Owning or renting? in Vulnerability

I remember leaving the gym last night and I burst into a fit of laughter at what I’d written in the last entry. Specifically the bit where the website came up with an error screen when I was using it to calculate my borrowing power. I started to laugh, which just escalated into a fit of laughter. That fact that the bank, rather than tell me ‘You’re too poor for us to ever even consider you for a mortgage, would rather give me an error screen LOL. It still makes me smile now.
I soon realized I was walking along one of the main streets of Brisbane, cracking myself up at nothing, and must have looked like a complete lunatic, and I had to cover my mouth in case anyone saw me laughing at myself.
It was nice though. To laugh after feeling down only moments beforehand.
I think the mind has a funny way of evening things out sometimes.

Then tonight, I read an article online about this chick who bought her first property at the age of 21 (here in Brisbane) and “It was the biggest mistake of her life”. She was bitching because she’s now stuck with a $300k mortgage and can’t actually live her life.

It really is a catch-22. One on hand, I always think it’d be so nice to have a place of my own that I can create and renovate and adjust and do my own thing with and get my dog and cat that I will force to be best friends. That is probably the financial goal I wish to eventually achieve.
But with house prices the way they are, it seems utterly insane. They are so high, that I am nowhere near the required 10% deposit, even for the cheapest place available!
I look at Vish’s boyfriend (and now my friend through him) buying properties left, right and centre, fixing them up and renting them out like it is no big deal at all. Granted, he is an engineer and can afford to do so. Even my sister and her husband own something like eight rental houses all over the place, as far as I’m aware.
So to even look at getting one place, simply to live in and live my life out in just seems completely daunting.
Then I read articles like the one just before and I think that things aren’t too bad renting like I have been for the past 13 years. I have no immediate debt. I don’t owe anyone money, and I can still ‘live my life’, unlike what that girl was bitching about. I say bitching because I guess the article sounded like she wants her cake and to eat it too, which I guess is what I want, but the other way around. The only difference is, she’s stuck $300k in the red and I’m a little bit in the black.

I think about it a fair bit, mainly due to the fact that when I hit 40 (and scarily enough, it’s not that far away, really), I have this stigma idea that renting at that age will be looked down upon, or hard to get approval for. It could be all in my head, I dunno. I’ve never had a problem with renting. I mean, it’s only ever been my only option, really, at least for now and for a while it seems.
Then I see things like the Reserve Bank lowering interest rates to 2% today and financial experts urging home buyers to lock in the fixed rate now because it’s inevitable that the rates will rise sooner rather than later. But without that deposit, I can’t do that, can I? So, it just makes me laugh and reminds me of my bank’s error screen and the fat cats probably rolling around the floor of their high-rise building in Sydney in a fit of laughter themselves at the figures I submitted :P

Another thing happened today with the company I work for. Apparently they are axing 400 jobs to save $500M in wages. I haven’t heard exactly which part of the business those 400 jobs are going from, but I did have to look at those two figures and think to myself, “Hang on a minute. $500,000,000 divided by 400 employees is $1.25M per employee. How the fuck does the article come up with that figure? Unless these cuts are coming from people earning $1.25M a year!? I sure as hell ain’t earning that much :P
Later in the day, I read another article that Masters is failing miserably. Bunnings has too strong a stranglehold of the market and has a 13% share of the hardware market, compared to Masters 2%, and as a consequence, Masters is.... wait for it… $500 Million in the red.
Ding Ding! It all clicks. There’s that magic figure they need to make up for. So Masters isn’t pulling out, they just have to try new things, and they are doing so, and expect to be breaking even by 2019. At least that’s a positive sign I guess.
I do have to wonder where those 400 positions are coming from. Considering the company employs over 300,000 Australia-Wide, it’s a small percentage. I think my job is safe? Who knows haha. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow!

I went for a massive walk today. Up past the Bronco’s Leagues Club before I decided to turn around. I just worked it out, it was about 8.6km, but with all the hills I was fucking exhausted! I made the mistake of eating too many grapes before my walk, so was on a desperate hunt for a public bathroom with none in sight for a while haha, but eventually I made it back to the Barracks. I wandered around Coles for a while and was stunned at the range of stock they have there. At least they have my sarsaparilla which I can’t get anywhere else. I picked up two bottles and walked the short distance further home.

I just watched Masterchef and put on my DVD that arrived, called SLiDE. It was filmed here back in 2011 and it’s like an Aussie version of Skins, and I just love watching it again and seeing all the landmarks I recognise in it. The hotel in it is literally around the corner from my place. I may have been in there a few times ;)
I only watched the first disk and have two more to go, but figured I would write about my day and get some sleep, as I’m back to work tomorrow. That is, if I still have my job after reading that article haha.
I feel like I’d be safe though. They ain’t saving much by axing me :)