Here's a playful and wonderful piece in the FT about how hard it is to be rich/boomer #1521908 (...why do you repeat yourself, Den??)
Exactly this is how I imagine Siggy posting stuff to SN -- from the backyard of his oversized suburban mansion/mini castle.
If you’re like me, you’ll have spent much of your adult life attempting to become financially secure. I have pensions, investments, assets and houses full of possessions that are probably worth considerably less than I imagine.
I’ve tried to plan ahead, put money aside and prepare for the future, but occasionally a Rolls-Royce has diverted me from the core mission.
oh but sometimes it all goes wrong:
The problem is, at 56, I am starting to suspect the future has other plans. Prompted by ringing in my ears in the still of the night and by my other half urging me loudly, I recently went to get a hearing test. The prognosis was not encouraging. Soon, I’ll need hearing aids. If you’d asked me a few weeks ago how much they’d cost, I’d have guessed at a few hundred pounds. Try £5,000. Just so I can hear a hearing specialist tell me how much it’s going to cost to fix the problem.
Something else I’d not budgeted for? Mice. They’ve decided that electric cables make an excellent addition to their diet. My electrician had to cut holes in the ceiling to find the short circuit. Then came the hole-filling and the subsequent redecoration.
Yeah, and of course Dave, the decorator(!) was there with an electrician to work on the house
"I’ll continue to plan, invest and undertake maintenance. But I won’t forget the concerts, holidays, cars, fizz and experiences along the way."
Also, of course dude's name is "Max"
Instead, I’ve decided to embrace the liberation that comes from accepting you have no real control. At any rate, most of my predictions about how my life would turn out have been wrong, so why apply that flawed logic to future financial plans?
Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
Home maintenance is getting crazy expensive. I'm not sure why it should be outpacing other goods and services, but it sure seems to be.
monetary misperception? As in, the category of price you pay a lot of attention to
I don't think so. It seems like everything with a significant labor component is blowing up. Probably a sign that massive reallocations of labor inputs are needed or maybe barriers to entry have increased.
Due to younger generations being lazy sods incapable of any serious DIY.
As a Boomer I have renovated more than a dozen houses and the capital gains played a major role in my current wealth.
I did all the work myself.
Working in the trades in the 1990s I made sfa as it was a lot more competitive than today.
What tradies charge today is hugely increased from what I could charge in the 90s, because so few younger home owners have any practical skills or knowledge.
That's the most reasonable thing you've ever said. I fully agree.
There's the related issue of many things becoming harder to repair, as more electronic/computerized parts become involved in what had been primarily mechanical systems.
You only see it as reasonable because we are in agreement on this issue.
On the decline of western civilisation you are still in denial.
This post and the heavy downzapping it has attracted shows you are not alone!
China rising, America in decline. The Trump-Xi summit. End of US Empire close.
The two issues are not entirely unrelated- a lot of Chinas rise is down to its huge emphasis on engineering and upskilling its citizens to have skill in engineering and building systems...while the west has become a population of passive and incompetent consumers.
The cost of DIY repairs to most aspects of a home have decreased due to the supply of building materials from China- eg - I can buy good quality MS silicone sealant today for $5- the same or equivalent sealant in the 1990s cost $15.
That's a roughly 600%!!! reduction in the cost inflation adjusted and it applies across many building materials to a greater or lesser extent.