Article of my week:

No, I'm not talking about the hilarious one about the Expedit I facebooked, which you can read too if you like.

This one about Gen Y maybe wanting to leave the inner cities, against all the trends.

I wouldn't say I ever missed the suburbs, but I'm trying to see the bright side now. I'm sadly giving up my carfree lifestyle and figuring out which car to buy. Enjoying my walking-distance-from-the-beach location every swimming-weather day I can, before I go inland. Even breaking my No Takeaway rule because the days of easy access to cheap asian food are slipping through my fingers.

But on the bright side, there will be a vast improvement in my finances—the proportion of my income spent on rent will be reduced and even buying a place will be within reach one day. I'll be able to own and play a real piano as loudly as I like, no shared walls. I'll have a front door that goes outside instead of onto a corridor. I may even have a BACK door! I may have access to dirt I can grow things in, instead of a concreted common driveway area. This is all stuff I can live without, and have lived happily without, but they are upsides.

Should watch Hart of Dixie again.

The Buffer.

Elsie and I were talking about flat-breaking, which is where your flat is sold or your flatmate(s) moves out or you have some kind of BIG uncertainty about where you will live and what you should do and how much your rent will be and specifically, how long to pay the rent on a 2 bedroom unit while you try and find a flatmate. We've both been very lucky and never had to pay the whole rent on a unit in a flatmate gap. And the idea is quite frightening, paying 2 or 3 times your rent for an unknown number of weeks. I mean, my rent is not far off 1/3 of my income already. What a horrifying thought. Anyway, Elsie said "I actually shouldn't stress about spending my buffer, because that's what it's for." Mind Blown. I'm the kind of person who saves a buffer, which is to prevent stress at times of financial uncertainty. But then if I stress about spending the buffer, that defeats the purpose of the buffer. It's there so you don't have to worry. You've got the money, it's for a rainy day, it is actually raining right now, so don't worry about whether you should stay wet or spend it! Focus your worrying on other things, haha.

Real estate report.

I've followed real estate with interest since I was a teen. Window shopping for houses, basically. I liked the red-brick federation homes with wrap around verandahs and french windows and bay windows and so on. Those days are gone and I've realised I'm too poor for nice houses. These days I just love an smh article about real estate with lots of gloomy comments. I will spend my whole lunchbreak reading comments. Half the world things thinks Gen Y are lazy and live at home and spend all their money on overseas holidays instead of saving for a mortgage, the other half think property is genuinely too expensive and blaming everyone—the Chinese and the boomers and the government. People who think there are affordable suburbs in Sydney are pointing to half a million for 2br apartments in Hornsby. I leave that to the judgement of the reader, but I don't really think half a million is "affordable". I agree it's the cheap end of the market, but it's not cheap.

But I think both sides of the argument are have some truth.

"Generational" spending habits are an issue. I'm Gen Y, and I am relatively frugal. No car, no internet, no bought lunches, and I mostly holiday in Australia with friends. But I live in the Eastern Suburbs, eat out about once a week and I've had a nice overseas trip (after uni and 6 years of FT work, and it cost half as much as my braces). However my parents haven't had ANY overseas trip (or braces). And takeaways or restaurants were only for birthdays. My grandparents were even more frugal, buying a house with savings, or building a house themselves, growing food, recycling clothes. The generation before, I don't know, they probably thought themselves lucky to own a second pair of shoes and only got lollies at Christmas time. People have historically lived pretty lean lives and home ownership has never been a walk in the park. But the trouble is, when the bar is set too high, people don't try. If it was a matter of struggling to afford a unit, I would happily struggle to afford a unit. But no amount of struggle will afford me a unit in Sydney. The gap is too wide between what I could struggle to afford and what things sell for. And if there's no hope, why bother?

"In Sydney" is an issue. I think a lot of people are in my boat. I'm torn between wanting to stay where I am with the friends and church and the support of lots of single friends and stuff to do, and wanting live somewhere near my family where I can grow veggies. And the thing about my profession is there aren't many jobs in other areas anyway. I glance around from time to time when I feel discontented. Number of page views for a design job in Newcastle recently: 1600. That's slim pickings. There is some kind of grant paid to people who leave Sydney and go to a regional area, but what good is that going to do if you don't have a job out there? Decentralisation is a bigger issue than helping with moving costs.

Anyway, nobody ever said you can have it all. It's not some unfair conspiracy, just a massive supply and demand discrepancy. Baby boomers downsizing into units in the city at the same time as Gen Y want to get a foot in the market buying those same units in the city, and one of those groups has a lot more money. Meanwhile people with nice detached houses don't want their streets razed to make way for ugly flats. If the demand is coming from investors, which is apparently is, the bright side is that they'll rent out their properties, and the more rentals the cheaper the rent will be and we'll still be able to live where we want for the time being.

