I would argue that someone can’t sacrifice their future ability to buy just to lower the price on a single unit.

They’re stuck by the incentives of the situation just like everyone else.

We can’t expect anyone to act outside their own good when it comes to huge amounts of money. Especially in a capitalist society where the only thing that protects your quality of life is money. No one is going to step in when things go wrong except your decision to protect yourself and your family by making financially beneficial decisions.

And yeah, that sucks when you are the other major portion of our society who isn’t given the resources to grab that protection/money with both hands and not let go.

And on a more solution oriented note:

1. We need increased supply of dense housing appropriate for the average family, for the 20-30 yr olds who simply need a single bedroom, and for the retirees who need a small place to live after their children move out. Dense housing because driving an hour to where your job is makes sense to only a very small fraction of people and cities are continuing to attract people.
2. Increased pay for the average worker - probably requiring a decreased incentive to drive profits above all else for the large corporations that drive the majority of our market. (Thinking of examples like Walmart that pay minimum wage and then require their workers to receive government subsidies… meanwhile Walmart gets a profit. It’s a little circular.)
3. Kindness so we can all share our stories and think of solutions that change the structure and don’t require individuals to act outside their own interest. If we shut down conversation we’re no better than our silly two party system that seems to make enemies out of each other. Listen and sympathise and learn what each person has been able to build. Don’t be each other’s enemies. That’s letting the system we’re in win.

I would love to buy a condo right now, but rent is cheaper than buying looking at a 5 year time frame until mortgage rates drop below at least 6%. It would be years before the interest and taxes portion of the payment dropped below our current rent.

We’ve literally agreed with our landlords who want to sell after we leave that we’re all sitting still until mortgage rates drop. (Or I guess inflation rises high enough to offset the debt versus investment part of the pile.)

And this is all after moving to Utah from the west coast to get cheaper housing in general… Although the lower paychecks basically balance it all out 😂

I’d love to buy your condos - but if we look at renting versus buying… It’s cheaper to rent versus buy until mortgage rates drop below 6%. We’ll just be sitting here adding to the mortgage payment pile until then.

A house is laughably out of reach.

My native French speaking mom will occasionally address my non-french speaking husband in French without realizing unless I tell her and even then she only knows because I’ve told her.

I’ve read over 50 books since the start of the year. I only buy a book after I’ve read it 2-3 times. How? Sign up at your local library! (And keep signing up wherever you can get proof of residence; I’ve managed to collect 4 library cards.) And then find whatever system they have for borrowing e-books (mine work well with Libby). I’ve found that I almost never lack for books. A kindle or e-reader could be a good investment to limit screen time; you can download library e books onto them auite often.

Browsing the physical library is more fun than browsing online for books. Just pick the covers you like, check if the summary sounds fun, and give it a shot. Never feel guilty if you don’t read a book you checked out or put a hold on. Sometimes it just doesn’t sound as good two days later.

“a protest against Dutch subsidies and tax breaks to companies linked to fossil fuel industries”

We can do all the activities you mention with a much lower impact. And fighting climate change allows many farmers in developing countries to actually survive. (Think of the problems with cocoa harvests failing or with Mongolian herders losing herds three years in a row instead of once a decade.)

Yes. It’s always a good question to ask yourself:

Would you rather be effective or be right?

Thanks. I’ve been very angry out of a feeling of complete helplessness. I’m reading a book about data bias in relation to gender (invisible women) and it’s hitting a lot of sore points that come up being in an office that’s 10% female… There’s four of us.

Hehehehehe sounds like satire as you point this out to how often the opposite happens

I’m going to put in a third vote for YNAB.

How do you feel it compares to YNAB?

Heehee yay YNAB!

Does your bank not allow you to download your transaction list as a CSV? I used to do this.

Agreed. I wish it was cheaper. Although now with YNAB Together my partner and I can share an account and my sister also agreed to have her budget. (I can technically peek as account manager but I’ve promised I won’t and we’re close enough that it’s not an issue.) But now it’s $30/each!

My partner and I just combined budgets rather than trying to split everything.

Could you try YNAB together (no extra expense to you and you can offer it free) and use YNAB to split things as mentioned in comment? Or if you don’t mind losing some visibility then making a broad “together” expense category to pull from/put into?

Also! Maybe try a different card? Plenty of good cards to try churning! But I agree - it’s frustrating when one doesn’t pull. My credit unions credit card does that.

I’m not seeing it yet - but YNAB is my current approach and I adore it.

I used to approach it in a project my income for the month and then assign that money into categories and into a savings pool. It was a good spreadsheet. I liked it.

But I find the envelope system that YNAB uses extremely powerful. You can set your categories (and it encourages you to remember expenses that only come up once in a while and budget for them on a monthly basis) and then you use the money you CURRENTLY have to fund them. You assign every dollar a job. Which means I can totally splurge on a fancy dinner… But it means I might be pulling money I assigned to my ski pass out (I sound ridiculously entitled, sorry… the blog posts they have give better perspectives if you are starting from high debt or low income). And I don’t want to pull that money because I’ve been setting it aside slowly for months… So I don’t splurge on drinks and dessert or I suggest street tacos or cooking at home for my friends instead.

I think #2 is unrealistic for a lot of people… The other points aren’t bad.

Heehee. At least with money I can know exactly how I’m spending it. I hate the effort it takes to track calories and the level of associated uncertainty.

Not necessarily. You can have a budget at any income level. It just might mean facing the fact that your expenses are higher than your income. No one says a budget can’t show you how much your going into debt instead of how much your saving. My partner was there through his college. It’s just depressing so you are less likely to do it. I don’t know if I would stick to it.

But I think knowing where your money is going and where it is coming from is a key step in motivating yourself to make a change… either to fight for other opportunities or to change spending habits. And it also gives you visibility into what differences it makes on a weekly or monthly or yearly basis.

Envelope style budgeting:)