Z, then AA-ZZ if I have to.
Normally a-f suffices …
Once you get into that groove of thinking, it gets really easy (and relaxing) to anticipate. The Problems become Opportunities Dressed in Overalls.
Or differently put, we all wants things to work out, so we get worked up when it does not. Devastated some. Me like meh, so what, I have a plan, so it is still working out as anticipated. .
Win Win for me.
So in light of THIS thread … a gennie is plan No ZZZZZZ if all else fails.
I’m at that stage, having just dropped of the first student at Stellies. Man, housing is expensive there! So you better have your own home payed of by then…
There was a record applicants last year for starting studies in 2024. Of the ~7000 places they have available for first year studies they had 86 000 applicants!