Hanging, laundry bags.

Elsie has a hat-stand. I am a huge fan of hooks behind doors. Half the doors in my apartment have hooks on the back. Stick on hooks or hang over the top of the door hooks or suction hooks, I love them all. They store umbrellas, scarves, aprons, clothes I want to wear again before I wash them. And as of recently, my laundry bag for "delicates". I sewed a ribbon to the corner of my laundry bag, and when I have finished wearing stockings or something I put it straight in the bag. Then when I wash I just zip the bag shut and throw it in the laundry basket. Easier than rummaging and sorting.

Kitchen.

Cute, but lies. Damned lies. Image: twitgoo.com

I'm listening to Unstuff your Life. The first 2 chapters are a simple philosophy of why stuff is so clingy. I've done a bit of thinking about this. I'm a fairly tidy person, but it causes me emotional pain sometimes to get rid of things. I feel things like guilt, that I bought something I never wore or used, or sadness, that I am losing something from my childhood… My solution lately has been to cut back on the amount of stuff I bring into the house and collect around my life, because it's easier to resist adopting it than it is to let go of it later. So the author goes into that side of things a little bit, how we relate to stuff. And then there is a bit of visualising, imagining a perfect and efficient life. So that by making more space in your house you are making more space to live your life, rather than just losing all your special stuff. Nothing ground-breaking, this is a holding-your-hand help book for disorganised hoarders.

There are chapters on different areas of the house. First chapter is basically 'Keys, wallet, phone' about putting your housekeys in the same place always. His 2 big rules, which he now applies in every chapter, are: 1. Everything has a home, and 2. Like with like.

Last night I listened to the chapter on the kitchen, which was really good timing because I bought a set of 6 bowls. There was absolutely no room for them in the kitchen. We have approx 2 dozen wine glasses. And 20 odd glass tumblers. Almost that many coffee cups. It's funny how you don't notice that stuff for two and a half years, even though it's really annoying and inefficient and space is precious. But when some friends came over last week, I really did need bowls, not wine glasses. And trying to fit them into the kitchen made me actually SEE what we had. So I emptied out the cupboards (this is the worst, most terrifying thing to do), filled a box with unwanted glassware to donate (with my flatmate's permission), put back an adequate selection of glasses, swapped saucepans and plastic stuff around, and managed to fit a food processor and a fondue set in as well as the 6 new bowls. Really, if I was going to completely obey the book, I would be donating the fondue set, but small steps. FYI, I have an awesome fondue set, you are all welcome to borrow it. Also, help yourself any of the glassware.

I'm so productive with this new TV diet. Speaking of which, Kevin McCloud was on TV later last night talking about how all bench-tops look like vomit. Now I can't see anything else, and I haven't even seen that much vomit in real life.

*edit: Em told me how to spell fondue.

Sharing real-estate.

Interesting blog post from Soph over here, and the comments. Amazing that so many people had ALREADY considered sharing a house with another family. I had really never thought of it, even though real estate is one of my favourite topics; I assumed marriage and family would be the one thing to definitely end house-sharing. I reckon it's a great idea and would theoretically love to try it. I have only a casual interest in normality and love novel ideas. But not many people actually do it, actually share a house with another family—we're still held back by our individualism and our wisdom and just what we think is normal—but it's only normal for Australia, when you look at it. Rest of the world lives in bark huts and cardboard slums, but we need our own bedroom and ideally our own bathroom. And the cost of this luxury is isolation and loneliness. I've seen the downs of flat-sharing: 2 out of 6 years have been spent with a flatmate who made me a bit miserable, 2 out of 8 flatmates I have not clicked with. If real estate was cheap, I could have avoided some negative experiences. But I think the relational benefits of flat-sharing are heaps. You don't have to be kindred spirits, you just have to get on, which, yes, does require sacrifice, but basic human interaction is so important. And when you are sick, there is someone to go to the shops for you. So I'd imagine it's not impossible for a family to share a big house with another family, and maybe it'll be the next movement we hear about.

Real estate alert.

TWO units in my block are for rent RIGHT NOW! You could be my next door neighbour or upstairs neighbour for either $500 or $560 a week. Both are 2 bedrooms and a garage and are rather better on the inside than my place. Come and be my neighbour! This is the closest thing to a big mansion with separate apartments we'll ever find.

Something like this:

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-maitland-107204397

It has 5 bedrooms, so $715,000 divided by 5 is 5 manageable mortgages... do 4 people want to move to Maitland with me? Please please please... It only has 2 bathrooms, but it has EVERYTHING else.

Tea.

I'm a late-comer to the tea world. A year or so ago Wendy told me that if you drink green tea all day you don't get PMS or something, so I gave it a go and was obsessed for a few months. I tried to keep black teabags handy for my parents etc when they visited, but usually didn't. Then I discovered Chai Lattes, and it's like a hot chocolate version of tea. And then I discovered flavoured green teas and herbals with lemon myrtle and stuff. So I actually have 4 types of tea now. I now call myself a tea drinker. Pity it stains teeth and that's bad when you have braces, but oh well.

When I was buying some loose leaf chai at T2 (I had a theory of using nice tea as chocolate replacement therapy) I was advised to buy a T2 canister for it. I said no, I had tupperware, and was informed that tea should be stored air-tight in glass or metal, not plastic or the cardboard box it comes in (T2 and everyone sell it in cardboard, so it's ok for them, but not us). The ideal thing I've found is the small moccona coffee jar. It even fits back into the T2 box. But who drinks moccona instant coffee? Nobody. Not even my parents anymore. And who keeps jars in case they are useful? Also nobody. I'm waiting to scab them from friend's workplaces. I'm seriously considering buying some coffee if there is ever a quantity discount at Coles. I think they sell coffee near the tea. Will I drink the coffee, so I don't waste it? Then I might be a coffee drinker as well. That's going a bit far.

Hand-me-down vs new.

I need a washing machine.

I've previously had a string of either free, cheap or flatmate-owned machines. It's been good. But I think my luck has run out.

WMs are hard to scrounge when you need one; people tend to keep them till they die, whereas they update couches which are OK and TVs which still work (so if anyone has a spare TV I'd like one of those too) but I think my chances of finding a bargain/free washer quickly are slim.

So I have to spend proper money on a worldly possession which will decrease in value and break down and be inconvenient to move house with. I am so hardened by Sydney flatting that I see every possession as a burden. But, I'm rather looking forward to a new machine which washes really well. Clean is good.

Real estate: when to buy.

Property is expensive. I hear that in Australia it is 50% overpriced… but overpriced isn't overpriced as long as people are willing to pay. If everyone stopped buying property, prices would go down, right? Maybe what we need to do is scare everybody out of the market with a self-fulfilling prophecy of housing bubbles bursting.

But while property is in demand and under-supplied, renting is sensible and you shouldn't feel bad about it. (The important thing is to rent cheap and save.)

However, I have good news! In the very long term, real estate might drop off a lot… just wait until the Baby Boomers exit the property market and go into nursing homes. I'm just biding my time…

Advice on the logistics of rental-sharing.

RANT: For the last 3 years I have lived in a 3br unit. The original 2 housemates left and were replaced. There were 2 rent increases. The unit was sold. We all paid our rent separately, some weekly, some fortnightly, and some monthly. At the end of the 3 years, $339.13 is missing. And it is pretty much my job to sort it out, because I am the only original housemate and also because it has ALWAYS been my job to sort this stuff out. For some reason the agent always contacted me first, so house problems were always first of all MY problem.

So here is some advice for beginners in the rental-sharing game.

• In a house of 2 people, things are clear. If there is a problem with money or jobs, it is either you or the other person. In a house of 3 or more, it is less clear, there is a lot more passing responsibility around and hoping someone else will fix it. Some people are deliberately evasive, some just make no effort to help and hope someone else fixes it, some are genuinely innocent bystanders. So 2 is logistically easier. If there are 3 or more, be extra especially clear and accountable.
• If it turns out to be a house full of evasive types, be the first one to move out, because you don't want them all to move out and leave you with all the mess they made.
• Try and make it so that your name is not the first one on the lease. Don't be the first in line for the agent to call. I don't know if this works or not, but I'm tired of agent calls and emails, so it's worth a try.
• Everyone should pay their rent weekly. I did it monthly because it worked better for my personal budgeting, but weekly is the simplest way to track payments if everyone pays weekly.
• Divide the rent up according to the size of rooms or whatever. If you can all pay slightly different amounts rent, you can quickly see who missed a weekly payment.
• Start saving, so that you can buy your own place and be rid of the renting for good.

There is some more good advice in Anna's guest post.

Rental Conspiracy.

Sometime in the mid-late 90s, apartment block builders of the Eastern Suburbs all put their heads together and decided that every block of flats I ever inspect should be built to face west.